Ah, milkmen....now there's a tradition lost on most of America. I really need a milkman. My son drinks nothing but milk and is capable of going through a gallon a day if left unchecked. Unfortunately, city code says I can't have my own cow in the backyard. On a side note, we watched "Up" last night with the kids, and it's priceless for the dog humor alone. I think our pup may be mellowing in her old age. This past week we left her unattended inside the house because of bad storms rolling through, and I'm happy to report that all curtains, carpet, pillows, and garbage cans were intact and undisturbed. When we first moved to our house 2 years ago, we had problems with puppy digging holes in the yard. She would take her morning cookie (milk bone biscuit) outside, and promptly bury it. We curbed the bad habit by only allowing cookies after she came back inside at night. Disturbingly, the dig holes didn't stop. We couldn't figure out what was causing her to continue to dig. One day when I was on vacation & working outside, I paused to chat to the passing mail carrier, whom Midnight loved to terrorize with her "go away" bark. I told the mail carrier our puppy's name and explained that she's truly harmless. The mail carrier said, "No worries---she's my best friend now that I toss her a Milk Bone every day!"

You have to understand not everyone knows what a native or not native tree is and many do not know what type of tree they have. It is to keep unscrupulous developers from SCALPING land. I am sure our rules changed here but it use to be if they were too close to the house(as this one obviously is) you didnt need a permit I think after the hurricanes our permitting office just gave up. Honestly My NEW neighbors thought their trees were dead pines so I checked.One was a bald cypress and one was a jacaronda.Both are deciduous here so they would have cut down perfectly healthy trees.

If well nourished and watered Arizona ash can live a lot longer than expected. Mine is probably the age of the house or close to it which would be over 50 years old. It was a large tree when we moved here close to 25 years ago. I've planted some small ornamental trees that will provide some shade if and when it dies, but I'd hate to lose it. We've limbed it way up to let in more light. So far so good.

Well,we aren't gone yet so thought I'd pop back n one more time.LOL Patti-They are doing great! The test they did on Rowdy for cystic fibrosis came back negative.Can't remember if I posted that or not. DDIL called me last night so I could listen to JilliBean "talking" to her daddy! LOL They are both getting very vocal.She sounded so sweet.I can hardly wait to see them. Well,guess I need to go put a fire under DH so we can get outta here! I want to be in NM before dark and at this rate we aren't going to make it.See ya later!