February 2026

Kelleys Island residents welcome the return each spring of their “feathered tourists” — songbirds, waterfowl, and raptors that pass through on their way to Canada.

So it was a rather obvious decision for the island’s innkeepers to band together to create an event around it. “Nest with the Birds” began in the 1980s as a way to drum up some early-season bookings by offering guided hikes and migration-related programs for birdwatchers.

St. Patrick’s Day festivities, embroidered pillows bearing Irish blessings, leprechaun coloring books, and lucky four-leaf clover kits — without a doubt, America embraces all things “Irish,” especially during Irish-American Heritage Month in March.

Kitchen gardens are sprouting up more and more as folks take the farm-to-table practice into their backyards — and now’s the time of year when the first signs of spring have many of us eagerly anticipating those tasty tomatoes, juicy melons, fresh salad greens, crisp cucumbers, and other fresh edibles that come from our own gardens. These tips will help power up your planting and maximize your yields for a tastier, more productive kitchen garden.

Ohio, the Buckeye State, was admitted to the Union in 1803, but even 15 years later it remained a very wild place — too wild, in the opinions of some settlers, and they determined to do something about it, frontier style.

Color and texture are tried-and-true ways to add interest to your garden, but gardeners may not always stop to consider shapes. Contrast feathery with bold, tall and slender with wide and round, or any other variations you can imagine. Here are a few plants that just might inspire you.

Cannas are wonderful large additions to any garden, be it a border or a foundation bed. The many varieties provide gorgeous, exotic blooms in a variety of colors, but sometimes the leaves are the stars.

Renovations can be the perfect time to improve your home’s energy efficiency. To make sure you get those energy savings, it’s important to do some planning right from the beginning.

The first step is to educate yourself so you can be in control of your project. Helpful, easy-to-understand energy-efficiency information is available for virtually any area of your home and any renovation project.

Electric cooperatives work hard to ensure their members have access to the cleanest, safest, most affordable and reliable power possible. They keep up with both technology and trends to maintain that balance through sunny, hot summers; gray, bone-chilling winters; and everything in between.

Stop: Don’t toss out those nonmeat kitchen scraps.

By following the right techniques and combination of ingredients, you can have some of the best and least-expensive garden soil amendments.

It’s easy to find Joe Bodis’s property in Huron County, a few miles southeast of New London, Ohio. Just look for the house surrounded by “weeds.”

In actuality, those “weeds” are a carefully planned and developed island of wildlife habitat in a sea of corn and soybean fields. “When I first moved in, neighbors used to stop and ask when I was going to mow the weeds,” Bodis says. “Now they ask what things they can do on their property to attract wildlife.”

A retired pharmaceuticals salesman and member of Firelands Electric Cooperative, Bodis moved to his 5 acres in 2002.

Electric cooperatives were founded in the spirit of neighbor helping neighbor. Co-ops brought light to rural America, and that partnership lit the way for us to carry the tradition beyond our borders. In 2016, linemen from across Ohio’s electric cooperative network mirrored that effort for our international neighbors in Guatemala. We brought power to the village of La Soledad, changing lives, providing hope for the future — and providing perspective on the impact we can have on underserved people still today.