How are they doing now? The Spring rains and warm weather should be helping you CMs to leaf more now. Check them by this coming weekend and test the branches. On CMs, any winter kill will break with a snap whenever you apply simple hand pressure in bending that part of the branch. The branches which are alive will be flexible. This weekend you may find that some branches are only dry and easily broken on the ends, and others may be brittle all the way to the base of the branch. So if you have not done this already; by this weekend trim off any brittle parts of your CMs along with any of last summer's dried seed pods you find. You did not tell us what cultivar of CMs you have, how tall they are, and how well established they are. Such information would also help us give more specific, to your situation, advise. If you CMs are tall enough for you to need a ladder to reach the old seed pods, which I suggested you prune away, then that would make such pruning difficult, and many people stop such pruning once their larger growing cultivars of CMs get that large and well established.

Please don't misunderstand - the farm people valued their animals and cared for them well. On the other hand - the cattle provided milk and meat, and local dogs that got together and travelled in packs, chasing cattle, would be dealt with severely (read, "shot"). They tried to train the dogs to herd cattle - some would go to the pasture at milking time and bring the cows to the barn for milking. It could well have been that the Grandfather felt a deep sense of love for the young lads. I thought that the Grandfather's act was a bit severe - but he had a reason that was logical to him, and his reply to the boys likely would have been, "Get over it!". As several have said, life was hard for such people and there was little margin for soft-heartedness. Would you be willing to have soft-heartedness and hunger co-exist? Quite likely the Grandfather was marksman enough that he could have shot the dirt beside the dog to have been thrown up and both stung and frightened the dog, but he took more direct action, as many did. Life didn't have the nuances for them that it does for many of us. The idea of someone shooting over the heads of kids invading their land was quite foreign to me. I have four barn cats, one of which loves to be scratched and petted - but if I pick her up, she jumps down. Another cat lets me pet him, and enjoys it some, but is a bit reluctant. Drat him, he's a bit of a scairdey cat, but when I pour feed into each of three or four dishes in turn ... he has to be there to eat immediately from all four dishes in turn! A half-grown kitten that I didn't see until it could run pretty well has got to where it'll let me pet it when it's looking for feed, but not at other times. Its mother will follow me around, even quite closely ... but if my hand gets a bit too close ... she draws blood. It is nigh impossible for modern, city-raised people to understand what life was like for such impoverished people who, as several have said, hunted for meat in the woods and fields. I'm glad that you felt comfortable enough with this place to have come to share your question. By extension ... many people who live in other parts of the world look at life very differently than we, and I think that at times it would be well if we were to sit down with them to learn of their ways - and to share our viewpoints. It seems to me quite likely that we would find that we had more in common than appeared at first, as I think we came to realize regarding this situation. When I was a kid, some folks in town had a metal-lined wooden box that looked something like modern fridges and men drove horse-drawn boxy wagons with tons of ice in them down the street, carrying a block into many houses to put into the top compartment. We on the farm pumped cold water by hand from the well in the yard to put into a pan in the basement, where we stored butter, meat and other perishables in bowls floating in the water, changing it as it warmed. Within a few years, they built refrigerators. Within a few years after that, they were building them to last for 40 years ... now they build them to last for 10 years. I've heard that for the world's people to live in the fashion to which we've become accustomed (in about 3 generations) ... we'd need the resources of four planets similar to that on which we live. We are hugely wasteful. We have a lot to learn from those people who lived more simply. And as more jobs are shifting overseas, our descendants are going to be learning them. Several areas of the seas that used to teem with fish are now almost barren - we didn't practise conservation. Our kids and grandkids will suffer the consequences. We still have about the cheapest food in the world ... but one doubts whether that will last much longer. Currently, many thousands of U.S. and Canadian families are about half a dozen paycheques from being on the street ... but we've forgotten how to forage for food, as our forebears did, out of necessity. We are much more brittle, less resourceful and adaptable. Good wishes for a really fine week ahead. ole joyful

Correcting unwanted behavior is done much easier by preventing the behavior before it starts. That also allows more opportunity for positive reinforcement techniques. There are several ways to prevent behavior. Correction before the behavior starts is the goal. The requires close awareness of the dogs body language and actions. The largest block to preventing unwanted behavior---especially when other methods have failed---is how the handler/owner s emotions are during the training. The human has to mask any fear/anticipation/etc. behavior. Simply because the dog has become attuned to such cues and associated those cues as signals as how the dog should behave. You need to start correcting the lab mix when people arrive in the driveway. Your(whomever is handling the dog) needs to adopt the attitude the dog has to obey simply because you say so. That is usually much more difficult to do than to say. I use that technique and have sometimes blown a session simply because I was not paying attention and allowing other things to block my mind. And, it takes time. What to try. When you know someone is pulling into the yard---as the dog hears the visitor, start the corrections that signal his excitement before the visitor gets to the door. A training session with another person acting as the 'visitor' would be great. Because you can make the corrections and allow some time for the behavior to settle---allowing positive reinforcement to happen. That is a double training effort---blocking unwanted and praising acceptable behavior.

I have "dealt" with the elderly for years and truly understand their strong reluctance to change! You are lucky that they have let you change as much as you have. Of course, many of us (IF IT WERE OUR HOME) would have jumped in there and painted the knotty pine walls to lighten things up, ordered light colored upholstery, changed out the flooring, etc. But it is not our home - IT IS THEIR'S. In their minds, if something works - it is just fine! You are to be congratulated for helping them do this much. It will be clean, it will be comfortable, it will be familiar, and it will be home. That is all that matters. I will throw in a couple of suggestions - it looks like the drapes are new, but with all the neutral brown tones and knotty pine, a colorful, print drape would look nice - something like a jacobean or paisley print, perhaps with some greens, blues, terra-cotta combinations. Also, colors like that in the throw pillows. Love those orange lamps if they work when you get finished. I bet your mom likes those bright colors! Tuesday (A daughter and daughter-in-law - know what you are dealing with).