Our farm sits on a flat, barren piece of land that used to belong to a much larger farm. Though the year, we continually observe that our house sits on the edge of a weather front, of sorts. There are times when we can see a weather system passing through the front yard but its dry and sunny in the back. I once passed through a blizzard at the foot of the driveway to find clear skies by the house.
So Rog explains that we sit on a bit of a plateau due to the advancement and retreat of the Wisconsin Glacier around 100,000 years ago. I looked it up to get more information to post here but it was as if I was reading a foreign language and I lost interest quickly. Phew! I thought that black cloud was following
me all this time!
During severe weather, it does help that we can see, for the most part, 180 degrees in all directions, from horizon to horizon. All I know is that there were some incredibly freaky sights from our back porch the past few weeks. Ominous doesn't begin to describe seeing 3-4 layers of clouds, all swirling in opposite directions, the sky seemingly rolling and falling in on itself.
During my search for weather info, I decided to learn a little more about the very small town we live in. A few things I know as fact: a) there aren't many of us, b) the Amish outnumber us, c) if your last name isn't Smith or Yoder, you will be loudly and publicly ridiculed when you register to vote at the town hall, and d) we have just one of these!
Here are a few little known facts about Adario, OH.
1. We aren't actually large enough to have our own mailing address. So to confuse us furthur, some folks have a Greenwich address and some have Shiloh, Plymouth, Savannah??? Not to mention my road changes names 3 times along its 5 mile course.
2. Rattlesnakes were once so numerous in Butler Township that one original settler (Elias Ford) had to suspend his bed from the rafters to keep the venomous reptiles from sharing it with him. All I've encountered are masses of garter snakes.
3. The round-up of the great wolf-hunt of 1828 was made near Adario. No wolf was captured, but a number of wild turkeys and deer were secured. No turkeys here, but plenty of deer. We've taken it upon ourselves to control the groundhog and coyote population.
4. Henry Foulks founded the village in 1838, which was originally called LaFayette. The name was changed to Adario because Ohio already had a town by that name. And no, it's not "a-dare-ee-o" like most of the world would assume. It's "add-uh-rye-oh" with a little hillbilly added in, or else "they will know you aren't locals", according to our realtor. Ummm, I think they know. . .
5. Our very own Fowler's Wood's holds the distinction of being Ohio's First Nature Preserve. The preserve is wheelchair accessible with 1-1/4 mile looped boardwalk. Spring is the best time for viewing the large variety of wildflowers and old-growth forest.
6. There are 1386 residents in all of Butler township, the largest city, Savannah has 368. No records for Adario. I do know that the ratio of homes vs mobile homes is 2.5 to 1 and its obvious that the main industry is farming, considering most areas have no electricity.
7. The township is governed by a three-member board of trustees. Voted upon by 10 residents?? I remember when a toothless candidate knocked on our door one evening smelling of manure and chewing a toothpick, trying to secure our vote.
8. There are 301 sex offenders living in our area!!!!! This is why its a bad idea to go digging around for information about your neighborhood. I'm thinking I want to up the power on our electric fence.
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| 9. The USGS database shows that there is a 0.568% chance of a major earthquake within the next 50 years. That's comforting. |
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10. Every time I searched on Google, the town's main attraction came up every time. The cemetery! No general store, no feed mill, no coffee shop, just a few dangerously leaning homes 'in town' with fully furnished front porches, a few boarded up homes and a few cars that are obviously 'being worked on'.
My father asserted that there was no better place to bring up a family than in a rural environment. There's something about getting up at 5am, feeding the stock and chickens, and milking a couple of cows before breakfast that gives you lifelong respect for the price of butter and eggs. William E. Bill Vaughan
There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets. Samuel Johnson
Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, exhilarate the spirit and restore the tone of languid nature. William Cowper
Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Farming with live animals is a 7 day a week, legal form of slavery. George Segal
