Features

Leaf raking is an autumn chore that only children enjoy because they get to undo it in one fowl swoop!  We rake and pile and they jump.  I propose a new approach that just may make us all happy:  adults can still rake a little, children can still play and trees will benefit from some mulch and fertilizer.  At the farm, raking leaves is passé; we let them stay where they fall (with reason, of course) which is usually beneath their canopy.

On October 27th SCES welcomed Spencer County’s own, Laura Jones, center, who is the current Miss Kentucky. Jones went on to be in the top 12 of the Miss America competition. She now travels the state to share the importance of a healthy lifestyle.

Thousands of bats lie, heaped high on cave floors, sometimes as many as 10,000 at one site. Fragile, winged mammals that have succumbed to the ravages of white nose syndrome and dropped, flightless, from their roosts on cave ceilings. Biologists report coming upon this tragic scene and finding, among the piles of tiny corpses, living bats, struggling to survive hibernation by burrowing among the bodies of their colony for residual warmth.

Spencer County Middle School students got a break from the books on Friday as they celebrated the school’s recent test scores that once again earned them a “Distinguished” designation. The students gathered in the gym for a celebration, followed by a concert and a dance that made for a much more relaxed afternoon. They call the event Grizzly Fest and it recognizes the classroom achievements. One teacher described it as an Academic Pep Rally.

Kentuckians interested in participating in the industrial hemp research pilot program in 2017 are invited to submit an application with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.

Hands down this is the best time of the year for me.  The weather has a subtlety about it with extremes thrown in here and there as a reminder that Mother Nature will do as she pleases.  I am tired from the summer but reinvigorated when the light changes and the blue sky becomes clearer.  I can think about gardening again with a smile on my face.  

Congratulations to the 2016 Spencer County MVP, Most Valuable Peer, Recipients:  Allie Roberts, Stephanie Keener, Sierra Knapper, Alyssa Howie, Amber Hahn, Kelly Herndon, Connor Foster, Joshua Dunkelberger, Navy Adam Davis, Jaden Cannon, Deven Cannon, Shianne Bonham, Kelly Baird, and Marissa Allen.

Some plants are prolific; some are not.  Dandelion seed floats through the air and disperses far and wide in spring or summer; hundreds of tiny seeds burst from the spent blooms of cleome as a sphinx moth feeds at dusk.   Woody plants can be a bit more elusive.  I have never seen a Serbian spruce spring forth from a fallen cone nor an apple tree emerge from rotten fruit beneath its canopy.  Starting woody plants from seed can be tricky.