Hahahaha... I used to think squirrels were cute, then I planted heirloom bulbs... The evil things waited until the bulbs put out new growth in the spring, deceiving me into thinking my bulbs were safe and I'd actually see these bloom. Then, next morning, all the ones they could find were dug up, and one bite was taken out of each of them. They didn't eat them, they didn't bother em in the fall... noooo, they waited until the spring and waited till I had hope and then just wasted them. I'd have felt better if they'd eaten them. Bah. Now I moved where there are a lot fewer trees and a lot fewer squirrels, and a concrete yard. And funny enough, a lot more peace. I could almost put orchids outside for the summer. But my yard gets a lot of sun... I've fried mints, thyme, jasmine, roses, lemon verbena, almost fried chives and a geranium... the only thing still alive back there is the above mentioned chives and geranium, and a big pot of regal lilies. So, um, no putting orchids out there for me...

I doubt that it would. In my experience, gravel or lava rock is about the only thing that stops them probably because it's sharp. The lava rock works really well for me with my potted plants. I guess the same principle as the gravel. I've always used blood meal for newly planted areas. It seems if I can just keep the critters away for the first week or so, they rarely go back and cause serious damage. It is amazing what happens if I don't use it. They will dig out every single plant I put in the ground. It's almost like they watch me and follow right behind with those little claws. A bunch of us are being severely chastised right now on the Orchid Forum for our hatred of these demon spawn. The Squirrel Rights People just never give up. Kevin

A big THANK YOU for the "bucket of death" idea!!!! I have lost a season's worth of strawberries (wouldn't have hurt so much if they hadn't taken just a couple of bites and gone on to the next berry and even ate the green ones); I probably don't need to include the holes there. I thought our drought conditions were hurting a lovely Korean Spice Bush; odd, the other plants are doing well. Since every place else in the bed is open ground, under the bush things are hidden, so I looked and yup, there was a hole. Have been seeing a chipper for a while but never connected it to tree damage. And have been weeding and finding only the outer skins of crocus and hardly any larger ones. And my little fritilaries are down to three. That HURTS! The last straw was hearing noises from the air vents. I live in a mobile home with the skirting insulated. The little buggers are getting in somewhere. When my cats sit at the vents for an hour they are either listening for mice and apparently chipmunks. It wouldn't take them much to get inside here from underneath. I tried snap traps but kept catching birds hungry because of the drought. SO: went out and bought me a bucket and some seed and made me a "bucket of death". And guess what? Caught one first night! I noticed that there were a few spaces in the floating seeds; that's a good indication of a dead chipper. I also checked along the back of my home where the ground meets the concrete slab and behold, a hole under the stairs (in the general direction of said noises). Took a waste basket and did the "bucket" thing again. I used a 2x6" board for the one out front; stuck a few seeds onto the end with PB but those weren't touched. Out back I just put a few seeds on a step. Haven't checked that one yet though. Weather will soon be turning cold and I don't want to share my home with these destructive critters, not to mention their fleas and ticks and diseases.

Nancy, I bet the dinner was fun. Tim is going to tackle one thing at a time, so after the ball bearing or bearings come in (I don't remember if the problem was one or more than one) and he fixes that, he'll work on the electronics control panel think. Tim's incentive to be a great handyman is that he is cheap and hates buying new appliances. lol lol lol. I don't disagree with him either, but I also don't like having an appliance that only partially works. When I was telling him about the control panel on the dryer, I pointed out that having all those different drying cycles means nothing if 75% of them don't respond to the little button beside them being pushed. I also mentioned I was researching new washer/dryer sets while he was gone and that, if we have to buy a new dryer, we'll buy a matching set in blue or red to add some color to the mostly neutral laundry room. He said "okay, we'll get new ones if we have too" but I noticed that he then got really, really busy researching our appliance models and how to fix them. I suspect we won't be getting new ones anytime soon and I'm okay with that as long as he can fix the old one so it will work. (Calling a repairman chaps him because he believes he can fix these things himself, and he usually can.) Amy, I love baby goats. Especially the cute little dwarf goats. Every single time I see a video of fainting goats, I want to run out and buy a dozen of them. However, I know better. Lots of kids here raise the larger goats for FFA or 4-H projects, and goats can be cranky, stinky escape artists. If they escape from their pens and find an unfenced garden, then heaven help that garden. My brother had some of those big goats and they took great delight in climbing up on his boat. Yes. His boat. We have a family joke, ever since then, a sort of Dr. Seuss type comment on goats and boats "Could you, would you, with a boat? Could you, would you, with a goat?, goat on boat?" etc. Such silliness. Whenever someone brags about how sturdy, strong and prolific Heidi is, I am so happy and proud for Heidi. If there is a better paste tomato plant for our OK weather, I've never found it. To me, Heidi is the energizer bunny of the tomato garden. I have to be careful to avoid planting too many Heidi plants or it will kill me trying to keep up with the harvest. Gotta love plants like that! Of course, it goes without saying that a tomato variety whose seeds were brought here from Africa is likely to be able to handle our weather. Owasso sounds so lovely, even though it has grown a lot and become concreted over. It happens. Eventually people found those lovely little quiet spots, move there, etc., and the increasing population can make it challenging to keep the lovely little town from changing too much. Owasso sounds like it still has a lot going for it---good schools are priceless. I agree about digital appliances, but they're taking over the world now. You know, last year when our brand new dishwasher wouldn't work, it was the digital stuff that wouldn't work---and replacing the two digital control boards (thankfully, under warranty since it was brand new....) was approximately the same price as the new dish washer had cost. That made it our choice to either get a replacement dishwasher or a repair, and we chose the repair as opposed to having the brand new one uninstalled and another brand new one installed. What if the second brand new one didn't work too? I'd lost faith in appliances at that point. sSo, are we to believe all the value is in the digital stuff? I did get to watch the repairman replace the boards and it was so simply...unplug old ones, plug in new ones. Test to make sure it works. I bet it didn't take him 10 minutes from the time he came into the house until he left, and we spent a good portion of that time just chatting. It was amazing how quickly it was fixed. So, of course, I'm hoping the clothes dryer electronics are as easy to replace, but I bet they won't be. I'm also hoping our local top-notch repair guy doesn't retire (he was definitely thinking about it) because he is so good at what he does. Our local weather didn't seem that bad last night. Of course, with these storms that tend to move from the sw/w to the ne/e, we are the last ones to get them, so well before the rain even arrived here, we were hearing the news about the probably tornado hitting the RiverWind Casino in the Norman-Goldsby area, and even seeing the photos of the damage. When our weather arrived, we had maybe 10-20 minutes of strongish wind, but nothing scary here---you could hear the roar of wind arriving at about 50 mph, but that part was over quickly and then we were only getting gusts in the low to mid 40s, while rain and lightning raced through pretty quickly. We only got 0.60" of rain, and had only the most minor of tree limbs down. I have seen photos posted of worst damage from locations significantly further north and east in our county so they might have gotten more wind than we got. I also remember that at a certain point our local Emergency Operations Center lost power and was operating on a generator. We never even had our power flicker here...but we are so far south that our electric feeder lines come up from Thackerville, whereas the power further north of us (by less than a mile) comes from feeder lines running down from Marietta, so often we keep our power when folks further north lose theirs. It just depends on where the power pole/power line/transformer damage occurs relative to where one's home is located. The forecast for the weekend is looking awfully cold. Not complaining here. I've been waiting for relief from the heat forever and forever. The trees this weekend have a lot more gold in the foliage than they did last weekend, and our baby red oak is turning pinkish-brownish now. It is a random seedling from a large, old red oak right beside it and the baby turns red about 3 weeks before the mother tree does. So, our baby red oak tree ought to be red 7-10 days from now, and then the mother tree will be red a couple of weeks later. Lots of leaves are coming down now, at least from certain types of trees like elms and hackberries. This afternoon's sunshine sure is nice. It is amazing how nice sunny, mild weather feels---so much more pleasant than sunny, roasting hot weather. Dawn