Sharon, We have squirrels that do the exact same thing that you and Scott have noticed. There is one squirrel in particular who is a creature of habit and I will see him in the same spot in the yard at the same time about 6 days out of 7. I'd never realized they were such creatures of habit until I started watching him the last couple of years. We used to have a dog that chased the squirrels endlessly and she kept them completely out of the yard and away from the garden. Since her death a few years back, the squirrels have returned in full force, and our other dogs are too old and lazy to chase them out of the yard. 8maryann, I had a neighbor in Fort Worth who fought the squirrels hard like you do, and he even wrapped flashing on 8' of the trunk (he started with 2' and when that didn't work, he just kept adding it higher up the trunk) and the squirrels still got all his pecans most years. I think he finally decided they were sitting on the roof of his house and jumping to the trees. Based on the distance, you wouldn't think they could have made that far of a jump but they did. Blue jays are not as much of a problem for my pecan trees in the yard as they are for you, but we have about 10 acres of woodland to the north and west of the yard and there's a lot of native pecan trees in that woodland, so maybe the blue jays are eating those nuts. Pecans used to be a major crop in our county and some of the orchards had those canons that set off a blast of noise every so often to keep the birds and varmints out of the trees. I'm not sure if the noise from the cannons annoyed the squirrels and birds enough to keep them out of the trees, but the sound certainly annoyed some of us humans who had to listen to it all day long. I haven't heard one of those in years now, and I'm not complaining! I think the squirrels must just prefer the pecans to acorns because I won't see them gathering acorns in the fall until they've run out of pecans to find, eat and bury. With our fruit trees, the squirrels won't touch a plum at all until the peaches all have been harvested (by either us or the squirrels). Once the peaches are gone, it is open season on the plums. For whatever reason, squirrels seldom bother the figs, although various birds will eat the figs if they get a chance to do so. I put out cracked corn for the doves, and the crows come to eat it. Consequently, the crows don't seem to bother the pecans much. My favorite thing, though, is that being fed cracked corn makes the crows very territorial. That works to our advantage, because we let our chickens out of the fenced/roofed chicken run to free range for a portion of every day, Hawks try to prey upon our chickens, but the crows will relentlessly chase away the hawks all day long. In our case, the crows are the lesser of two evils, and probably are the reason we rarely lose a chicken to a hawk. Our native pecan trees produce relatively small nuts, but their flavor is superb, and I'd rather have them than larger nuts (with less flavor) from some of the commercial varieties of pecans. Dawn

Deanna, I have no experience with that particular model, but have been a Toyota owner for many years, previously a Corolla and currently a RAV-4. I can tell you that both of these cars were great, never left me stranded, didn't cost me much to maintain, got great gas mileage and ran forever! I had over 200,000 miles on the Corolla when it "died"....I don't remember exactly what it's issue was at the time. My 1997 RAV has 238,000 miles on it and still runs like a top. I have had the RAV for nearly 10 years, and other than regular maintenance, I have only had to replace the timing chain (about $700) in all that time. When she goes, I will surely get another Toyota! Hope this helps! Linda

I appreciate this topic gibby, because it's all been swirling and twirling in my head as I see our standards of living have changed. I was telling dh this morning that I was grateful we did our remodeling when we did, as I think none of it would have happened if ''then'' were ''now''. Fortunately for us, we didn't do any of it until we could pay for it, and we bought our home before housing prices shot through the roof. You know, now that I think about it, our Standards haven't really changed, only the amount of dollars I feel free to make choices with have. I waste far less, and value what I do have more. In fact, thinking about it realistically, I feel like I've always been able to live well, even on little money because I don't actually value the things people have...yet more their personal qualities. Whatever happens, I know I have the skills to get through it. I've had no money, and ''some'' money, and fortunately know how to economize. It doesn't bother me to drive an old car, or do my entertaining at home. I don't get in my car anymore however, and ''go places'' like I used to! It wouldn't hurt most of us to eat less, drive less or consume less of almost everything. Reuse and recycling as a lifestyle because it's necessary, is good for the planet. Finding alternative choices to fossil fuels is going to be painful until we figure it out, and the high price of oil/food looks like the spark that's finally going to bring about change. Our personal struggle with this economy is figuring out what it's going to take (in the future) to live on a fixed income as we near retirement. More of our $$ seem to go now to cover basic living expenses, whereas before we were better able to save. A friend of mine is worried for her newly married daughter and son-in-law who don't seem to have a handle on how to manage their money. It's their generation I'm also concerned for as they seem less skilled at how to handle credit, and so many feel entitled to have it all. They don't want to buy anything ''used'', even when they don't have the $ to manage their desires. Bankruptcy is a term that is part of their vocabulary as they try to figure it out. You know, it often takes a crisis to learn how to rise to the challenge. I'm just grateful that today, I feel capable of coping! The good news is, with all that's changing so drastically...we're all in the same boat. As our priorities take a different shape, hopefully so do our values as a society.

Did you decide yet, jewels? I think there are many good cars out there, and you probably will be happy with whatever you get. I'm driving a new CRV and am happy with it. The back up camera, lane assist warning, right turn camera and other safety features are great. We've driven Hondas for decades. DH has a pilot, others in the family have the Odyssey and an Accord. I considered the Accord, but the CRV is a little smaller and fit in the garage better, also in parking spaces better. My other car was 12 years old and still had a lot of life left in it, but I'm very happy to be driving something newer.