Dappled Air

After 8 years of listening to Hawaiian music online ( KKCR-Kaua'i & Hawaiian105 -Honolulu) I started to understand some words. Now after 10 years I decided that it was time to get a Hawaiian Dictionary. Given the fact that I live in Nova Scotia it wasn't that simple. I didn't want to buy one unseen, so I went to the local Chapters bookstore to see what they had available. That's when I found out that there were none in the store, but I could order through the instore kiosk or online. I checked what was available and ordered 3 to be sent to the store. So when I was notified yesterday that they had arrived it was time to have a look. This morning I showed up at the store with picture ID and opened the bag and looked at each dictionary to find the one that I wanted. It turned out to be quite easy. The first one was not indepth enough, the second I didn't like either, but the 3rd one was exactly what I had in mind. Now, I can start off the New Year with my Hawaiian...

My beading calendar for December 16 had the pattern for this Christmas star as earrings. I did not have the beads the pattern called for and decided to experiment with the beads I had at hand. I ended up with a 2 inch star that was very easy and simple to make.

The cold air has arrived much earlier than usual and yesterday it felt with the windchill like it was below -20°C. I decided not to venture outside, but the birds did not have that advantage. Around lunch time I was looking out my kitchen window and saw this blue jay all puffed up sitting in a pine tree trying to stay warm. I grabbed my camera and put it on full zoom which turned out to be 24x digital. Trying to find the bird at that zoom was no easy task then the next step was to stay still and not shake to take the picture. To my big surprise the picture turned out very well.

Last Sunday we were invited to an open house and exhibition of paintings by a neighbour on our street. I had heard that Helen was a painter, but had never seen her work. I fell in love with her beautiful paintings. Many of them of the scenery of the Canadian Maritimes. The one thing that struck me the most were her unusual painted light switch plates in the shape of cats. I found out that she and her husband love cats, much to my detriment, I am allergic to them. I went looking for paintings by Helen Tupper online and just happened to come across this article from November of this year about her. Talking about light switch plates, in 1998 I started painting my plain switch plate covers and one thing led to another. Eventually, my father-in-law suggested that I paint a 'boy' switch plate, which I did with the boy strategically placed on the cover.

I have been so busy that I haven't had the time to put up new posts, but I have been taking pictures. I don't leave the house without my camera any more, because just when I think there is nothing new to capture, you guessed it, there is something. I took this picture a week ago. There was no snow in sight and it looked lovely even with the green grass. Now a week later it is a totally different story.

I don't really keep track when the ice forms on Oat Hill Lake. I seem to remember that last year it was at the end of November, this year I just noticed today that on the Western end of the lake, the shallowest part, the ice is starting to form. Also when walking on the grass, the earth does not have any give any longer and is freezing up also. I remember one year the lake was still open on February 14, but eventually froze up and the ice was thick enough to skate on it after all.

Thanksgiving is in the US is tomorrow, in Canada it is in October, and I just came across an interesting article on the Chief Joseph Newsletter site. He talks about being grateful for what we have and taking care of ourselves first. This month this seems to be a reoccurring theme. At the EFT Level 2 workshop earlier this month we had a big discussion about being selfish and that the word has such negative connotations, even if we don't mean it to be. We could not come up with another word that would convey what we wanted. But we all agreed that the best analogy was the safety demonstration in an airplane that tells parents to strap on the oxygen mask first before helping their children. Yes, taking care of ourselves first makes sure that we are in top shape to help others and is not selfish. The same goes for gratitude. Appreciating what we have, rather than griping about what is lacking is the way to go. What we focus upon is what we attract and by showing gratitude for what we ...

I haven't gotten around to posting for some time. Too much happening all at once. So I dug through my list of emails I send myself with interesting information to put on my blog and this is the one I picked. I was so pleased when I came across this video with a compilation of different interviews of Will Smith that show his world view. He's right up my alley.

Sometimes I wonder if we really discover new things, or if the information has been around all along and is just being rediscovered. I once read that we don't learn new things, it is just that we remember what we knew all along. I am not sure, but am open to the idea. What brought on this train of thought? Well, recently with all the talk about the Law of Attraction and the movie the Secret, I came across talk about Napoleon Hill and his book "Think and Grow Rich". Considering that he was of my grandmother's generation and his book is as accurate today as it was when he wrote it, one really has to think. That brings us right to the point that thoughts become things . What we focus our attention on we attract. Here is the bio of Napoleon Hill from Wikipedia. I vaguely remember downloading the book "Think and Grow Rich" ages ago. Not sure if it is still on my computer. At that time I did not get it, it was just to foreign a way of thinking for me, but that wa...

On my daily walk in our neighbourhood I came across this skeleton in a yard and just had to take a picture of it as I thought it was quite creative. Growing up in Switzerland there was no Halloween celebration, I only discovered that it existed once I moved to Canada. In Switzerland we had Carnival (Fasnacht), but that was in February, where you would get dressed up which I always disliked. I just don't like getting dressed up. Halloween was for the kids and my son sure made the best of it. I remember one year he came home with 2 black garbage bags full of stuff. It lasted way into the new year. Here is how Wikipedia explains the origin of Halloween . Have a happy and safe Halloween

I just finished reading the latest book by Dan Brown called the Lost Symbol. I liked the Da Vinci Code but did not plan on buying the new book. One day while shopping at Costco I saw that they had the book at a good price so I bought it. I had not read any reviews of the new book and so did not know what to expect. My verdict is that I really liked the book. I probably prefer it to the Da Vinci Code. I have never been to Washington DC, but the way the story is told you can easily visualize and imagine how it would look. The author has a very visual writing style and I like that. I also liked that I could not really guess the outcome of the story. There are so many turns and changes of direction that made it difficult to figure out who are the bad guys and who are the nice guys. The part I liked the most of the book were probably the last 100 hundred pages. I like the way the storyline explained concepts. They went right along with my New Age outlook and left me uplifted. I did not expe...

Until I came to Canada I had no idea what a touque/toque was or had even heard the word. It seems it is a typical Canadian expression that came to English from French. Now what on earth is a touque? A touque is a knitted winter hat. My husband always uses this term instead of hat and it still sounds funny to me after 35 years. Well, hubby put on his touque today for our walk around the lake as it had gotten chilly and a strong North wind was blowing. So him using this strange word gave me the idea for this blog post. In case you are wondering, no I haven't dug out my touque yet. The Urban Dictionary has a couple of definitions for touque: A Canadian must have. Ok eh! Like it was so cold that we had to wear touques eh! Every time someone says toboggan, I remind them that a toboggan is what you ride down a hill on, a touque is what you wear. The WordWeb Online gives this defintion for touque: A kind of warm cap winter wear, usually made from a knit bag with closed tapered ends by p...

I haven't posted for a while and I realized that as I took another picture of a tiny tree seedling. This year it seems that just about every seed that fell on the ground sprouted. The maple tree seedlings are especially abundant. I had to pull them out by the handful. If you let them grow too long they get too big and are hard to get rid of. I don't want maple trees growing all over the place. these maple seedlings grew in the cracks of a wooden bench I don't recall them sprouting like this in other years. I wonder what this means? Are we in for a cold winter or just plain crazy weather? this blue spruce seedling is also growing in a crack of wood

At yesterday's weekly EFT get together a discussion ensued on how to handle "evil" people. I am currently reading the book "Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life" by Dr. Wayne Dyer. It is his interpretation of the Tao Te Ching. Imagine my surprise when today's verse offered the answer. I found it in the 62nd verse. Here are the parts just literally jumped out at me. "Where you perceive negativity, alter your view to see pure love and kindness that's mistakenly being directed to seek a sacred place in the material world." "Practice forgiving, and avoiding judgment, when you see reprehensible or evil-minded ways." "Take Lao-tzu up on his advice for dealing with those who appear to be wicked people by mentally separating the individuals from their toxic behavior. Remember that they are Divine creations of the Tao who simply believe that ego should control life. In your thoughts, erase the vileness, the wrongdoing, and the addict...

Today I discovered very visibly why it matters what soil vegetables are planted in. This is a picture of my freshly picked carrots. They taste great and grew well, but because the soil had large compost pieces in it the carrots could not grow straight down. So every time the growing carrot encountered an obstacles it started to grow sideways and that's the reason why my carrots grew in spirals. Now my plan for next year is to move this soil to another part of the garden and replace it with more root vegetable friendly soil. I would love to hear from other gardener's about their experiences.

Shucks, this morning my Hotmail would not download to Thunderbird any longer. Now what? I recall getting Microsoft emails about changes coming to Hotmail, but all the info was for Outlook and Outlook Express. Thank goodness for Google. A quick search revealed that, yes there was a change and also an explanation of how to get Hotmail to download again. You may ask why don't I simply switch to using Google? Well, I discovered that my computer runs better with Thunderbird as my main email client rather than another online mail browser window open. And with a couple Hotmail accounts, a Yahoo account and Gmail that all arrive in my desktop email box I am set. OK, back to the fix. Rather than creating a new email account, I just edited the current one and things are working again. Select the account in Thunderbird -> view setting for this account and make the changes like this: Server Name: pop3.live.com User Name: Your FULL email address Port: 995 (this should be automatica...

I just realized that I haven't posted for 2 weeks. I don't know where the time went. I have discovered Ho'oponopono and bought the book "Zero Limits" by Joe Vitale and Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. While learning all I can about it, I took a break from other things. Then this morning while going through my emails, tweets and RSS feeds it just started to come together. It started with a tweet from Whitley Strieber about Placebos and how the pharmaceutical companies suddenly realize that there is much more to drug testing than they thought. What we think and expect from a drug influences its effectiveness greatly. If I don't think it will work, it won't and if I believe that it will work, it will. I recall a quote I once read by Henry Ford that said: "If you believe you can or if you believe you can't, you are right." the article is from Wired Magazine: Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why Then I came across thi...

When I came across this Abraham Hicks video in my Google Reader I knew I had found something I wanted to share.

This summer is so different from past summers. It is almost a throwback to the way summers used to be 10 or 20 years ago. I am not complaining, it is great when you live in a house without air conditioning. We had no problems sleeping as it always cooled down nicely. I took the picture on Saturday while walking around Oat Hill Lake and noticed that fall was in the air. It was only warm in the sun and as soon as we entered the forested part it was noticeably cooler which is a typical fall, winter and spring pattern when the air itself is not warm anymore or yet. Then yesterday the whole scenario had changed again and it was another hot and summery day with a lovely breeze. So I am curious as to how soon fall will arrive. I remember when my twins turned 4 year old on August 29/1982, fall weather had already arrived and it was too cold to wear short sleeve tops without a cover. In the last 10 years or so that had definitely changed and covers were only necessary in mid to late September. ...

In today's local paper was a cute article about ringtones and that got me thinking, what makes people pick their particular ring tone? Does it depend on the mood of the moment, their favorite music or are there other influences? Then there is the question about using a sound for incoming emails. I don't own a Blackberry or IPhone and so don't know about those, but I have been using the same email sound alert for at least 10 years. It started when both my husbands and my computer were in the same room and I wanted to know whose emails had just arrived. It worked like a charm and I liked mine and stuck with it through all the upgrades. It is the sound of a train. Related articles Geek Tip: Make Free Cell Ringtones With Audiko (geeksugar.com) More easy ringtones with Ringer (tuaw.com) How to choose an appropriate ringtone People are crazy ringtone articles Mobile ringtones are making our lives a musical journey Mosquito Ringtone — is nasty and irritating

When I grew up in Switzerland and started school in 1960 I had to learn my first foreign language: High German. School books, books and newspapers are all written in High German. What is High German? It is the language that is spoken in Germany and Austria. Then what is Swiss German? It is the dialect of German that is spoken in Switzerland. People bordering Switzerland like Southern and Western Germany and Austria have a similar dialect and can all understand each other easily. Once you move North past Frankfurt in German the accent changes and to understand each other people switch to High German. FontPlay about Switzerland read the translation here What is the major difference between High German and Swiss German? It took me about 20 years after leaving Switzerland to figure it out and suddenly it made sense why I found learning English so easy. Swiss German and English share the same sentence structure. I can take a Swiss German sentence and translate it word for word and end up wi...

When I saw this video , I just had to download the font of it. I find it ingenious to create a font, by drawing the letters with a car and then converting it to a font. I am a 'fontoholic', that means I collect fonts. What do I do with all those fonts? One way is to combine my photos with quotes and fonts. It is called a ' FontPlay '. I love creating them as they combine 3 of my favorite interests. Unfortunately, I have just been way to busy lately to create any new ones.

Sounds like a contradiction, but it isn't. I just started a course by Carol Tuttle about Energy Profiling and find it extremely interesting and highly recommend it. Over lunch while talking to my husband, I realized that I had already learned something valuable in this course. Hubby told me that President Barack Obama is in trouble for using the word 'stupid' for the event in Massachusetts where a black Harvard professor was apprehended by the police because they thought he was breaking into a house. In fact, the professor had trouble with his front door and was literally breaking into his own house. To me it looks like President Obama has 'carbon' as the dominant energy. He is a great orator and always says exactly what he means. So when he said it was 'stupid' he meant that situation could have been handled better, it was not up to par. For any person with another dominant energy the word 'stupid' would have meant exactly that 'stupid', b...

Depending or where you lived when Apollo 11 went to the moon, the lunar landing took place either in the late evening of July 20/1969 or in the early A.M. of July 21/1969. For me it was July 21/1969. I have strong memories of the event as I spent that summer with relatives outside Geneva. I was 16 years old and listened to it on a small transistor radio with a single ear piece so that I would not disturb them. Armstrong stepped on to the lunar surface on July 21/1969 at 02:56 UTC in my time locality of Geneva. For me it was in the middle of the night and I gladly gave up sleep to witness such a monumental event. I was so excited and wanted to tell my relatives but they were asleep. So as soon as I heard somebody walking around I got up and excitedly told them the news. The other strong memory of that time was that I finally discovered the Beatles. My relatives had a bunch of Paris Match magazines lying around with tons of pictures and articles about the Beatles.

I was brainstorming with my son after the wedding about the direction I should take for bringing in more money and decided that I should take advantage of my age and computer knowledge and focus on explaining social media to my age group. In the last few days I have come across an ever increasing amount of information about social media and its importance. Ok, I get the hint. In this morning's Globe & Mail newspaper was this really interesting article by Susan Krashinksky called: The teen heard 'round the world (and it wasn't on Twitter) . There was nothing really new in it, just a confirmation what I already know. Then no sooner did I read that article when an email arrived with a link to this interesting 15 minute video about: How social media can make history . I found this video by Clay Shirky very interesting and informative. Now I am slowly seeing how I can put my computer knowledge and social media information together to explain it to others. Stay tuned for th...

I received the link to these videos this morning in my emails and was very impressed. I usually don't like ads, but this one is very creative. It reminds me of the last year, when my youngest went as a model for a body painting competition. Amazing what one can do with paint and a body as canvas. Here is the link to all the New Zealand Air YouTube ads . Don't forget to check out the bloopers and behind the scenes videos. At first I didn't even realize that all the clothes were painting on the bodies, so pay close attention when watching the video.

A friend of my just posted a video of "Live and Let Die" and "Hey Jude" from the McCartney concert. Thanks Benny! I found it interesting to see the fireworks, but they did no seem to be as loud at the concert as what I heard in my bed. I missed the encore as I probably had fallen asleep and also it was an acoustic number and so the sound did not travel as far. Here is "Mull of Kintyre" with bagpipes. Sir Paul only plays this song in Canada and Scotland.

Last night Sir Paul McCartney was playing an outdoor concert in the Halifax North Commons. I did not attend, but I still could listen to the music. I live in a straight line about 4 km away across the harbour in Dartmouth, just on the other side past the first hill. As I go to be relatively early (10:30pm) I could hear the music through the open bedroom windows. At times you could make out the voice at other times just the melody and beat. It was very relaxing to be sung to sleep with "Let it Be", "Live and Let Die" - that one must have had some fireworks with it as there were very loud booms and lots of applause, I fell asleep just as "Hey Jude" came to an end. Thank you Sir Paul, I had a wonderful sleep.

The reason for not posting for so long is my daughter's wedding on June 30/09 and me coming down with a bug afterward. As I am slowly getting back into the groove I discovered that I had totally forgotten to make my July wallpaper. This also gives me the opportunity to start posting wallpapers in my graphics blog called Grafika. For the July desktop wallpaper and/or calendar I used a photo I took in June of a man fishing while standing on a stone in the lake.

My twins born in 1978 have the same birth date as Michael Jackson: August 29. When the kids were 4 years old 'Thriller' came out and they were so proud to share their birthday with a famous person. Over the years that association was not always something to be proud of, but then again we all share our birthday with a famous or infamous person. It is up to us to decide how much we want to identify with that fact. I have fond memories or Michael's early songs and send my condolences to his family and friends.

We hear a lot about staying in the moment or NOW lately. It is talked about in the movie ' the Secret - the law of attraction ' and on Oprah . That's when I was surprised to read this blog post titled: Pay Attention at www.lateralaction.com. I like it when I get confirmation of the way I see things from totally different directions. Living in the NOW put everything into a different perspective. What if we let go of the past and the future and only concentrate on the NOW. All the baggage we have in relationships because of the past, can be ignored and the other person(s) dealt with in the present. Do we change our behavior when we see the other person the way they are right now and not the way we remember and all the stuff that bugs us about them? I think it is worthwhile to give it a try and see what the result will be. I would love to get your feedback on this and am looking forward to reading your comments.

How time flies. I just realized that I have been blogging at Dappled Air for over a year. My first post appeared on June 16/2008 . Now after a year I have gotten the hang of blogging and am in the middle of redoing my main website Marlies' Creative Universe. The website has gotten so big and so diverse since its inception in 1997, that it is time to split it up and switch to a different CMS. Currently I am using TYPO3, but the new sites will be in Wordpress. For the last half year I have been immersing myself in the intricacies of Wordpress. Thank goodness I learned to use TYPO3 and now switching to a different CMS is much easier. I will keep on using Dappled Air as my blog for my personal musings. Specific interests will be taken over by the various sub blogs. I am in the middle of activating them which is quite a big job in itself. If you check out the links below you will find that they are in various states of readiness, but from each one there is also a link to the section on ...

In the last few months my daily yoga exercise has been replaced with gardening and looking back it seems that we had very few rainy weekdays and so I did a lot more gardening than yoga. Today was the first day in over a month that I am indoors and so it yoga time. I really enjoyed my workout and noticed an effect that had not happened before. From my EFT practice I know that yawning is a sign when a release occurs. EFT Theory: "The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system" - Wikipedia At this morning's session during and after some exercises I was busy yawning and I realized that yoga does also stimulate the meridians and as my body is now recognizing this stimulation it automatically goes into release mode. I have no idea what blocks are released, however. I have not heard or read of this anywhere, but I am very pleased. Related links: EFT - Gary Craig EFT - Wikipedia Yoga - Wikipedia Meridian (Chinese Medicine) - Wikipedia

While digging in my garden this week I came across these two salamanders. At first they did not move at all, so I quickly ran for my camera and took the picture. Some quick research revealed that they are Redback Salamanders (Plethodon cinereus): "This salamander is more of a land creature. It lives in all sorts of moist forests and often invades suburban backyards. Its eggs are laid in damp places under rocks or logs, so there is no aquatic stage at all. Redback Salamanders have no lungs. The animals breathe through their skins, and the lining of the roof of the mouth. Read the rest at the above link from the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History."

On our daily walk around the lake we came across some elementary school aged kids with one of them holding something in his hand. It turned out to be a 'Spotted Salamander'. They had found it by turning over a rock. Always having my camera with me allowed me to take a picture. The animal was scared and peeing, so they decided to put it back where they found it. Here is the info I found at Wikipedia about the Salamander: Latin name: Ambystoma maculatum "The spotted salamander is about 6-7 1/2 inches long. The spotted salamander's main color is black, but can sometimes be blue-black, dark gray, or even dark brown. There are two rows of yellow/orange spots that run from the top of the head (near the eyes) to the tip of the tail. These rows are uneven. An interesting fact is that the spotted salamander's spots near the top of the head are more orange and the rest of the spots are more yellow. The underside of the spotted salamander is slate gray." "The spott...

That depends of where you live. Growing up in Switzerland, I remember as a small girl 3 or 4 collecting May bugs in the evening (they seem to be nocturnal) with my dad. That was before I was grossed out touching bugs and worms. We collected them in a glass jar. They made a funny sound and smelled strange. Then we let them go again. When I arrived in Canada (1975) I noticed that there were no May bugs, but the same kind of bug appeared in June and therefore was called June bug. I just chalked it up to the cooler temperatures in Canada. Fast forward to 2009, the last week of May I noticed that there were bugs flying against my bathroom window at night. They sounded just like June bugs, but it was still May. So I guess with the climate change they have now also turned into May bugs. Digging in my garden I noticed that the bugs hid during the day in the earth and only come out at night when they are attracted to light and bump against lit up windows. Ok, now that my curiosity was pe...

In last week's newsletter from Sheila Betker: Freedom to Dream I came across this very interesting and helpful article. The Road to Forgiveness is a Journey Toward Freedom "If unresolved anger is a toxin to the spirit, forgiveness is the antidote," wrote Brian Luke Seaward in his book, Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water: Reflections on Stress and Human Spirituality. When people get hurt, they often react with resentment, anger, rage, even hatred. While some of these emotions may feel like appropriate responses in the short term, holding on to them will cause further pain and stress. Nurturing old wounds and resentments is like tending weeds in a garden. The more care you give them, the more they take over until there's no room for the positive feelings that can nourish you. Forgiveness doesn't mean condoning inappropriate behaviour or excusing personal violations. It doesn't mean giving up or hiding or denying what was done. To forgive someone of something d...

This Wired.com article: The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online continues my thread of thought from my May 13/09 post . I am always amazed how people come to the same understanding from so many different directions. It is like the saying says: " All roads lead to Rome ". I wonder how long it will take mainstream and governments to realize that we have more in common with each other than what separates us. That our natural inclination is to share and communicate and thanks to the Internet and computers it is becoming easier than ever to find likeminded others. It does not matter how large or how small that group is. It is the fact that there are others like us that's important. Before the Internet we were like little islands floating in a huge sea where we could not even see other islands. Now, distance, country and time zone does not even matter any more. We find a way to connect to others with the same ideas.

I took this photo in May at Oat Hill Lake, Dartmouth, NS. I only realized once I looked at the photo on my computer that it was a very pink picture. It turns out that the new vegetation combined with the sun light created this very pink landscape and very unusual scene. Wallpaper with Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels

I try to take one photo a day and sometimes it is quite difficult to come with a new picture and other times it is very natural. Now looking back at a couple of bird pictures I realize that they are teaching me a lesson on perspective. I was so pleased to finally get that shot of the osprey hovering over the lake looking for his prey. His perspective is from high up. This is gives him a great overview and with his sharp eyesight he can also zoom in on the details when needed. The picture of the two ducks looking for their food under water shows a totally different approach. Sometimes you have to get wet and stick your head into the water to see what is going on. To see if you can find what you are looking for below, even if there is no real indication visible that it is even there. I love it when I can learn from nature. It is just that sometimes is is not very obvious at first. Luckily, by taking snapshots we can capture small segments that we can then look at later on and to our surp...

This is the third mask I have painted so far. For some crazy reason I could always see a face in those lids. First Mask Second Mask When I start painting the lid I have no idea how it will eventually look. It is almost as if the lid has a mind of its own. For this mask I used paper punches for the yellow stars, the red hearts and the text swirls for the hair curls. The rest is painted with craft paint and then coated with a few coats of water based varnish.

My son and daughter-in-law gave me some beads as a mother's day gift. I was tickled pink. After sorting through the beads and taking them of the strings they came with, I had the inspiration for this necklace with green glass beads this past weekend. The black glass beads were also part of the gift and the silver beads came from my bead collection. I love the way the necklace turned out. It is about 27 inches long. Check out my market place with beadwork I have for sale

When we moved into our house in late summer of 1999 our back garden was just a hill with grass that was very difficult to mow due to the fact that it is very steep and very uneven. A weedwacker was the only tool to do the job with. The picture to the right shows the way it looked in 2001. Then in 2004 I started working daily for an hour in the garden. I learned that I can work/transform about one square yard in an hour. So every weekday weather permitting I have been outside working as soon as the ground was workable. Some years it was in mid to late April other years I could only start in May. Now I am down to the last part of the garden. I will show the pictures when I am done. But the hillside is done and I am so pleased the way it looks. I took the picture to the left this morning. Yes, the area does not look the same any more for two reasons. First: in 2003 we had a hurricane come through town and it killed a lot of trees, including the beech trees on the hillside. Two: I removed ...