Peppie is a rat terrier, which is actually a mixture of five or six other breeds, and I must say that some of the doggies posted after mine look very similar to him. We have another dog, a Yorkie, and unfortunately Peppie has never really warmed up to her, although he adored our Main Coone cat, a gentle giant who persisted in trying to befriend Peppie, despite many rebuffs, until Peppie fell in love with him. I love hearing all about the foibles of your dogs, and their interactions with their people and other pets. Florence, there's no question you had to marry Bob for Charlie's sake. No sacrifice is too great for our beloved pets! Ingrid

I have 2 more thingscompliments of the squirrels! Guess theyre good for somethingmaybe! I was gonna pull these out and just throw them away, but........... The first one I pulled out came with the acorn still attached to it, so I dug up the second one and theyre both now in pots! I have 2 oak trees! I assume theyre Gamble Oaks (Quercus gambelii), just because thats the most commonly found oak in this area, but I really dont have any way at all to be sure! If they are Gamble Oaks, they could wind up being anything from a single trunked smallish tree to a multi trunk bush kind of thing that looks more like scrub oak! There are two of them planted in one of the display gardens at Paulinos (they sell them), and one looks like a tree and the one right next to it is more "bushy!" Since I dont even know for sure what they are, theres no way to tell what theyre gonna look likebut they do have oak leaves!!! They will also spread somewhat, underground, I believe, and when they produce acorns, they will reseed fairly easily! So if somebody wants to take a chance on what they are and give them a try, Ill bring them along. I recommend them for somebody with a bigger yard, rather than just a tiny residential yard. Theyre still attached to the acorn and have very few roots. I would recommend growing them in the pots for a month or two so you can control the water better than if they were in the ground, and Id recommend you use a wet/dry cycle. Theyre completely saturated now, let them dry almost completely, then resaturate, let dry, resaturate........ Assuming they are Gamble Oaks they like it dry, and letting them dry almost all the way before watering again should help them form roots. Anybody interested? Skybird

My husband put electrical outlets all along the eaves of our house for Christmas lights - very inexpensive. We put a door off of his office to access our third attic, which ended up being the only one we really use. We have a 5 cat army for pest control. Maybe not inexpensive, however if even a fly comes into the house they will hunt it down! We enclosed our kitty litter pans with a chicken wire cage so we can have the litter in the garage but they can access it from the laundry room cat door. One caveat I always feel compelled to mention is that my teenage daughter was using the cat door in her midnight exit strategy, so beware if you have petite teenagers. For around $30 I use a tile kit to re-glazed my kids bathroom six years ago and it still looks brand new. When a neighbor was building a pool they gave us all of their dirt and we terraced our back yard into different levels.

My3dogs -- before we were married, I always knew it was "kids or pets" with him, and I wanted kids. Then almost 3 years ago, I pined for a cat... and he loves cats... so we adopted a cat within a day of me first bringing it up! Almost two years ago, I found another cat and he said to just bring her home -- he didn't need to meet her. I looooooove having them! We also have two very, very loud boys, ages 7 and 10, both with special needs (one autism and ADHD, the other ADHD). My husband has an extremely low threshold for noise and chaos, which is why he wasn't always sure he wanted kids. He has a demanding job and gets home after 7 each night. Weekends are hardly enough time for him to do anything relaxing. He doesn't want MORE noise, more mess, more whining, and less time for doing whatever because we'd be slaves to a dog's schedule. He grew up with dogs, BTW, who apparently were very badly behaved! Even so, his mom even thinks we should get a dog! I really thought he'd come around, because when I first brought it up a couple of weeks ago, he said NO... unless my heart is set on it. Then he figured out I was at the shelter one day and said no, no way, no how. He didn't remember giving me hope! I never, ever wanted a dog before a couple of months ago, and now I want one desperately. After meeting that pup above (she's 6 months), I want one more than ever. There was a 5yo dog I met a few weeks ago that I totally fell for, too. I don't really want a puppy; I want a housebroken dog, just to make things easier for all of us. But gosh, that sweetie made me say I'd get up with her day and night to let her out!