The bone I would ask for is flowering trees on the slope. Surely, they will not leave bare earth as the finished product so you can figure that there will be some sort of groundcover on the slope... which, depending on how all of this relates to their facility, may become an unattended weedy, green "natural area." People post pictures of such areas here from time to time and, oddly, others fawn over how lovely such "natural" areas are. You might find out how they're planning on treating this slope/berm as their solution might already be sufficient and your asking for something different to be interjected into it might actually create a less desirable finished product. Several years back one of my best friends lived at the edge of our town in a house that had been the family home for decades. Then the state decided to build an interstate highway less than 1/2 mile to the south. And a corporation decided to build a plant nearby. Since there was nothing between my friend's family home and the interstate but cornfield, and it was decimated during the multi-year-long project, my friend was at her wits end during the whole process, thinking that her life and property was forever ruined. She attended every meeting relevant to the construction of the projects, wrote letters to every person involved, complained constantly and was basically consumed by the construction process until the road and plant was finished (about 3 or so years ?) Once all the construction equipment was gone and the landscaping was in place, everything calmed down. It wasn't all that much time after that my friend stopped giving any of it a thought. Today, I'm sure she never even thinks about what seemed like so much grief at the time. (She still lives in the same house.)

Larry, I love the photo. Our deer aren't as thin as yours, but they were that thin, or even worse, last year. Yesterday when Tim came home from getting a haircut he came in with a bag of deer corn and we put some out for the deer this morning. I put the deer corn right by the back compost pile near the deer trail and the deer were there eating it 10 minutes later. It was the same herd that I described in the first post on this thread. They didn't come until about 7:45 a.m. Something is scaring the deer and rabbits because they are becoming very scarce in the evenings, and don't come out in the mornings until well after sunrise. This is a change in their pattern that has occurred within the last week. Yellow Cat, who was a feral cat for a decade before he settled into our place, adopted us and retired from being wild and self-sufficient won't even leave my side right now, and would stay inside the house 24/7 now if I'd let him. When he starts hiding out inside like that, or sticking to me like glue outdoors, that's another sign the predators are getting too close to the house. I haven't seen any or heard any, but we had a coyote hanging around a couple of months ago. Likely it is a coyote that's scaring them. Susan, I've never seen native passionvine on our land nor have I ever seen it anywhere in Love County. It might grow down in the wild river bottom areas, but we've been down there on fires and on drowning searches/recoveries and I've never seen it there either. Remember that we're more of a grassland than woodland type ecoregion, although there are some stretches of woods along the river and along creekbanks. I wish we had native passionvine here. We do always have gulf frits, though, so there's got to be passionvine someplace. My guess would be it is more in the eastern part of our county because the soils there are better and there's more woodlands along the river. I've seen giant, black and spicebush swallowtails this summer, but not very many of any of them. Usually they are as thick as flies, so I really miss having the usual hordes of butterflies around. Carol, That sounds like a great way to shade your pepper plants. As hot and dry as y'all are there, I know they must really appreciate that shade. My peppers wilted a couple of days in June when rain hadn't fallen and we were over 100 degrees but haven't wilted since then. They do get shade from the pecan tree beginning between 2 and 3 p.m. and that seems to be helping keep them happier this year than they were last year. Dawn

Hi Bubbadillo, Well, having read your post, I wonder if the roadrunner (and he was pecking at the pile of henscratch) was more interested in the little tree frogs that live in my potted plants near the garage/barn. We haven't had as many wild turkeys OR quail the last couple of years, but we've had more roadrunners........so, maybe now I understand the connection! I've never seen a roadrunner eat a snake (wouldn't that be fascinating!), but I am glad to hear that they do. We haven't had a lot of snakes around our house this year (except for the black rat snakes that have been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to eat our baby guineas). On the day that the pallet factory burned a couple of weeks ago, though, a lady who lives on Peanut Farm Road WAS bitten by a rattlensnake, and the Love County medics had to leave the fire and go to the hospital to help treat her. I find the wildlife just as fascinating as you do, and have learned (by watching) the ebb and flow of wild animal populations......for example, the way the rabbit population will go up while the coyote population is down....and then, of course, when the coyote population rises, the rabbit population drops. In our yard this year, we have a LOT more deer than usual coming to eat and drink...even having bucks come out in broad daylight, which I seldom see. I know the larger predators will follow, so I just do my best to make sure the chickens, guineas, dogs and cats are locked up securely before twilight. The only wildlife we seldom see on our own place here is the wild pigs, and I bet you have them more out west than we do here. We had them hanging out in our creekbed one year, where they wallowed and left huge holes in shallow parts of the creek. Another year, they frequented the back part of our property, which is fairly close to the Red River. I am only moderately afraid of the panthers and cougars, since they are rarely seen and the worst they've ever done here is "roar" at me at night if I am outside. The wild pigs, though, terrify me, as I am sure I couldn't outrun them. I DON'T miss the snakes at all. Normally we have a LOT of copperheads, water moccasins and velvet-tailed rattlers here, and the occasional western diamondback, but all I've seen in our yard this year are rat snakes and chicken snakes and, rarely, a green tree snake. It is the BEST snake year ever (fewest snakes seen), so I guess our cats are doing their job and keeping the number of rodents down. Dawn

Hi Segbrown. I fell in love with the HiRise suite and bought the wall-mounted bridge faucet and independent side spray for my vintage farm sink, and the bar faucet for the butler's pantry despite the fact we still haven't broken ground for our house! I'll get either the regular bridge or the single-hole model for my prep sink - can't decide. I chose the polished stainless and the faucets are really gorgeous. They're very heavy and smoothly machined. The polished stainless is warmer in color than chrome, but cooler than nickel. I think it would blend with either. Sorry (really sorry) I can't vouch for their performance yet. But it does give me some consolation to go and fawn over them when I begin to think we'll never build our house!