Each year since 2015, I have edited and published a book for Protect Geauga Parks, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to protecting the county park district from abuse by corrupt politicians. As with the previous editions, this book includes profiles of individuals who made extraordinary contributions to the preservation and conservation of parklands in Geauga County over the past several decades. The book includes six of my landscape photographs of scenes in the Geauga Parks as well as poetry by Grace Butcher, an award winning writer from Geauga County.

I do several projects throughout the year for Protect Geauga Parks including maintaining their website and printing banners and other graphics. But the Heroes of Conservation book is always a special project that gives me the opportunity to contribute something uniquely personal to the effort to protect our environment here in Geauga County.

Two of my prints have been accepted into the 2017 Juried Photography Biennial Exhibition Sponsored by the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts in Oberlin, Ohio. One print received the special Juror’s Award! I’m pretty excited about this. This is the same print that was rejected by the Lakeland College May Show last year. Just goes to show you that one juror’s opinion is just that. Also, it’s nice to see that persistence pays off, at least once  in a while.

One of my landscape prints was accepted into It’s Elemental: Earth & Air, the upcoming exhibition at the Valley Art Center in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. There is an opening reception scheduled for January 22, 2016 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public. (Extra credit to the first person to find the hawk in the image!)

Talk about time flying…! It was 25 years ago that I and several other folk music subversives got together in my living room to play some tunes. This soon became a weekly event that then led to the formation of a band called Rhubarb Pie. We mainly played at contra dance events in the Cleveland area. I left the band some time around 1995, but several stalwarts (better known as the Rhubarbarians) continue on to this day. Last night they invited all the former members back for a 25th anniversary dance. You’ll find a gallery of pictures under the Pages column to the left.

While it isn’t unusual to have some snow in November, a foot of snow on the 14th with follow-up storms over the next week have been pretty exceptional. At least we’re not getting buried the way they are in Buffalo.

In an effort to thwart a hostile takeover of the Geauga Parks District by persons whose purpose appears to be to stop the growth of the park system and turn much of it into free hunting zones, I donated several large banners to a grass-roots organization called Protect Geauga Parks. County park systems are often viewed as easy pickings for corrupt politicians who use them to favor one group of residents while surreptitiously milking them of funds and other resources. One of our Board members just received a contract worth $9,999.00 to “study” the drug abuse problem in Geauga County. That’s an interesting number that probably falls exactly $1 below a threshold that would require competitive bidding and approval by County Commissioners and the Budget Committee. In any case, anyone who wants information about drug abuse could probably get it with phone calls to the Sheriff’s office, the DEA and the FBI. Might take an afternoon to gather the info and write up a report.