I appreciate your post, because I've always had that 'dream' in my head, of living in the country, which I've never done and this is a reminder of the reality of how challenging it is. I don't know how you do it. I just wanted to share that we have a dog and it has not been a problem in the garden at all. This dog is not a digger at all, She enjoys the garden. I have a shrub border edged by grass on 2 sides of the back that she can wander through and look out the back post and rail fence at the next yard. And we have a 30ft mixed border with perennials that has a rock edge, that she was very easy to train to stay out of. She will chase squirrels when she sees them, and that has cut down on their mischief. So the right dog can be a workable solution and a joy as well. Maybe you have friends or family that might consider taking the dog when you go away? You might have to drive to them before your trip, but on the plus side, you might see them more often. :-) Maybe you have a friend with a dog that you could borrow for a weekend to test out how it would work out? We have never had outdoor cats, we have allergies in the family. But if I had rodent problems like you do, I would definitely get some cats right away. There are so many cats in shelters. But you might want to speak to someone about how you judge whether a cat is a good mouser. You said you have raised beds, I wonder if you added hardware cloth to the bottom of them? I would look into that. We just finished building new beds and added 1/4 inch hardware cloth to the bottom. I've been told that makes a big difference. I haven't had a lot of problems. I definitely have a mole in the yard, but not sure about the voles. So I did it as a precaution. It was expensive. I've also had it suggested to me to plant my bulbs in little baskets made of hardware cloth. On the Hosta forum, there was a suggestion to plant Hostas in wire wastebaskets that you can get at the dollar store. I've also seen people build chicken wire tops for their raised beds to keep animals out, although I haven't heard how successful that is. Good luck!

I cultivate a garden because i have specific issues with my property that can only be address with proper landscape design. For instance, I have a septic field which needs soft-fibrous rooted plants. I also desire to increase native plant diversity; as well as, landscape for privacy, shade and shelter. I think the method of gardening that you are suggesting when you say "all-volunteer" is "preservation". I'm at the point with my landscape where I'm more in the preservation mode. I'm letting nature do what it wants, but I'm still culling plants that I do not desire. I think my landscape looks more beautiful each year as I let nature incorporate it's influence over my original design. When you stop cultivating, plants from neighboring sites will move in and expand their territory. It then becomes a choice as to what stays and what has to go based on your values. Some people value a weed free lawn while others value a "leave it to nature to take care of itself" and then there are those who are somewhere in the middle. Because you are selecting to remove some species, you fall somewhere close to the "leave it to nature to take care of itself".

emagineer - This is from the blog Cote de Texas that I provided a link to in my post. Since it's been all about "Something's Gotta Give" I thought that Nancy Meyers' follow up movie "The Holiday" needed a closer look. Just as the star of Something's Gotta Give was the Hamptons house itself, the star of the "The Holiday" wasn't really Cameron Diaz or Kate Winslet, but their two homes, one in Los Angeles and one in the English Countryside, respectively. And in another connection between the two movies, the production team was led Jon Hutman - but Beth Rubino, so wonderful on the set of SGG, was absent for The Holiday. And just as with Something's Gotta Give, Nancy Meyers' personal interior designer has photos of "The Holiday" houses on his web site, but he is not mentioned in the film credits. The Holiday, coming so soon after Something's Gotta Give received a lot of prepublicity hype concerning its premise: two women swap houses for the Christmas vacation and both find love. For lovers of the SGG house, a new Nancy Meyers movie about TWO houses was almost too good to be true ! Jim

OutsidePlaying, I can't imagine how anyone in or out of government could reasonably benchmark or assess rates of spending or overspending for the kind of work NASA historically did. It's completely a one-off activity. I'd be very willing to accept overspending on account of inept management or misplaced good intentions. But it was just shut down. NASA's work historically advanced the knowledge and understanding of the universe for all of mankind, the value of which is priceless as far as I'm concerned. I know the Mars rover missions were financed on a shoestring by design, I was working with a company that was involved. Use off the shelf components, make due with compromises, yada yada and the end results were pretty impressive. Great achievements by innovative and capable engineers. If you were in Huntsville, I spent a very interesting afternoon not too many years ago at the Space and Rocket Center. We were lucky enough to be approached by a docent looking for visitors to amaze. The guy turned out to be a real "rocket scientist", recently retired, who enjoyed sharing special insights and giving as if private tours to small, family-size groups, which we were. A most memorable experience. He was also well acquainted and knowledgeable about the Nazi rocket scientists (who worked on the German V1 and V2 weapons) the US Army snatched at the end of World War 2 who formed the core of American rocket expertise for decades, along with their leader von Braun. I'd just finished a book on the subject and was curious to know more. It's a story few Americans know and most should, especially those of us who lived through the early years of the space race and thought so many of the US's accomplishments were done by Americans.