I think you could use the exercise ball to help float the cypress out of the swamp. JD, how many times do I have to tell you? CAMOflauge overalls! If you'd stuck a couple of crawfish out of your pockets you'd have been OK. That's why I only golf at night. And that bag is really tall enough for most plants, especially when you put those little socks on them, it helps to disguise them. I took those club thinggies & used them to stake up plants, they took up too much room in the bag... Tally HO!

* Do cats automatically remember where they live to find their way back ? No, cats dont automatically KNOW their way back home, if you watch a cat when it first goes outside, it hangs around its home learning scents and gathers visual cues as it wanders farther from home it will stop and gather more information. * IS there an average time they stay away ? No, every cat is different * Do they make a fuss to go out side ? Some do some dont * Does being fixed matter if they want to go out ? YES ABSOLUTELY - the urge to mate in an intact animal - any animal is huge. They will forgo food to mate and when the urge hits they are flooded with hormones - it is all they think about. * Is there something they like to eat outside ? Yes, Birds, lizards, insects and some types of plants. Unfortunately a cat is not out to just eat when it goes outside, it has a hunting instinct and will kill just to kill negatively impacting the natural resources in its environment - endangered or not. * Is it just for exercise - to keep from being bored ? A cat can get just as much exercise inside as outside. Bored is a term people use for not being stimulated enough and while a pet may not have enough stimulation I dont think bored is the correct term. Humans have a way of thinking animals think and feel the way we do. It is how people and pets get into trouble. * Do you worry if they don't return within a certain time ? Since the dangers to house cats is high once they do go outside in any environment, to avoid becoming worried cats should remain inside * What if they didn't come home ? Pets have alot of possible reasons why they dont come home. Illness, being stolen, getting killed by native animals, cats being killed by dogs, getting trapped or suffering an injury where nobody can hear or see them in order to rescue them, being poisoned, shot at or run over. * Do you worry about someone else thinking it's feral and keeping it ? Feral cats and domesticated cats act very differently. I know at least 3 people who have gained a cat as a pet by finding it wandering by where my friends worked or lived, and they kept it as an indoor cat. One was a beautiful Seal Point Siamese - probably cost the original owner a pretty penny to purchase the cat originally and I can not imagine the anxiety they felt when their cat did not come home. They will never know if their cat lived or died. * Are you worried if it comes home with fleas or ticks ? Any pet allowed to roam without constraints can come home with a dozen problems, healthy fleas being the least of the lot. Ticks - which may carry Lymes or Rocky Mountain Spotted fever, Distemper, Rabies, Feline leukemia, an injury, Hanta Virus or plague infested fleas. I saw a television program on tranferrable diseases and one episode was about how a young girl had suffered a serious illness she got from her cat who had been outdoors for a couple of days, the cat came home and the little girl had the cat sleep with her and apparently the illness came from having the infected cat breathing close to the little girl. Scary. The thing I wrote about happen everyday somewhere in America, they are real problems that cat owners may face when letting their cats roam.

One of my closest friends helped me through the end of my ten-year marriage. Of course, she heard all of my sob stories about how rotten my marriage was and what a jerk my Ex was, so when she met a man who was the complete and total opposite, she just had to fix me up. I was at work one day when she called and asked if I had a second. I said sure, so she proceeded to tell me about "a good friend of hers" that she wanted me to meet. Then she said "hold on a second" and handed him the phone! We talked for a bit but didn't set up anything specific because I was travelling a lot for work, but she kept after us both (relentlessly) until we agreed to meet for lunch about three weeks later. I got to the restaurant a few minutes early (I hate being late), and got the very last parking space in their tiny lot. At about one minute after the appointed time, he pulls up right in front of the door, gets out, comes in, and apologizes profusely for being late (it was only a minute or two), and explains that he has to find a parking space and will be right back. I was impressed by his considerateness, and thought he seemed nice-looking and easy to talk to. Over lunch, he told me he was a general contractor, and said he was renovating his house, and I asked him for his advice about a water leak I had just found in my ceiling. I told him I was leaving for a week's vacation that weekend and the wet spot had grown measurably overnight, so he offered to come by and take a look at it after lunch. Since he was a friend of a friend and I lived just around the corner from the restaurant, I agreed. After looking at the wet spot and the area above it on the second floor (my bathroom - toilet drain line - yuck!) he said he'd have to cut into the ceiling to see how serious it was or wasn't. So he went out to his Suburban, brought in a toolbox and a change of clothes, changed into work clothes, pulled out a little ladder, then sawed a perfect little round hole in my ceiling. He was up on that ladder with sheetrock dust and toilet water dribbling onto his shoulders when I commented to him that "I'll bet this is one blind date you won't forget!" And he just laughed and looked down at me -- and I looked up at him -- and that was it -- magic. As it happens, I found out a few months later that my friend had only met him a few hours before! And it was a "pure physical chemistry" thing that she thought I'd appreciate. She had no idea what a wonderful guy came with that hunky physique!

I'd just like to say thanks to all those who have given me advice. I used to be in the nursery industry many years ago and did a lot of hands on work but it was so long ago that I have forgotten a lot and new plants, etc have been brought out. Since my kids have come along I haven't really had the time to get into the garden much but now they're getting older, I find I get more time now - a little more anyway. Reading all the items in garden web has really kept my incentive up, brought back a few memories and given me new ideas. Like anything new, gardening can seem complicated but most of it is just a little research and commonsense. If you read a gardening book about pests and diseases you'd wonder how plants survive but in reality only a few of the pests actually cause problems in any given area. It won't be long and you will be answering some of these questions yourself.