Can you look upon the canyon as an investment? A place to go in those times when you don't need snowshoes to get in and out of it? But still know it's there for when you can? If you don't need the liquidity of a bank, it's still your asset and when you no longer need it, your children can keep it........or turn it back into money when you're not around to grieve the loss. We have some beautiful country here too. Not the type of beauty you have there, but still beautiful and wild in a different way. When you've lived a good part of your life in those surroundings, it seeps into your blood and finds its way to your heart and becomes part of who you are. Even if you live in the heart of a city, it's still there.

Didn't really wont to bring this post back up to the top but i thought I would pass along how things have been going and since the pictures of my pond where already here I brought it back to the top . Well one word would explain a lot, that word would be COLD here in middle TN, at least colder then what we are costume to, but nothing to whatsome of you have been having to deal with. My pond being mostly above ground and in the middle of my yard has faired rather well considing everything eles frozen solid around here. I had no choice but to pertect the pond from the cold in what ever way I could find. See pictures above of my above ground pond. The coldest day was during the night this past Saturday with a morning temp Sunday morning of 4 degress, with windchill of -10 Burrrrrrrrrr.. The cold weather moved in the first of last week, snowed some, but the temps and the windchill was what had me veryyyyyyy worried. I purchased a duct brown canvus type tarp that would fit over the entire pond all the way down to the ground and used stretch cords to secure the tarp down around the rail road ties and had the pond pump about a foot below the water surface for water movement. I had already taken down the stock tank bio filter due to the fish death's I had early in December. Well when Saturday came and the weather forcast was giving out near 0, I went out and put another heavy duty tarp over the pond and stretch cords around it again. I tested the water before I put on the first tarp and everything looked good, but I was worried since the pond has been covered now for about 6 days yesterday, I could here the water moving due to the pump so I knew it wasn't frozen. I went out and undone one corner and tested the water and all the readings looked purfect and I turned off the pump for a few minutes and had to use a flashlight to see if the fishies where alive and doing ok..They where just fine and seem to have survived this cold spell without any problems. The tarps saved my little pond form a total disaster I sure. To my surprise there wasn't any ice that had formed in the pond during the last 6 days. I had night mares dreaming of my pond freezing solid and expanding and busting at the seems pushing out the rail road ties and being nothing but a big block of ice. I counted 13 kio, and goldfish and no one was floating. So maybe I can relax at least until the next round of old winter blowes in. Sandy

Krycek1984, I want to address a few points brought up in your post. First, there's really need for more personal attacks. There were enough of those already in this thread. While I sometimes disagree with iforgotitsonevermind, she certainly isn't generally ignorant, and even when she and I see things in almost totally opposite ways, I don't think she tries to be arrogant. Maybe she gets a little over excited, but don't well all. Iforgotitsonevermind's concern was not whether mimosa is currently considered an invasive pest in the area, but whether it had the potential to be in the near future. Your assurance that it "will not become an invasive species unless global warming goes crazy", falls short of convincing me. As I said above, I'm not convinced that it will ever become a problem, but your assertion, that it's not even close, doesn't convince me the other way, either, and seems to be based more on feeling than proof. Your question about who cares if you plant Bradford pears can have many answers including a number of invasive plant groups (which are concerned about their damage to the environment in many areas), neighbors (who worry about the trees falling over the property line onto their car, producing a foul smell, or making the neighborhood ugly when they fall apart at an early age), and those that want to share information they've learned from their mistakes or observations.

I wouldn't. It doesn't sound like your HOA is interested, despite your best intentions. I honestly think it would waste your time as most people aren't going to read it, and I would be surprised if the board read it. I'm not trying to insult you or your efforts, but most people have very short attention spans and will, at most, skim a lengthy term paper style letter. As someone who is part of an HOA, if someone presented a paper to me trying to persuade me to give a one-time fee, I would politely say thanks and put it aside. I don't necessarily think the suggestion is a bad one, but before I agree to give up several thousands of dollars to an HOA, I would want to know exactly where it's going, who is managing it, what happens if I sell, what benefits we will see, how it will reduce my monthly HOA dues and how it will improve my life. And I would need to see specific examples, not generalizations like landscaping or road maintenance. People are often mistrusting of the HOA, and I would not buy a home that required a $2k HOA fee when I have no knowledge of what it's like and what the benefits are to me. And I realize you're in a catch 22 as you can't give specifics if it's still a hypothetical situation, and you can't turn it into an actual situation without support. I honestly didn't see anything wrong with their correspondence to you, except maybe the "have it defeated once & for all" was a little harshly stated. For some constructive criticism, based on your email, you add a lot of unnecessary detail into what you're writing, and I think that could be causing some of your problems. I would put it in a very succinct, factual presentation without a lot of hyperbolic descriptions. As a rule, you have seconds to keep and hold a reader's attention. Just because they should be reading the whole thing, doesn't mean that they are. It sounds like they are tired of hearing from you. I don't think that's right of them, but you might be better served to back up a bit. I would probably talk to neighbors you are friendly with and see what they think without handing them all your research, and go from there. Good luck, I think it's important to come up with new ideas and I'm sorry you're not seeing the support you would like.