Read the original post "Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup" on A Modern Homestead. There’s nothing more comforting than a big pot of homemade chicken noodle soup. It’s cozy, nourishing, and easy to stretch across several meals. This chicken soup is simple, customizable, and delicious whether you’re eating it fresh, freezing portions for later, or canning the base for shelf-stable storage! Originally shared in 2015, this recipe has been... Read More The post "Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup" appeared first on A Modern Homestead.

ABC TV Station in Sacramento Hit by Gunfire, One Day After Protest Over Kimmel Suspension

Graves connected to a medieval leprosarium have been discovered in Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. A human bone was encountered last week during construction of a new “bicycle superhighway” on Ratzeburger Allee just outside the medieval city gates. The police were called at first, and when they determined it was not a criminal issue, archaeologists stepped in to excavate. They found the graves were part of the cemetery of St. Jürgen Siechenhaus (St. Jürgen’s infirmary). The former Lübeck St. Jürgen leper house, with its associated chapel and cemetery, was located directly in front of the outer Mill Gate in the south of the Hanseatic city. The complex probably originated after 1260, when Bishop John III of Tralau issued a general order for the lepers of the Diocese of Lübeck. This was likely done at the request of the Lübeck Council to prepare for such a leper colony in Lübeck. This is consistent with the decree issued by Bishop Burchard in 1294, which stated that the lepers were to be kept “extra muros civitates Lubicenses murantibus” (outside the walls of the city of Lübeck). The complex was destroyed in the so-called Wullenwever Revolt of 1534 and not rebuilt until 1540 and 1542, before being completely demolished approximately 90 years later, making way for the reinforced city fortifications. Several previous excavations of the area, usually spurred by utility or construction work, have encountered graves from the leper house cemetery. The skeletal remails were removed, examined and analyzed, but surprisingly, DNA and osteological analyses have not uncovered any direct evidence of leprosy. The skeletons found in the cemetery represent a demographic cross-section of the city, not any one particular group, age or gender dominates. Archaeologists believe St. Jürgen may have had a second role as a hospital for terminally ill patients, not just for lepers. The previous burials were discovered in 2018, and while construction work has been ongoing since then, there have been no new graves found until this month. The new discoveries prove that the cemetery stretched much farther east than realized. These are individual, as far as is known, west-east oriented grave pits about 1.30 meters below the current surface. The faint remains of wood suggest that the dead were buried in sawn logs. As in 2018, the graves will be scientifically documented, excavated, and examined in more detail. Only then will it become clear whether these burials were laid down at the same time as those excavated then and whether they confirm or supplement the findings, or provide further new insights.

Jimmy Kimmel’s indefinite suspension from ABC feels less like censorship than comeuppance. The comedian who once built his reputation on gleeful political incorrectness now finds himself hoisted by…

WASHINGTON — During the Monday monologue that spawned this kerfuffle, late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel stepped in it when he said, “The MAGA Gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this…

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Nine years ago, way back in 2016, my husband and I started renting out the basement apartment of our house as a short-term rental on Airbnb. We live in a college town and figured we'd get some guests during football game weekends and graduations. We didn't realize at the time how many people come to our town to visit their college kids or check out the school, so we were pleasantly surprised by how regularly we were booked.In 2019, we moved into the house next door and now rent out both floors of the old house as separate units. We love being Airbnb hosts and have had a very successful run of it, with almost 1,000 5-star reviews, Superhost status, and lots of repeat guests. Being regular guests haas helped make us good Airbnb hosts.Photo credit: CanvaPart of the secret of our success? We don't charge a cleaning fee or make guests do check-out chores. In fact, we find both things rather loathsome. What makes us good hosts is that we've been Airbnb guests for years. As a family of five that travels a lot, we've found far more value in short-term rentals than in hotels over the years. We love having a kitchen, living room, and bedrooms and feeling like we have a "home" while traveling. We even spent a nomadic year staying at short-term rentals for a month at a time.When you've experienced dozens of Airbnbs as a guest, you learn what guests appreciate and what they don't. You see what's annoying and unnecessary and what's to be expected in comparison to a hotel. We started taking mental notes long before we started our own rental about what we would want to do and not do if we ever had one and have implemented those things now that we do. Chasing Tom And Jerry GIF by MaxGiphyAs guests, we know the pain of the cleaning fee, so we don't charge one.It helps that my husband has a flexible schedule and grew up helping with his parents' janitorial service, so most of the time he cleans the apartments himself. We could charge a cleaning fee for his time and labor, but even if we were paying for outside cleaners, we still wouldn't put a separate fee onto guest bookings. It makes far more sense to us to just wrap the cleaning fee into the price.From a host's perspective, the one-night stay is where the cleaning fee question hits the hardest. Whether someone stays one night or 10 nights, the cleaning cost is the same. But spreading the cost over 10 nights is a very different beast than adding it to one night, especially from a guest's perspective. On the host side, if we had to pay cleaners without passing that fee onto guests, we've barely make anything on one-night stays. But on the guest side, a $100 a night stay suddenly jumping to $150 or more because a cleaning fee was added is painful, and often a dealbreaker. You can see the conundrum. — (@) The way we see it, and as other Airbnb hosts have found, wrapping cleaning costs into the base price comes out in the wash over time, as long as you have some longer-term stays mixed in with the one-nighters. And it's a much better experience for the guest not to get hit with sticker shock on the "final cost" screen, which is already eye-popping when the platform's service fees and local taxes are added on.(I will say, this may only ring true for smaller units. If you're renting a huge home, cleaning costs are going to be higher just because it takes longer to clean. But I still don't think the full cost should be passed onto guests as a separate fee.) Asking guests to stip the sheets saves almost no time and costs a lot in goodwill.Photo credit: CanvaThere's no reason at all to ask guests to do check-out choresAs for check-out chores—asking guests to do things like start laundry, sweep the floor, take out the trash, etc.—those have never made sense to us. Hosts should have enough switch-out linens that laundry doesn't have to be started prior to checking out, and none of those chores save enough time for the cleaning people to make it worth asking guests to do it. I can see taking out trash if there wasn't going to be another guest for a while, but usually you'd want to clean right away after a stay anyway just in case it does get booked last minute.The only thing we ask guests to do is to start the dishwasher if they have dirty dishes (as a guest, that seems like a logical and reasonable request), lock the door, and have a safe trip home. Don't need to pull the sheets. Don't need to take out any garbage or recycling. Those things don't take that long, but that's just as much a reason not to ask guests to do it. Annoying your guests by asking them to do something extra—especially if they're already paying a cleaning fee—isn't worth the tiny bit of time it might save the cleaning people. Most guests are try to leave the place as they found it, standard cleaning routine aside. Photo credit: CanvaThis approach works very well, because 95% of guests leave the space neat and tidy anyway.In almost 10 years, I can count on one hand how many problems we've had with guests leaving a significant mess. That's been a pleasant surprise, but I think part of the reason is that guests are simply reciprocating the respect and consideration we show them by not making them pay extra fees or do chores on their way out. We're going to have to clean it anyway, so putting work on them is unnecessarily burdensome, even if it's something that doesn't take long. People recognize that. To be fair, it probably helps that we aren't some big real estate tycoon buying up a bunch of apartments and turning them into short-term rentals run by impersonal management companies. People's complaints about how short-term rentals impact local housing economies are legitimate. Our situation is more aligned with the original "sharing economy" model, renting out our home to guests who come through town. And in a small college town with a large university, there often aren't enough hotel rooms during busy weekends anyway, so it's been a bit of a win-win all around.I think us being in close proximity, having personal communication with our guests (but also leaving them their privacy), and not charging or asking anything extra of them makes them want to be respectful guests. From our perspective, both as guests and hosts, cleaning fees and check-out chores simply aren't worth their cost.This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.