All gardeners, whether ornamental or vegetable, appreciate nature’s color palette in spring. For 84 years, The Garden Club of Virginia has celebrated the beauty of spring through its Historic Garden Week tours. The Garden Club of Virginia, located in Richmond. was founded in 1920 by eight garden clubs. The major purpose of the organization is to protect and conserve the natural beauty of Virginia, to preserve and restore historic gardens and landscapes in the state, and to provide opportunities for education. Visit their website at www.gcvirginia.org/ to learn more. This year’s Historic Garden Week tour is April 22-29. The 2017…
Browsing: Commentary
To the Editor: At the Board of Supervisors meeting this week Chairwoman Dorothy Jaeckle, superintendent for the Bermuda District, defended her recent statements about non-English-speakers and homeless citizens which have caused controversy across the county and the region. In a statement she read from the dais, she said: “This is not an anti-immigrant discussion. This is not illegal vs. legal. I believe even if it was not the law, we would be foolish to not provide an education to any child that resides in our community. This is about a communication issue between a teacher and a student. I would…
Supervisor Jaeckle’s comments on immigrants and the poor To the Editor: To me, this is a case of an elected official using a cost-benefit analysis to mask prejudices against immigrants and poor families. Regarding immigrant students, she argues that spending more on ESOL programs hurts English speaking students. Where is the data for this claim? SOL scores in Chesterfield have long performed above national averages. Jaeckle said her goal is to reduce the pupil-to-teacher ratio (PTR), but it seems that she only wants to reduce class sizes for English speaking students. Chesterfield school board chairman Javaid Siddiqi states, there are 2.5…
Dear Village News Readers, I would like to give you some background on what prompted the discussion that was reported in such a misleading, out-of-context manner in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Over the past several years the Board of Supervisors and the School Board worked together to restore some of the budget cuts made during the recession that, talking with teachers, principals, and parents, we felt were negatively impacting the classroom. Increased class size and loss of electives pretty clearly rose to the top. On the electives issue, let’s use orchestra and foreign languages as an example. Prior to the recession,…
It’s time to brighten up your landscape, fellow garden enthusiasts. Central Virginia will likely have a few more cold days, and frost is possible until mid-April. So, there is plenty of time to exercise an important aspect of gardening, which is planning. Planning avoids the mistake that many gardeners, including me, make: impulse buying. All gardeners see that perfect specimen at the plant retailer. There it sits, lonely with no home. Then the voice from within says, “I need that.” All right, enough “do not do” stuff. Let’s focus on making the garden bright this year. Annuals are always good…
Not a week goes by that we do not hear about a fire in our region. The most recent fire occurred in Northern Chesterfield. It appears that the fire started on a rear deck, with extension into the attic and subsequently into the rest of the home. This fire displaced a family of four, and though I have not heard the cause, I think that we can still talk about a fire like this one. Even though every fire is different in some way all fires have some commonalities, especially in the major components of heat, fuel, and oxygen.…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. I was in the grocery store the other day and I noticed that the freezer aisle was dark. There were no lights in the freezers..which normally means that things are not getting cold..except for one freezer that had a fluorescent light blinking on and off, like the one you see in a horror movie. However, as I walked down the aisle, each freezer section sprang to life….the lights came on one at a time …like magic… then I noticed the motion detector. We have the same thing in our…
During these divisive times, it’s always nice to see people coming together. I can tell you that nothing brings people together better than a Girl Scout cookie sale! From selling at work, to having my sweet girl call and plead family members to purchase her delicious cookies, she has surpassed her goal of selling 100 boxes. She is so proud, and she loves being in the Girl Scouts. I was so happy today, standing outside freezing (wasn’t it spring weather yesterday) as we had a booth sale. People came driving in, money in hand, ready to help support the Girl…
A few days ago, a mobile home caught fire, destroying the mobile home and displacing the two occupants. I do not know whether the results of the investigation are known yet, as to what caused the fire. I do not know the statistics, but it seems that more mobile home fires are occurring. I can remember, when I first became a firefighter in Chesterfield County, that it seemed almost like a daily occurrence to run a working trailer fire. Though I really do not know what changed, the number of mobile home fires, through the latter years of my career,…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. This is a non-football issue since I am writing this weeks after the Big Game. OK then… the other day I went down into the basement to replace the air filter in my furnace. When I got to the bottom step I noticed that there was a mouse sitting in the middle of the basement floor. I suspected he had not noticed me, however; as I walked in his direction he made no attempt to move. He was sitting upright…like a squirrel holding a peanut in his paws. He…