Conserving Connecticut's Wildlife and Unearthing Historical Gems: From Endangered Species to Energizing Wind Farms

Speaker 1: 0:12

Welcome to the ICRV radio podcast where we tour the various content areas on ICRVradiocom by hearing clips from the most recent episodes of some of our ICRV radio programming. Join us and explore the Connecticut River Valley's greatest assets, our outdoors, our history, our culture and all the life interests that make our part of New England the best part. In this episode of the ICRV radio podcast, we will talk endangered species, we get to know what rockhounds are, we discover famous but near forgotten pioneers in our history, explore historic homes, honor an iconic pop artist, get a news and real estate trend update and even talk music. All just a small piece of the programming you can sample every day on ICRVradiocom. Okay, let's get to it. We start by talking the outdoors, which is perhaps our greatest treasure here in the CRV, the Connecticut River Valley. In his latest episode of Nature's Connections, steve Gephard, who did over 40 years at D-E-E-P, wanted to honor the recent 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act and he started by identifying its significant impact.

Speaker 2: 1:29

A lot of naysayers, a lot of critics of the act have said well, what is? You know it's not been successful. You know we've got all of these species. But let's do a rundown on the status. So, as of last year, 1,780 species had been listed in either category endangered or threatened. 64 of those species improved enough to be removed from the list, completely delisted. Another 64 species improved enough to be downlisted. In other words, from endangered to threatened.

Speaker 2: 2:05

11 of the total species have been declared extinct since implementation of the law. So that represents a failure. So if those were listed, they went extinct and now they're gone. So okay, 11 failures. Another 23 species have gone missing for so long that they may be proposed for official designation as extinction. So stay tuned on that. But one way of looking at it is 99% of all the listed species has not gone extinct. So you know that's one area and we can go down the list. You mentioned the bald eagles. They went from 417 nationwide to 11,040 by 2007. And at that point they were released from… Protection. Yeah, they were removed from the list and those numbers continue to climb, but the work is not done.

Speaker 1: 3:11

It constantly needs support, as evidenced by what species might be in trouble right here in Connecticut.

Speaker 2: 3:18

I do want to mention the State Act and just what's going on in Connecticut. So the State of Connecticut passed its own Endangered Species Act and it provides very similar protection. We won't go over all the features because they're very, very similar to the Federal Act. The key is that they pertain only to the State of Connecticut. So if a species is doing really well, let's say, in Maine, but it's not doing in Connecticut, it can be listed on the Connecticut list but not on the Federal list, Right? So in Connecticut, first of all, here's a few of the species that are listed under the Federal Endangered Species Act the Rosia Tern, which right off the shore here red knots. The Dwarf Wedge Muscle, the muscle in the Connecticut River which is federally listed. Piping Plover yeah, there is a plant, a small world Pagoda, it's a little orchid, if I'm not mistaken. Some botanists will call up and say that's not an orchid, Steve, I think that's an orchid. The Puritan Tiger Beetle, which is found on a couple of islands in the Connecticut River and nowhere else. A couple of bats, the Bog Turtle, Leatherback Sea Turtle and, of course, the Shortnose Sturgeon, which we talk about in the lower Connecticut River a lot. So those are federal.

Speaker 2: 4:54

In addition to that, the State of Connecticut has a whole list and I won't go through all of them. They have a little bit different designation. They've got endangered and threatened, but then they've got special concern. And I think that special concern category is pretty much like the candidate category for the feds, but endangered includes the American Bitter, Northern Harrier, Sharpshin Hawk. You may see those in your backyard but they are actually endangered. And some of those Northern Harriers and Sharpshin are migrants. They may be coming from Northern New England and Canada where they're doing okay and they're passing through our state, but in our state they're endangered. And of course the Bog Turtle. There's a lot of duplicity. If it's on the federal list, you can almost guarantee it's going to be on the state list, Right? But then we have a number of native turtles that are under special concern, like the box turtle and the wood turtle. In fact I think, if I'm not mistaken, almost every turtle in Connecticut is listed as a species of special concern.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Steve Getpart. What an amazing resource and be sure to check out Nature's Connections. Keeping with the outdoors I mean way outdoors was the latest episode of Nature, with Ranger Russ. Russ Miller from Muhammad Asset Beach State Park wanted to celebrate the passion and crazy intellect of area rock and mineral collectors and enthusiasts as he assembled a round table full of members of area rock and mineral clubs. So he started out by asking the obvious question what is a rock hound?

Speaker 4: 6:36

Alright, so now what is a rock hound? Who wants to take that one? Bob, they're a lot of looking at you.

Speaker 6: 6:45

They're looking at me. Basically, we're people who collect minerals. Rock is sort of two or more minerals put together and we're mostly interested in minerals, single minerals, and we have fossil collectors and we have meteorite collectors and we have fluorescent mineral collectors. So there's a number of things that make up the hobby and we're all lumped in as rock hounds.

Speaker 1: 7:12

So let's get to the passion. How do members feel about their personal collections? Here is Dan Rekord, the club's expert in meteorites.

Speaker 7: 7:21

Well, the meteorite guy got hooked into it, actually as a result of watching a 1955 Sci-Fi movie called War of the Worlds and at that point got totally, totally excited about outer space. And after watching that movie I couldn't sleep for I was a little kid. I couldn't sleep like for a whole year. I was just thinking the Martians and all that. But as I got older and got my degree in teaching physics, I wanted to get a lovely specimen of a meteorite and I contacted the father of meteorites at that time, bob Hague, who got a two-sign Arizona he's called.

Speaker 7: 7:58

He's the original meteorite man. And I said, bob, I said I want you to sell me a meteorite. Then I want to keep all my life that's going to ooh and ah my students. And he said, dan, I got just the one for you. He says, and this is going to be a piece that you're not going to want to get rid of. And sure enough, it's my first one. And many, many years later I'm now have a collection of over 53. So, and how many students have seen that?

Speaker 7: 8:20

Hundreds hundreds, hundreds of students, as a matter of fact, probably thousands.

Speaker 4: 8:24

Imagine that that sparks a lot of imagination and kids being able to hold.

Speaker 7: 8:29

The interesting thing about meteorites is it's the oldest thing you can hold. The solar system is about 4.5 billion years old and meteorites were there at the beginning. So my friends who like to do the fossils, they say oh there's dinosaurs a few million years. Oh, come on. Orders of magnitude is beyond that.

Speaker 1: 8:48

Okay, Outer space is pretty cool, but Harold Moritz wanted to make sure everyone knew how special kinetic it is in the pursuit of this hobby and to how smart he is and just how special kinetic it is in this field of rock and mineral collecting. I know you guys have spoken about shows in Arizona and meteorites in Russia and I mean it's a global hobby and a global pursuit. But can we speak a little bit? Keep it a little bit local. Is there something special about the kinetic environment? What happened with Lake Hitchcock? What happened with the Moraines? Is there something special about Connecticut that makes rock hounding a target-rich environment?

Speaker 8: 9:39

Yeah, I guess I'll take that one too. It's a good place because the geology is highly variable and that's really what gives you different minerals is different geology, different rock formations, different types of rocks. You have here in Connecticut. It's a small state but over the last billion years a whole heck of a lot of geology has gone on. Continents have collided, split apart, recollided, and that's resulted in a lot of activity and energy and melting and re-melting and erosion has exposed all that. So there's almost every kind, a major portion of the types of ways you can make minerals you can find in Connecticut.

Speaker 8: 10:24

And not to say that other states are bad, but if you went to someplace in the Midwest a whole county might be underlain by one type of rock, limestone say, for example, and there's a very limited number of minerals that are going to occur there, whereas Connecticut the rocks here are all folded and bent and standing on end. So within a couple of miles you can go through five or six different types of rocks and that gives us a lot of different ways to host minerals. And they formed a lot of different ways here in the state because there was a lot of volcanic activity at one point, a lot of melting from continental collisions, and metamorphic rocks host minerals too. So within a very small state there's an awful lot of variety, and that's why it is a good place. That extends over much of New England as well, but compared to the Midwest, for example, where it's mostly sedimentary rock, you just don't have that ability to have different minerals. But they all have something.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Nature with Ranger Russ. Okay, now let's move on to some history. In our most recent Miss and Legends show, Fay Ringel, Professor Emeritus of Humanities at the US Coast Guard Academy, wanted to make sure we knew the facts about an often-forgotten figure in our earliest of years here in the Northeast, With ties to Norwich and a claim to maybe being the first woman pioneer and rights activist. Fay wanted us to remember Madam Sarah Knight. And while there are legends attached to her, Fay wanted to start with the facts.

Speaker 9: 12:00

We're going to talk about a woman who really was well-known in history and legend in her own time and maybe is less known than she should be today, madam Sarah Kimball Knight. She lived in Boston and in Norwich and in the Mohegan territory so we're not sure exactly where and then in New London where she died and is buried in their ancient burial ground. But the reason that really that she's known to history is that she kept the journal of a woman's treacherous journey by horseback from Boston to New York in the year 1704. And indeed she traveled from Boston down the coast along the old post road to New Haven and then to New York and then back to Boston 17, and it took her six months, 1704 to 1705. And she kept the journal, which was saved in her family and was finally printed for the first time in 1825.

Speaker 9: 13:17

She really did mean it to be public, because you can tell from the style that it's not just sort of a private diary. It's almost as though she was the first influencer. She was trying to warn people about different ins and restaurants that were not good and dangers on the road, lots of dangers. She almost drowned several times because of course there were no bridges. They had to either swim horses across or take very dangerous ferries. She was just so pleased to get back home that she wrote a poem thanking God for her deliverance. So that's the history on it.

Speaker 1: 14:04

And what was the motivation for?

Speaker 9: 14:07

the For her great journey. Well, and there's sort of two versions of this. We know it had to do with probate. Some people say it was the probate of her deceased husband's estate because her husband had died a couple of years earlier. A much older man she was quite young when she married him. He died and she became the executor. Some say that she had done such a great job as executor that a cousin asked her to do the probate for her of a different estate, a different family estate, so one or the other it had to do with probate documents, real estate, and she felt that the only way that. So she had to travel through New London, where there was some property, through New Haven, where there was some property, and New York, where there was some property.

Speaker 1: 15:03

Okay, this woman took on something that almost always was done by a man, correct? Yes, absolutely. So we're looking to her almost as if she were pioneering for women.

Speaker 9: 15:18

Oh, absolutely. One of the few articles that has been written about her only appeared in 2014 by the scholar Eileen Hunt Bodding, who calls her a feminist.

Speaker 1: 15:31

What a woman. Okay, keeping with history, we have a show If these Walls Could Talk, where host Rebecca Lineberry celebrates the passion involved in, and the stories preserved through, historic home restoration. In her last episode, she interviewed Chris Worth, who had a 40-year career in restoring historic homes. So the logical question what was the most notable project?

Speaker 10: 15:56

Well, I have to say the restoration of the Stanley Whitman House in Farmington, which I think was in the late 80s, it was the most extensive and historically accurate restoration. Okay, and the funding came through the museum and grants, so they had plenty of money. It was a house that originally, again, had been always assumed to be built in around 16, I don't know 1660 or 1670. And certain people were puzzled by that. They didn't think it was right.

Speaker 10: 16:34

It was a house that J Fredrick Kelly had gotten into in the 1930s and done a major restoration too, so there was a lot of stuff in there that he had hauled out of other houses and stuck in with his own vision of what was authentic. So when we got involved in the project they had kind of gutted the inside of the house and they had gone around, interestingly enough, and put little white. Those little reinforcers used to use for a three-ring binder.

Speaker 5: 17:01

Those little white circles.

Speaker 10: 17:03

They had labeled all the nail holes inside the house, on the beams and so forth, with those trying to figure out. Oh wow, and by doing that, they and we figured out where rooms had been handled with the horizontal boarding the spacing and the width of the boards and stuff like that.

Speaker 10: 17:19

So that was oh cool. My first impression was, wow, a house with a six million little white doughnuts inside. But it was fascinating and a very clever way to figure out. And it turns out the house was dated incorrectly. It was actually built in 1720.

Speaker 5: 17:39

Okay.

Speaker 10: 17:41

And of course people in Farmington involved were not too happy about that I'm sure.

Speaker 10: 17:45

Because they kind of figured it was maybe the oldest framehouse around that part of Connecticut. So that was fun. And the other thing that was pretty cool we had to rebuild the front staircase in front of the chimney. So the stair that was there was I don't even know if it was the stair there it was not the original stair. And there's a famous book by Isham and Brown I don't know what it's called, but it's a kind of a classic resource for early houses in Connecticut and they mentioned the Whitman House and the staircase and they went through in maybe 1900, I think they went through early 1900s. So they compared the staircase in that house to another house which did exist. So one of our jobs in this project was to recreate it was one of my jobs actually to recreate the staircase.

Speaker 5: 18:38

OK.

Speaker 10: 18:39

And one little trick we did we used a black light to illuminate the plaster lines on the front of the chimney to show the layout of the treads.

Speaker 5: 18:50

How cool.

Speaker 10: 18:51

It was one of my guys came up with this idea. He said, let's, because we were trying to figure out how it laid out how high the risers were, the whole pattern of it. And he said, let's get a black light. And we did and lo and behold, you could see the little ghost marks of. So there were fun things like that all through the project.

Speaker 1: 19:10

And in a 40-year career, what are some of the things that you learn and get good at? Have you ever heard of nail chronology? You got to hear this.

Speaker 10: 19:19

We talked before this earlier about using nail chronology. I know my brother, john, uses dendro chronology, which is where you take a little core sample of one of the timbers and compare it to a known sample and it will tell you when the tree was cut down. And then usually the house was built within the year of the timber being cut. It's crazy.

Speaker 10: 19:42

So that's more of a modern technique that's very scientific and very accurate. But it's kind of fun to use all these other clues to try to piece things together and that was always one of my things I loved most about. It was like really digging in and trying to find stuff.

Speaker 5: 19:57

Absolutely so. When you talk about nail chronology, you mentioned like addicts and basements Usually weren't touched a lot. I'd assume like one of my rooms has what probably is a semi-original floor. So what are we looking at in terms of nails to get a general sense?

Speaker 10: 20:15

Well, I mean nail making. My wife and I went to Scotland, to Hadrian's Wall, and found where they did uncovered piles of Roman nails. Oh wow, they had buried them so that the Gauls, the native people, wouldn't get them.

Speaker 10: 20:32

No way yeah because nails were very valuable, so they were piled with thousands of nails. Those nails are exactly like the nails in an 18th century Connecticut house. There's no difference. So they're made of wrought iron, hammered point, hammered head. So nail making didn't really change from whenever it started thousands of years ago until late 18th century, and then they started coming up with machines to cut nails. So if your house has a cut nail which is a tapered, rectangular shank, square tip and kind of a squared head, it's probably from after like 1820 or so.

Speaker 5: 21:17

Yeah.

Speaker 10: 21:18

OK, rose head nails, which are the common 18th century type, which is a pointed nail with like a four fastened hammered head and like a rose, are very common through the through 1800 or so. Again, it depends on the builder. I mean some builder might have had boxes of old nails that he still had they used up in a house that was built later. In the early days nails were very expensive. They were imported from England. They weren't made here early on.

Speaker 5: 21:48

Really.

Speaker 10: 21:49

Yeah, english didn't want Americans doing that kind of stuff, so things like glass and nails came over on ships in the 1700s from England. But the nails made in England were the same as the nails made here. They just wanted us to buy their stuff and not have our own industry. They were trying to keep us as colonies and didn't work that well after a while.

Speaker 5: 22:11

No, it did not.

Speaker 10: 22:12

But so I can't really show you. I had a board I made up for some lectures I did on nail chronology and I showed every type of nail from the Roman nails that I had, a couple of Roman nails from Zagala, oh wow, all the way through wrought heads and then cut nails with wrought heads and cut nails with cut heads and all the different sizes. So there's a lot to it. But basically wrought nails were used through around 1800 in most houses handmade nails, and then the machine-made nails started being made in different factories around, especially Massachusetts.

Speaker 1: 22:49

If these walls could talk on ICRV radio. Hey, we keep it kind of in the history space, but also area culture as we go to the home of American Impressionism, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lime, and learn more about the artist celebrated in a new exhibit. Here is Emily Clark teaching us more about the pop artist icon, leo Jensen.

Speaker 11: 23:11

Leo Jensen was a pioneer in pop art in the early 1960s. As we mentioned, he was the first to create these kinetic pop sculptures that moved, you can interact with. Some of them light up and flash and they're just fascinating. And he really has this unique chapter in the history of American art that we're going to dive into a little bit. So in order to fully appreciate how he developed this approach to pop art, you kind of have to understand that he was a circus performer from basic, almost from birth, and how, at the same time, he was also training as an artist in this fantastical environment, these lights and colors and all these. We all joke about him going to run away and join the circus. Well, he did, and it was from a really early age, it was his whole life, and I think it influences not only the colors and the themes but just the whole sensibility of the work that he became so known for.

Speaker 11: 24:08

Traveling through the upper Midwest, leo's father, albert, was a producer of three-ring circuses and they would do these shorter, two to three night stands. They moved around quite a bit, they went to lots of different areas and so they got experience not only with different parts of the country but also with all the people that they would meet when they were there. And this was such a popular diversion across the country. It was the Great Depression and folks needed a little bit of levity. They needed some lightning in their life, something that they could depend on to enjoy during these kind of darker times, and the whole Jensen family really got immersed in the circus. Leo was an accomplished trick rider of horses. By the time he was only nine years old, he was already like a star of the show, which is, I just imagine, this little guy there's some photos are really quite special this little sort of larger than life figure but small in stature, and he was always athletic. So this, I think, just played right into his sort of whimsical fantasies of how his life could go.

Speaker 11: 25:11

And in Minnesota there was a character that sort of put in charge of painting the banners and fixing the wagons. His name was Ole Rip. He was a talented artist who unfortunately also had a taste for the drink. That often left him passed out or asleep by early afternoon, and he sometimes would end up in these kind of dangerous and precarious positions where these animals are about to come out and Ole Rip has just taken a nap in the middle of the area where they're about to be. So he, ole Rip, quickly discovered that it was Leo who was helping him clean up and kind of stow himself away into a safer location instead of under an elephant's foot. Maybe he was in the back of a wagon somewhere or something like that. And when he found that out he asked Leo's father, who was the promoter, of course, of the circus, if Leo could become his apprentice.

Speaker 1: 26:02

And if that name sounds familiar, Leo Jensen's work can also be seen in the sculptures on the world famous Frog Bridge in Wyndham Crazy. Ok, let's move on and cover some community topics. First, we get news and lifestyle trends from our friends at ctexaminercom. Here's editor Greg Stroud telling us about two stories that get bigger and bigger and just are not going away. How about some of the stories that were big in 23? Are there any indicators as to whether they are continuing to be strong stories? Let's talk about energy and wind, for example.

Speaker 12: 26:40

Energy is going. They are. There are two big energy projects coming out of New London. Those projects have not been canceled. They are continuing, as far as I can tell, at pretty full steam. There are some hurdles, including a boat, the Corridtis. That is, just massive boats that are designed to help install these wind farms, and that one is delayed. But if you drive down 95, you drive over the Gold Star Bridge in New London, you'd be amazed to see how these turbines look. Just a small fraction of them, unassembled, and they're way up above the bridge. And that's going to be a big one, I think. But we'll see. It's always one of those. Will the tax subsidies be there? I think a lot also depends on the coming federal election. So what the direction of energy is in this country, how about?

Speaker 1: 27:44

the Northeast Corridor. What's happening in the transportation space Northeast?

Speaker 12: 27:49

Corridor is. You know it's so, as I think you know. Let's see, it's been seven years ago. The federal government finished up their master plan for the Northeast Corridor. That's a multi-decade plan that's going to take us through, you know, pretty much my lifetime, and they finished that with a big question mark in eastern Connecticut and Southern Rhode Island. So I'd say in simple terms, the federal government say OK, you solve it. If you're going to oppose our plans, you come up here with your own. But there's a trick, and that's that you have to meet all the metrics that we determined ahead of time. And so, with that planning starting up again with Amtrak, the question is do the rules pre-suppose the outcome? Is it possible to have another outcome other than some version of this controversial old-saber-coutinian bypass? And I'm not sure, and the indications more and more are that we're going to come back in with some version of the same.

Speaker 12: 29:05

Ok, so you know, and if you're a transportation, if you're a supporter of train and transit, which I am, you say to yourself well, does that mean then that high-speed rail isn't going to happen Because that's going to be unworkable and it will actually get blocked? So if you're even for it, I'm not sure that's a good outcome, but if you're against it, then let me tell you, I'd say that it's every bit the fight that it was in 2016, 2017.

Speaker 1: 29:41

CT examine our notebook on every week. On icrvradiocom, so too is all things real estate, where, in the most recent show, john and Maureen O'Grady shared some tips. But first the general health of the area real estate market. Where is the market as we enter into the the middle of the first quarter of 2024?

Speaker 14: 30:04

Well, the market has slowed, but a lot of that has to do with there not being a lot of stuff on the market and it also has to do with the things that are on the market. I would say half of them are overpriced for what they are because they just thought they jumped on the bandwagon. So buyers are very savvy and they're really not gonna overpay for a house. They're gonna pay for a house that it's worth. So that really lessens the amount of inventory that's sellable. So that's down. And then also the interest rates are coming down, which is a good thing. So that's helped.

Speaker 15: 30:45

but I think people are kind of sitting back waiting a little bit see how much you know, I think they're definitely waiting, because people that have 3 1⁄2% mortgages don't wanna jump into an 8% mortgage or a 7 1⁄2% mortgage, even if they wanna downsize and they wanna get a new property right now. So those people are kind of looking at what the Fed's gonna do and rates coming back down and I think then they'll more inventory will come on the market and more of those people start moving.

Speaker 14: 31:14

Yeah, well, they're gonna have to, we're all. The demographic is getting older and they are bringing a lot of more affordable housing into the area, which we can talk about it another time. So it kind of gives a bump to buyers. You know, as the older people age out of their homes, you know the younger buyers are coming in and it's a circle.

Speaker 1: 31:37

So it's getting a little more balanced in that degree and next guest, kayla Chassie, wanted us to know how rewarding it could be if you try to focus on getting the right value out of your home when you try to sell it and it starts with a few things you can do before you list it so you can get more from your investment way more. Kayla explains.

Speaker 15: 31:59

If you spend the money, will you get that money back in return?

Speaker 3: 32:02

Oh, absolutely. Yep, I just recently had sold a house and when I had first walked up to it its approximate value was around 480,000. And we probably put about 25,000 into it and we sold three months later at 625. And one of the things that we did there was we did replace carpeting in the upper level and in this particular scenario I didn't feel that running hardwood in the upper level would have been too much of an adjustment. Up or down. Being in a bedroom is much different than when it's in a living room or a dining room area.

Speaker 3: 32:49

Turning the 480 into 625, that was just, that's a big deal. It was really cool, yeah, yeah. And my client was just. She was blown away. She thought it was unbelievable. And for her she didn't see what I saw. When we first met and I started showing her some comparable properties and what we could do with a little bit of funds I shouldn't say a little bit of funds, but on a scale like that, when she was able to see what her return would be, it made it easier for her to wanna put that money into the house and I'm just happy it worked out for her and I was able to prove to her that it could be done, yes, well, once you decide to put your house on the market, you're now looking at a business transaction, so you gotta get your personal feelings out of that house.

Speaker 1: 33:40

And finally, in this episode we wanna support the local music scene but, as we learned in the latest edition of Talking Jazz with Ken, when it comes to the Side Door Jazz Club and venues like it, the local scene has some formidable showcases, as confirmed by world renowned saxophonist Jimmy Green and his announcement with Ken. What are you working on now?

Speaker 6: 34:02

I mean, what are you listening to, or what are you thinking, or your next project where you wanna go?

Speaker 13: 34:08

Yeah, well, the next project is now All the music we're gonna play this weekend at. The Side Door is brand new music. I've been writing for some time now. I'm very fortunate to have received a grant Fantastic A commission. It's a competitive program that Chamber Music America has called New Works, the performance and presentation, and I was one of the grantees this past year. So I've written this new suite of music and I've been just my head's been totally in that space writing this music.

Speaker 13: 34:39

Wow, and yeah, we're gonna perform it for the first time at the Side Door and then we're gonna go right into the recording studio and record it. Did you hear that, ladies and gentlemen? Did you hear?

Speaker 6: 34:48

this this is at the Side Door. You're hearing world premiere music.

Speaker 1: 34:53

You're hearing world premiere music World premiere music in the Connecticut River Valley Awesome, hey. That wraps up this edition. There is so much more on our air. Check into icrbradiocom and listen live. Click on the daily schedule, hear featured shows, sign up for our free newsletter and, if you like us, even support us as a member. It's only 20 bucks a year and allows us to do some important work as we keep our towns and villages connected and celebrated by making local matter. Take care everybody.