During their third annual Autumn Equinox Celebration, coordinators from the Licking Land Trust watched people from all over Licking County rush toward telescopes aimed at the sky. Those gathered at the base of a hill in Granville’s Infirmary Mound Park were there to celebrate one thing: Fall.
And the celebration is one of many events the trust hosts each year to promote interaction with and exploration of the natural life of Licking County.
The Autumn Equinox event in September was open to the public and featured many educational resources as well as live music, food trucks, and crafts for younger children.
Amy Mock, 66, of Granville, serves as treasurer for the Licking Land Trust and said the celebration was a way to get more people engaged with the trust while also providing activities for the whole family.
“A lot of what we do is very adult, so this is a different way to let a broader group of people enjoy the beautiful weather, celebrate what’s going on in the heavens, and then maybe learn a bit about us,” Mock said.
Sarah Gray, 34, of Granville, organized the event on behalf of the trust. She said each organization and vendor in attendance was there to help the community learn more about local resources.
“Everybody is allowed to advertise for themselves, but they have to have something that is an educational component to it,” Gray said.
The selection of each organization was intentional, too.
“I usually try to diversify and hit every different thing,” she said. “So, we’ve got stuff about streams and owls, we’ve got wolves, we’ve got native plants. We have the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and a turtle.”
During the celebration on Sept. 20, local organizations with a focus on environmental issues set up booths and distributed information on topics ranging from foster kittens to honeybee research.
Karen Goodell, a professor of evolution, ecology, and organismal biology at Ohio State University Newark, stood proudly behind a display of hundreds of different bees.
“This is a funded project from the Department of Natural Resources to document all of Ohio’s bees and their conservation status,” Goodell said. “So, we are trying to figure out what bees we have, which ones are rare, what kind of habitat needs they have, what they eat, where they live, and figuring out if there are bees that used to be here that aren’t anymore.”
She held up two tiny plastic boxes, each with a yellow and black striped insect on display. “Which of these is a bee?” asked Goodell, excited to share her research.
When asked, “Is it a trick question?” she laughed.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “It wouldn’t be fun if it were obvious.”
In attendance was the nonprofit Fairytales and Tiny Tales Rescue, a kitten rescue group based in Columbus. Run by August Adams, 22, and Paige Stefanowski, 22, the organization places rescued kittens into foster homes.
“We started earlier this year, back in January,” Stefanowski said as Adams nodded. “We’ve been going ever since we started taking in kittens back in May. So, from May to current, we’ve had over 100 kittens.”
At the rescue group’s booth, 2-month-old black kittens tumbled around in tiny Halloween costumes. Spoon, Fork, Ladle, and Chopstick were siblings who were surrendered to the rescue organization, and they came to the event as mascots for Fairytales and Tiny Tales.
“We brought them to the event today in hopes of finding them some homes,” Stefanowski said, as their own cat, Tweedledee, slept soundly on their lap.
Other animals made their mark on the event, like Nature and Jeffery, two African pygmy “spokesgoats” for Goats On The Go Columbus Northeast. Goats On The Go is a service that provides herds of goats to property owners and businesses that want to clear their land from invasive, overgrown species.
“It’s a wonderful option in the surrounding counties for people who don’t want to just bring in a tractor, bring chemicals, or spray Roundup,” said Annie Kiener, who owns Nature and Jeffery. “And, they’re unbelievably cute.”
Kiener, 38, of Granville, came to the event to promote Goats On The Go on behalf of Lauren Cain, who owns about 140 goats that can be sent to multiple locations at the same time.
“The good thing about them is they really like the bad things,” Kiener said, emphasising the word bad. “Like the poison ivy, the honeysuckle, the really invasive things.”
The main event, however, came as the sky darkened and fluorescent glow sticks appeared.
Students from Denison University’s Physics Department set up four telescopes with the help of faculty members. George Wang, 22, a senior physics major from Naperville, Illinois, described the different uses for each type of telescope.
“Those ones are automatic telescopes,” he said, pointing at two upright cylindrical structures pointed straight towards the sky. “They track planets for us with software. For now, we take these big manual ones, and we try to spot the sun.”
The larger telescopes had a thick, dark filter covering the lens to keep the sun’s rays from damaging viewers’ eyes.
Crouching down and closing one eye, Cristina Caldari looked into the small scope pointed toward the sun.
“I was here last year,” said Caldari, an associate professor of biology at Denison, who was there to support her colleagues. “I thought that specifically the telescope part of the event was my favorite, and I wanted to come back.”
Additionally, members of the Licking Land Trust’s Board came to the event to help share their goals with the community. Doug Spieles, land trust secretary, is also chair of Denison University’s Sustainability and Environmental Studies Department. Spieles said that the trust “works to conserve land in this part of Ohio.”
The Licking Land Trust is one of 23 Ohio trusts recognized by the Land Trust Alliance, a national effort that supports organizations such as the Licking Land Trust. Based in Washington, D.C., the alliance includes trusts that protect over 60 million acres of land across the United States.
Most of the Licking Land Trust’s 1,174 protected acres come from conservation easements, which are legally binding agreements that property owners can use to protect their land from development or disruption.
“We are all about helping people to conserve land,” said Mock. “So, that can be through private property owners that want to limit development on the property that they have.”
These easements control what is and is not allowed on that specific land, like hunting, hiking, or even the number of buildings.
“But in order for that to be legal, an outside, independent organization has to hold the easement and monitor the property every year and make sure the terms are being upheld,” Mock said. “So if those original owners sell their land, or if they die, we have to make sure that the new owners are aware of the easement restrictions.” These agreements, Mock said, are “in perpetuity.”
Ultimately, Spieles said, events like the Autumn Equinox Celebration are a great way for the Licking Land Trust to engage more directly with the community. The trust aims to continue advocating for the preservation of land in and around the county, as more and more land gets developed into commercial and residential areas.
On Nov. 3, the trust hosted naturalist Guy Denny at the Ohio State University Newark campus to talk about the importance of Ohio’s prairies. Similar to the equinox event, one of the trust’s goals was to inform and engage the public about local land conservation.
“We want development to happen in a smart way, so that in 20 or 30 years, we look back on our area and say: ‘We did this the right way.’ We still have parks, we still have green spaces, we still have streams and forests that are protected, even while we have new businesses. That’s our mission.”
Margo Ellis writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.