I did put in kitchen forum, I accendently placed it here first, and caught myself after I put it through.

You have a point, Cherryfizz. When my kids were in middle and high school, they attended schools many miles apart. One school was in a town northwest of us and the high schools was two towns south. Schools are not funded when students are absent. Even during non emergency times, schools do not receive the daily rate of student funds for each absent student. Around here, that amounts to over $40 per absent student, no matter what the reason for his or her absence. When schools are closed, they are not funded. School lunch programs are not money makers. I imagine authorities often ask the schools to close when the roads are dangerous to help keep people off the roads. Others are concerned about student safety when the temperature and winds might easily lead to frostbite. Another concern ought to be unusually cold weather in areas where students would not own the thicker coats and boots to keep safely warm outside for long periods, especially if buses are delayed an hour or two or three because of the weather. And employees also need to be able to get to the schools where they work. It is a headache when school is cancelled, but safety is the concern all around.

merrybookwyrm, You still have to be pretty tough, independent and determined to live out there around Orr because it is just so remote. Even with modern-day vehicles, it can take police, firefighters and medics a long time to reach you out there in the boondocks even without flooding or road washouts which just compound an already difficult situation. Western Love County, including Orr, and the adjacent portions of Carter and Jefferson County were hit really hard by this last storm. They got a lot more rain and flooding out there than we had here in southcentral Love County. There's a point where you even stop having cell phone service once you get out there, and where the fire and police radios cut in and out and have so much static that they are pretty much unusable for communication. In this day and age, it is shocking to me that there's still areas that are not so remote, mileage-wise, but that still are far enough out there that communication is spotty. Carol, I love the sunshine and it helps the garden a lot, but the heat and heat index numbers kinda take the fun out of it. We gardeners and our gardens are going to be roasting hot this week which will help plant growth but make life miserable otherwise. I've been so busy with other things, or flooded out of the garden, that I am so far behind on harvesting and canning that it isn't even funny. Today I'm going to sort, wash and freeze about 10-15 gallons of tomatoes that I can use later on to make salsa. I just don't have time to make it this week. I've already got that many frozen, so they're really piling up and still there's tomatoes piled up on every flat surface in the house. I am more behind than usual. Partly it is because of the peppers. I have hot peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, etc. for making salsa, but the sweet peppers are so far behind it isn't even funny. If I picked every sweet bell that is even half-sized, I might not get enough for one batch of Annie's Salsa. I did hold the pepper plants in cups forever during the May flooding before finally getting them planted and they are way behind everything else. The jalapenos were quicker to set fruit and start making up for lost time but the sweet bells and poblano plants are just sitting there. Apparently 33+" of rain in the last 7 weeks does not impress them at all. I've been trying to just stay caught up on making plum jelly, but last week I didn't have time to make jelly so I just extracted the juice and froze it. I can make jelly any time, but I don't like the fact that I'm stockpiling everything in the freezer. I wanted to have all the plums finished before the peaches began to ripen, and we're only 2-3 days away from the first peach harvest (if I can keep the birds out of them, which seems like a losing battle). I'm hoping to pick a day later in the week, maybe on Wed or Thurs, where I block out any and every other thing and just focus on thawing that plum juice and making all the jelly. Oh, and I have more plums to harvest sometime today. It is cloudy and there's been rain (and flash-flooding) to our southeast. The last thing any part of this region needs today is more rain. Lake Texoma's rise has slowed dramatically in the last day, so I am not sure its crest will even match the record crest that happened around June 1st. The Red River is falling fast, and everyone here is relieved by that. I never got okra, cucumbers, winter squash or purple hull peas planted, and I need to do it now or not do it at all, but I'm so distracted by trying to deal with the tomato and fruit harvest that I don't know if I'll do it. I might wait and see how the watermelons and muskmelons I planted before last week's heavy rain/flooding do. If they don't survive or quickly become diseased in the waterlogged soil, I might not bother planting anything else. At least all the cracks in the ground healed up, though I am sure the silty ones on the surface will return soon. Dawn

Rug, curtains, doors. An office isn't church, temple, or mosque. When engrossed in work or study from home? Most people learn quite quickly to tune out ordinary background noise. The type of silence you seek is quite unattainable in any office anywhere......and in any location, other than a remote farm. Street noise, sirens, talking..... the mail man, the UPS guy buzzing. ....children at play outside. You are seeking a silent nirvana that will not exist in any home, nor in any office. Even a library in town has comings and goings and low voices. It's life : )