Dear Cyndy,

As you surmised, the deer picture was taken with the
surveillance camera. Margaret reports that she counted
four of them on the lawn, but only one posed for its
portrait.

My unswerving loyalty to High Romanticism won't permit
me to challenge Keats' truth equals beauty identity.
Interpretation, however, is permissible and may, in this
instance be essential. When you graded history exams 
you checked off whether the answers were correct, not
whether they were quaint, picturesque, inspired or otherwise
beautiful. I'm reminded of Kierkegaard's claim to utter
subjectivity when he wrote of truth: "the truth which edifies
is truth for you." (Either Or, II) Accordingly, so long as
truth is deemed subjective, the validity of Keats' equation
remains unquestioned. This equation is, however, inapplicable
to historical truth which, by (my) definition is inherently
objective, if only because history is story-telling. You don't
tell a story to yourself: you tell it to someone else, and it's
this social nature of historical truth which precludes its being
subjective. It's logical to argue that there is no truth in
history because all truth is subjective; that "objective truth"
is an oxymoron, and that historical truth is a phantom, -
but if so, what were doing all those years in Wittenberg?

Inasmuch as you broached the delicate matter of building costs,
let me go far out on a limb with the wild guess that for a 1250
sq ft dwelling, Deck House would charge you about $100/sq.ft.
for the materials, the builder $100/sq.ft. for construction,
and that surveying, grading, excavation, foundation, well and
septic system would add another $30/sq.ft. These figures would
aggregate $287500 for a 1250 sq.ft. house, which obviously
compares quite favorably with $525000 for the Granfield house,
but which, unless you're a billionaire, is still way too much
for a house which won't be occupied for more than a month or
two each year and which won't be rented. If you could shave
$100000 off that price by functioning as your own contractor
and having family members do much of the work, the project might
begin to make financial sense, - but you've told me that you
can't, and that there are no family members ready to pitch in.
Which means you shouldn't.

I hope this is not too harsh a note on which to stop. Stay
well, be happy and give my best to Ned.

Jochen