Fall comes to the country. September 18, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in chickens, critters, gardening, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: autumn, CSA, fall, signs of fall
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Our friend Ben and Silence Dogood just returned from our local CSA (organic subscription farm), Quiet Creek Farm, here in scenic PA. It was a beautiful afternoon, cool and bright, and we especially enjoyed picking ‘Dragon Tongue’ beans (our very favorites, large-podded but tender purple-flecked yellow pods), basil and cilantro, and hot peppers, including the beautiful ‘Lemon Drop’ habaneros, from the U-Pick garden. (Silence has promised to make a special hot salsa for our heat-loving friend and fellow blog contributor, Richard Saunders, and let him name it.)
The lovely wooded drive out to the CSA was full of signs of fall: sumacs beginning to flame into orange and red, roadbanks spilling over with goldenrod, purple native asters, and white-flowered nettles. (We encourage these to grow at Hawk’s Haven, too; fortunately, they’re not stinging nettles! And the foliage is the most gorgeous blue-green, making them ornamental long before the plants flower.)
But these weren’t the signs of fall that struck us the most as we meandered along. Hawk’s Haven is tucked among farm fields, and we were startled to see how much the fields had changed in the short week since we’d last driven out.
Corn is the most noticeable crop, because around here it grows so high that it literally cuts off the surrounding view. To say that it’s as high as an elephant’s eye would only be true if you were talking about a really, really enormous elephant. For just one example, a month ago Silence mentioned to our friend Ben that the obnoxious floodlight of our across-the-road neighbor, which shines directly into our bedroom windows, had gone out. She’d been puzzled but relieved that he hadn’t replaced it. Straining to see, our friend Ben pointed out that he hadn’t replaced it because it hadn’t gone out. The field corn was simply so tall that it blocked the floodlight, and that field is at least four feet lower than the road!
On our country drive, we noticed that the corn stalks were drying out. Some were completely tawny; others (like the ones across the road) were just beginning to yellow. This begins a distinct phase in our seasonal cycle, because dried corn talks. It whispers; it murmurs; it rustles. We find corn a rather ominous crop anyway, since it grows so fast you can leave the house in the morning and come back a few hours later and literally—quite literally—see a height difference. But to hear those stalks audibly plotting among themselves every fall is to understand why corn mazes (a popular local feature) are scary and why “Children of the Corn” is a horror movie.
Corn wasn’t the only crop that the cool weather had transformed. Fields of soybeans were suddenly reduced to brown, leafless stalks with a few dried pods clinging to the stems. Soon they and the corn will be stored in silos and corn cribs, an abundant crop for the cattle, hogs, horses, chickens, and sheep. (Actually, I don’t know about the sheep; I suspect they’ll be enjoying hay from the earlier, abundant wheat and oats that filled the fields in spring.)
In any event, looking at those brown and gold fields said “fall” to our friend Ben and Silence in a way that even harvesting our adorable little pumpkins (from a volunteer vine in one of our compost bins) couldn’t. The year is ripening to harvest. Abundance rejoices. All the more so, knowing the long, dark winter is just around the bend.
The thing about men. September 18, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: blog humor, dreams, Johnny Depp
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Silence Dogood here. Yesterday, I wrote a post called “Alien bunnies, or the blog I should have done” about a blog concept based on a dream I’d had. So last night, I had another vivid dream. In this dream, I was editorial director of some magazine and was sitting at a large folding table on a beautiful beach with my art director and production manager.
Scenic, but not exactly thrilling, right? But wait: The reason why we were out there was that we were overseeing a photo shoot with Johnny Depp in all his piratical glory, surrounded by three models-as-mermaids and assorted shells, beach glass, pieces-of-eight, and so on strewn artistically on the sand. Not to overstate this, but I was sitting about two yards away from Johnny Depp.
So this morning I’m telling our friend Ben about this and he says, “But did anything interesting happen in this dream?”
Men.
‘Til next time,
Silence
Alien bunnies, or the blog I should have done. September 17, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in critters, wit and wisdom.Tags: alien bunnies, blog humor
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Silence Dogood here. Does this happen to you? You’re constantly having great ideas, thinking up fantastic inventions, and the like. There’s just one problem: You’re incapable of turning the idea into reality. It just sort of hangs out there in space, tantalizing you with the concept of all the money you could be making, if only. If only you had the technological ability to make your idea or invention a reality.
This is, tragically, what separates you from Henry Ford and Thomas Edison and George Washington Carver and Bill Gates, and, say, the inventor of styrofoam peanuts or the pumpkin garbage bag: Unlike them, you simply can’t get from here to there. Your brilliant concept is as far out of reach as the dazzling stars in the night sky. Or, sometimes, as an apple dangling temptingly on a 30-foot-tall branch. That’s the case for things like children’s books, which I can write with great delight, but know I’ll never get published unless I have an illustrator. An illustrator, moreover, who’s willing to work for free until we do find a publisher. Strangely, I don’t know any. Sigh.
So the other night, I was having a dream about getting engaged to Hugh Grant. In retrospect, I think this was because our friend Ben and I had been watching the series version of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which is much concerned with Precious Ramotswe’s engagement to Mr. JLB Matekoni.
In any event, I’m trying not to think about why I was getting engaged to Hugh Grant. But in the dream, our outing to choose an engagement ring was rudely interrupted by the arrival of a horde of alien bunnies from space. These were not live bunnies by any means; rather, they were stuffed animals like Easter bunnies, but far more ominous, with glittering button eyes and bodies made of dead birds. And they were marching closer and closer…
Needless to say, OFB has not let me live this down. In fact, he’s brought up the topic of alien bunnies at least once a night since I had the dream. (GRRRR.) Then last night it hit me: This was the perfect blog. I happen to still have a battered old Easter bunny from early childhood. It was a favorite toy and had been loved pretty much to death long before it began its sojourn in assorted attics. By now, it probably looks almost as scary as an alien bunny.
So, I thought, imagine a blog called “Alien Bunnies: Adventures of Our Deadliest Foes.” Every day shows a new photo of the battered bunny in some location or other, ominous in the lack of commentary. There’s the location, there’s the bunny… What is it doing there? Is it watching that birdfeeder with its one good eye? How did it get on top of that stoplight? What’s it doing in that cab, and what happened to the driver?
I can see the cult following now. There are just two problems: I can’t take a photograph to save my life. And I wouldn’t know how to upload one if I could. Technology is hell. So I guess it’s back to the drawing board. And Hugh Grant, wherever you are, sorry about that!
‘Til next time,
Silence
Constitution Day September 17, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in Ben Franklin, wit and wisdom.Tags: Bill of Rights, Constitution Day, individual freedoms, U.S. Constitution
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It’s me, Richard Saunders of Poor Richard’s Almanac fame, here to remind you that today, September 17, is Constitution Day. On September 17, 1787, eleven years after the Declaration of Independence, George Washington and other patriots such as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, and Robert Morris signed the Constitution into law. It begins:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The Constitution goes on to delineate the powers of the Congress, the President, the judicial branch, and the states. It’s a comparatively concise document, and you can read it in its entirety in about five minutes online at websites such as http://www.usconstitution.net/. And on the same website, you can read the amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, those individual rights championed by James Madison and others that insure our individual liberty and safety as U.S. citizens.
Though certain amendments, such as the right to bear arms, freedom of speech, religion, and assembly, not to mention the passage and repeal of Prohibition, have gained considerably more attention than other amendments, I’d like to bring two to your attention:
Amendment 9, ratified 12/15/1791: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10, also ratified 12/15/1791: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
What these amendments collectively make clear is that the Constitution was not designed to delineate the rights of the people, but the function of the branches of government and the role of the individual states versus the central government. As they clearly state, just because an individual right is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution or Bill of Rights does not invalidate it; rather, unless it is specifically invalidated in one of these documents, it is presumed to be in effect.
Talk about empowering! These days, we too often look to the government as a sort of super-nanny, telling us when we have permission to breathe or speak or cross the road unsupervised. But these amendments tell us the Founders had very different ideas, that we Americans were free to live our own lives and make our own way unless we violated a comparatively few overarching laws. That we were being viewed as adults agreeing to a collective government by consent, not children being told what we could and couldn’t do.
Really? Absolutely. Go to the website, read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and see for yourself. It is not, ultimately, our tripartate government, but the guaranteed rights of the individual, that sets America apart and makes us great.
Happy Constitution Day!
—RS
The good, the bad and the ugly. September 16, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: celebrity, Eagles, Michael Vick, Philadelphia Eagles, privacy
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Silence Dogood here. Yesterday, I wrote a post about the “youthanization” of Dr. Mehmet Oz, and what a shame it was that someone who was both relatively young and quite attractive, not to mention a recognized expert in his field, still felt he had to resort to plastic surgery and drastic weight loss to be acceptable to an American audience on his own show. I received a very pertinent response from Joy of the delightful blog Garden Joy 4 Me (http://gardenjoy4.blogspot.com/).
Joy pointed out the we create these media-generated monsters by supporting them with our hard-earned cash. If we didn’t pay to see their movies or buy their music or wear their branded clothing and etc., and instead spent our money in support of real people whose appearance was not more important than their achievements, then perhaps the plastic people would simply fade away.
Given that humanity is hardwired for infatuation with youth and beauty, for procreational purposes if nothing else, I doubt that surgical enhancement will be going away anytime soon. But Joy’s comment brought to mind a controversy that’s been roiling around my part of Pennsylvania ever since the start of football season: What if it’s not the face but the soul that’s ugly?
Our local paper has been fielding readers’ and columnists’ opinions for weeks about the Philadelphia Eagles’ decision to hire Michael Vick. For those who don’t know, Vick is an extremely talented quarterback who also happens to have spent the last two years in jail for promoting a dogfighting ring. Dogfighting, of course, is when people release two dogs into a ring to literally tear each other apart while heartless people watch, place bets, and cheer on their favorites, not oblivious to the animals’ pain and suffering but excited by it. Mr. Vick has been paid a million dollars this year for his work with the Eagles; if they renew his contract, his price will go up considerably.
Many people in this area are huge Eagles fans, and the hiring of Michael Vick has thrown a lot of them into confusion. There’s a sizeable contingent that says he did a bad thing, he served his time, he’s incredibly talented and it’s time to give him another chance. And there’s an opposing contingent that says this man is a monster and now he’s playing for a team we love and being paid a million dollars; the Eagles have betrayed us.
I don’t know the right answer here, but I do think the Michael Vick issue is part of our whole celebrity culture rather than an isolated case. We put up with media celebrities’ astonishingly appalling behavior for the sake of their talent; I have not seen people getting up in arms over stars’ overt drug use or public drunkenness or promiscuity or general acting-out. Instead, we just keep buying their clothes and seeing their movies and watching their shows and listening to their music. Or, say, watching their tennis matches or bike races or ball games or what have you, even when they admit that their talents are steroid-enhanced. We pay, they play, simple as that.
As an animal lover, I would not have hired Michael Vick. But I can understand why the Eagles did. They were buying talent, not virtue or even humanity, simple as that. And given the reality of our culture, I think fighting that would be a losing battle. What I do think we all must do is to separate ourselves and our families from the celebrities. (And mind you, I realize that many celebrities work hard to give back and use their star status to do good; I’m certainly not speaking of them.)
Rather than encouraging our children to worship and imitate them, or worse still, doing it ourselves, we need to make every effort to tell our kids that these aren’t real people, that they’re sacrifices. That their entire lives are manipulated by others, from the places they go to the people they supposedly date to the slant of their eyebrows or brand of their shoes or every single bite—the few they’re allowed, anyway—that goes into their mouths. They pay an enormous price for their fame, a price no one should be forced to pay, and it includes a total sacrifice of privacy. Many are forced to grow up in the glare of the paparazzi’s flash, so what would be minor transgressions in a typical kid are plastered across every tabloid.
The fact that any of them survive and mature amazes me. We “ordinary” citizens are blessed beyond belief not to be a Princess Di or a Rihanna or a Lindsay Lohan or a Jennifer Aniston or a Paris Hilton. Nobody’s snooping around us 24/7, prying into our private lives, taking photos of us in our bikinis and then pointing out every ounce of cellulite on the front page. And yes, they’re paid very, very well to be our modern gladiators, tossed in the ring for the media lions to consume. But I think the invasion of privacy is more than any amount of money could possibly be worth.
When any person, celebrity or private citizen, does something that is manifestly wrong, such as torturing animals, in my opinion he should be punished. But for celebrities who have committed no crime, I feel that our voracious need to know every last detail of their personal lives is not just an invasion of privacy but an actual crime itself. In an ideal world, I’d like to see us appreciate these people onscreen or onstage or on the playing field for the talents they bring to their art, and then leave them alone to live their lives in decent and respectful anonymity like anyone else. We Americans embrace our privacy as a right; couldn’t we extend that right to the people who provide us with entertainment? I don’t know about you, but I think they’ve earned it.
‘Til next time,
Silence
Dr. Oz, looking younger. September 15, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: Dr. Gupta, Dr. Oz, Mehmet Oz, Oprah, RealAge
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Silence Dogood here. I’ll bet most of you are familiar with Dr. Mehmet Oz, one of the “YOU” docs on RealAge, coauthor of YOU: Staying Young, and a frequent guest on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Oprah’s Harpo Productions has now created “The Dr. Oz Show,” which of course is being promoted on the RealAge website, complete with promotional photos of Dr. Oz.
Now, I have nothing but admiration for Dr. Oz. In his 49 years, he’s accomplished more than most of us would in 20 lifetimes, beginning with an undergraduate degree from Harvard and simultaneous graduate degrees—an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Wharton Business School. (As if getting either one from these prestigious schools wouldn’t be challenging enough!) And that’s just the beginning, as you’ll discover if you check out his bio on Wikipedia as I did. This is one high achiever. And (cover your ears, OFB) he’s very easy on the eyes as well.
So you can imagine my shock when I saw the photos of the “new and improved” Dr. Oz being used to promote his new show. To repeat, we’re talking about a 49-year-old, attractive, incredibly high-achieving cardiothoracic surgeon here, not a candidate for “Extreme Makeover.” But the promotional photos showed, shall we say, a strikingly younger Dr. Oz. His face was smoother, more chiseled, and considerably leaner than the photos of the “original” Dr. Oz that had graced the RealAge website.
Not that there was anything wrong with the appearance of the “new” Dr. Oz. He looked fantastic. But it strikes me as a condemnation of our superficial society when a comparatively young, undeniably attractive, and hugely respected surgeon has to get a facelift and presumably go on a crash diet in order to get his own TV show.
The RealAge website, and books such as YOU: Looking Younger, are all about choosing the right foods and supplements and exercising, as opposed to, say, plastic surgery. But the “do as I say, not as I do” message clearly reinforces that you’d better never look older than your college-age kids or else. And, folks, we’ve all seen the ghastly results when people just keep trying and trying. (Cher, anyone? George Hamilton?)
Just this past weekend, I was watching a PBS special on Julia Child. And one thing that struck me was how old most of the people being interviewed looked. These were real people, editors and chefs and food mavens and the like who had known Julia back in the day, in all their current wrinkled glory. (Julia looked old too, but since she really was ninety-something at the time of filming, it’s understandable. If you can’t look old in your nineties, even on television, all is lost.)
What I thought as I was watching the special was that you simply never see anyone who looks old on TV or in the movies or in magazines. Sure, character actors may be supposed to be old, the crusty grandpa or fiesty grandma, but even they don’t look old. The hair may be white, they may be wearing “old folks” costumes and walking with a cane, but look at their smooth, made-up faces. Yow. Not a wrinkle in sight. So seeing actual people showing their actual age on this special came as a shock. Look, people really do get old! People really do look old!
As I read about more people in their 30s, and increasingly in their 20s, getting plastic surgery, not to improve some unfortunate feature but to erase the signs of “age,” I have to wonder where on earth our youth-obsessed culture is taking us. Maybe the fact that my family never gets wrinkles has warped my perspective, and if I had prominent crow’s feet in my 20s I’d have been rushing off to the surgeon, too. But I hope not. (And no, we’re not vampires, just in case you’re wondering.) I’d prefer to keep my money in the bank instead of handing it over to the plastic surgeons and ultimately turning into a laughingstock.
Much as I admire Dr. Oz, I think I’m switching allegiance to Dr. Gupta.
‘Til next time,
Silence
Renewable energy festival alert! September 15, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in chickens, critters, gardening, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: green living, green living skills, PA Renewable Energy Fest, sustainable living
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If you live in Pennsylvania, or within easy driving distance, our friend Ben and Silence Dogood enthusiastically recommend the Pennsylvania Renewable Energy & Sustainable Living Festival in Kempton, PA this coming weekend, September 18-20.
A renewable energy festival may not sound like your idea of a good time, unless you happen to be a solar engineer, but we go every year and we’re here to tell you that it’s one of the most fun events of our year. It really is a festival, as well as a great opportunity to learn all about the options for green living. And it really is fun for the whole family.
You’ll find great music (including a concert by Wyndham Hill founder Paul Winter), great locally produced, organic food, tons of local organic produce and baked goods, cheeses, home-canned fruits, veggies, jams, jellies, and much more, not to mention herbs, handmade soaps and lotions, fiber arts, crafts, and books on every kind of sustainable living, from bread-baking to chicken tractors to homemade adobe housing to composting toilets. And, of course, wonderful tee-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, primitive musical instruments, and more from vendors like Northern Sun.
There’s a wide range of kid-friendly activities throughout the festival, from tie-dyeing tee-shirts to visiting with farm animals to riding the wonderful old passenger train through the scenic countryside (adults welcome, too, of course!). Kids 12 and under can attend the festival free, which is more good news, and ages 13-21 get in for half price, at $6 a head.
True, there are about 80 how-to lectures, running the gamut from straw bale construction to feeding a family of four from 1/2 acre, plus workshops on converting your diesel car to run on recycled vegetable oil and how to build your own wind power. You’re bound to find more interesting lectures than you can possibly attend if you go to the festival’s website, www.paenergyfest.com, and check the lecture schedule. You’ll also find hours (9 am-7 pm each day) and directions on the website.
We love the train and train museum that are part of the Kempton Community Center site where the festival is held. And we’re also fascinated by the display of converted vehicles (converted to be energy-efficient, that is) that is always a part of the festival. You can find resources for green building, green studies, and green products at the numerous display booths in the various buildings. And Silence would like to point out that there are ample restrooms available, always a critical point.
Mind you, this is the priciest festival we attend, at $12 admittance for each adult. Every year, we grumble about this and say we’re not going. And every year, we’re enticed by the wonderful range of lectures and vendors and end up changing our minds. It’s a beautiful setting, a wonderful festival, and a great opportunity to learn about all the options available for making your own life more sustainable. Or, say, how to buy and drive a $50 car, or cook a meal in a homemade solar oven, or boost your immune system with garlic. We can’t honestly think of any event we attend that we get more out of. Highly recommended!!!
What would Mma Ramotswe do? September 14, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: Alexander McCall Smith, Mma Ramotswe, Precious Ramotswe, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, What Would Jesus Do, WWJD
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Silence Dogood here. You’re probably all familiar with the bracelets, bumper stickers, mugs, and the like bearing the initials “WWJD” for “What would Jesus do?” Their intent is to get people to slow down and think before they act, so their behavior is less impulsive and more Godlike.
But as our friend Ben points out, God is a rather intimidating role model. Surely there must be someone on the continuum between Jesus and Homer Simpson to whom we could relate without feeling the need to be perfect. I nominate Mma Ramotswe.
For those who don’t know her, Precious Ramotswe is the heroine of Alexander McCall Smith’s marvelous No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels, which are set in Precious’s native Botswana. (My favorites are Blue Shoes and Happiness and Tea Time for the Traditionally Built.) Mma Ramotswe is “traditionally built”—which is to say, so enormous her van actually lists to the driver’s side when she is heading off somewhere—and her heart is even bigger than her hefty build. Her big heart, her traditional values, her gentle spirit, and her sympathy for the human condition are what put the heart and soul into the beloved novels.
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels have finally been turned into a TV series for HBO. Sadly, OFB and I don’t get TV reception here, and have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the series to come out on DVD. Finally, we discovered through Netflix that the series was available, and I wasted no time ordering it (along with a tour of Botswana hosted by Alexander McCall Smith himself) from Amazon. OFB and I have been enjoying a nightly episode ever since, and are dreading the day when we run out. (But we hear a second season is in the offing.) Though, as always happens, none of the characters are quite as I’d imagined them from reading the books, Mma Ramotswe is, indeed, precious. And all the supporting characters are endearing.
So, what would Mma Ramotswe do? She would support the traditional values of respect, courtesy, and consideration, of love for one’s family, one’s fellow man, one’s country, and the land. She would say that using common sense and kindness can do more good than following the letter of the law no matter how much damage it inflicts. She would point out that all of us are brothers and sisters under the skin, and it’s about time we started acting like it. She would say from personal experience that neither a wrong choice nor personal tragedy has to ruin your life; you have the choice to learn and grow rather than wilt and die. Above all, I think, she would say that the only right action is an action grounded in love.
Hmmm. I think Jesus would approve.
‘Til next time,
Silence
Frugal living tip #37. September 14, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in Ben Franklin, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: frugal living, frugal living tips, frugality
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Silence Dogood here. It’s Monday, and that means that it’s time for another Frugal Living Tip here at Poor Richard’s Almanac. (We’re posting a Frugal Living Tip every Monday through 2009 to help folks like us get through these hard economic times.) Today’s tip is courtesy of Becca at BrightHaven Days (http://brighthaven.wordpress.com/). She recently e-mailed me with an initiative to give one thing you owned away every day for a month. I thought it was brilliant.
If giving stuff away strikes you as the opposite of frugality, I urge you to think again. There are three great reasons to give away your stuff:
* First off, clutter is oppressive. When your closets and drawers are exploding, when stuff is piled on every surface and littered all over the floor, when you don’t even have a place to set something down, much less a nice table setting or clean room to enjoy, it’s depressing and overwhelming. Clutter turns your home into a place you don’t want to be. And everybody knows what happens when you don’t spend time at home: You go out. And when you go out, you spend money. An uncluttered home is a restful, attractive place you’ll want to spend time in, and that can save you a lot of money in the long run.
* Getting rid of stuff you not only don’t need but don’t even really want can help you save money two other ways. First, when you can actually see what you have instead of losing it in the piles, you’re far less likely to spend money on duplicate items you wouldn’t need if you could find the originals in the first place. And second, when you start getting rid of stuff and discover what you don’t need now or never needed in the first place, it will make you think more carefully about purchases before you buy. Maybe you were spending money when what you really needed to be doing was spending time enjoying your friends and family, reading, gardening, walking, practicing a rusty skill or learning a new one. It’s a chance to set new priorities, a chance to rediscover what really makes you happy. (And guess what? I’ll bet it’s not all that junk.)
* Like losing weight, losing stuff can give you a tremendous morale boost. Finally, you’re taking control of your life, literally one piece at a time. It is actually exciting to watch that stuff pile up and move out! Even if it really is just one thing a day, you can put that stuff in a garbage or grocery bag and watch it build up until you have enough to drop off at Goodwill, The Salvation Army, a St. Vincent DePaul store, or the thrift store, homeless shelter, animal shelter, soup kitchen, or destination of your choice. You did it!
In the process, you’ve made life better for someone else, someone who could never afford the stuff you’re throwing out. It’s a great way to give in these hard times. Everybody wins. You may come to find this addictive: See what you can give away, not just for a month, but every single day. When the day comes that there’s not another thing to give away, I guarantee you’ll be enjoying a lovely, peaceful home and a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and caring. And that’s priceless.
‘Til next time,
Silence
