CatherineT, hi to you too. I can tell when they've laid their eggs in the grass because its all torn up. Unfortunately in the garden I'd let the weeds take control and had some monster ones I had to dig with the shovel. That's when I ran into the eggs buried deep. No mulch in the garden so its just the bare soil. We've always had lots of turtles around, our cocker spaniel would go foraging in the woods and bring them back to us in his huge mouth as presents. One year we started numbering them with nail polish on their shells and stopped when he'd brought back 33. Mostly just regular garden variety turtles although one time there was a monster snapping turtle laying eggs in our yard. The scariest thing I've ever seen. As for the beavers, the good news is I think they are GONE. I pretty much enjoy having any sort of wildlife in my yard but your comment about it being difficult to live in harmony with them hit the mark. Besides chopping down a brand new and expensive crabapple, cherries, and dogwoods they dammed up the creek behind us, flooded our yard, and killed many of the huge trees in the marshy area behind us. I'd see them swimming in the creek and they would actually come up into the yard in the evenings but I haven't seen them at all this year. Guess they've moved on to other areas.

Front is stone and shake, no brick visible. The sides and rear of the house have a brick foundation, with the shake -- so not a ton of brick showing. (This is being doing this way to save money, of course.) The front does not show both brick and stone.The funny thing is that we're the only ones on the entire street NOT doing a brick and stone front due to the fact that I think those houses are too busy looking! (And these houses are all in the millions $ price range, with very reputable builders.)

We don't have many critters around our place, but in the couple of months the pool has been running I've dumped probably a thousand june bugs out of the skimmers (no joke!) and nearly as many may flies. Luckily both are seasonal, so that has tapered off a lot in the last week. Quote: "What other kind of visitors -- frogs, bugs?" Yes, definitely. I pulled a small frog out of a skimmer, a baby rat and as mentioned above LOTS of bugs including a few spiders. I will say the skimmers are doing a fantastic job, there's rarely anything floating on the water. Quote: "Rats can spread lot of diseases. Do I need to treat the water with something, if a dead rat is there?" No, if your chemical balance is in check then all is fine. If you get it out alive, or intact within a day or so of it dying, you don't have anything to worry about. It's no different than a small puppy or kitten going for a swim in your pool. If a small critter dies and is stuck in the pool for an extended period at the worst you might have to shock the pool. But more likely you'd just need to bump up the chlorine. If you are not testing for free chlorine (FC) and combined chlorine (CC), then you need to get a better test kit. Whenever something happens to the pool that is abnormal (dead critter, heavy bather load, something gets washed in, algae blooms, etc.) then you want to check the CC level. Presence of CC indicates the pool is fighting something and a shock may be required to bring the CC back down.

I was wondering how you were doing over your way Pam. Well the rain that had stopped for a little while is back yet again and It looks like it may stay. My husband drove over to look at the creek and it is lapping at the edges of the banks so could spill over any minute with the added water. The water in my back yard is up to the little concrete deck I have at the back door it is just coming over that right now so not much more till it is at the slider doors. My driveway is about ankle deep in water right now or a little more. There is about an inch step up to the door there. In the front the water is well over the driveway and out of the ditches onto the road and we have some deep ditches at the driveway. Probably from the debris that has been rushing past in the water getting stuck in the culverts. This would be a very good time for the county to be driving around looking for culverts to clean out to prevent flooding. That is not likely to happen of course. I told my husband we might need to be looking for sand bags. AND flotation devices!! I have 2 life preserver vests for my little dog so she is taken care of. Going into the rv is a real possibility because it is very high off the ground and we do have a generator should the power go out. We have really been fortunate about not losing power. There are still people missing. One elderly couple that was last seen near a major bayou yesterday. People just keep doing stupid things like driving into the water which is rushing with lots of force and guess what cars and trucks will FLOAT right on off into the creeks and bayous. Houston is basically at or below sea level in many areas so it does not take too much to cause serious flooding here. All the creeks and bayous are here to help prevent that but they can only handle so much and it is coming down very hard and very fast lately. I really hope marilyn is ok. I did call her phone number but got a voice mail and left her a message to please check in here or with me.