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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Fungilicious Forest Fun

I've been off for a spot of forest camping this weekend, at Rendlesham Forest, a forestry commission site near Woodbridge in Suffolk. Though it's not far from home, you could be anywhere and it has a wonderful recuperative effect - it's just so relaxing being so close to nature. The weather was really kind to us.... as you can see from the sun glinting through the woodland. I just love the changing colours of Autumn

We took bikes and went on the UFO forest trail. The picture below is quite eerie I think, but still beautiful.
My bike screeched to a halt when I saw these magnificent funghi! Aren't they gorgeous? I thought of Jane, our Artist friend when I saw these.

We saw squirrels collecting for the winter and here's some bounty for them.

Even this moss growing on an old trunk looked really pretty in the autumn sunshine.

This one looks like it is dripping! How delicate.

And then there were these gorgeous frilly edged funghi below, all huddling together.

But, I couldn't go the weekend without some crafting. Nic had given me a ball of the gorgeous Knit Collage Kinari Bazaar to experiment with some time ago, but I was so nervous of doing it justice, being a novice knitter I almost didn't feel worthy! A weekend of beautiful natural inspiration spurred me on to try.

I've decided to have a go at a cowl using a pattern on Knit Collage "be inspired" section. It seemed straight forward enough......
Until....I got to row 12 and it said to cable stitches. Damn! I hadn't done this before. I called Nic and she talked me through it but I decided I would leave it until I got home, so this one is to be continued - watch this space!

And finally, I couldn't go without including a picture of my lovely veteran westie. He just loved his weekend away, even if he is a bit slow... here he is in his winter finery admiring the view!


A good weekend was had by all.
Hope yours was good too.
Jacqui x











SEAGOING HALLOWEEN
























(Illustration: Laurence Housman.) 

Trolling Project Gutenberg, I happened upon this old story by Jonas Lie (1833-1908), a beloved Norwegian author of the 19th-century. As best I can make out, it was one story in his two volumes of stories called Trold (troll). The story here was beautifully rendered from Norwegian by the British polyglot Robert Nisbet Bain (1854–1909). The book is illustrated with Art Nouveau drawings by Laurence Housman (1865-1959, younger brother of the poet A.E. Housman), including three of the four drawings in this post.




THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG8


translated from the Norwegian by Robert Nisbet Bain (1893)
illustration by Laurence Housman 

 
ON KVALHOLM, down in Helgeland,1 dwelt a poor fisherman, Elias by name, with his wife Karen, who had been in service at the parson's over at Alstad. They had built them a hut here, and he used to go out fishing by the day about the Lofotens.

There could be very little doubt that the lonely Kvalholm was haunted. Whenever her husband was away, Karen heard all manner of uncanny shrieks and noises, which could mean no good. One day, when she was up on the hillside, mowing grass to serve as winter fodder for their couple of sheep, she heard, quite plainly, a chattering on the strand beneath the hill, but look over she durst not.

They had a child every year, but that was no burden, for they were both thrifty, hard-working folks. When seven years had gone by, there were six children in the house; but that same autumn Elias had scraped together so much that he thought he might now venture to buy a Sexæring,2 and henceforward go fishing in his own boat.

One day, as he was walking along with a Kvejtepig3 in his hand, and thinking the matter over, he unexpectedly came upon a monstrous seal, which lay sunning itself right behind a rock on the strand, and was as much surprised to see the man as the man was to see the seal. But Elias was not slack; from the top of the rock on which he stood, he hurled the long heavy Kvejtepig right into the monster's back, just below the neck.
























(Seal-folk listening to a mermaid's song. From a drawing by John Duncan. From here.)

The seal immediately rose up on its tail right into the air as high as a boat's mast, and looked so evilly and viciously at him with its bloodshot eyes, at the same time showing its grinning teeth, that Elias thought he should have died on the spot for sheer fright. Then it plunged into the sea, and lashed the water into bloody foam behind it. Elias didn't stop to see more, but that same evening there drifted into the boat place on Kvalcreek, on which his house stood, a Kvejtepole, with the hooked iron head snapped off.

Elias thought no more about it, but in the course of the autumn he bought his Sexæring, for which he had been building a little boat-shed the whole summer.

One night as he lay awake, thinking of his new Sexæring, it occurred to him that his boat would balance better, perhaps, if he stuck an extra log of wood on each side of it. He was so absurdly fond of the boat that it was a mere pastime for him to light a lantern and go down to have a look at it.

Now as he stood looking at it there by the light of the lantern, he suddenly caught a glimpse in the corner opposite, on a coil of nets, of a face which exactly resembled the seal's. For an instant it grinned savagely at him and the light, its mouth all the time growing larger and larger; and then a big man whisked out of the door, not so quickly, however, but that Elias could catch a glimpse, by the light of the lantern, of a long iron hooked spike sticking out of his back. And now he began to put one and two together. Still he was less anxious about his life than about his boat; so he there and then sat him down in it with the lantern, and kept watch. When his wife came in the morning, she found him sleeping there, with the burnt-out lantern by his side.


One morning in January, while he was out fishing in his boat with two other men, he heard, in the dark, a voice from a skerry at the very entrance of the creek. It laughed scornfully, and said, "When it comes to a Femböring,4 Elias, look to thyself!"

But there was many a long year yet before it did come to that; but one autumn, when his son Bernt was sixteen, Elias knew he could manage it, so he took his whole family with him in his boat to Ranen,5 to exchange his Sexæring for a Femböring. The only person left at home was a little Finn girl, whom they had taken into service some few years before, and who had only lately been confirmed.

Now there was a boat, a little Femböring, for four men and a boy, that Elias just then had his eye upona boat which the best boat-builder in the place had finished and tarred over that very autumn. Elias had a very good notion of what a boat should be, and it seemed to him that he had never seen a Femböring so well built below the water-line. Above the water-line, indeed, it looked only middling, so that, to one of less experience than himself, the boat would have seemed rather a heavy goer than otherwise, and anything but a smart craft.

Now the boat-master knew all this just as well as Elias. He said he thought it would be the swiftest sailer in Ranen, but that Elias should have it cheap, all the same, if only he would promise one thing, and that was, to make no alteration whatever in the boat, nay, not so much as adding a fresh coat of tar. Only when Elias had expressly given his word upon it did he get the boat.

But "yon laddie"6 who had taught the boat-master how to build his boats so cunningly below the water-lineabove the water-line he had had to use his native wits, and they were scant enoughmust surely have been there beforehand, and bidden him both sell it cheaply, so that Elias might get it, and stipulate besides that the boat should not be looked at too closely. In this way it escaped the usual tarring fore and aft.

Elias now thought about sailing home, but went first into the town, provided himself and family with provisions against Christmas, and indulged in a little nip of brandy besides. Glad as he was over the day's bargain, he, and his wife too, took an extra drop in their e'en, and their son Bernt had a taste of it too.

After that they sailed off homewards in their new boat. There was no other ballast in the boat but himself, his old woman, the children, and the Christmas provisions. His son Bernt sat by the main-sheet; his wife, helped by her next eldest son, held the sail-ropes; Elias himself sat at the rudder, while the two younger brothers of twelve and fourteen were to take it in turns to bail out.

They had eight miles of sea to sail over, and when they got into the open, it was plain that the boat would be tested pretty stiffly on its first voyage. A gale was gradually blowing up, and crests of foam began to break upon the heavy sea.

And now Elias saw what sort of a boat he really had. She skipped over the waves like a sea-mew; not so much as a splash came into the boat, and he therefore calculated that he would have no need to take in all his clews7 against the wind, which an ordinary Femböring would have been forced to do in such weather.
Out on the sea, not very far away from him, he saw another Femböring, with a full crew, and four clews in the sail, just like his own. It lay on the same course, and he thought it rather odd that he had not noticed it before. It made as if it would race him, and when Elias perceived that, he could not for the life of him help letting out a clew again.

And now he went racing along like a dart, past capes and islands and rocks, till it seemed to Elias as if he had never had such a splendid sail before. Now, too, the boat showed itself what it really was, the best boat in Ranen.

The weather, meantime, had become worse, and they had already got a couple of dangerous seas right upon them. They broke in over the main-sheet in the forepart of the boat where Bernt sat, and sailed out again to leeward near the stern.

Since the gloom had deepened, the other boat had kept almost alongside, and they were now so close together that they could easily have pitched the baling-can from one to the other.

So they raced on, side by side, in constantly stiffer seas, till night-fall, and beyond it. The fourth clew ought now to have been taken in again, but Elias didn't want to give in, and thought he might bide a bit till they took it in in the other boat also, which they needs must do soon. Ever and anon the brandy-flask was brought out and passed round, for they had now both cold and wet to hold out against.

The sea-fire, which played on the dark billows near Elias's own boat, shone with an odd vividness in the foam round the other boat, just as if a fire-shovel was ploughing up and turning over the water. In the bright phosphorescence he could plainly make out the rope-ends on board her. He could also see distinctly the folks on board, with their sou'westers on their heads; but as their larboard side lay nearest, of course they all had their backs towards him, and were well-nigh hidden by the high heeling hull.

Suddenly a tremendous roller burst upon them. Elias had long caught a glimpse of its white crest through the darkness, right over the prow where Bernt sat. It filled the whole boat for a moment, the planks shook and trembled beneath the weight of it, and then, as the boat, which had lain half on her beam-ends, righted herself and sped on again, it streamed off behind to leeward.

While it was still upon him, he fancied he heard a hideous yell from the other boat; but when it was over, his wife, who sat by the shrouds, said, with a voice which pierced his very soul: "Good God, Elias! the sea has carried off Martha and Nils!-their two youngest children, the first nine, the second seven years old, who had been sitting in the hold near Bernt. Elias merely answered: "Don't let go the lines, Karen, or you'll lose yet more!"

They had now to take in the fourth clew, and, when this was done, Elias found that it would be well to take in the fifth and last clew too, for the gale was ever on the increase; but, on the other hand, in order to keep the boat free of the constantly heavier seas, he dare not lessen the sail a bit more than he was absolutely obliged to do; but they found that the scrap of sail they could carry gradually grew less and less. The sea seethed so that it drove right into their faces, and Bernt and his next eldest brother Anthony, who had hitherto helped his mother with the sail-lines, had, at last, to hold in the yards, an expedient one only resorts to when the boat cannot bear even the last clewhere the fifth.

The companion boat, which had disappeared in the meantime, now suddenly ducked up alongside again, with precisely the same amount of sail as Elias's boat; but he now began to feel that he didn't quite like the look of the crew on board there. The two who stood and held in the yards (he caught a glimpse of their pale faces beneath their sou'westers) seemed to him, by the odd light of the shining foam, more like corpses than men, nor did they speak a single word.

A little way off to larboard he again caught sight of the high white back of a fresh roller coming through the dark, and he got ready betimes to receive it. The boat was laid to with its prow turned aslant towards the on-rushing wave, while the sail was made as large as possible, so as to get up speed enough to cleave the heavy sea and sail out of it again. In rushed the roller with a roar like a foss; again, for an instant, they lay on their beam ends; but, when it was over, the wife no longer sat by the sail ropes, nor did Anthony stand there any longer holding the yardsthey had both gone overboard.

This time also Elias fancied he heard the same hideous yell in the air; but in the midst of it he plainly heard his wife anxiously calling him by name. All that he said when he grasped the fact that she was washed overboard, was, "In Jesus' Name!" His first and dearest wish was to follow after her, but he felt at the same time that it became him to save the rest of the freight he had on board, that is to say, Bernt and his other two sons, one twelve, the other fourteen years old, who had been baling out for a time, but had afterwards taken their places in the stern behind him.

Bernt had now to look to the yards all alone, and the other two helped as best they could. The rudder Elias durst not let slip, and he held it fast with a hand of iron, which continuous exertion had long since made insensible to feeling.

A moment afterwards the comrade boat ducked up again: it had vanished for an instant as before. Now, too, he saw more of the heavy man who sat in the stern there in the same place as himself. Out of his back, just below his sou'wester (as he turned round it showed quite plainly), projected an iron spike six inches long, which Elias had no difficulty in recognising again. And now, as he calmly thought it all over, he was quite clear about two things: one was that it was the Draug8 itself which was steering its half-boat close beside him, and leading him to destruction; the other was that it was written in heaven that he was to sail his last course that night. For he who sees the Draug on the sea is a doomed man. He said nothing to the others, lest they should lose heart, but in secret he commended his soul to God.

During the last hour or so he had been forced out of his proper course by the storm; the air also had become dense with snow; and Elias knew that he must wait till dawn before land could be sighted. Meanwhile he sailed along much the same as before. Now and then the boys in the stern complained that they were freezing; but, in the plight they were now in, that couldn't be helped, and, besides, Elias had something else to think about. A terrible longing for vengeance had come over him, and, but for the necessity of saving the lives of his three lads, he would have tried by a sudden turn to sink the accursed boat which kept alongside of him the whole time as if to mock him; he now understood its evil errand only too well. If the Kvejtepig9 could reach the Draug before, a knife or a gaff might surely do the same thing now, and he felt that he would gladly have given his life for one good grip of the being who had so mercilessly torn from him his dearest in this world and would fain have still more.

At three or four o'clock in the morning they saw coming upon them through the darkness a breaker of such a height that at first Elias thought they must be quite close ashore near the surf swell. Nevertheless, he soon recognised it for what it really wasa huge billow. Then it seemed to him as if there was a laugh over in the other boat, and something said, "There goes thy boat, Elias!" He, foreseeing the calamity, now cried aloud: "In Jesus' Name!" and then bade his sons hold on with all their might to the withy-bands by the rowlocks when the boat went under, and not let go till it was above the water again. He made the elder of them go forward to Bernt; and himself held the youngest close by his side, stroked him once or twice furtively down the cheeks, and made sure that he had a good grip. The boat, literally buried beneath the foaming roller, was lifted gradually up by the bows and then went under. When it rose again out of the water, with the keel in the air, Elias, Bernt, and the twelve-year-old Martin lay alongside, holding on by the withy-bands; but the third of the brothers was gone.

They had now first of all to get the shrouds on one side cut through, so that the mast might come to the surface alongside instead of disturbing the balance of the boat below; and then they must climb up on the swaying bottom of the boat and stave in the key-holes, to let out the air which kept the boat too high in the water, and so ease her. After great exertions they succeeded, and Elias, who had got up on the top first, now helped the other two up after him.

There they sat through the long dark winter night, clinging convulsively on by their hands and knees to the boat's bottom, which was drenched by the billows again and again.

After the lapse of a couple of hours died Martin, whom his father had held up the whole time as far as he was able, of sheer exhaustion, and glided down into the sea. They had tried to cry for help several times, but gave it up at last as a bad job.

Whilst they two thus sat all alone on the bottom of the boat, Elias said to Bernt he must now needs believe that he too was about to be "along o' mother!"10 but that he had a strong hope that Bernt, at any rate, would be saved, if he only held out like a man. Then he told him all about the Draug, whom he had struck below the neck with the Kvejtepig, and how it had now revenged itself upon him, and certainly would not forbear till it was "quits with him."

It was towards nine o'clock in the morning when the grey dawn began to appear. Then Elias gave to Bernt, who sat alongside him, his silver watch with the brass chain, which he had snapped in two in order to drag it from beneath his closely buttoned jacket. He held on for a little time longer, but, as it got lighter, Bernt saw that his father's face was deadly pale, his hair too had parted here and there, as often happens when death is at hand, and his skin was chafed off his hands from holding on to the keel. The son understood now that his father was nearly at the last gasp, and tried, so far as the pitching and tossing would allow it, to hold him up; but when Elias marked it, he said, "Nay, look to thyself, Bernt, and hold on fast. I go to motherin Jesus' Name!" and with that he cast himself down headlong from the top of the boat.

Every one who has sat on the keel of a boat long enough knows that when the sea has got its own it grows much calmer, though not immediately. Bernt now found it easier to hold on, and still more of hope came to him with the brightening day. The storm abated, and, when it got quite light, it seemed to him that he knew where he was, and that it was outside his own homestead, Kvalholm, that he lay driving.

He now began again to cry for help, but his chief hope was in a current which he knew bore landwards at a place where a headland broke in upon the surge, and there the water was calmer. And he did, in fact, drive closer and closer in, and came at last so near to one of the rocks that the mast, which was floating by the side of the boat all the time, surged up and down in the swell against the sloping cliff. Stiff as he now was in all his limbs from sitting and holding on, he nevertheless succeeded, after a great effort, in clambering up the cliff, where he hauled the mast ashore, and made the Femböring fast.

The Finn girl, who was alone in the house, had been thinking, for the last two hours, that she had heard cries for help from time to time, and as they kept on she mounted the hill to see what it was. There she saw Bernt up on the cliff, and the overturned Femböring bobbing up and down against it. She immediately dashed down to the boat-place, got out the old rowing-boat, and rowed along the shore and round the island right out to him.

Bernt lay sick under her care the whole winter through, and didn't go a fishing all that year. Ever after this, too, it seemed to folks as if the lad were a little bit daft.

On the open sea he never would go again, for he had got the sea-scare. He wedded the Finn girl, and moved over to Malang, where he got him a clearing in the forest, and he lives there now, and is doing well, they say.
























(Illustration: Laurence Housman.)















line

[1] A district in northern Norway.
[2] A boat with three oars on each side.
[3] A long pole, with a hooked iron spike at the end of it, for spearing Kvejte or hallibut with.
[4] A large boat with five oars on each side, used for winter fishing in northern Norway.
[5] The chief port in those parts.
[6] Hin Karen = "the devil." Karen is the Danish Karl.
[7] The Klör, or clews, were rings in the corner of the sail to fasten it down by in a strong wind. Setja ei Klo = "take in the sail a clew." Setja tvo, or tri Klör = "take it in two or three clews," i.e., diminish it still further as the wind grew stronger.
[8] A demon peculiar to the north Norwegian coast. It rides the seas in a half-boat. Compare Icelandic draugr.
[9] See note 3 above.
[10] Være med hu, Mor. Hu is the Danish Hun.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Get the pots out, it's dyeing time at Halfpenny Home!

This week we thought that we would try a something new and dye with brazilwood, we were not disappointed...you soak the brazil wood (tied up in a little stockinette bag) overnight in water and then simmer it for an hour.
When we added the mordanted items it went this berry red!
Lovely!
The colour result is affected by the acidity of the dyebath and to make it more purple than red we added some soda ash.
Gorgeous!
Look at this washing line of loveliness, all natural dyes!
Did a bit of dip - dyeing

And finally, you've all seen Barney, Jacqui's dog so here's my dog Bob - a miniature pinscher. He gets jealous when we have evening meetings and once ate the ends of all my knitting needles, I still love him though!
Have a good weekend, Nic x

THE STRANGE WORLD OF MUSHROOMS, ABOVE AND BELOW

(Close-up of live mushroom coral taken by James Nicholson of the Coral Culture and Collaborative Research Facility, South Carolina. This image took 13th place at the 2010 Nikon Small World Photography Contest.)


Mushroom corals are members of the Fungiidae, a family of interesting marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria, which includes corals, anemones, and jellyfish, as well as some aquatic species. 


Unlike the more familiar stony, or reef-building corals, most mushroom corals are not polyps roughly the size of ants living together in colonies that take the form of, say, staghorn corals.

(Heliofungia actiniformis. Photo by Samuel Chow, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)


Instead most are free-living solitary polyps that grow to relatively enormous sizes. Heliofungia actiniformis (above) can reach 50 centimeters/20 inches in diameter. Believe it or not, the photograph above is of a single polyp.


(Fungia fungia. Photo by Jon Zander, Digon3, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)


Many mushroom corals look dead or bleached until their tentacles emerge, generally after dark.


(Photo by Silke Baron, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)


They share some interesting traits with their terrestrial (mostly) namesakes, the fungi, or mushrooms. 


Shape obviously. Though mostly it's the juvenile fungiids, growing on stalks, that resemble terrestrial fungi. Sorry can't find any pictures of them.


(Lycoperdon perlatum. Photo by Dohduhdah, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.) 


Mushrooms of the land are also amazing organisms. Enough so as to warrant a kingdom all their own, the Kingdom Fungi, separate from the plants, the animals (including mushroom corals), and the bacteria. 


























(Photo by Dohduhdah, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.) 


Genetically, mushrooms are more closely related to animals than plants.




(Portobello mushroom, Agaricus bisporus. Photo by Chameleon, courtesy Wikiemdia Commons.)


This seems pretty obvious to anyone who dines on mushrooms. A portobellowhich is simply the older fruit, or pileus, of a button and a crimini mushroomis downright meaty tasting.


(Photo by cyclonebill, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.


Of late, a few discoveries about mushrooms are bending our notions of time and space in the living world.


 (Armillaria ostoyae. Photo by Eric Steinert, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.) 


A clonal colony of honey mushrooms (Armillaria ostoyae) in Oregon has been found to extend across more than 965 hectares/2,384 acres of forested mountains.


The colony is estimated at between 1,900 and 8,650 years old.




(The unreleased spores of a morel mushroom {Morchella elata} magnified 40 times CORRECTION: taken with a 40X objective lens. Photo [and correction, see Comments, below] thanks to Peter G. Werner, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)


The reproductive strategies of the Kingdom Fungi are equally exuberant. Many species reproduce sexually and/or asexually, depending on the stages of their life cycle and on environmental triggers.


In sexual reproduction, compatible individuals may combine by fusing their threadlike hyphae (the parts we usually don't see, underground or inside rotting trees) together into an interconnected network. As if humans mated by first fusing our bloodstreams.


The video below highlights, with the help of lasers, tiny mushroom spores.



Secret Sounds of Spores: Introduction from The Amazing Rolo on Vimeo.


The second video is part of the same ongoing beautiful fusion of art and science hyphae. Wish I could get to Edinburgh to see the installation.



The Boroscilloscope from The Amazing Rolo on Vimeo.


The release of mushroom spores is spectacularly reminiscent of spawning corals.





In the photo below you can see the tiny orange eggs being released by a female mushroom coral (Fungia scutaria) spawning at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in Oahu. Looks kind of psychedelic.


(Photo by Jake Adams. From Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine.)


Researchers from Japan recently discovered that mushroom corals can change sex and back again, a talent known as  sequential hermaphroditism. It's not all that unusual in the deep blue home. Some of the echinoderms, like urchins and sea stars, along with some of the crustaceans, mollusks, and bristle worms gender shift every which way too. 


In the mushroom corals studied so far, the smaller individuals are generally males and the larger individuals females. This makes sense when you consider the different time-and-energy investment required to make eggs versus sperm.


Mushroom corals, in their adult form, do have the ability to move, albeit very slowly, via three known mechanisms: by regulating buoyancy and floating away; by growing a hydromechanically adapted shape and floating away; or by creeping away. Motility enables them to seek out the sunniest locations on the reefsunlight fuels their endosymbiotic bacteriaand to escape being overgrown by other corals.


But might they be sprightlier than we think? 





(Mushroom coral eating moon jellyfish. From Coral Reefs.) 


Recently mushroom corals living in the Gulf of Aqaba were observed eating moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita). How did they procure the wandering jellies? No one knows.


The papers:

  • B. A. Ferguson, T. A. Dreisbach, C. G. Parks, G. M. Filip, and C. L. Schmitt. Coarse-scale population structure of pathogenic Armillaria species in a mixed-conifer forest in the Blue Mountains of northeast Oregon. Can. J. For. Res. 33(4): 612–623 (2003). DOI:10.1139/x03-065.
  • Yossi Loya and Kazuhiko Sakai. Bidirectional sex change in mushroom stony corals. Proc Biol Sci B. 2008 October 22; 275(1649): 2335–2343. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0675.

UPDATE: Thanks to Joe Schmidt for sending along a view (below) of the coral fungus growing in a tree in his Illinois neighborhood. Seems a good looking case of convergent evocation.

























(Photo by Joe Schmidt.)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Get Clean Testimonial and Giveaway (5winners)

Hi there!

I hope that you had a great week.

Like I said in my last post, we have been extremely busy around here.  I can’t believe that my last post was on Monday night!  I have not been a good blogger lately…opps!

I am ready for trick-or-treating this weekend, how about you?

I have told you all before that I receive a lot emails from my Shaklee customers telling me how satisfied they are with their new products!  I absolutely LOVE hearing that…truly, I do!

Well, I wanted to share one email that I got last week with you.  I received this email from a customer named Joi with 17 PHOTOS…you know how I LOVE those!!!  I was soooo excited to see the awesome pictures.  Of course, I asked her if I could share with you guys and she said yes!

So here is what she wrote…

Hi Bonnie,

I am just emailing to let you know I stumbled across your blog and love it ! I was amazed by the pictures of how clean your home is and knew I had to give it a try. So I ordered the basic H and scour off along with a few mirco fiber cloths and waited anxiously for them to arrive. Within less then 3 days they arrived I felt like a child at Christmas had to open and try them right away ! I love to clean but hate having many different products to keep switching back and forth to. I have attached some before and after pictures and am so completely amazed at how great they work and love that my kids are not being exposed to awful fumes . I was able to get little fingerprints { which there are always a ton of I have a 10 year old and 3 year old twins } off my black hutch when I had tried all other products . My  kitchen sink looked so good the next morning I didn't want to put our breakfast dishes in it LOL. The granite in our kitchen has a beautiful shine and my floors feel so squeaky clean.  I am definitely  hooked and thinking about trying the dishwasher detergent next. So many thanks for the introduction to some fabulous products! 

She is such a sweetheart, isn’t she?

Thanks some much Joi!

Here are the photos that she sent me…

Here is a photo of her sink!  Gorgeous, right?  I LOVE that big single sink.

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It’s sparkling!

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I wouldn’t want to put my dishes in there either.

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Here is another sink!  I am in LOVE with this one…so pretty…and now clean too!

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Here is her oven door BEFORE SCOUR OFF.

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Here is the AFTER.

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Here is a picture of her shiny floor.

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Here is her black hutch with NO FINGER PRINTS!

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Here is her beautiful granite counter tops so clean looking!

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Here is her squeaky clean stove top…you can actually see reflections off it!

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Sweet!

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CLEAN!!!!

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And no harsh chemicals!

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Here whole house is clean!  She makes you just want get up a CLEAN RIGHT NOW, doesn’t she?

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Beautiful streak-free windows!

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She doesn’t even own any clutter, I bet!

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Thank you so much Joi!!!!

I LOVED that you sent these to me!  That was so sweet of you.

She used Scour Off on the sink, stove and oven and Basic H (household) Organic Concentrate for everything else.

I thought that this would be a GREAT time to add a little GIVEAWAY to this post.

I am GIVING AWAY BASIC H2 samples to 5  PEOPLE!!!!!

I am giving away enough Basic H2 to make two bottles of powerful cleaner when diluted in 16 ounces of water.

You must be a follower of my blog!

Entry : Tell me why you are interested in these products!

FOR BONUS ENTRIES…..

Entry 2: Post about my giveaway  (leave a link)

Entry 3: Like me on Facebook. (leave a link)

Entry 4: Tweet or Facebook about my giveaway (leave a link)

Entry 5: Order something from my website this week (3 entries)

I will announce the WINNERS next week.

Good Luck!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Bonnie :)

Please visit my online Shaklee Shop to learn more about these products or buy them now.

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