Lifestyles

Having officially opened Dec. 22, A Precious Pet Resort in Henniker is the fulfillment a lifelong dream for owner Mary Green.
For twenty years Green has been working in grooming salons, shelters and rescues, and after relocating to New Hampshire a year ago she decided to build her dream kennel.
The resort is located on Old Concord Road and, according to Green, is a high-end kennel geared toward a stress free vacation for the pet, like their owners will have when they go away.
“The whole kennel was designed so it would be a place where I would want to leave my dog, because I’ve seen the kennels around and I wouldn’t want to leave my dog in any of them,” Green explained.
Currently, Green and her husband are parents to a mastiff, two cats and an adopted one on the way, and 17 rescue birds, from macaws to doves.
Having exotic birds, Green has found it difficult in the past to go away because no one could take care of them. Because of this, Green decided the resort would be open to boarding exotic birds and cats as well.
Although she’s constantly surrounded by animals now, Green maintains it’s not stressful.

In the past two years, Deering Town Clerk Nancy Cowan has brought in nearly $23,000 through three grants with the purpose of restoring and preserving Deering’s town records and stage curtain.
“If anything, far beyond just preserving history, it’s given us a heritage that we are all part of,” Cowan said about the restoration projects. “Because so many of us are not long time family residents, we still take a very deep interest in where we live and what happened here and that gives us a commonality.”
The first grant came from the Division of Vital Records, in the amount of $10,000. The purpose of this grant was to restore Deering’s vital records and preserve them for future generations.
Cowan says the grant came from money that Town Clerks statewide had been paying in for years, to go online. After Vital Statistics finished outfitting all the town clerks with the capability to go online, in order to cut down on paperwork that needs to be stored in office, there was money left over, so they started a grant program.

More than thirty years ago John Sheehan asked his wife-to-be, Elizabeth Early, what she wanted for a wedding present.
"I told her I'd give her anything that I could," he said.
Early asked him to quit smoking, and after just one trip to a hypnotist John was through with cigarettes.
Flash forward to 1999: the couple is reading the paper and they breeze over an advertisement for a hypnotherapy class coming up. A pair of life-long learners, Elizabeth says the class fascinated both of them, but she took the class solo as her husband had traveling conflicts.
"It was really exciting to learn something new that I could use to help people," Elizabeth noted.
In 2003/04, working as a Consulting Ethicist, John found himself sitting at a US Airways Club in New York. He realized he didn't want to spend his time staring at the walls of clubs anymore, when he had so much to go home to.

Although Barbara Zerillo is well-traveled in Nicaragua and Europe,Barbara Zerillo she only knows a few phrases in Mandarin, and is a little nervous about submersing herself in the culture of Taiwan. She will be teaching English at The American International Language Academy in Hsinchu. After a 24-hour flight, she arrived there last Tuesday, Aug. 11.
“When I went to Spain, I had Spanish, but now I only know a few sentences in Mandarin,” said Zerillo. “You hear people speaking in Chinese and you feel at a loss.”
But not for long.
Zerillo will not only be teaching English during her year in Taiwan, but will be taking lessons in Mandarin. Her curiosity for languages and different cultures began at Clark University, when she went to Central America.
“I went to Nicaragua my freshman year in college,” she explained. “Before that I really didn’t have an interest in languages.”
Sustainable agriculture was the focus of that trip, with an organization called Bridges to Community.

Over two hundred Hillsboro-Deering middle school students gave disabilities’ activist Keith Jones a spontaneous standing ovation after speaking with them on Monday.Keith Jones and his fans: Emma Veazie, Cameron Oliver, Alicia Letourneau, Hazel So, Kody Milette, Nicole Hemingway, Josh gould, Tyler Schulte and Jenna Cote all pitched in to present disabilities activist Keith Jones with a T-shirt they made for him. (Michael Pon photo) Clever, sharp-witted and most importantly humorous, Jones had the students laughing with him and getting his message.

“I am a person with a disability and I am devastatingly sexy,” said Jones, catching the students off guard and sparking a wave of laughter.

Overcoming language and culture barriers, three foreign exchange students attended Hillsboro-Deering high school this year, absorbing American culture and making friends they may keep into the future.
They have been living with families in Washington, where two of them saw snow for the first time and all three endured a record-breaking season of snowfall.
Tien Tran from Vietnam, Kyung-Hyun Yoon from South Korea and Alejandra Gonzales del Real from Mexico have one thing in common. They all live in cities at home in their own countries, and were all challenged by life in rural Washington.
“I like living in the city better in Vietnam, but here I like living in the country,” said Tien, who added she likes vacations in rural Vietnam, but not year-round life. “Here I like [country life] year-round.”
Tien, who is from Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city in the country but not the capital, studied English for six years, but still found it hard to adjust to studying in the language here. She will be going to Atlanta with the DECA team to compete in a national contest.Tien

Nearly 50 Hillsboro-Deering middle school students of the month toured the expansive Osram-Sylvania light-bulb manufacturing plant in town last Thursday. H-D middle school students assemble light house kits to learn about bending and dissembling light. (Jonathan Dunlap photo)They were also introduced to the physical properties of reflection, refraction and diffraction used in making headlights and other lamps for motor vehicles.
Although the many bulbs and lamps the company makes for motor vehicles may be small, many thousands of them are made at the plant per day and the company has a worldwide reach. According to information provided by the company, over 400 lamp types are produced for cars, trucks, and electronics in facilities throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.
“I liked how we could look into the machines and see everything happening, how the light-bulbs were getting cut into shapes, and how all the materials were being put inside of it,” said eighth grader Brenda Pletcher.

Surrounded by appliances and good cheer, Dwight Gould and Ed Gauntt spend every other Tuesday night strumming their guitars and singing with other local musicians. Dwight Gould and Ed Gauntt play for an audience of applicances at Eaton Furniture. (Michael Pon photo)Their only audience, the showroom of brand new washing machines, driers and dishwashers after hours at Eatons Furniture in Hillsborough.
The home appliances, a stoic crowd neither critical nor complimentary, pass no judgment nor give applause. But soon, when spring and summer allow, Gould, Gauntt and their friends intend to share their talents in Butler Park. With a tin can set out before them, they hope to collect some funds for local causes in exchange for their musical efforts.
“It’s good old fashioned sitting around, playing guitar and having some fun,” said Gauntt, a former teen rocker from California. “That’s what most of us can do, not American Idol stuff. We’d get cut in the first round.”