So many people are terrified of trees near their houses these days, and they call companies that make money (and a lot of it) cutting them down. Most of these people call themselves “tree experts” when the only thing they’re expert at is taking them down without damaging your property. If you ask them if your tree might be dangerous their answer will always be yes (ka-ching!). As a result, thousands of healthy, beautiful, old growth trees are needlessly destroyed. Trees keep your heating bills down in winter, your air conditioning bills down in summer, they cleanse the air and produce oxygen, and the biggest trees make the most oxygen. They provide food and shelter for birds and fauna. They‘re beautiful and increase the curb appeal and value of your real estate. The most exclusive neighborhoods where the old money lives (not the new MacMansion developments) are loaded with magnificent trees. Drive through the worst neighborhoods and you’ll see the opposite; a sorry zone of a few mangled, stunted trees. All old trees occasionally shed small branches - it doesn’t mean they’re sick, dying or dangerous. There are millions of trees in American neighborhoods, and only a tiny fraction of them fall on houses. You’re far more likely to die in a car crash than of a tree falling in you. Should we get rid of all the cars? It takes decades, sometimes hundreds of years to grow a magnificent tree. Before you hack one down, how about hiring a Consulting Arborist (one who treats and maintains trees rather than just taking them down) to find out if a proper pruning, bracing or cabling is what’s needed to maintain the health of your beautiful trees? I’ll bet it’s a lot cheaper than paying thousands of dollars to take it down.

Hi Bethesdamanman, My apologies then, Dave. I thought that I had recalled you posting on the other board that mortgage rates would stay low for years and years, and that we would never return to the high rates of years past. My error. Eeeesschhh .... well.... actually... kinda sorta, YES.... your apologies in this case are NOT warranted. Herein lies a case of "text failing where a verbal conversation *may* have worked better." I've never said rates would stay low "well... forever".... I HAVE said rates (30 FRM rates to be precise) will unlikely climb over 7% in our lifetimes. I *STILL* stand by that.... albeit, I am now offering that we are entering a territory of government-induced inflation at levels I (perhaps naively) thought the United States political system was above. If we continue down the path of dollar-dilution that we've begun accelerating along, there are only two end-game results; A) we reverse course back out of it before we self-destruct in revolution, B) we self-destruct (and the devil we do not know is always a potential problem.) *IF* we successfully reverse and dig ourselves out of the hole of trouble our most recent past and our current government administrations are hell-bent on digging us into... there are only two ways of "sopping back & vacuuming up" the diluted unbacked funny-money that has been injected out into the system; A) The Treasury collects more taxes than it provides to the government to spend, and/or, B) The Fed increases interest rates higher than its blended payout on the treasury bonds (and then some... the greater the positive income spread to the Fed, the more painful to the "fixed-income retired crowd" which is our baby-boomer bubble... who will rally with AARP-sponsored pitchforks.) Both A & B will be met with *MASSIVE* resistance from the only crowd that the poloticos *KNOW* will consistently show up to vote, and have almost unlimited spare time to write, call, email, and generally pester the daylights out of the politicians; The Seniors. SO.... I've learned to never rely on "common sense" when it comes to anticipating "government logic" (an oxymoron if there ever was one.) Obama has enlisted the original architect of option B... Paul Volcker... as a "senior economic advisor." ("Senior" may (MAY) work somewhat to our advantage here... as Gramps Volcker *MIGHT* have some age-gained sensitivity to his classmate comrade's plight.) Volcker is the one who decided to fight inflation in the 1970's by driving short-term interest rates up to the 20%'s... The late '70's and early '80's result was that Volcker recaptured (in a VERY painful way) the excess liquidity (flooding of funny money) our country created by going off the gold standard and adopting a "weak dollar" policy through the 1960's. WHAT WILL WA DC DO??????????????? I dunno.... (I know what I pray/chant/meditate they will do...) *IF* the government (both the loonie left & jackthug right) get OUT of the way of the naturally balancing markets... then my expectations and predictions stand, with virtually my 100% confidence. My fears are that the United States idea of a market-based capitalist self-righting system has been a grand and wonderful social experiment... but that the human frailties (compounded in mob psychology) are sabotaging the underlying DNA strands that made it possible to stand. My COMFORTING REALIZATION... is that despite my egoistic pride for being part of a "successful system".... even if that system turns out to be a decaying failure, INDIDIVIDUALLY I and my family, and those I guide, can still retain their own personal success and quality of life. Cheers, Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner

FoxesPad I am so there with you on this post. I love going all out and thinking a theme thru and then executing it wonderfully. Not only do I decorate to the hilt for an event but I make a mountain of food to go with and supply the guest with containers to take home all that good food. They all wonder why I bother and my mom is the worst she makes snide remarks like "no one cares about all that mess anyway they just want to eat." But the moment an outsider of the family is around she goes into bragging mode about all I do, go figure. Others in the family always complain about how much food I make but happily take it home at the end of the night. It's hurtful how they think about me and I'm still working on not letting it bother me but so far I'm not there just yet. Thank you for your post TheFoxesPad. There is one member of my family that entertains on a very different level than the rest of us, partly because she can afford to do much more than the rest. But instead of complimenting her on her efforts, I think I generally convey an air of disapproval. >> I think this is part of the issue with some in my family. I am the baby and have a little more than my siblings. I don't do these things to show others up, its just something that I enjoy doing and it comes easy for me. Making things pretty is what I do, my brain just goes there automatically. It doesn't bother me in the slightest if others don't care to go that far with decor but it does bother me that it bothers them when I choose to do so, friends seem to love it, family not so much.

"Having comprehensive tests IS important but also tests must match the type of equipment to correct those issues". One could only know what type of equipment would be required to correct the problems identified by comprehensive tests. "Results for nitrate/nitrite, bacteria and TDS have little to do with softeners as they deal primarily with hardness minerals and ferrous iron". A comprehensive test is exactly that... comprehensive. When the health of the people in the household can be negatively effected by the well water they consume and use comprehensive tests covering both the niceness and the SAFENESS of the water is step one. Then with the results of those comprehensive tests the homeowner can decide, hopefully with the jelp of a professional, what aesthetic properties of the water will be treated while treating ALL the safety related water problems. Surely, as a professional, you agree that successful water treatment takes into account all the problems that need to be treated, the specific equipment needed to treat all the problems, and integrating all that equipment so it works and plays well together while being reliable, easy to maintain, and cost effective to purchase.