On Summit

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the opening of a brand new library. The library (appropriately called the Orange Branch) is located in Orange Township, a fast growing community nestled on the southern edge of the equally fast growing Delaware County. The opening of the Orange Branch represents not just the culmination of a 12 month construction cycle, but also years of planning and preparation, including and perhaps most importantly the Delaware County District Library's successful 2009 levy campaign. While the economy has been slow to recover (and Ohio has been particularly hard hit), it's heartening to see that the vast majority of Ohio communities are willing to support libraries even as State funding for libraries is reduced. The Orange Branch itself is one that all stakeholders can be proud of. It represents the best of what libraries offer, both as place to learn and as a place to gather. Its robust collection of books, AV materials, and computer workstations ar...

I work on the northwest side of town in a mostly residential area. While it's a fairly suburban community, nature still manages to find a way in and stake out its claim. This is perhaps most obvious near the neighborhood's retention pond. I usually try and get out for a walk during my lunch break and I'll often do a lap around this arguably modest body of water. Depending on the time of year, I might encounter herons, ducks, Canadian Geese, swallows, turtles or groundhogs. I've seen people angling in the pond as well, which leads me to believe there must be fish of some sort in there too. While I'm certainly no Henry David Thoreau, I'm surprised at how attuned I've become to rhythms of this little pond's life; from the arrival of the ducks to buds on the forsythia, I'm starting to internalize its seasonal patterns. In the pond's annual cycle, nothing is quite as exciting as the arrival of the goslings and ducklings. They usually appear about the ...