All visiting cards are engraved on white unglazed bristol board, which may be of medium thickness or thin, as one fancies. Etiquette absolutely demands that one leave a card within a few days after taking a first meal in a lady’s house; or if one has for the first time been invited to lunch or dine with strangers, it is inexcusably rude not to leave a card upon them, whether one accepted the invitation or not. – Emily Post (1872 or 1873 to1960). Etiquette. 1922 – These were my grandmother’s visiting cards. Emily Post would have approved. Fast forward eighty years or so, and internet visitors can leave Visiting Cards too. These ‘cards’ are computer generated graphics and they are generally called Avatars or Gravatars (Globally Recognized Avatar). You don’t have to be a blogger to have a Gravatar. Anyone can associate one to the email address they use when they leave comments on blogs. Many people use their photograph for their Gravatar. There are good reasons to do this, particularly if you want to …

It was always my belief that farmers developed strange theories of cause and effect because they spent too much time alone. A combination of incomplete information and a lack of critical review led to some odd conclusions. In the early days of farming, a reinforcing factor in all this was that horses seemed willing to accept almost any theory if it was accompanied by oats. It was a closed circle. – Leonard G. Lee, Lee Valley Tools – Rounding up dust bunnies is a dirty job – but our dirt woes today are small compared to the cleaning issues during the  Dust Bowl of the Dirty Thirties! My Grandmother, as did many other women during the Dirty Thirties, turned her drinking glasses ‘rim down’ in the cupboard. That ensured that the glasses were clean inside when it came time to use them. Water was scarce, so a clean glass meant this precious liquid wasn’t used to rinse out a glass before drinking out of it. A quick dusting of the outside of the glass was …