At the end of our block, they hold an annual pot luck for the neighborhood. Its a cul de sac street, so they close it off to traffic, put out tables, everyone brings a pot luck dish. The Email invitation says that people with the last initials A-G bring salads, G through o bring main dishes, a small group brings paper plates and silverware Everyone brings their own beverage. It has grown over the years. Its wise to start with people who live in a connected area first and work from there, and have it outside. You can get permits to close off a street and have a block party. Just be sure to invite everyone on that block to begin with. Where I lived before we had walk streets with no traffic so it was easy to put tables out and do a block party on holiday weekends. July 4, etc., Dont forget you do need a clean up crew for the next day. If you are willing to organize this--its wonderful. People are happy to go to these block parties, it just takes somebody who is interested in setting it up. Discuss this with several neighbors and together pick a day and a place to have it--outside. Send out flyers. Yippee block party. Get Email addresses for next year. Guests sign in at party. Take photos--put one on next years Email announcement & flyer, and presto--you have the 2nd annual block party. Then when you run for mayor--you have a mailing list and supporters.

sorry...gave the blanket as a gift and don't have access to the back. The only reason I even have pictures of things I make is that my daughter is on the west coast and wants to see what I do. I only have one project in the works that is a graphic but it is only two colors so would not give you want you are looking for. I'll take a picture of the back over the weekend and post it anyway. However, I have never had any complaints about what the back looks like - I weave in the loose ends as I crochet so there are no knots.

Thank you for sharing your story golddust. I guess I failed to mention that I, too, am a dedicated dog owner, have always had a dog and can't imagine my life without one. Also, I'm probably a little more paranoid than the average person about dog attacks. My oldest child (he's now 13) was bitten in the face by our own dog (shepherd/samoyed mix) when he was just 8 months old. The dog had always been very protective of him but still, we never left them alone together. She had been somewhat aggressive with other dogs and with children outside our family and I'd had some concerns about that. She had never ever bitten anyone before. I'd even told my DH that I wanted to discuss giving her up. He didn't want to and I felt guilted into keeping her when my instinct was telling me she needed to go. My little boy had just learned to crawl. We had a laundry closet with sliding doors in our hallway. While I was standing there doing laundry, he crawled behind me down the hallway and grabbed the paw of our sleeping dog in our foyer. She bit him once, in the face. But that's all it took. He ended up with over 100 stitches and had to have plastic surgery. He nearly lost an eye. The dog's tooth hit the side of his nose, down by his nostril and slid up and diagonally across to the corner of his eye, slicing his entire nose wide open. His eyelid was slit open at the crease, his eye brow was split and he received multiple puncture wounds. The dog had to be destroyed and it nearly destroyed me. I suffered many months of post traumatic stress disorder. My son's scars have faded a lot and thankfully, he has a face full of freckles to camoflauge them. But maybe by sharing my story, you can all better understand my fears of this dog. It's not just that she's a pitbull. I would likely react this way to any dog with the same behavior but I'll admit, the pitbull part does make me that much more nervous. I wish to God I had listened to my instincts back then. The guilt of getting rid of our dog against my husband's wishes would have been a million times better than the guilt I will always have over the injuries to my son.

So many good answers already. I'll just second one of the earliest replies that pointed out the diversity in yards is much much greater than what we have in our native habitat. I spend a fair amount of time in some mountain locations here. 4 species of trees for miles around: two oaks, a fir and a cedar. My little HOA, which I walk extensively with my dog, has that beat with its coral, carrotwood, ficus benjamina, rubber tree, brush cherry, juniper, podocarpus (several species), silk floss, queen palm, pepper tree (two species), canary island palm, fan palms, hong kong orchid, trumpet tree (brugmansia?), jacaranda, eucalyptus (2 or 3 species), bottle brush, bradford pear, sycamore, liquid amber, 3 or 4 different pines, bronze loquat, catalina cherry and a couple I haven't ID'd. And that's just the front yards in a fairly boring area. I love driving around older neighborhoods where there's been time for the owners to replace things and you see twice or three times the tree species and a lot more fruit trees. Its also worth pointing out that some of the common landscape plants have some decent grafting potential: hawthorn, pear, bronze loquat.