Editor:

I am grateful for many things, one of which is living in this mountain community. Just breathing in the clean air fragrant with pine, cedar and fir lifts my spirits, until: I get a whiff on the air current from someone’s dryer in the neighborhood spewing out the poisonous smell of some commercial dryer sheet (Bounce, perhaps). Or, the quiet of a Saturday or Sunday morning is disturbed by the neighbor’s leaf blower in the futile endeavor to blow leaves around, at least off his property for the short term, until it blows back, a never-ending cycle — a Sisyphean task.

Those dryer sheets? Toxic. Those leaf blowers? How about raking now and then, maybe every other weekend, thereby giving yourself and your neighbor a break from the cacophony.

Why not take the opportunity to help keep this a beautiful natural environment for all of us to enjoy?   There are alternatives to destructive habits if we choose to look. Research and consider eco-friendly and/or DYI products that work with, not against, the planet, which benefit all the beings that call this home.

For information, visit http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/02/01/safe-solution-fabric-softeners.aspx.

Emily Roossein

Idyllwild