Ok, we called 3 companies for estimates. All with the proper insurances and bucket trucks and cranes. Got answering machines on all. One called back and said he would come out that evening (last Friday). He never showed. Another never called back. The third stopped by on Friday evening. His price is $1600 to bring it down to the ground and clean up the brush, leaving the wood or hauling it to his wood lot, whichever we wanted. For an additional $250 he will grind the stump. This is really less than I thought it would be. I would still like to have a couple more quotes, but I guess it is like everything else these days...nobody "takes care of business" like they used to. Musicalperson, lol, sorry you don't like the woodpeckers. I would still like to leave part of the trunk for them, but the "man of the house" doesn't agree with me. The town council here would not be an issue, but yes, I suppose it would make more sense to plant another tree, so "the man" wins. Ken, good advice about the easement, but we checked, it's a moot point here. And yes we can use some wood chips around here, and a friend has use for some of the wood. Krycek1984 a tulip tree was our first and only consideration to plant after the elm is gone. Had a beauty in the front yard of a previous home. We just have to find a nice big specimen to plant. Nurseries that carry a good variety of bigger trees are few and far between around here.

Hi maizeylou, The best way to encourage your fern growth is to first identify what kind of fern you have growing in your wooded area. Ferns are usually characterized as clumping ferns or colonizing ferns. It sounds like you have a clumping fern. Clumping ferns don't naturally create that "carpet of ferns" effect like some other ferns, and mainly grow in scattered clumps. If the soil your ferns are growing in is rocky or sandy, and well-drained (not too swampy, marsh-like, or boggy) you may have Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides). It grows in the Pocono mountain area and Delaware Water Gap area in rocky, wooded places. Christmas fern is a clumping fern, and does not tolerate clay soils or excessive water. It could also be a Marginal woodfern (Dryopteris marginalis), which is also a clumping fern. If you can upload a photo of your fern and post this question on GardenWeb's "Moss, Ferns & Cryptogams" forum at the link below, someone on that forum may be able to help you identify what kind of fern it is. They can also tell you how to best multiply your fern, either by spores or by division. People often multiply clumping ferns like the Christmas fern by division rather than by spores. If you can't post a photo, just describing the fern and general conditions of your wooded area (rocky and well-drained, boggy, swampy, sandy soil, clay soil, moist humus-rich forest soil, by a stream, etc.) will help with identification. Identifying the kind of trees the fern is growing under could be helpful as well (mostly conifers like pines, or mostly deciduous trees like oak and maple). Some other ferns of the Pocono mountain area and Delaware Water Gap area include: MOIST WOODLAND AREAS: Eastern hayscented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) Lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina) STREAMBANK & WET AREAS: Sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis) Royal fern (Osmunda regalis) Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) MOIST, ROCKY AREAS: Northern maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) CONIFER AREAS: Evergreen Wood Fern (Dryopteris intermedia) Hope this helps! Here is a link that might be useful: Moss, Ferns & Cryptogams

Ilovered.. Great to know that the cover seemed to deter the mice! Beagles, because of the natural look your doing, you could probably set up a 'ladder' of rocks to save anything that might fall in. I bet you could make it look like a feature. FWIW, our pool was salt and it didn't deter the raccoons or birds. In fact, our infinity edge provided quite a show because the song birds would line up on it to take a drink. I used to call our pool the world's most expensive bird bath :) Also, I know you have dogs, so may you want to educate your neighbors about using snap traps instead of poison for the mice (and god forbid glue traps). If you routinely see dead mice on your walks, that is most likely the cause. That also means your dog is in danger, in addition to the owls, hawks, cats, foxes etc. Most people don't think they are killing those other animals and a friendly talk may be appreciated, unless they don't care of course. Our friend's cat died that way and it even kills mountain lions, which are much bigger than your dogs. FWIW, I never found any poop in our pool, but maybe we just had polite raccoons. . I wouldn't think Raccoons, unless it's a baby, wouldn't down in a pool because they are pretty agile and good swimmers. But, plenty of other animals would't be able to get out, so I'd put in an attractive ramp. Rockybird. I never thought of getting them from the bottom! I do know I've pulled out many floating bees that looked 100% dead and 10 minutes later they come to. Have the time they'd fly right back into the pool.. it was so hard getting my laps in!!! You will probably appreciate knowing that I have a humane pet vacuum I use to catch and release bugs in the house and I live trap rodents and release them in the park :) roarah, I'm thinking about our next pool being ozone or something that isn't salt, so maybe that will help.

From what I remember of the movie there was a forest on top of a hill. There was an open field on a slope down to a farm house. The woods were evenly spaced rows of pines, as in an 8 foot spacing. Seems to me you need private ownership to get mixed use. If you're going to have live ammo and create craters in the ground, you must have privately owned land. I'd suggest you look at North Carolina for evenly spaced pine forests, but there's no snow. I'm thinking of around Cherry Hill Marine Air Station. For hardwood forests that are not evenly spaced; look at the Allegheny National Forest, in the Clarion, Tionesta, Pa area. You'll get snow there. Most of Appalachia, in NY, PA, WV, MD have forests everywhere. Did someone say north western NJ; at the Delaware River Gap. I recently owned land near Pittsburgh where you might have shot your scenes if you wanted hardwoods, so I'd say anywhere from there to Harrisburg Pa. and North to Maine. Speaking of the Air Station, a military installation may already have the craters you need, Possibly with a hoe you could make one look like a fresh crater. There was a Naval Air bombing range near the Piney Barrens in NJ, Warren Grove NJ, I think it was. But that was 50 years ago? Is it still there?? edit Pine Grove NJ to Warren Grove NJ The pines were mostly scrub pines which at this bombing range burned from time to time.