The Amazing Woodpecker
One of the most common birds that are seen at the feeders during the winter in Northeast Ohio are woodpeckers. Ohio is home to seven species of woodpeckers, the Downy being the most common. The largest is the Pileated with a wingspan of almost 30 inches. The most majestic, in my mind, is the Red-headed. All seven species are...
The Latest…
O.K…, I’m gonna describe my latest trip to the Great Big Home & Garden Show, but first there’s this snippet from ?The Week?, one of my news magazines, (actually, there are often some neat snippets in there on all sorts of topics...but I digress...as usual) that I thought was a hoot. Think that I saw it somewhere else too. Anyway,...
Wacky Weather
The first frost of the fall occurred in the middle of October at my house which was not unusual. However, since then the weather HAS been very unusual…or maybe the new normal? Even though the days are getting longer since December 21, we should be gripped by much colder temperatures and several inches of snow. But I was raking...
Your Attention Please
This is your last warning! The response to our request for personal recollections about Garrettsville--the village itself and, ahem, Greater Garrettsville, the surrounding area--has been, shall we say, underwhelming. John Porter, our very own senior version of the Energizer Bunny, came through with some highlight events, some including his home stomping grounds in Hiram. He also mentioned...
Vermiform
I’m thinkin’ that I may have worms. Now, now, you can stop planning to boil the cushions on the sofa where I last sat at your house. I’m talking about “earworms”, you know, those tunes that get stuck in your brain and won’t go away, even if you don’t really like the music, it’s just there and repeating,...
Mantua-Shalersville Fire District News
Mantua - At the last regular meeting, Chief Matt Roosa informed the Fire Board that the department would be holding emergency vehicle driver training class in mid September. The education and training team from Volunteer Firemen’s Insurance Services, Inc. (VFIS) will facilitate the two-day event. This annual training exercise will include classroom work and hands-on driving training exercises, according...
Biscuits and Beyond
All right! Consider yourself warned. If you missed the Chicken and Biscuits Extravaganza at the Garrettsville United Methodist Church last week, you will have another chance in the future, because it got such a good reception that there will likely be a rematch and the dessert table will feature a Greatest Hits tour with...
A Pretty Fair Day
Have I got a deal for you! IBM (Irresponsible Bad Mamma) cat had kittens on the back step, in a specially-designated box—with lining and cover, and just as the little mites were beginning to open their little eyes, she hauled them off somewhere unknown and they were not seen or heard from again. End of story? Not on your tintype! I...
Is it Spring yet?
Yeah, yeah, I know, we’re not quite there yet, but I can hardly wait. Know why? Thereby hangs a tale. A small but intrepid group showed up for the first annual (?) Make A Difference Day work event on Saturday, October 27. Not exactly surprising, since it was plenty chilly and plenty rainy and not looking like your standard “Hey,...
Here We Go Again!
We should be running some sort of a pool featuring everyone’s best guess as to what season we’re REAAaaaaaLLY in and what the weather is going to be like for the next hour-and-a-half. The prize could be a set of mukluks and/or a half-gallon of suntan lotion. The ?Old Farmer’s Almanac ?wasn’t real helpful in maintaining a...
“Respect is earned; not given.”
While Marlon Brando in The Godfather usually gets the credit for this quote, he was actually borrowing a bit of wisdom from the Pakistani Beggar King Hussein Nishah (1538–1599), who wrote, “Treat people the way you want to be treated. Talk to people the way you want to be talked to. Respect is earned, not given.” My father often drove...
Season’s Greetings!
Looks like it’s well and truly winter, even though, astronomically speaking, we’ve got to wait until December 21 to be legit. Weather adventures already! Power went out Friday morning somewhere around 3:00 a.m.--the increasing chill in the house woke me up--and stayed out until about 9:30 a.m. Coulda been worse : Ohio Edison told me when I...
The Unappreciated….Mosses and Lichens
I know several people who work tirelessly in the background doing all the hard and dirty work, making sure the day to day activities get done, and keeping things running; but NEVER GET THE CREDIT! Never get a ‘that a boy” or “great job”. This is the case with two members of the plant kingdom, mosses and lichens. This...
Chipmunks
For those of you who are old enough to remember the cartoon, Alvin and the Chipmunks, they were a trio of brothers who got into all sorts of mischief; the cartoon characters were not too far off from the real thing. Chipmunks are known for eating flower bulbs, getting into bird feeders, and making holes all over your yard,...
Shoo Fly: Black Fly Season In Ohio
With spring finally here it is time to open the windows, air out the house, go outside, and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. Take a trip out into the woodland or park to look for wildflowers and watch the warblers and other colorful birds that are flying north to their breeding grounds. But all of a sudden….ouch. What...
Moths… The Rodney Dangerfield’s of the Insect World
No Respect, no respect at all…Unfortunately when most people think of moths they think of the small grey moths that flew out of grandma’s closet or your uncle’s wallet. Hopefully, after you have finished reading this article you will have a new-found respect for moths. Moths and butterflies are insects which together form the order called Lepidoptera, meaning ‘scaly-winged’. The...
THE OLD ROAD…. A Shoebox Ford On A Budget
Kevin Autry is a new and much younger member of the 1949-’53 Ford Mercury Club. He is the forty one year old new blood that each and every antique car club in this country is in desperate need of these days. How often have you heard it said that the young people aren’t interested in the old cars like...
Party Central
There’s got to be a time limit of some sort on Spring Cleaning. I just finished mine…in time for Party Central in the neighborhood. Whoo-whoo! Luckily, the rain held off until after the throngs had ebbed and the clean-up crew was packing up the detritus left by the crowds in attendance. Said crowds were able to sit on chairs that...
About The Other Chicks…
And about the other chicks…. The Sports Illustrated “swimsuit issue” recently came. A subscriber may choose to skip that issue—for ethical reasons or whatever—but I choose not to (I have no ethics that tender anyway) because I send it to my brother-in-law, a nurse and a fireman, both at once, who then is able to celebrate his birthday with the...
“Don’t stir up the hornet’s nest!”
“Why go looking for trouble?” Dad would ask. “Some trouble is sure to find you at some point in life, but only a fool makes himself a target by intentionally causing a commotion.” Don’t stir up the hornet’s nest is a familiar idiom, likening hornets to angry humans, dating back to the first half of the 1700s. In case you...
Childhood Memories
Close your eyes and think back to a warm summer night, the smell of a camp fire, roasting marshmallows or eating s’mores; when all of a sudden, a young voice yells out “There one is” and all the kids run to the blinking lights slowly rising into the moonlight sky. We all can remember the endless summer nights as...
Green Stuff
Green things are appearing here and there about the estate. Except for the crocuses--or is it croci, plural, you know--most of these items are a mystery to me. No, I lied; I recognize the snowdrops too. Pity they had to bring snow along as well. This green outburst is certainly welcome, after I spent time last fall poking bulbs...
Cool Critters
The porch kitties seem to have rediscovered the charms of the heated kitty condos available to them here at the manse. I now have three regulars to greet me in the morning (At about 6:00a.m., so you know what the temperature has been like) when they get their breakfast. There’s I.B.M.—Irresponsibly Bad Mamma, Moppet (named like a cow we...
Garrettsville Summerfest Wrap-Up
The farmer in the dell. The farmer in the dell. Hi-ho the dairy-o. The farmer in the dell! The definition of the word “dell”—a small, secluded valley or glen (There’s another problematic word), usually a wooded one—isn’t exactly fitting here, but if we can idiosyncratically interpret it to mean “in Garrettsville for the parade”, it was a “dell of a...
The Quill Pig
The porcupine, the second largest rodent in North America, is by far the prickliest. Its Latin name means “quill pig.” There are about two dozen porcupine species worldwide, and all boast a coat of needle-like quills to give predators a sharp reminder that this animal is no easy meal. Some quills, like those of Africa’s crested porcupine, are nearly...
“Sometimes when I’m online, a website will ask me to type in a bunch of weird letters and numbers, or pick out all the pictures that have a car...
“Sometimes when I’m online, a website will ask me to type in a bunch of weird letters and numbers, or pick out all the pictures that have a car or a street sign, or just click box that says ‘I’m not a robot’ before it lets me go any further. Why does this happen?” These are a few different examples...
How to Prepare For The Upcoming Buying Season
Competition is rising for the record low number of houses available. Interest rates are going to rise. Steps to take to be ready to buy: Connect with a realtor, who can get insider info of the market. When house inventory is low, who do you think knows about houses coming available first? Your realtor will introduce you to some lenders...
“How do you treat a chigger bite? What causes it?”
It turns out that there is no one creature called a chigger – the word actually refers to the larval stage of a trombiculid mite. The mites are usually reddish in color and are also known as red bugs, harvest mites, and berry bugs. One of our patrons had heard that chiggers burrowed into the skin or laid eggs in...
Horticultural Report—Summer, 2017
Well, the ferns and the jack-in-the-pulpits were riotous this year and some even had to have some of their fronds evicted from the cozy jungle which they had created. There was green stuff everywhere! And moss!? The water feature/rock with a modest up-spout of gurgling liquid is burbling away but the water is encouraging a bumper growth of really...
It Must Be Spring!
Must be Spring, the litterbugs are out in their cars—at least I assume they’re not the type to be out walking to enjoy the benefits of nature—and they’re pitching trash out of the windows of said vehicles. I picked up, I think it was, six cans on my way around the village in the morning. ( This is all...
