estreya, as calistoga suggests go easy on your cleanup pruning , keep it at a minimum. i used havaheart deer repellent in conjunction with my inadequate fencing and it kept the rascals at bay until i improved fences. expensive but effective as a temporary solution. i'm speaking from hard experience last year as between the animal damage and my following inept/inexperienced pruning i surely set some trees back. the worst experience was cutting the browsed central leaders back and watching them die back 1-6 inches and then repeating the act after another browsing. my cleanup pruning was better rcvd by the trees after dormancy. if i can get some habeneros to mature before the snow in this years extremely short growing season , i also will try to make some homemade repellent. lf it comes together i will report it on gw. good luck with the hoofed stinkpots ! wildlifeman

I would stay right where I am here in Nova Scotia. I have the ocean right in front of me, the woods behind me and only one neighbor that can see my house without binoculars. I love that I can go for long walks in the woods and not be afraid of anything more than a big black bear. I love that I can jump in the car with the neighbor kids or grandsons and be at the beach swimming at a nice sandy beach within 15 minutes. I can walk down my lane and go to the beach to collect rocks or shells. When summer vacation time comes I always want to drive around Nova Scotia, sometimes up to Sussex, New Brunswick to go to Corn Hill Nursery, but for the most part I want to stay here. I love the trips to the Annapolis Valley and south shore, so much to see/sea. I have driven across this grand country twice by car, a long, long journey both times. Been right to Jasper in Alberta and out to Grand Cashe, beautiful area, but no ocean, gotta be near the water, it is the pisces in me I think.. Never been to the Rock, Newfoundland, but have intentions of going there someday. Flew out to Calgary last summer and was enchanted with the city, I hate cities for the most part but this place really caught my eye. My son lives there so I can see going out there again, it was a beautiful trip. If I had to change anything it would be the weather right now, bitter cold, I don't care for that. Otherwise home is where I hang my hat, I hope to be hanging my hat here for many, many more years. Just a humble little bungalow but it is my piece of heaven and my sancturary. Valerie

I thought we had bedbugs about five years ago. It was during the summer, and at first I thought the bites on my skin were from mosquitos. But then I realized they were all under my clothes. And they itched even more than mosquito bites. They were wildly itchy. It was really intense. And they kept coming. I heard around the same time about outbreaks of bedbugs in NYC, and thought I must have been infested. But I hadn't been traveling. I called our state university extension office for advice, and the agent asked if I lived in an old house (yes) and if we'd ever had bats. I told him we used to have a large colony of bats, but they'd left a year or so earlier. He said we most likely had batbugs. Batbugs look a lot like bedbugs, he said, but they live off bats. After the bats left they eventually went looking for another source of food: me! He said they were coming down from the attic at night into my bedroom. This was very easy for them to do because my ceiling is the attic floor, with nothing over or under it. On his advice, I set off insecticide bombs in the attic. That took care of the problem, thank heavens. Boy, did those bites itch! I can barely write about it without scratching . . .

Mommabird, I know EXACTLY how you feel. We have a few things in common. I have just come back to ths after being away for a couple years. Like you, I've been unable to do much around the house and yard because of ruptured discs and a heart attack. I'm slowly getting better, but only within the last month have I been able to start carving away at my mountain of work and stuff. Being unable was the magic motivation I needed when I was finally able to do the work. That situation impacted me so much that for the first time in my 53 years I have been keeping my kitchen neat and clean, simply because I could, starting only about 3 weeks ago! I wish I could have learned this before raising 4 children and having a 31 year marriage! My 2nd biggest motivator was putting a TV in the kitchen. I found myself able to work in there all day, if needed! I don't actually watch it because I'm cleaning, or culling junk, but it keeps me company while I'm working. I had my DH carry it into our bedroom where I'm doing the same thing: deep cleaning and sorting. I'm sure everyone in North America has been living with TVs in the kitchen and bedroom for decades, but it's new to me and it's my new helper. What I did in my house was to start in the living room near the front door. I was depressed that my living room was so dusty, disorderly and neglected, so I started there. I took decorator items from other rooms and put together a fresh look. That boosted my spirits enough to keep me going. I've been a FlyLady disciple for years too, and I know she'd be proud of me for having both my living room and kitchen within 10 minutes' of being company-ready at any time. It helps that the kids grew up and moved away-- when I clean it stays that way a little longer. I don't swish and swipe the bathroom every day, but it, too, is within 5 minutes of being presentable. I now have high hopes that I can get the laundry room, mud room and back bathroom presentable and keep it that way, too. If I can do it, you can too!