Tammy Lankford- lake sinclair

Today I spent part of the day out and about checking on my listings. Tonight we have our first freeze warning. It's early for that, but mother nature didn't really ask us, she just sent it. And out in the rural area where I live many homes still have wells. And your well house needs several things:

• Insulation
• Wrapped pipes that exposed
• A light bulb or spotlight

I also switched many homes from the A/C to the heat today. Usually in a vacant home I just set it on about 58, that is enough to keep things from freezing.

And if you haven't had a chimeny sweep, you should have that done before burning a fire. And hopefully you have remembered to check your propane tank and make sure it's full and had your furnace checked out by a professional.

And tonight, bring your pets inside.

And after a hard freeze I go back and check these homes again to just make sure everything is okay.

My foreclosure homes have all been winterized. Wells turned off, pipes drained and open and anti-freeze in all toliet bowls and tanks. They also have the power on with the heat on a low setting as well.

The tempatures are supposed to be back near 80 by the end of the week, which I will be thankful for as I'm really not so much a winter person. I'm VERY happy at 95 with 90% humidity. Heat doesn't bother me so much. Cold on the other hand.... I don't like so much. I usually get cold by Thanksgiving and thaw out sometime around Memorial Day.

This was last years's pumpkin patch. Thanks Jay Reber, youth minister at First Baptist Church for providing me with lovely photos and letting me use them in my post.

The Pumpkin Patch is open for 2009. Lots of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes for sale. Each morning around 10 am it opens. So if you are in the Putnam County- Eatonton, Lake Sinclair, Lake Oconee area please head downtown Eatonton to 115 N. Madison Avenue to purchase your pumpkins.

That patch will be open until October 31st.

Oh and you can also join us for our Fall Festival and Chili Cook Off and Silent Auction on Sunday October 25th from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.

There will be hay rides, games, cake walk and hotdogs and chips and lots of chili. Come enter your chili in the contest! Be sure to sample and vote.

The silent auction will benefit the FBC Children's Committee.

And remember that you can also use pumpkins for those Thanksgiving pies too. Or you could make a Turkey with your pumpkin

And you are always invited to Church too! I've been working with the children's Sunday school program for 18 years. Currently k-4 through 5th grades enjoy a rotation model that includes a story week, a puppet week, a cooking week and an arts and crafts week to make Bible lesson learning fun and memorable. I'd love to see your children there.

But don't forget to stop by the Pumpkin Patch... I'm sure we have "the Great Pumpkin" that Linus was looking every Halloween!

I have a busy busy busy schedule.

I am at work 6 or 7 days a week for 8 to 12 hours a day. I teach Sunday school and have for 18 years now. I have two large dogs and 3 regular sized cats.

I don't "do" yard work. And if anyone reading this has a television you know that the southeast USA experienced a few years of terrible drought and I needed something that was drought resistant and could live without pruning, watering and dead heading.

I went to Agee Lawn & Garden center and asked them what I could plant and forget about, but the birds would enjoy and would be pretty. This was their recommendation. I guess I forgot to mention that I would be bordering my steps with them and might still need to be able to navigate the steps. Yes I could just whack off the parts of the plant that are encroaching on my steps. But there are pretty blooms there and I can't whack them off. And asking Donald to relocate them, well that really doesn't seem like a good option either.

Thankfully it's fall and they will soon be a pile of dried up sticks and I can simply take one day and cut the off and throw them in a compost pile and once again use my steps. But I'm thinking that next summer I might have to do a little more maintenance want to or not.

But we planted them about 5 years ago and have done NOTHING and they are doing beautifully. The humming birds and butterflies have enjoyed them and I have enjoyed the hummingbirds and butterflies.

So if you are looking for something to plant and take up a lot of space get Lantana. Have other ideas about what you might want or more time to garden just ask the folks at Agee and they will help you

Agee Lawn and Garden

3008 N Columbia St
Milledgeville, GA 31061-8793

Staff Sgt. Alex French IV, 31, of Milledgeville, was a member of the National Guard's 48th Brigade, which deployed to Afghanistan earlier this year.

He was killed on September 30th. His body was due to arrive at the local Milledgeville airport at 8:00 a.m. but the weather has prevented the plane from landing here. He will now be taken to the Macon Georgia airport around 12:30 p.m. today and the procession will make its way to Millegeville around 2:30 p.m. today.

My husband will be there to show his support to the family and respect to Staff Sgt. French. Although younger than my husband they have walked the same path.

Staff Sgt. French entered the Navy after high school and served until 2000. That's the same year my husband was honorable discarged from the army. And although their paths did not intersect Staff Sgt. French went to work where my husband did in Milledgeville GA with the GA dept. of Corrections in 2001. He later took a job with the Bibb County Sheriff's department where he was employed when his guard unit was called up.

My heart goes out to his family and my husband and I will be there to honor him when he comes home for the final time today.

First of all, our buyer was very savy. She really did her homework and picked out homes in neighborhoods she liked that she wanted to see prior to showing up to see properties.

She quickly narrowed down to just 3 and we got lots more details on those 3. Disclosures, taxes, plats, reasons why sellers were selling. She chose the one she wanted to make an offer on and we quickly worked out the details.

We suggested the loan officer and attorney that we knew would make the deal go smothly and the purchaser took our advice is NO hesitation. *Quite the refreshing change.

Yesterday when we did the pre closing walk through was the only little glitch we came across. But I was prepared for it and cleaned out the refrigerator myself. After all I was driving by a trash dump on my way home.

Why the seller thought the purchaser might actually want his half full ketchup and open pack of hotdogs and the like is beyond me. After all he drove past those same dumpsters the day before.

My loan officer, Debra Boice, had the package to the attorney for todays closing last Wednesday and she was there at the closing today. Debra always comes to the closing. She is also hands on from start to finish. Although Synovus is a huge corporation it doesn't feel like one. And though Debra does have a wonderful processor that takes care of many of the details along the way Debra stays involved and hands on. This is much the same way I run my real estate office and maybe that's one reason I like her so much.

Oh and did I mention she brought me a key lime pie to thank me for the business. She's an absolute delight to get to know and work with.

If you are anywhere in the state of Georgia and looking for a wonderful loan officer... Debra is your girl. And you just might get a key lime pie too.

Thanks Debra for making this one easy. As we've discussed many times lately it's rare these days, but you seem to know how to make it happen.