February 8, 2021 thought for today: If you damage the character of another, you damage your own. African Proverb

Wow, what a cold day! This is the kind of day that makes spring looks mighty good. It feels good to see the seed catalogs coming in the mail, that lifts the spirits for a few minutes anyway. Becoming a snow bird sounds like a mighty good idea on days like this. 

Yesterday’s photo theme was “morning picture”. I didn’t get up early enough to get a photo of the sunrise or even that last rise of the sun above the horizon. So this image was shot later in the morning. 

I got the ministers information for the bulletin early this week. The problem is I got it when I was working on my iPad before bed time and away from the computer. As I was trying to flag it so that I would be sure to notice when I got back to email on the computer I accidently deleted it. Ooops. Anyway, when I did get back to the computer this morning, I found that I hadn’t deleted it after all. So I spent a couple of hours working on that this morning. 

I think I will take the time to catch up on some key wording (making it easier to find archived photos) and a few other data maintenance tasks on the computer. 

It was good to get to church yesterday especially since we cancelled last week due to inclement weather. 

The word today is season.  It is always the season for the old to learn, Aeschylus. In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy, William Blake. There is no season such delight can bring, as summer, autumn, winter and the spring, William Browne. Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet drink and botanical medicines, Henry David Thoreau.  I know not any season of life that is past more agreeably than virtuous old age, Marcus Tullius Cicero. No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else, Charles Dickens. You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving, Robert Louis Stevenson.  Many wise and true sermons are preached us everyday by unconscious ministers in street, school, office, or home; even a fair table may become a pulpit, if it can offer the good and helpful words which are never out of season, Louisa May Alcott. Then followed that beautiful season... Summer.... Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new, George Eliot. Every blade in the field - Every leaf in the forest - lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up, Henry David Thoreau. Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection. People see clearer at such times. Storms purify the atmosphere, Henry Ward Beecher. 

Today photo challenge is “bright”. As I have mentioned many times winter doesn’t offer me many opportunities for creative images. I don’t get out in the cold in search of photo ops and there aren’t that many exciting things to generate with an all white world in the background. So once again I dipped into my archive.   

This article is about more growth in our community. The Quarry Trails Metro Park will be opening next fall. According to the article it is believed that it will be one of the most unique parks in the United States. Right now it is “muddy and mucky” but is beginning to take shape along with housing development to be included. A couple of the amenities that will be available are a sledding hill with a steep drop and a dog park “on a hillside with a view of downtown”. The article mentioned that the plans for this park and housing development were begun back in 2017 after several years of looking for an appropriate site. This park is located west of the Scioto River near Trabue and Dublin roads and will eventually the whole plan, park and housing will be a 600-acre area. Half of the 600 acres is “still a working limestone quarry.....the walls of part of the quarry rise hundreds of feet high....with a small lake at the bottom”. A 6,000 foot fence surrounds the quarry to separate folks at the park from the working quarry. In the house portion of the project there will be apartments, townhouses/flats, condominiums and office space and a community center and pool. The projected plan is a neighborhood inside a Metro Park. More features of the park are a climbing wall, lakes for kayaking and paddle boarding and multi-use trails. There will be a “natural amphitheater”, and a BMX bike track. A 25-foot waterfall will be “diverted into a waterfall on stairs of stone that lead to a lake”. The first phase of the park include two lakes, the trail system and access to the Scioto River. The home will look out over the park below. On one of the recent tours of the site a deer was spotted as well as a pack of coyotes. An old railroad trestle will be left as part of one of the trails. There is a 19th century cemetery along the property dating back to the 1840s. Local historians are studying its history. 

I think I will make sloppy joes for dinner.

Joy