One of her neighbors found my mom. She had a massive brain anyurism(sp?) while she was apparently taking in her trash barrel and collapsed on the driveway. Since she was so petite no one noticed she was behind the barrel for 2 days. Then one neighbor noticed the newspaper not taken in and the normally closed garage door open a long time and went and checked around and found her. We'd just taken her out for breakfast the day before she passed away. She said she was going to go to the dentist and do some stuff with friends so don't bother calling for a few days, so I didn't go over like I usually did. It was just awful. The police called me. It was a terrible shock. The county coroner had to do an autopsy, which determined an anyurism (sp?) said that she was probably gone within a minute or so...was probably unconsious within seconds... There was messages on the phone from the Dentist and her friends, saying, 'hey, did you forget your schedule?' Several of my Mom's neighbors and my Mom had all lived there 40+ years (my Mom and Dad were "the new people"--only 33 years) and they all sort of watched out for each other. They had all informally agreed to keep an eye out for each other. It is baffling that they did not notice the NY gentleman had gone missing. But what I hope is that he passed away painlessly in his sleep, without suffering. That is really what matters, that he was not there helpless in need of care, and ended up dying before he should have. We are just all in such a hurry these days, tangled in our own little webs.

I really like the color! What a wonderful neighbor you have. And I'm sorry to hear you lost some orchids. Sharon

What happe to the poo smell? i have two medium dogs and we have a dog run/bathroom at the sid eof our house. old house and again at our new house. we had different levels of pebles of diffe sizes to help drainage. we would not leave poo more than a cou hours but usuall picked up as it happend and sealed in a compost container that is meant to keep smell trapped.. but the pee is a probem. we would use baking soda all over and then spray water. Luckily it wasnt near my neighbours used area. But still i felt bad. our garbage was picked up every two weeks but the compost container really sealed the smell. The baking soda worked but needed to bough in bulk. our dogs refused to go pee/poo on their walks. they would save it for the bathroom when they got home. even if they did tinkle when out, they’d go straight to their bathroom when they got home and finish the job. also laying fresh rocks helped but picking up, spraying down and a lot of baking soda is necessary. and you cant have it near a well used area.

We moved from a VERY small community of about 100 in December. We weren't looking either, but a realtor friend that knew our tastes called with "the perfect house" - we looked, we bought. We planned to break the news to everyone when we put the house on the market figuring it would take a few months to sell & we'd still be in & out while we worked on the new house. However, we sold it to the first person we told (not neighbors) & they wanted to close on December 15 - we had 2 weeks to prep the new, fix the old, move, etc. & we were keeping such odd hours that we never ran into anyone to tell them. All of them were nice, great neighbors, but we didn't "hang out" with any of them. They are probably mad at us or feel offended that we "up & left" but it was unavoidable. We never dreamed it would happen so fast!