I hit a huge buck in my little Honda Civic back in 2004. Over $10,000 damage to a 3 month old car. The emergency responders said I was extremely lucky he didn't crash all the way through the windshield given the speed I was going and the size he was. I now drive that stretch of highway like an old lady forever scanning the sides for suicidal deer. That whistle thing that you put on the front of the car seems to work. I've seen a few run the other way rather than jump out in front of my car since I've been using it. For some reason, I have no deer in my neighborhood. Probably since there's no good source of fresh water. As a result, a lot of bird species nest in the salt water marsh behind my house. It's nice to have them all back there. I've been working on establishing more bird friendly plants back there. I'm not a fan of killing anything, but I would like to see more states explore methods of sterilization to help reduce the population...the deer too. (hee hee) It's just no fun hitting a deer in a Honda!

Hey guys, wow.... I was just browsing the forum for the first time in a while.... I've been in my own little world lately, but I'm still fine. Just working and sleeping... have a bad cold right now.... I spent Christmas sick in bed, my place is a mess, but I'm OK for the most part. Thanks for checking on me :o)

katsmah, That's awful! This is exactly what is causing these couples to register for a bunch of ridiculous stuff that they neither need nor want! It'a actually a self-fulfilling prophesy, right? The MORE you register, the less percentagewise will get bought. So then it's easy for the clerk to say, most items on the registry would not be bought. Of course not! Because they registered for too many things! In reality, if the store clerk is right, that should be incentive for the couple to register for fewer items, so that they can ensure that the items they really want will get bought. That assumes, of course, that the pricing of the items they choose is reasonable, or at least within a reasonble range so that those who don't want to spend a fortune can find something to buy. Getting back to the "olden" days, when I got married the first time and you just registered for fine china, crystal and silver (I actually just did china and flatware), I received gifts of a dinner plate, or a cup & saucer. People who didn't want to spend the $$ to buy a whole place setting just bought the piece(s) they could afford. It all contributed to my china set. Imagine if I'd given them the option of spending that same amount on something like a relaxation CD or some other useless item. No matter how you slice it, the couple is better off registering for just the items they really want/need. I'm sure the clerk at BB&B was just doing her job, after all, that sort of thing is good for the store, right? But ugh! What a disservice to those poor couples who don't know any better!

dbarron, When we turned our screened-in porch into a fully enclosed, proper sunroom a couple of years ago, we turned one part of it into a proper mudroom wit a boot tray and shoe shelves and hanging racks for coats, with shelves for hats and gloves. I LOVE it. The mudroom catches so much mud and dirt that used to make it into the house, and with two firefighters in the family, there's always lots of dirty, sooty muddy, shoes, boots and socks. I It helps that a lot of the dirt and mud are left in the mudroom instead of being tracked all over the house. Now, if only I could convince Tim to build a mini Mud Room at the doorway on the opposite side of the house that leads out into the dog yard. Our dogs track in more mud than the people ever have. Living in the country is hysterically entertaining though. Yesterday when I opened the front door to let a cat go out, three banty chickens tried to run indoors. I don't know why. Just to see if they could I guess. I'm also astonished at how often a hummingbird will fly in an open door. Why? We feed them outside. Invariably they settle on a blade of the ceiling fan and ride it around and around the room while a cat or two go crazy trying to figure out how to jump out and nab the hummingbird. I have to put the cats in another room behind a closed door and turn off the fan and then catch the hummingbird and release it back outdoors. Then the cats sulk all day because I didn't let them catch the hummingbird that was foolish enough to venture indoors. One of my worst country living experiences (out of many) was one day when I was out working in the garden in 2009 and looked up and saw about 25 head of cattle running straight for me and the garden. I am pretty sure my simple little woven wire fence wouldn't have stopped them. However, we had an outer fence on one side only (the road side, from whence escaped cattle tend to come) with three strands of barbed wire and that diverted them. I had visions of being trampled, but it didn't happen. It took about a month of odd cattle appearances/disappearances for us to figure out whose cows they were and how they were making it onto our property---seemingly appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing as quickly. Once we alerted the rancher, whose land did not directly abut our land, he checked his water gaps and found a problem and fenced it and I haven't been visited by a herd of cows since. We've also been visited by goats, but not in a few years. There's also an escaped pea fowl roaming the area. Its owners and passers by have seen it on our property but I haven't, making me wonder if they were seeing the female wild turkey that hung around here with the injured leg until she healed. She might have looked like a pea fowl to someone driving up the road. Never a dull moment here. It is a zoo or a circus here just about every day. George, I did a lot of bee research before concluding it was more work than I was willing to take on until Tim retires and is here to help me more with the property and the animals. We have tons of native bees to do pollination (and all the hollies are in bloom and bees are everywhere around them this week) so we don't "need" bees because there aren't any around, but I want bees for the honey. Dawn