What would I do? What have I done? All of it. Not only have I walked onto the neighbors dogs on a rampage trying to get at my llamas (thank god for strong fences) they then turned on me and I had to make a weapon out of anything I could grab. I have found tom cats killing my cat's kittens inside my house after they tore off the screen in the window to get in. I have beaten raccoons in the head with an extra large flashlight with all of my 200+ lbs while they were trying desperately to get into a bird cage where I had a breeding pair of cockatiels - only to have them hiss and walk away, and I mean I hit them hard over and over. You won't win. The only thing to do is build a super strong fortress around your place and only let your animals out when you can defend them. At one time I had many large coops for show poultry as well as the llamas and some sheep. I could only afford to build super strong pens for some of them. It took a lot of management, I had to spend a lot of time shuttling animals from secure pens to pasture. It was a big pain - but after building the fortress I never lost another animal, I never had to poison or trap anything, I never had to shoot anything, I never had to confront another neighbor over what their dogs were doing on my property. My animals adapted to the routine and it made living in the country much more peaceful and not a war zone. At the time I didn't have a dog and I was amazed at my neighbors behavior. We would have neighborhood meetings to discuss problems and I would loudly announce that the best thing about the fourth of July was that hot dog weiners and antifreeze were both on sale and that I wasn't going to waste my bullets teaching their dogs manners. I never poisoned anything but you would think these people would realize the problems they were causing. Nothing worked. I eventually moved away and now years later I have once again moved out in the country. Everybody that visits asks when I am going to get livestock again - they miss the llamas and the sheep and the chickens. I don't plan on getting anything until I build a fortress around the whole place, strong enough to keep my stuff in and their stuff out. You need strong fences if you want to run guardian dogs - sometimes they mistake a jogger or someone walking the road as a threat and they slip through the fence to bite the intruder. You'll have another problem if your dog kills someone on a public street.

Carol, mine would generally be considered partially to mostly closed, I believe. When I obtained my 90 and 55 gal tanks, the top glass came with each. (The 90gal was a garage sale purchase, and the 55gal a hand-me-down from a friend's father who decided that after 20-30 years he was tired of keeping cichlids.) With the 55gal, the top glass covers about 75-80% of the tank -- it's missing the rubber "hinge" section as well as the plastic backsplash section. With the 90gal, about 90% of the tank. Having the top glass does help with keeping the humidity higher and more consistent. The only way the "above fluoros" would be anything more than useless would be if the tubes sat across the top of the tank. Sorry about that. You are absolutely correct that you would need to provide supplemental lighting. I did have a buddy who did just that with one of his larger terrs. He got 2 -two bulb 4ft shoplights and sat them across the top of the tank. Worked well. My tanks both have simple hoods I designed and my dad helped me make years back when I went upstate to visit. Each hood is hinged so I can flip back half of the hood to access the tank and the bulbs. The hoods -- from front to back -- cover about 90% of each tank. For lights I use six 200W equivalent coiled fluorescent bulbs in my 90gal and four 200W equv + two 100W equiv in my 55 gal. I have pondered trying some of the newer tube LEDs (I know a grower who supplies plants to the pdf hobbyists. He has done a great deal of investigating to find a brand of LED he feels will actually work for growing plants... as opposed to the junky ones you will find at a BBS.) Unfortunately, the suckers are EXPENSIVE. That has held me back. I'm currently testing out 2 LED tube bulbs on my plant stand. I'll see how they work out. (Definitely a LOT less heat than even regular fluoros, but haven't had them in play long enough to see what the plants think of them.) If your tanks are open, you will have to play much closer attention to humidity issues ... or more to the point a lack there of. Even without a top, you should wind up with an overall higher humidity level within the tank than the rest of the room. And depending upon just what plants you wish to grow, the humidity levels you will need to maintain may or not be more challenging to maintain in an open system. The buddy of mine who had the shoplights lying across his tank had a stream running through the tank (I think it may have been a 125gal L tank but it has been too long so memory is fuzzy.) The stream kept the tank envir. quite humid even though the tank was open.

I finally got so tired of patrolling & chasing runaway *Lucifer* tails ~ went ahead & used my trimmer & whacked the lot of them ~ tilled & raked almost all of the roots. Knowing this YAL's tricky behavior I used the thick layers of newspaper-method of suffocation ~ topped w/ thick layer of peat, along w/ some large pots of White Christmas-Hosta, to hold down the layers of news papers 'til Spring. I just wish I could put Herman's Pride in to get him started sooner. 'Thought to share finally ridding of a thug ~ will keep watch for the one that might have gotten away!!! LOL Pink Pewter L(planter 2010) & Beacon Silver L is taking their sweet time spreading TG that Shell Pink L is doing a good job of freely covering the rest of 12 ft front of the shady lane now w/o fear of *Lucifer* chocking the rest of them!

Animals aren't collections, even if you do have several, okay 6 cats and four dogs. China isn't a collection...you use it. Besides, some of it was my grandmother's and some mothers, and I really liked the soft pink abstract rose on that set and you need Christmas china, and of course, you need different china for the grandkids at Christmas. I suppose having 350 different daylilies means I must admit to collecting them. But all the Christmas decorations are just decorations, not a collection...except maybe the Dickens Villiage is a collection. And Josh, I am really impressed with all of your languages. In addition to English, I speak only Spanish and German, and, like Melissa, I can read French, but I do not speak nor understand the spoken French. And like Susie, Books are not a collection any more than food is. kay