I am rural too, Marda........I'm not in the city. Until very recently, as soon as you crested the hill after the turn off to my road and got past the small residential section you sank into a glen and it was pitch black and remained so until you got to our property. I'm glad you don't have to live with it, but I'm asking you if you know why you don't. You said "We can't control everything that's built but we can put restrictions on night lighting, and noise levels and we do". Well, our township is unzoned, as is a large part of the county........so we are actually more rural than your area. And the fact that we don't control is why we have so little regard for preserving the sanctity of our surroundings in as natural a state as possible. What I am saying is that, in order for your community to have reached the point where it is controlled, somebody had to raise consciousness and make noise. The voters had to have been swayed somewhere in their lives through reading or conversations to have passed restrictions, as a group. It has to happen here before we irreparably change the face of this once very agrarian part of our state. Once it's gone......it's hard to undo. I suspect your community is more of the anomaly, than mine. We are still the farming community trying to make the transition to a non-agrarian trend in which this country is heading. It hasn't even dawned our community to preserve its legacy. Your historical part of the state is light years ahead of us on that. We are just going to wake up and find it gone, like the rest of Generica. And, I think this is a common trend as you go west across American farmland and that's why I took the liberty to say "Americans" instead of our community. No, most of our stores in the near-by town are not open 24 hours a day. Just the one huge shopping area on one long, barren of nature strip. But, that's where all of our stores are. And there are very few independent business left there. They are chains, and boxes ......and more chains and boxes. We have no business to speak of in our inner city. If you want peace, quiet and darkness........just live downtown.

I just attended a talk by a pro estate maintenance gardener--she said, over and over, "March and October, grab it like hair and cut off half." General advice for most perennials here. Having said that, Echium cadicans-- prune flower stems off after flowering to tidy up the plant and cut back hard in late fall to reduce size and encourage new growth from lower branches. Good to wait until you see a little bit of new growth appearing. The plant will produce new blooming stems for next year. An established Butterfly bush, whack away, it will all grow back. Ivy Geranium, cut back hard but leave some foliage so the plant can feed itself. Calandrinia (now Cistanthe) I find best re-rooted from cuttings when it looks ratty. Or just cut off anything that looks bad--it resprouts new growth readily, but again doesn't look as good as a fresh plant.

MM, beautiful table and cp. I'm lovin' the copper colored pumpkins on your sidecabinet. Did you buy them like this or paint them? I can see this is what I need to show off my copper candleabra. Thanks for the idea. Very pretty fall back door wreath. Your beautiful black china cabinet just took my breath away. Awesome job decorating it for fall. Great shot and love it all lit up. As Candy said "IITDF!" Hope you will continue to decorate this with us during the seasons (in your spare time).haha The platter is so pretty and I really like the grapes you placed in front of it. Nice touch. Love those lamp shades and fall table runner on your sidecabinet. That bow is awesome. What is behind it that's all fanned out? I may need to copy that too.LOL Enjoyed seeing this "All things bright & beautiful" as Jeanne stated, this morning. Punk

What ghostlyvision said. I don't change the truck clock. It's right half the time. I don't ever change the microwave or the stove clocks. If our power blinks the time is wrong. It blinks a lot. I have a battery kitchen clock, my watch and the computer clocks. I'm retired. Time isn't that critical any more.