Texas_Annie: When I lived in Southern California, half of my time gardening was spent dealing with gophers. People in the East have no idea what these little buggers can do! Once, a neighbor and I were growing giant pumpkins for a contest, and as they grew larger and larger, we would try and lift them off the ground a bit, to guess their weight. Ours were each about 150 pounds, or so, until one day when he lifted his pumpkin, it came right up off the ground. Gophers had tunneled in from beneath it, and eaten all its insides out--nothing but a shell remained. This, after 3 months of special care given the pumpkin. I'm sure he would have liked to wring the little critter's neck. They do make traps for gophers that are pretty effective. You open their run (when you see soil piled up) and put the trap in the run, then put a board over it. Lifting the board and checking it periodically should yield a squashed little plant-eater. If you continue doing this for the rest of your life, you'll probably keep the gophers under control.

You have to have some means of venting the stove, either through the roof, or through the wall. Why not just install the stove in the dining room and move the heat around as necessary with fans?

An owl's eye is probably the most efficient organ of vision possesed by any animal. It has a visual sensitivity at least 35 times greater than ours, and possibly as much as 100 times greater. They can see well in both light and dark. They can't roll their eyes in the sockets because their eyes aren't round. They're more like tubes. To make up for that, they can rotate their heads maybe as much as 270 degrees horizontally and 90 degrees or more vertically. Owls also have great hearing. The "ear tufts" of feathers on top of their heads are not ears and have nothing to do with hearing. A bird's ears are holes in the sides of their heads, covered with feathers. Owls especially can hear high sounds like the squeaking of a mouse, or a mouse scurring across a field, twigs breaking, that kind of hunting noises. Do you know if there is anything I can do to encourage them to stay? Barred owls eat mice and other small mammals, as well as frogs, birds, and snakes. They can also wade into the water to catch fish. They like small prey they can swallow whole. Larger prey is ripped into chunks. They digest what is digestible, and cough back up and spit out a pellet of what is not digestible. Scientists examine those pellets to figure out their diets. CAN an owl kill a dog or cat? Oh my yes. Owls can and do attack, kill and eat small dogs and cats, although they prefer smaller puppies and kittens. It's not real common; it's not their food of first choice, but it happens once in a while. We had a Great Horned Owl in our last neighborhood that was killing feral cats -- according to an owl expert I talked with. Owls can swoop on their prey so quietly they take them by surprise; their feathers are fringed in such a way as to absorb noise. Owls usually behead their prey, and almost certainly eat the eyes first. So if you find a dead animal and the head and eyes are intact, it almost certainly was not an owl. A Great Horned Owl weighs about 4-5 lbs, and a grown Barred Owl is about the same I think, so it's not like they're going to fly away with heavy prey. The GHO is a little stronger than the Barred. The good news is they only hunt at night. So watch your small and baby pets at night and don't leave them out alone -- especially during nesting season when the owls have young to feed. Owls will attack a human too (not for kill/food of course), generally to scare you away from their nests. They have very nasty talons and can be very aggressive during nesting season so if they swoop you, stay out of that area after that for a couple of months. You might want to learn what months the Barred Owls nest in your area. I am not saying you should be terrified of owls. That would be silly. But you should have a healthy respect for them and some knowledge. Here, watch these daytime territorial attacks to see how brave and aggressive an owl can be... Fearless owl Here is a link that might be useful: Owl attack

Opossum I think.