Hi. I live in a new development. The only trees are along the old fence rows that once stood between cotton fields. Our lot was a bare 1 acre. I planted saplings/whips to save money and enjoy the growth. Here's what I have, and I'm pretty much at the limit. I have a septic system and had to leave that spot bare. Red Maple 4 Dawn Redwood 4 Bald Cypress 2 Weeping Willow 1 Sourwood 1 Crabapple 2 Washington Hawthorne 2 Giant Sequoia 1 (just an experiment, lol) Loblolly Pine 2 Smoketree 1 American Hazelnut 5 Cherry (3 varities, dwarf) 3 Apple (2 varieties, dwarf) 5 Pussy Willow 3 Mock Orange 3 Wiegelia 3 Azela 6 Norway Spruce 3 American Arborvite (as screens) 9 I don't expect the Spruce to make it and may pull them. We're in a rural area with no sidewalks, and shallow drainage ditches (hence the willow and cypress near spots often too wet). It looks a little odd now, since they are all rather small. Only the Norway Spruce are in danger of crowding, so I'll probably remove all but one watch how it does with the heat for the next few years. I hope I inspire others to plant the development. I will remain responsible with limbs, tree health, leaves, etc. That's the key when having a suburban forest, at least in my opinon.

It's not a square envelope is it? There is an additional surcharge for square ones. The minimum size for square is 5.5 x 5.5 . I'm forever calling my post office to check on those odd sizes.

We have found it a lot cheaper at Christmas to drop our parcels to Ottawa off at the bus station and have it go by bus. That way my BIL has to pick up the parcel at his bus station which is a bit of a pain but about a tenth of the cost. Once the parcel arrives the bus station phones you to say it is there if you put the phone number on the parcel. Sure is a lot quicker too! The cost for mailing parcels by Canada post has gotten rediculous. They even charge a gas surcharge. I sent two letter size envelopes out yesterday by Express Mail and it cost my nineteen dollars and change. BAH HUMBUG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They probably wouldn't get there any sooner than regular mail but I needed to know that they reached their destination.

I have "Informed Delivery," and so I know what is supposed to be delivered to my mailbox. I feel like Kramer from Seinfeld in that I would like to prohibit all junk mail from being delivered, as it fills up my mailbox when I am away. I do have a feeling that the mailman stops delivering junk mail when the box is full. I've had neighbors hand deliver packages to me that were delivered to the wrong box, and I've delivered mail to someone across the street when his mail was put in my box, but if I am away for four or five weeks at a time, there can be quite a delay. My brother has "Informed Delivery" for our L.A. address, and so he was aware that a jury summons was supposed to be delivered to him the day after we left for Cathedral City, where we stayed for five weeks. When we returned to L.A., the summons was not with our accumulated mail that we picked up at the post office, and so it is possible that the post office returned it to the county, since they knew that our mail was being held for five weeks. Then on our last trip, Kevin got another "informed delivery" message that a notice of "failure to respond to jury summons" was scheduled to be delivered, but he never received that either, possibly because the post office again knew that our mail was being held for two weeks. Kevin was worried about these summons, but I told him that the county has no proof that these summons were ever delivered and certainly not that he had received them, since he had not, and so the county could not prosecute him for failure to respond. There are lots of people in the movie industry here who are away for weeks or months at a time who would not be able to respond to jury summons, and so I think the county is used to people not showing up. When I went for jury duty here (at the Inglewood courthouse), I noticed that almost half of the people on the roll call were not present.