From an early age, Jennifer Osterholdt recognized the importance of farming and agriculture. She lived on a livestock and crop farm and participated in 4-H, where she learned to cook.
Along the way, Osterholdt realized that there was a lack of both understanding and positive information available about farming and agriculture. So she decided to start a blog dedicated to her life on the farm.
Eventually, she began sharing recipes, which she says afforded her the opportunity not only to share her love of cooking with the world, but also to offer that positive information about farming and agriculture.
Between Ohio State University football and agriculture education, Urbana resident Larry Lokai has been wholeheartedly living his passion for 23 years.
Now, as football season approaches, he’s ready to go all-in and plans to be there once again — a favorite of both fans and television cameras at the games.
Along with the hair and face paint, Lokai’s Buckeyeman is best known for handing out buckeyes, the fruit of the Ohio buckeye tree. As he’s expanded the role, he says he’s handed out more than 1.8 million of them.
Of the many paintings hanging in the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, the largest by far measures 22 feet long by 16 feet high and is titled The Signing of the Treaty of Green Ville.
Setting the scene
At the end of the Revolutionary War, England ceded to the fledgling USA ownership of the Northwest Territory — an immense area north and west of the Ohio River that would one day become five states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, as well as part of Minnesota.
The major problem with the agreement was that it completely ignored tens of thousands of indigenous people who were already living on that land — from dozens of major tribes — who were not about to give up their claims on the land without a fight.
Wally Byam’s childhood was spent immersed in nature. He worked on a West Coast sheep farm, where he lived in a donkey-towed wagon that was outfitted with a stove, food, water, and just about everything else he could possibly need.
Byam’s love of camping and the outdoors, combined with American ingenuity, resulted in a product that lasts for decades and is instantly recognizable around the world.
Perhaps best of all, it’s made in Ohio — Byam moved the production to Jackson Center in rural Shelby County right after World War II, and workers there build upward of 120 of the iconic silver bullets every week, all by hand.
Downtown Dayton is your typical urban Midwestern city, filled with blacktop and busy streets, high-rises, and noisy traffic.
But wait: There are also surfers, who are apt to be happily catching a wave out on the water.
River surfing is similar to ocean surfing, but instead of catching waves caused by the wind, it’s done on standing river waves created by flowing whitewater.
“It’s a rush,” says Shannon Thomas, a Dayton native and pro river surfer and paddleboarder. “Anyone who has surfed knows that special feeling you get when you’re on a wave. It’s amazing; very spiritual, very addictive.”
Ohio is the only state in the union with a burgee flag — a shape usually associated with a boating organization.
Shanties date to the mid-1400s era of tall ships, when sailors’ work was grueling and labor-intensive. The rhythms of the call-and-response style of shanty songs helped the crew push and pull, hoisting sails and hauling lines in a synchronized effort. Often adapted from familiar folk tunes and ballads of the day, shanty lyrics were flavored with nautical terms and names of places the sailors had been — or hoped to see. ]
As the summer-of-love sound of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” echoes through the shady grounds of Groovy Plants Ranch, shoppers give their toddlers and dogs a leisurely wagon ride, pulling them slowly along while oohing and aahing over hanging baskets brimming with lush b
Situated along a rural road about 30 miles north of Columbus, Groovy Plants Ranch is a 5-acre complex where Jared and his wife, Liz, grow and sell plants that they ship to customers around the world. It opened in 2016, but Jared began cultivating the business in his late teens while studying landscape design at Columbus State Community College and working at a Delaware County greenhouse. “I started growing succulents in my room because they’re easy to care for and propagate,” Jared says. “It was a side hustle to earn extra Smoney.”
As twilight comes, the rugged cliffs, crevices, and outcroppings at High Rocks Adventure add a sense of mystery to what’s already an adrenaline rush.
Night rappels are trips into the unknown. “You can’t see the bottom of the cliff, so there’s a lot of trust needed,” says Kayce, a member of South Central Power Company. Sometimes, the trust pays off with even more thrill — one time during a solo rappel, with her headlight turned off,
a screech owl’s wings brushed silently past her face.
