We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
My Mom always put up tons of these pickled string beans from my Dad's garden. When you take some out, people eat them like popcorn. You can not can too many of these.
Remember a mystery (Charlotte MacLeod, as I recall) where the solution to the murder hinged on the preserved beans: the murderee would have snapped them, not cut them, so she was poisoned because the beans in question were cut.