The year 2004 was busy for most of us. Now that I have turned seventy, I appreciate every day, knowing that life does not last forever. Last year I participated in more festivals and school demonstrations than ever before. My demonstration with hands on is one of the few examples of early colonial life exhibits making the circuit. Children are enthused to actually participate using my antique tools.
Last year, the Crawford Park District had a pioneer life camp that had a new set of children every week learning how our pioneer forefathers existed in the new Ohio lands.
I was privileged to work with them through the month of July.
The Marion area has seen a considerable number of new homes being built. It is amazing how the Dominion Homes project has changed the landscape east of town. For those that commute to Columbus daily would find it convenient living almost next to Route 23.
More and more homes and business locations are able to connect to Marion County Sewer District Seven. This prevents the soils from becoming overloaded with sanitary waste. This was the problem along Barks Road, which eventually led to the building of the sewer district. We wonder when the district will once again be forced to enlarge their capacity.
There is a Marion County Soil Survey book, which was published years ago after a five-year study of every inch of our county soils. This book points out the areas where various types of building should take place. I have yet to find anyone who is aware of this survey. Every county in Ohio has one that was financed partially by each county and the federal government. If you are considering development of a parcel of ground it would be wise to contact your USDA Soil Conservation Service and get a copy of the book It contains photos of all land surfaces in the county.
Are you feeding the birds this winter? We have had a large number of Junco's show up at the feeder in contrast to the usual pair. I spotted nothing unusual during the year. It seems that there are just so many red tailed hawks and other birds such as the buzzards.
Many of you use the standby feature of your computer. This enables you to get to the Internet a little faster. With a small movement of the mouse or keys, your computer comes back to life. Since traffic has steadily increased on Route 95, my mouse vibrates all over the desk with the rumbling of truck traffic. Hence, my computer will not stay on standby.
Ironically, many of the trucks that drive through here daily are the Smalls Sand and Gravel trucks from Gambier. I see them along the Kokosing Gap Bike Trail since their base of operations is just east of Gambier, over forty miles away. Since most of the land east of Marion County is without limestone, it has to be trucked from our quarries here in the northern part of Marion County. Smalls Sand and Gravel has mountains of their own gravel and sand. The limestone they use comes from Marion County.
New bike trails are popping up over Ohio. There will be a new stretch from Fredericktown to Mt. Vernon, which will join the Kokosing Trail and then continue on to Centerburg, Ohio. This will eventually make a very long trail and will be great to have. There is always opposition to bike trails. Some think they will spread litter and cause other problems. The truth is they contribute only to the well being of wherever they are built.
We can be thankful that we did not get the freezing rain in December that plagued are friends just south of us. Most people were without electric for seven days. Our daughter Kathy lives in Center Village South of Sunbury and experienced the weeklong outage.
When you look at all those silver maples in Marion leaning out over the streets can there be any wonder that someday they too will come down in a storm of some type and create a similar power outage?
