Clip this schedule and join us for a day of fabulous fall fun
10:30 Fun Run
Starts at Hermann Court and runs to the Lytle Creek Pavilion and back- Call Heather Harmon 937 382 6661 for details.
11:00 Bike Ride
Launch from JW Denver Williams Park to arrive at the 1:00PM ceremonies at Lytle Creek Greenway Pavilion. The ride will be about 20 miles at a comfortable pace with no killer hills. This is a suitable length and pace for beginners and a great way to get into cycling. Experts will be along to give tips and advice.
11:00 Environmental Education Studies
Monte Anderson will be available in Kettering Hall on the Wilmington College to discuss the WC Agriculture Department plans for growth in its environmental programs, which prepares students for careers in this burgeoning area
11:45 Food Tent Opens
Come to the Wilmington College Homecoming tent for a plentiful variety of autumn picnic food. All you care to eat for only $5.00
11:45 Nature Walk
Join Clinton County’s premier naturalist Jim Ramsey at Hazard Arboretum for a leisurely and informative walk along Lytle Creek. The walk will end at the Lytle Creek Greenway Pavilion in time for the 1:00 pm ceremonies. For further information, call Jim and Millie Ramsey at 937 383 1291
12:10 Wagon ride
Hop on the Wilmington College Homecoming Day Wagon at the food tent. Both the first and the current chairs of the Wilmington College agriculture department will proudly comment on the Wilmington College academic farm, the equine center, Tom Stillwell’s world crop museum and the Lytle Creek Greenway. The wagon will be at the Pavilion in time for the 1:00PM ceremonies.
1:00 Lytle Creek Program of honor and appreciation
Meet at the Pavilion on David’s Drive for a 30-minute program by The Lytle Creek League of Conservators honoring an activist, a teacher and a corporation who have made outstanding contributions to the environmental ambiance of our community. Enjoy light refreshments and a social time visiting with the honorees and each other.
1:30 Ceremony adjourns
The formal part of the program ends in time to permit participation in other types of fall fun, including football and nature.
Ceremony and Tour Rain or Shine
A word from our leader
The Long View
I often pause to take a long mental view as I pass the limestone boulder which now marks the trail leading from David’s Drive along the Lytle Creek Greenway, through much of the city of Wilmington, Ohio.
In my mind’s eye I see a connected path, ensconced in soul-strengthening beauty, extending for miles and miles. The bronze plaque on the rock says, “ This spot marks the beginning of the second tributary of Lytle Creek, which flows into Todd’s Fork, to join the National Scenic Little Miami River, twenty-eight miles to the west, at Morrow, Ohio”.
It was presented by the Little Miami River Partnership, one of the several partnering organizations helping The Lytle Creek League of Conservators to preserve the beauty and to promote the usage of one of our community’s most precious places, Lytle Creek, and the corridor through which it flows. Two other partners are Clinton County Open Lands, which purchases land near it for preservation, and, the Clinton County Rails to Trails Coalition, which builds public access paths along it.
As I pause for a few moments, I can visualize the full sweep of recent accomplishment. In my immediate view is the commodious Lytle Creek Trailhead Pavilion, dedicated last autumn; then my mind takes me around the wooded corner, off the main path and across the tributary, where I can see the new bridge donated by ABXAir. Only a few feet further along, I can visualize a new Timbertech trail bench, installed by John Stanforth under a spreading Black Walnut Tree; then across a foot bridge, I can picture a venerable soil-conserving structure built more than sixty years ago by the charter members of the Board of Supervisors of the Clinton County Soil Conservation District, an historic continuing partner in our community effort to preserve Lytle Creek’s purity.
At this spot, my mind surveys the entire Wilmington College academic farm protecting the Creek with buffer strips and fences carefully placed to keep various species of farm animals from ravishing the rapidly emerging linear park. Then, continuing on my mental tour, I pass through the six acre Clinton Country Forest and the four acre native prairie planting, two very different places of educational value, each entrusted to the Clinton County Park Board, dedicated to creating a legacy of nature for our grandchildren.
Then my mind travels on to think of the Hazard Arboretum, the City Park Board’s Southeast Park, its Lytle Creek Nature Reserve, and its Urban Bike Connection to the Luther Warren Peace Path leading to Wilmington’s state-of-the-art solid waste management facility and the area dedicated for a new west side city park. The Wilmington City Park Board is also committed to creating a better community with enhanced natural areas for spiritual rejuvenation and physical exercise.
My long mental view from the east side rock does not stop at the west side city limits. It extends all the way downstream, to the Little Miami River, part of our National Scenic Rivers System. More than seventy percent of the Little Miami River corridor is now protected by the land trust known as Little Miami Inc. Some day, the path along Lytle Creek will be connected to the one leading to the stately door of the Little Miami Inc. office on the scenic River Trail in the romantic city of Loveland. The Clinton County Rails to Trails Coalition already owns almost seven miles of potential right-of-way.
This is a very long, imaginary view. But I do hope to live to see it become reality. If so, it may be that the Lytle Creek Greenway will have helped to provide the physical and the mental health necessary for me to remain vital that long. In the meantime, I invite all who read these words to observe Lytle Creek Day, October 20, 2007, to promote the League’s new program, “No Child Left Indoors,” and to remember the words of Rachel Carson, mother of the modern environmental movement, who wrote: ”Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts”-.
Roy Joe Stuckey
MINUTES of September Meeting September 11, 2007
Members Present: Roy Joe Stuckey, Maria Butcher, Joy Brubaker, Heather Harmon, Carolyn Matthews, Bob Thobaben, Kathy Springsteen, Lori Williams
Roy Joe Stuckey convened the meeting at 4:30 PM. The directors held a moment of silence and remembered Bob Powell, Mac and Gail McKibbon, and Phil Warner.
Heather Harmon gave a report on progress to date for morning activities on October 20. The horsemen will be unable to participate because they need a year advance to secure insurance. Roy Joe will be speaking with proprietors of Books ‘N’ More this evening to plan for a bike riding event. Heather is organizing a run/walk on the trail for 10 am and Jim Ramsey will lead a senior’s walk. It was noted that the day coincides with Homecoming for Wilmington College and that Kathy Milam will be informing attendees of events.
The minutes of the August meeting were accepted. The treasurer’s reports showed $1190.35 in Board accounts and $53.54 in the endowment fund .
Updates:
• The first two benches are in place. In-kind contributions were received from Lowe’s and John Stanforth to make this possible. Plaques have been placed courtesy of John Stanforth.
• The curb cut is in and there are currently no plans to pave the area.
• The ABX bridge is in. Volunteers from Laurel Oaks still plan to do additional cutting on the circle trail.
• Lori has sent a letter to the county commissioners regarding property. No action from them has taken place so Lori will check on any progress with Mike Curry.
• The latest edition of the newsletter is out and the members present expressed thanks to Bob Powell for his efforts. Several members agreed to proofread future editions prior to publication and will let Bob know of their willingness to do so.
• Bob Tenwolde’s project is going forward.
• Lori continues to work with others (Sue Hanna, Ashley Johnson) on preparing materials for the No Child Left Indoors efforts. She noted that Bob Powell has included some material in the last newsletter.
The Board approved a motion to use materials to make five additional seats (combination of benches with backs and without) and have them in place for October 20.
Planning for Autumn Lytle Creek Day on October 20
• Light snacks are planned for the event according to Carolyn and Maria. Laura Curliss has agreed to donate cider and Maria is planning to bake cookies.
• The event honoring award recipients and special contributions will be held at the Pavilion at 1 PM. Lori is in charge of that program and asked for money for the awards. Amount is not known yet.
• Table decorations of flowers from the greenway will be prepared by Lori and her mother.
The next meeting will be held Tuesday, October 9, 2007, at the Pavilion.
The meeting ended with expressions of thanks to those who are doing good things in support of green space in the community with particular note of the efforts of the ABX Air Environmental Compliance Group.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:20 PM.
Kathy Springsteen
All along the trail . . .
Most folks view autumn as an anticlimax. The passion of spring has resulted in the bounty of summer and as the days grow shorter we tend to hunker down in preparation for the rigors of the deep midwinter. The fields are bare and brown and pretty soon the trees will be nothing more than stark sticks poking up into the horizon. However, if we look closer at the natural world around us, we can see that other forms of life are busy preparing for winter in their own way.
Every species, plant or animal has its own life cycle and at this latitude, the harsh and wildly variable “temperate zone”, winter is the principal hazard. If we observe the world around us closely, we can see all sorts of ingenious adaptations which allow life to continue in spite of the hazards of winter.
Trees drop their leaves, a fact so familiar to us that few of us stop to wonder why. Yet if we are so unlucky as to have an early snow storm, we quickly see the reason. If the leaves are still on the trees, many limbs are lost. The resulting scars often open the tree up to infection, which eventually proves to be lethal. However, if the leaves have been dropped, the trees can easily handle the load of even a heavy snowfall. In the northern latitudes, with our short winter days, there is little sunlight, so the loss of photosynthesis can be offset by reining in growth until the spring.
This is a Blue-headed Vireo, captured and banded at Bob Thobaben’s farm. These
birds nest well north of us and then scarper off to tropical climes to avoid the northern winter, just like many other Ohioans. We only see them as they come through in the spring and the fall. The population of birds in Clinton County is greatest in the fall, swelled by the babies produced in the summer and by the numerous migrants coming through. This bird is on its way to Central America. The long migration takes its toll. Only about half of these birds will make it back to their breeding grounds, but vireos live on worms and grubs and a winter on their breeding grounds would present the ecological equivalent of a desert. So they pack on the fat and take to the air.
Here we have another strategy for dodging winter’s bullet. This is a caterpillar. Specifically, it is the larva of a butterfly. It is destroying one of our sweet fennel plants before spinning a cocoon, in which it will spend the winter. It will emerge in the spring transformed into a large and showy Black Swallowtail. The butterfly will spend the summer feeding and mating, the result of which will be lots of eggs, some of which will become caterpillars. And so it goes.
All photos by Bob Powell
Reminder: The next meeting will be held Tuesday, October 9, 2007, at the Trailhead Pavilion.
