I'm on two acres in semi-rural central Massachusetts, bordering conservation land (wetlands). This is the first time I've thought about itemizing what I've seen in my four years, here. It's a long list, and I'm sure it's just a fraction! We have a pond, and keep half the property meadow. (Maybe, by some standards, the whole thing is a meadow....) I've been putting up birdhouses, lately. We see (in rough order of how interesting...) great blue herons, red tail hawks, egrets, a large flock of cedar waxwings, redwing blackbirds, barn sparrows (how do they know it's a barn?), downy/hairy/piliated/red-breasted woodpeckers, orioles, juncos, nuthatches, and the usual finches, bluejays, cardinals, yadda yadda yadda. A wood duck down the road, and I wish he'd visit. Spring peepers (I can't wait for them to come back!), leopard frogs, other various frogs and toads, garter/ribbon/maybe milk snakes, 4-toed salamanders. Turtles nearby, but not at my pond. In the pond, various snails, leeches, more frogs, infinite insects (especially mosquitoes). In the orchard, every pest an apple tree has ever known. Mice, groundhogs, rabbits, grey squirrels, flying squirrels, chipmunks. Coyotes, foxes, deer. Neighbors have seen a bear and reportedly minks, but not me. Beavers have us surrounded, but they are not my own yard. Some lovely spiders, and some plain ones too. Lots of paper wasps and various bees. More mosquitoes. In fact, mostly, we have mosquitoes. And worms. --Jonathan

The only situation where I can imagine Domestic cats killing 1 or 2 birds per year, is a domestic cat that is kept indoors virtually all year, or in an area where the bird life has been devestated. My cat had ample and constant access to food, but still managed to kill more birds than I could tolerate (hence no new cats after Dinah passed on), and they were only the birds I saw - could have been plenty I didn't see. Also cats do not just kill to eat - female cats tend to do this as a natural survival instinct, but male cats kill for the sheer pleasure, and often do not consume their kill. Bacteria from birds? I never heard that one on 5 years of vet school and many years of practice! What cats get from birds and small mammals, that is good for their guts, is roughage, in the form of fur and feathers. They need this far more than dogs. I once attended several tigers from one of the circuses that go round the states. They were ailing because they were being fed only raw meat, and were getting no roughage from fur in their diets. You can satisfy your cat's need for this by giving it an unskinned rabbit or letting it eat dead mice or rats. THEN - de worm it because it will have picked up worm larvae from the mice (and birds if it eats them). I think people will go a fair way towards solving the problem in the next few years, because, sadly, fur is back in vogue. Have you noticed all the fur coats and furry collars in shops. Mostly just synthetic of course. Back in the 70's we, and many neighbours) lost a cat to a fur trapper - mostly tortoiseshell, and I knew of many people who were losing dogs - black and white ones in particular. The people doing the killing were fussy about colours and types - no doubt to satisfy their market.

I have one approximately on acre inside my fence, which allowing for house and driveway, gives me a reasonably large garden compared to a suburban house block. The size of my garden is restricted to this size due to water availability, which comes from rainwater in a dam. In times of desperation the dam can be filled from an irrigation channel. I have a large area of lawn because I regard this as my fire break, climate control for the house, and I'd go barmy if I couldn't see that patch of green when everything outside the fence is brown. I also have a large driveway because as well as providing access to the house and garage, it is an area that does not require water. Between the lawn and the fence are the garden beds, heavily mulched with straw. This provides a fairly low maintenance garden - no trees to mow around, concrete edges that can be trimmed with a power edger, drippers on all the garden beds. All it takes is an hour on the rider mower and the garden looks very tidy. I can manage the rest on the fine, mild, sunny days as I am a "fair weather gardener". I love Wattleblosson's philosophy on planting, such commonsense, down to earth advice - must find out more about this Mary Verey.

At least it didn't get as hot as predicted. If we didn't need the rain so desperately it would have been near perfect the last couple of days. Around 30C with a light breeze, my ideal temps. Too good to be indoors. Now for some of that rain (without the cold) Got my fence up and spread several barrow loads of compost, tidied up the kids vegie gardens, fed and topped up mulch on various vegies, strawberries, pumpkins, etc and set up a watering system for some of the vegies. As for reading material, I like "who done its" and similar mystery types. Just finished Jonathon Kellerman's Therapy Saturday night. Not bad but a little slow. Have some more Kellerman to read yet, hopefully they're at least as good. I don't mind Kathy Reichs but Jeffery Deaver would have to be my favourite at the moment.