Dalton Hesson made his singing debut with a rendition of “Folsom Prison Blues” at the North Star Community Picnic in Darke County when he was 6 years old. He took piano lessons for more than four years and his parents gave him a guitar when he was 12.
Both joined Future Farmers of America at their respective high schools, and both attended the national FFA convention in 2022, where, as fate would have it, both entered the talent competition. Hesson strummed his guitar and sang his way into the top 15; Moore finished third.
Soon, they were Dalton & Delaney, performing at clubs and events with a mix of covers and original songs that span the musical spectrum.
“Growing up, we approached music from different angles,” Moore says. “I’m so glad Dalton came along. What we once did differently, we now do together.”
It was a cloudy, misty afternoon that belied the spring season when my children and I arrived at Glen Helen Nature Preserve near Yellow Springs, in search of the nearby town’s iconic namesake.
ACCORDING TO A MAP from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, most of Ohio’s springs are in the southeast part of the state, with a fair number in central and southwest Ohio as well. Steven Lyon, an associate professor at the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Ohio State University, says they’re driven by the state’s geological history and the prevalence of limestone, sandstone, and shale.
We all live by rules. Rules help keep society orderly. They protect individual rights, and they give families and businesses a fair basis for planning. We make better decisions when we understand the rules and can trust they’re not going to change without warning. The same is true at your local electric cooperative.
It’s entirely possible I was a belted kingfisher in a former life. The ultimate introverts of the bird world, kingfishers only spend time with others of their kind when raising their young; other than that, they’re fishing.
It’s one of the most intriguing sights in all of nature. Whether from a perch or a hover, the bird folds its wings and drops like a rock, hitting the water with a splash. Within a split second, an opaque nictitating membrane — a kingfisher’s third eyelid — closes horizontally over the eyeball to help protect it under water. The kingfisher doesn’t spear the fish, but instead grabs it between its upper and lower jawbones.
If you’ve ever flown over Ohio and points west, you cannot help but notice the checkerboard of farm fields and woodlots — the corn-and-soybean plaid that’s repeated westward until it finally exhausts itself at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
In 1774, the Ohio Country was a vast land populated by a host of Native American tribes, and the British Crown wanted to use it as feudal property — owned by the king — where occupants would pay a tribute to live there. A young Thomas Jefferson was having none of it. He penned a pamphlet denouncing the plan — he hated the thought that only aristocrats and kings and churches could own land in America. More on that in a bit.
Some people might be alarmed by the sight of a low-flying helicopter dangling what looks like a prop in a horror movie passing over their property.
Nancy Thompson was excited.
“Washington Electric called me last week and told me they would be here, and here they are,” she says. “I think it’s kind of exciting. They came through and cut the trees without cutting the wire. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
About 50% of all power outages are caused by vegetation. That figure varies widely depending on the landscape through which power lines run, and it reaches two-thirds for some Ohio co-ops. Many outages occur during storms when limbs or entire trees fall across electric lines, but others arise less dramatically when branches grow into lines.
Think about a fast, maneuverable flyer in nature and likely a hummingbird may come to mind — so agile it can even fly backward!
Aggressive mini-predators, dragonflies and damselflies hunt their prey on the wing, capturing other flying insects such as small flies, mosquitoes (hooray!), and, at times, other dragonflies. Larger dragonflies can even take down swallowtail butterflies. And their appetite
is voracious.
Glotzhober cites an early 1900s researcher in Florida who had reared a cageful of houseflies to present to a large dragonfly of the darner family for feeding. “The researcher kept feeding the dragonfly until he ran out of flies, and all in one sitting,” he says.
As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Americans are paying particular attention to the history of the nation: the “shot heard ’round the world,” the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and all of the history from just before and af
“Reading about history in a book is good, but it doesn't give you the same feel as attending a living history event,” says Cindy Jackson, a reenactor who is coordinator of the Fair at New Boston, an annual Labor Day event in Springfield that includes several reenactments during its run. “It helps us get in touch with history instead of it being a dry subject in a textbook — and when you see it happening right in front you, it isn't as pretty as in the movies.”
