Rickey, Of course it was Fred. Who else his age is out driving around visiting gardeners in the middle of the afternoon? LOL If you see Billy Fred, do see if you can find out what he knows because he may know more details. Nowadays, when I ask Fred "who" he is talking about, he often can't remember names and will say something like 'you know...that guy that lives over yonder' and, of course, I have no clue who he means. Having said that, I hope that when I am Fred's age (and I'm not sure what it is but think right around 90?) I still get around as well as he does. Sometimes I do have to get Billy Fred to tell me who his dad is talking about because, while Fred always seems to have his facts straight, he does have trouble remembering names now and then. I had wondered about those goats....about how he keeps them safe because I've never seen any kind of guardian dog like a Great Pyrenees out there with them. I heard a loud growling this morning from the woods oddly enough (and I was inside the house and it sounded like it was right there in the room with me!) and it about scared me to death. As far away as your house is from ours, it is odd we've both heard that growling sound recently. It isn't like we're so close geographically that we'd hear the same growl at the same time. I've never heard this sound before and I pretty much thought I'd heard everything there is to hear around here. The dogs were going nuts in their dog yard, and I ran downstairs and didn't see a thing, but the cats were on the porch wanting to come inside. After that growling sound, I canceled my plans to work in the yard. James, I feel like much of what you say is true, but we have both good and bad government employees and always will. I know sometimes the local wildlife people seem to say whatever the 'official' story line is but their eyes and body language are telling you something else. Our local law enforcement officers are pretty good about telling us to 'do what you have to do' to stay safe, because they know they can't be everywhere at once. They also come as quickly as they can when called, but with only 1 or 2 or 3 county deputies/reserve deputies on duty at a time, their response time can be frustratingly slow. Game bird, I promise, if you tell me you see three dinosaurs crossing the road, I'll believe you. And. on a funnier note....Chris was 15 when we moved here and had a huge iguana named Alex. He built Alex a nice roomy outdoor pen, but somehow Alex would escape and run around although he always came back to the cage when he was hungry. We alerted our neighbors, and I showed Alex to Bill one day. We were watching Alex from the road and he climbed to the top of the pecan tree, which was then losing its leaves for autumn, so you could see Alex very clearly. At that point he was about 5' long. When Bill saw him, he said he needed to warn his wife and daughters because he feared they'd about run off the road and wreck their vehicles if Alex ever ran out into the road in front of them. Bill was afraid the women in his family would think Alex was an alligator. Carol, I do think a lot of people know exactly how to play the system. Tim and Chris both work at D-FW Airport, which is incorporated just like a city, and has a large Department of Public Safety consisting of police, fire and emergency medical personnel employees. Their department has several hundred employees and most are wonderful, but there are a couple that of virtually worthless. How people like that keep their jobs is just beyond me. Dawn

I'm glad people are happy with their seeds. We had thunderstorms in our neck of the woods yesterday. The storms didn't knock out my internet & phone, but my doggie doesn't handle storms well. She got up onto the table and knocked everything off of it including our server & wireless network. DH determined we now have a bad cable that needs to be replaced. On a positive note, last night DH & I picked up 2 shih tzu puppies! A boy & a girl. We still have to name them! We have them at work with us today.

Well thanks for the good ideas y'all! Right now I'm leaning towards trying to do some cat related craft things and selling them with all proceeds going towards the group. I have seen great plaques and stenciled pet food buckets. The group has a table where things are sold every weekend during adoptions. I am thinking of trying to work out a system where materials from say a JoAnne Fabrics are donated to the charity and I get them to a group of teen sewers I know to produce tote bags and pretty aprons in some of those adorable cat fabrics. The kids in our area need community service credits to graduate from HS and thru the group I can arrange for them to get those credits for their sewing. They can do this on their own time at home where most other volunteering jobs are scheduled hours. I also think I could get art students to make cute plaques with cat related quotes. I've seen these in upscale boutiques and they don't look hard to make at all. I'd like to get Joanne's or Michaels or ACMoore to donate materials, kids donate time and receive community service credits, and our group sells these things at the mall where the pet store is. We could also rent flea market tables. Oh, and I thought for next year maybe we could make christmas tree ornaments with a cat theme, again utilizing the talented high school students who need those community service credits. What do you guys think? I would like to take on silent auction/wine event type things in the future. I'm just wanting to "work up" to something like that. The pro bono vet services would be great but that's really hard. Right now we are having a very hard time getting any medicines for the cats. These are tough times for all businesses and Vets are feeling the same pinch as everyone else plus there are more needy animals than vets could possibly help plus people with money troubles aren't able to take sick animals to the vet. We collect a small fee for the adoptions, under a hundred dollars to defray vaccinations, neutering, and other costs. Because there's been a huge drop in adoptions this year (due to the economy, we believe) those funds aren't coming it like they have in the past. Tough times!

I love my Dyson too. I've had it probably 4 or 5 years. I can never get over how much dirt that sucker picks up!! I have two dogs and a cat in the house with me, although the dogs are "non shedding" breeds. But we all bring dirt, leaves, etc. in the house and that Dyson gets it all! I think it was well worth the money. Love it!