Darrell

I've used far fewer than expendable, above, but I've had no failures at all.

PM inbound

I'm a fan of Lee Alox. I would think that cooking up one's own recipe would be messy and probably more expensive. Check out the price of bee's wax.

^^^ My wife and I spent a week driving around eastern Tennessee to see if we wanted to move here. It became notable to us if we drove more than three or four miles without seeing a church! There were places where we saw churches on both sides of the road. We've been here a tad over five years and really like it. But as Fujimo states above, the prices seem to be skyrocketing. I see five acre parcels selling in my area for well over what I paid for my 20. So it goes.

Well, darn it! I wish we were a bit closer. That's a pretty fair price these days.

The costs of running a brick and mortar store are MUCH higher than running a mail-order business. I wouldn't have suspected quite that much price difference, though.

The dog that moved in here, uninvited, finally convinced me that a fence was needed. But I have a big property with a lot of woods, and a fence wasn't super-practical. So I bought a Halo collar, and subscribed ($6.00 a month) to their service. It's worked VERY well for Katy. You use something like Google earth to define an area that the dog is allowed to roam free within. Once that's defined the collar and application work together using GPS. When the dog gets within 10 feet or so of the boundary, she gets an audible warning. If she get to the boundary, she gets a shock. And Katy WAS in shock for the first few days, wondering, I suppose, where the monster in the woods came from. But within a very short time she was well aware of her boundaries and respects them. She'll walk out to the mailbox with me, but stop a bit short of the warning boundary and wait for me to return. Even a filthy squirrel can't entice her to cross those boundaries, which is amazing. The system isn't cheap, about $500, but compared to a fence it's not bad. And one can change those boundaries at will. If you go on vacation you can easily set a new area for the dog, though I've not tried that.

I miss shooting mine. It's hard to find a safe place to let er rip.

VERY funny! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF2hYNS9NqA&t=21s&ab_channel=AaronKengAvar

A farmer named Clyde had a tractor accident. In court, the trucking company's fancy hot shot lawyer, was questioning Clyde. "Didn't you say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine,'?" asked the lawyer. Clyde responded, "Well, I'll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite cow, Bessie, into the..." "I didn't ask for any details", the lawyer interrupted. "Just answer the question, ...please. Did you, or did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine!'?" Clyde said, "Well, I had just got Bessie into the trailer behind the tractor and I was driving down the road...." The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Your Honor, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question." By this time, the Judge was fairly interested in Clyde's answer and said to the lawyer, "I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favorite cow, Bessie". Clyde thanked the Judge and proceeded. "Well, as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite cow, into the trailer and was driving her down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my John Deer Tractor right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurting, real bad and didn't want to move. However, I could hear old Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans. Shortly after the accident a Highway Patrolman came on the scene. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning, so he went over to her. After he looked at her, and saw her fatal condition, he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes. Then the Patrolman came across the road, gun still in hand, looked at me, and said, "How are you feeling?" "Now tell me, what the heck would you say?"

I, too, have a number of arms in the safe that have been fired very little, and a few that haven't been fired at all. Like a lot of guys on here I just find it hard to resist adding one. But I tend to be a buyer, not a seller. The guys that I've transacted with from TGO have all, without exception, been on the up-and-up, and I wouldn't hesitate to deal with any of them again. But of course it's always important to check out what you're buying and satisfy yourself that the deal is fair.

It seems that a fairly large percentage of neighborhood disputes involve dogs, and trying to discuss barking or aggressive dogs often results in hard feelings. We live in a time where people have trouble taking responsibility.

I'm not seeing the problem there.....

Assuming that you're walking on a public road, you have every right to do so. YOU are not waking the man, his uncontrolled dogs are. I find it incredible that the police told you not to walk on the road. Whomever told you that just doesn't want to deal with the situation. You might consider wearing a body cam and getting the neighbor on video. You might also consider speaking with an attorney. What a rotten situation! Good luck. Added by edit: My initial assumption was that your neighbor was carrying a rifle as a way to intimidate you, which is illegal. But it's possible that he was carrying his rifle because he didn't know what was riling his dogs, not as a means to intimidate you. When I go outside to investigate a noise or something, I am always armed, though not always visibly.

Off-topic, but I've made the same comment about motorcycle dealerships. I worked for the Navy, and young sailors would come off a deployment with a sack full of money, go to the MC shop, and ride off on a bike that they had no business on.