new here thought I would say hi.

[IrishAyes]

14. Hello

DU's edginess is well founded. However, I feel you should be commended at least for the great care you seem to be taking for safety. You'd get that extra 5 seconds warning if you had a dog - any little yapper will do, so long as you don't leave it where burglars can reach it to make friends when no one's home.

For 16 years I had 2 chows and never worried a second; slept with my windows open, too, even though I'm a cautious single lady. Didn't have to worry about leaving them in the yard when I was gone because I poison-trained them myself, and most people didn't want to reach over the fence to get friendly. At night they slept right next to me.

May I ask, hopefully without raising hackles, why/when/where you carry your gun on your hip? Do you live in the outback as I used to? (Yes, I know they don't allow guns in Australia, and I'm not from there; but I prefer the word over sticks or boonies.) I don't approve of carrying in hardly any situation myself. Yet even in California I could and did w/o any special permission when on horseback cross country because of the snake issue.