Dirtygardener, Your Pond Branch Community that you left is exactly like it is here, same miles, I'm 7 driving miles from Floral City (lots closer as the crow flies) and 15 miles plus from everything else. All the neighbor land plots are 5, 10, 15, & 20 acres or more. There are a few grandfathered 2.5 acre lots, but very few. I bought my 10 acres back in the 70's thinking to retire here. We had a Doublewide MFG. Home put in here as most of the area is MFG. Homes. We also have a house in Apopka on a postage stamp lot which was my wife's daddy's home. She inherited it when he passed a few years back. There is no way I could live there in a HMO with no yard whatever and nosy neighbors. When I go to check up on the house they descend like mocking birds all squawking at the same time at my minimal maintenance. They just fuel my rage for HMO's. Amberroses, I'm finding 10 acres is a heck of a lot of land to manage for an old guy in his 70's. It seems to be taking forever to accomplish what I have in my mind for here. I cut a few trees and clean undergrowth each winter and push the jungle back a bit each year but it's taking longer than expected because I cannot work in the summer's heat. I haven't even started with floral plants as yet due to their maintenance would cut into my land clearing time. The only plants I've put in is my orchard trees as they need time to grow and fruit. Corar, I hear you on the economy keeping us limited on our endeavors. I wanted to build a real house here but settled for a MFG. Home because of the cost difference and I was able to build my barn with the savings. I also bought a leftover 2 year old unused FEMA trailer for very cheap from the Govt. and I use it as guest house for when the kids come to visit. The grand-kids love it and think they are camping at grandpa's farm. Lou

Good Morning Y'all, Well, I hope it is discovered and documented, but not on our place. When we had the male/female pair roaming our pastures here in southern Love County several years ago, we assumed they were a breeding pair but never saw any young ones. We didn't see them on our property, but we saw them in two different pastures about a quarter mile north of us, and so did several of our neighbors. I hope the cougar doesn't come back here. We have a huge deer population....I see them in the yard several times a week, if not quite daily. Still, something has been getting our poultry, which are no longer free-ranging, and it/they have been getting the poultry since January. We also lost a 1 year old male Maine coon cat back in the winter. We have everything here most years, y'all, including an occasional alligator that presumably wanders up from the river to somebody's stock tank, although the closest alligator to us has been found in a stock tank about a half-mile away to our southwest, so I am not real worried about finding one of those here. The feral pigs scare me more than the rare cougar sighting. One guy out west barely got away from them year before last--they chased him until he got to his ATV, hopped on it and turned it on. The pigs are a lot more common in our county than cougars, especially along the river and on the more remote ranches west of town, but there's only been one year that we've had them on our property. I am feeling a bit calmer now. Yellow Cat returned home this morning after being gone for 36 hours, and in a big way. I'd let three dogs out to "patrol" the property and chase off any wild things that might be around. It was about 5:30 a.m. While the dogs were off and running through the woods, chasing something and barking, I'd called and called Yellow Cat but didn't see him. Suddenly, the dogs reversed course and came running out of the woods, yelping and carrying on and with their tails between their legs. I thought "Oh crap, something is chasing them." And something was and it was Yellow Cat. LOL Now that I know these three dogs can be chased by an old yellow tabby cat (admittedly a very muscular and aggressive one because he was feral for so many years), I don't know that I'll trust them to keep me safe from any varmints that are running around. Scott, my best guess is that this juvenile male might be from the cougars that have been prowling the rocky hills along the Love County-Carter County line about 17-20 miles north of us. There have been numerous reports of them in that area this year. There's a big rock quarry there and some hills with small caves, etc. and lots of missing pets the last few months, etc. It is an incredibly rugged area. Almost all of our big winter wildfires were there and it is such rugged land that often the firefighters couldn't get up into those rocky hills off Oswalt Rd. except on foot so they'd have to wait for the fires to burn out into the more open areas. Of course, the cougar also could have traveled the river. The river and its thousands of acres of bottomlands seem to serve as a "highway" for all the wild things. When our creeks here dry up, as they often do by mid-summer, the coyotes and bobcats seem to travel the creekbeds too. Fred told me last week his creek is already dry, but ours still has water, so it shouldn't be serving as a "roadway" yet. We had tons of coyotes a couple of months ago but we don't now (as evidenced by all the cottontail rabbits that are all over our yard at night), and I don't know where the coyotes have gone. (I'm not complaining.) I do know a lot of ranchers were shooting them during calf season (for obvious reasons) because one of the ranchers who lives slightly north of us told me he shot 5, and I think 3 of those were in one week. I don't think anyone here shoots the coyotes just to shoot them, but they were killing calves. I hope the only wild animals I see today are the cute little ones like squirrels and rabbits. In general, I like seeing all the wildlife. Seeing the occasional ringtailed cat is pretty cool because they are so reclusive. I think bobcats are beautiful animals and I even like seeing coyotes, and love hearing their howling at night. It is a little harder to appreciate the cougars because they have the potential to be so dangerous. I have noticed a huge decrease in the number of possums, armadilloes and raccoons the last couple of months, and we've hardly had any skunks at all, so I've been wondering what's happening to all these smaller animals. Dawn

On the good side.... the insteon switches have been more reliable than I expected. I haven't had a single one go out in 18 months now (I have probably 30); I expected more failure. I have had 3 or 4 times an individual switch has seemed to 'die' for an unclear reason, but each time pulling the little tab in the bottom that disconnects the power and reconnect it has fixed the issue. The basically function as I expect them to. Also on the good side they seem to function well as just regular light switches which is nice (i.e. my wife doesn't harass me about the tech because she can use normally) On the bad side... I haven't found it to be super life changing or anything; hitting a button to shut off all lights when leaving is nice. Telling Amazon Alexa with my voice to set scenes is cool, especially when lazy on the couch. But frankly I haven't used it as much as I would have thought. I guess a lifetime of turning switches on and off gets programmed in. Looking back it is probably a worthwhile upgrade from 25-30$ /ea nice dimmers, probably not worth the upgrade from cheap $1 switches. The only other not so idea thing my wiring was done for old school lighting, and my switch locations hooked up the same. But I put LEDs in everywhere. So I have a lot of spots where a single dimmer controls say 6 cans, but they suck so little power that my Insteon dimmer switch doesn't have very granular control. Basically I get a little dimming on the lowest couple of settings on the switch. If insteon had a switch for LEDs (they might now) or if you have higher loads on your switch circuits I think you would see better results. It hasn't bothered me too much as I don't want to dim much most of my lighting is just having specific sections of light fully on or fully off.

UPDATE from JW support via email: Good morning Chad, My name is Michaeline, I am a supervisor in Customer Experience for JELD-WEN. Thank you for taking the time to offer your feedback and suggestions on how we can improve our product. JELD-WEN at this time does not offer smart lock or keyless entry options. I advise your best option would be to contact or visit the retailer you purchased your product from. They may be able to advise a smart lock or keyless entry system that would be compatible with your product. I understand you would like to connect over the phone. Please let me know a time and day that works best for you. I am in the Eastern Time Zone, my hours are 8-5 PM EST. Is -------------- the best number to contact you? Please feel free to use this email chain to contact me directly at any time in regards to this inquiry. Thank you, Michaeline Spencer I CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE SUPERVISOR JELD-WEN, Inc. Phone: 888-594-3578 Web: www.jeld-wen.com/en-us/support Email: customerserviceus@jeldwen.com Please consider the environment before printing this email MY RESPONSE: Yes, that is the correct number, I’ll be available whenever you call. So far I can’t recommend anything about your product or customer service, change my mind. Thanks, Chad I received a call from "Michaeline" @7:20AM CST today and she couldn't be more pompous or dismissive of any comment other than JW is infallible by not acknowledging there is any issue. Worst customer service experience I've ever had. This company is terrible and I hope they go bankrupt. I told her I would do everything in my power as a consumer make that so by steering others away from their proudly antiquated company. However, I learned from my reseller that Ashland Hardware Systems - https://www.ashlandhardware.com - makes their hardware so I may see what they say, but am expecting more of the same since their website isn't even HTTPS. I am pretty defeated at the moment.