I'm assuming maples don't drop a lot of junk other than in the fall? ===>>> you almost made me cry on that one .. i was laughing so hard .... seed drop in spring.. the dam-ned helicopters ... is a curse worthy of an 8th plague.. not to mention the 8 or 10 billion seedlings ... i suppose it might matter what kind of maple.. but all the generic ones i have dealt with are problematic at best .... maybe if you find a sterile one .... then you said: This patch of yard gets sun from about 10 am to 7pm and it so hot and dry that I have a hard time getting grass to live through the summer. again.. based on those i have dealt with ... most maple will not support vigorous grass under them .... and the pic below shows why.. they are extremely shallow rooted ... and in 20 years or so.. you will be bouncing over those roots with the lawn mower ... it is an understatement to say I HATE MAPLES ... lol.. like most peeps here will testify .. can i have an amen.. lol ... but that is because i garden under trees ... and maples and a few others are the bane of growing just about anything ... now.. whether or not these things will happen in your lifetime.. is the key ... as most of my problems are from mature trees that were on the property when i moved in .... whether you will be there is 20 to 40 years.. when the real problems start .... well that is for you to answer ... my fallback.. in the choice of trees... is ALWAYS oak ... once they get going.. they can grow 3 to 5 feet per year... just under what a maple can do .... and frankly.. no matter what tree you opt for.. there will be a downside ... acorns.. helicopters.. fruit.. nuts .... barren soil underneath .. etc .... so it will all come down to simply your best choice... as i doubt you will ever find the 'perfect' tree ... IMHO ... the key to clay is simply the planting procedure.. allowing them to get established.. and once they do. they are fully capable of putting their roots where they want them ... for the most part ... good luck ken

Carol, I love hearing them whizzing and whirring around the property. That make all sorts of sounds that are very interesting. We have a lot during spring migration and late summer migration, but fewer throughout the summer. Still, we usually have 6 or 8 or 10 around at any given moment during the summertime. I have to put out 4 or 5 or 6 different feeders because otherwise a couple of dominant males will "guard" and fight over a lone feeder or two. They do nest here and raise their young, and you know when you're near a tree or shrub containing a hummer nest because a hummer will come and fly in circles around your head trying to make you go away. We have a neighbor a mile or so south of us who has been feeding the hummingbirds for her whole adult life. (I believe she is in her 80s). She has a lot of feeders and probably dozens if not hundreds of hummers at her place on a regular basis. Her granddaughter told me she has to refill her feeders daily. I love having hummers around, but to feed then at the level she does would be a full-time job. Susan, I would expect to see the ruby-throats sometime soon just on the basis of how danged hot it is here now. They usually aren't far behind the rufous when it comes to finding us in spring. I may or may not see black-chinned hummingbirds in the spring, but they always visit in the summer. When we moved here, I never expected to see anything but the ruby-throats, so having lots of rufous and the occasional black-chinned hummer is a bonus. American Cross Vine is native and it used to be found all over Texas. Now, with the continual conversion of wild land full of native plants into housing subdivisions with nicely manicured lawns, it is not as common as it once was. We always had it in Texas, and it was one of the first vines I planted when we moved here because I knew if I planted it we'd always have hummers. It is not invasive anywhere that I've grown it, but I've only grown it on clay soil---black gumbo clay in Texas and Red River red clay here in OK. I suppose it has the potential to become invasive in good sandy loam, but have no idea if it does become invasive. The hummers love it. Because I wanted hummers, the other vine I planted right away after the house was built was trumpet creeper. I don't care how invasive it is, I still love it and have planted it in several locations. We have both the orange-flowered one and the yellow-flowered one. Another vine that is a huge hit with the hummers is coral honeysuckle. I have "Pink Lemonade" honeysuckle on the cedar entry arbor that leads into my veggie garden, and it has hummers visiting it from sunrise to sunset when it is blooming. Their favorite tree (and I know it is a trash tree but they love it and I love it so I planted it anyway) is the mimosa that I planted just west of my garden. They surely do love the mimosa. They also like the Chaste Tree and Desert Willow tree. All the above vines plus some of the common annual vines (especially morning glories) are faves of the hummers. Their favorite non-vining plant has to be the Texas Hummingbird Sage. I planted a packet of seed of Texas Hummingbird Sage from Seeds of Change about our 2nd or 3rd year here and it has reseeded itself ever since. I plant other annual sages and the hummers visit them too, but Texas Hummingbird Sage always draws the largest crowd. I see hummers at the Laura Bush petunias too and I'm sure they visit many other flowers, but if I am in the garden, I'm usually too busy to stand and watch them to see which flowers they're going to. We have hummers that live here and they return every year. I know which ones are the returnees because if I hang the feeders in different spots than they have been in during previous years, the returnees hover and buzz at the places where the feeders "used to be". They don't like change! The regulars are quite used to me and follow me around the yard. They'll sit on top of a tomato cage, the garden fence or even the electric line and hang out for a while and watch me work. If I go back towards the house, the resident hummers follow me there. I have to be really careful because sometimes when I go into the house, they follow me right inside. It is never a good thing for a hummer to come into a house with a cat or cats inside. Chaos ensues. I have to throw the cats out, calm down the bird and then guide the bird back to the door so it can fly out. Sometimes I have to catch them by cupping my hands around them while they're at the window trying to fly back outside. One year, the hummers or possibly one single repeat offender, would follow me into the house, go straight to the ceiling fan, perch on a fan blade and ride the ceiling fan around and around and around. It was bizarre. It hasn't happened since that one summer, so I think we had a hummer who thought the ceiling fan was an amusement park. Finally, I cannot wear red when working in the garden or the hummers become convinced I am a flower and keep trying to land on me. Dawn

G.M., I was wondering if you had been across the river lately. The inland flooding is amazing, especially on the west side of I-35...and you should see how it looks from McGeehee's! Some long-time residents of Love County are telling me that they are seeing water flooding roadways that they have never seen flood before, but I think those roadways were flooded by rain runoff from Friday and Saturday, and not by the river. We went across the river again this morning, and it is running and rising more quickly (or so it seems to me) right now than it was last Thursday and Friday. I suspect it is from all the flooding in the counties west of us. I was on my front porch Saturday looking east at the same double rainbow yesterday afternoon during one of the little showers. It was pretty, but I prefer SUNSHINE. Right now with all the weather craziness, Cleburne seems awfully far away, doesn't it? As the water continues to rise, it seems like fewer and fewer campsites are available around areas lakes. I saw on KXII the other night that they were moving out ten trailers at the Big Mineral area. These were actual trailer houses, not RVs, but they knew they had to move 'em, or lose 'em. I bet moving them cost a lot too. I have been watching the media websites....KXII, KTEN, WFAA, the Dallas Morning News, the Oklahoman and the Fort Worth Star Telegram.....reading the weather blogs and news stories, and viewing the photos and slide shows. Amazing photos. Amazing destruction. Well, I watch the Ardmoreite website too, but it is slow compared to the others. Steve LaNore made a comment the other night that he had no clue what the low pressure system was going to do to us over the weekend because all the weather models were giving conflicting data. How is that for thoroughly REFRESHING honesty! A hour ago we had bright, clear sunny skies with lovely white puffy clouds and how we have lost the sunshine, and the clouds are dark gray and rumbling with thunder. I guess we know what that means. Dawn

We purposely moved to our neighbourhood because it has a "high street". That's two blocks away. It's changed over the last 8 years...now we have an antique mall, two funky galleries, some hair salons, loads of restraunts, many bars, a great coffee shop, THREE tatoo parlors, two banks, fire department, public library (these were very important to me), and a few more blocks away several fast food joints (which I do not use). There are also some very dubious corner stores and gas stations, which frequently have people hanging out and drinking or selling drugs or fronting prostitution. 1 mile down the main road in either direction are two different outdoor malls. They clearly cater to different types of clientle. One has a Super Giant Foods, Dollar General, Citi Fashions, Fashion Cents and a strange jumbled beauty supply store and a furniture rental center. The other has a Kroger, Lowes, Linens & Things, Target, Best Buy, Ross and several other small locally owned resteraunts and stores that are sort of funky and fun. Even closer to us is a small development with an upscale hair salon, a gym, pizza, coffee, dance studio...this is a fantastic place for our community and most of the people who work there live in the immediate community. Has this raised the value of our home? Not really. It hasn't raised the value (we bought at $75,000 and it's worth $265,000 and not fully renovated yet...that increase in 8 years!!)...the value has been steadily increasing due to our 3 minute drive to downtown location. It's also just one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in the city to buy into, although not so easy now with the price increases. Frankly, our neighbourhood is weird. We have two familys with drug dealers, one with a gang memeber on our street. There is constantly men sitting around ALL DAY LONG drinking, the mothers of their children coming and screaming for money, their older children running drugs...(I know it sounds like something the police can handle, but they have bigger fish to fry around here). The next street over has none of this nonsense and is beautiful, quiet, friendly. We knew what it was like when we moved here. Why did we move here? Because the afformentioned high street was an indication of the culture that this area also holds. It's the neighbourhood of artists, artizans, indepenant thinkers, street poets, wacky gardeners, musicians, teachers who think outside the box...people who thrive on the strange juxdiposition of our community. That is why the value of our homes has increased. Demand. GGG