I think they'd look cool just painted black and standing in a garden! What about using them to make a horse head fountain, have it spitting water into an old galvinized tub or something.

How did the sale go? I can't believe how good you are at sculpturing the foam. Wish I could do that. A couple yrs. back, when I was in PV during Riana's class, she said the foam things mosaicists were making wouldn't hold up as long as the works in her technique. Do you know the life expectancy of the polystyrene for exterior works? In my case, it surely would be easier to switch to it. It is becoming more difficult for me to cut the lath. However, I don't even know where to get the polystyrene. Probably not in Texarkana, so might would have to order it?

Ellen, we have clay that is like concrete once it's dried out. What we do to start a new raised bed is to break up the soil as deep as we can (during the 2 weeks we can dig either spring or after the rains start in Oct, Nov), top it with a good load of HM, water that in several times, then construct the beds with hardware cloth for gophers. Start adding a good vege garden mix ( Most places in our area are certified organic, including the dump), water that in, add a few more inches, water in etc. Watering it in helps settle it so you don't have a huge drop over the winter rains. I add a few inches of compost each year and till it in with my mini tiller. I have had to re-do a couple of beds, and have been able to dig right down into the soil, even mid summer in these areas! I've also found that areas that I've had my compost bins are really great and diggable! I'm now moving my compost around and actually composting right on a fallow bed! Nancy

Carol, What a horrible day for you and the chickens! I hope the little injured one survives and that the scared one roaming the neighborhood comes home before something else gets it. Stray dogs (of unknown origin, not the neighbors' pets) that get after our chickens don't make the same mistake twice. You don't have to shoot them....just fire into the ground near them and that usually scares them off for a good long time, if not forever. I also have run off stray dogs and cats that are after our chickens or chicks with a Super Soaker Water gun. Most of them do not appreciate being blasted with a strong stream of water. Our neighbors don't let their dogs roam, so we don't usually have a problem unless someone has dumped dogs in the country, an all-too-common occurrence. Most dumped dogs meet a sad end. No none here will shoot them the first time they kill a lamb, foal or calf....or chickens, ducks, turkeys or geese...but they might shoot them the second time after calling around to all the nearby neighbors and making sure they do not belong to anyone here in the area. Feral dogs, starving, running in packs.....attacking livestock (or pet dogs or cats).....tend to meet a sad fate. I won't say our neighbors' dogs or cats never come to visit us or that our dogs or cats don't go visit them, but it is friendly visitation, not with the chasing of or killing of livestock involved. We once had three stray dogs get into our original chicken coop and chicken run and kill our entire flock not long after we moved here. We lost about 40 chickens, turkeys and ducks in one brutal afternoon. The dogs were still inside the chicken run (they'd dug under the fence to get in) when we got home and Tim dispatched them with extreme prejudice. My mild-manner, easy-going husband was as mad as I've ever see him. We now have concrete running about 6" down into the ground where the chicken run fencing meets the ground and it has, so far, kept coons, skunks and dogs from digging into the enclosed chicken runs. You're a better person than me. I might have located the chickens, chased the dogs and then beaten the owners. Well, I'm just kidding about that as I am a non-violent person, but I would have been madder than a wet hen and the dog owners would have known in no uncertain terms just how upset I was. If a dog that belongs to a neighbor is so much as standing on our property watching our poultry, Tim immediately calls the owner and tells them to come get their dogs off our property or he'll shoot the dogs. He doesn't have to do it often because they come right away to get their dogs. They know Tim means business. The people in our neighborhood who had 35 dogs they let roam freely moved away about 5 or 6 years ago and everyone in this neighbor was relieved/overjoyed to see them and their dogs go. There was more trouble over those roaming dogs than you'd believe as they often killed poultry, foals and calves. Calling the owners was no good---they just said "if the dogs are bothering your animals, shoot them", and they said that knowing that everyone in our neighborhood tends to be soft-hearted dog lovers who do not want to shoot any dog. They were the most irresponsible people we've ever had the misfortune to live close to. Except for them, we've never had a bad neighbor, but even great neighbors can have dogs that just won't leave poultry alone. Dawn