In the mood to plant?
Laurie Laird, owner of New Leaf Garden Center, says the saying goes: plant peas on St. Patrick's Day (March 17) and potatoes on Good Friday (April 3). "I don't see that happening this year since the ground is so frozen." It was 6 degrees on March 6...more like mid-Janurary.
Flags Flutter
Ada sports a variety of flags atop its flagpoles: USA, Ohio, Hardin County, ONU, OSU, Confederate, (yes, many from Kentucky settled here a few generations ago) and Pirate. Pirate? Yes, two pirate flags fly in different parts of town. Now, those relatives must go back many generations. Do you see other flags in Ada? Let me know.
Road Advisories
How to get road advisories by phone or email. To get advisories by email on your computer, type in Nexle.com, then type in Hardin (or whatever county you want). By phone, text 888777, then type Hardin. Good for snow/slick roads (although the season for that is about over, hopefully), fog, flood, etc.
Daffodils
Friday, March 6...the first signs of spring. Daffodils were about a quarter of an inch above the ground, shortly after the crusty snow melted off of them at the Railroad Park. Beneath the snow, the bulbs were doing their thing, even in the cold, to provide us with happiness not long from now in the form of yellow and cream blooms. 90 spring bulbs were added to the park beds last fall, supplementing a good variety of bulbs that were already there.
Spring bulbs can easily last 50 years. They require little or no care. Remember seeing tulips and daffs at abandoned farm houses, still showing a riot of color each spring long after the residents had gone?
It is not necessary, but your garden will look more tidy if you cut away the dead leaves and blooms once they die back.
A warning: squirrels find tulip bulbs tasty. Got squirrels? You can plant each bulb in a wire cage (a lot of bother) or plant the tulips on the inside and daffs on the outside of a bed since the four-legged guys don't care to dine on daffs.
Invariably, a deep snow comes when daffs begin to bloom. Don't be concerned. Daffodils survive a snow just fine. Only unseasonably low temps may turn them partially brown.
When to plant spring bulbs? In the fall.
When the President Spoke Here
1910 was a momentous year for the Village of Ada. That's when the President of the United States would come to Ada to deliver the commencement address to 250 ONU graduates. William Howard Taft spoke to a crowd of 15,000 on Main Street in front of the campus on June 3.
He arrived by train at the depot, which is still in use as a meeting place. A large cheer went up when the crowd first got a glimpse of President Taft as he exited the train.
Store Merchandise
Companies don't want to charge more for their products. Notice how some packages are only one-third full, especially cereal. Companies sell it by weight, not package size, so they get away with it. But savvy shoppers know better. For example, Kellogg's box is bigger but has fewer ounces of the cereal in a box compared to a store brand.
And, I've noticed the size of packages is shrinking. For example, shaving cream is still $1.75 but the can has shrunk from 9 to 7 ounces.
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