Ask Chip

Antoinette Franke, Consolidated Cooperative

Pam Goodwill, Holmes-Wayne Electric Cooperative

Q. My husband and I are arguing about an orange bird. We think it’s a male oriole.  He and his partner are flying around the outside of our house all day, front to back, porch to porch, and windows everywhere. What are they and are they looking to nest?

Stacy Cowdery, South Central Power Company

After he read my May 2020 “Woods, Waters & Wildlife” monthly column about state-endangered timber rattlesnakes in the print version of Ohio Cooperative Living magazine, Pete Zoretic, a member of South Central Power Company cooperative, sent me several photos of a snake he discovered on his property in Highland County. He believed it just might be a timber rattlesnake because of its behavior: “… the snake was coiling and shaking its tail,” said Zoretic. 

Antoinette Franke, Consolidated Cooperative

Does anyone take the time to write and snail-mail an actual full-length letter anymore? Yep, 95-years-young, Jean Rutan sent me just such a letter recently, commenting about my “Who Was Grandma Gatewood?” story in the October 2021 issue of Ohio Cooperative Living.

In the January 2023 issue of Ohio Cooperative Living magazine, I wrote a story titled “First Impressions” about the opening of the new Hocking Hills State Park L