Pumpkin spice is so over. It’s time for gingerbread, in preparation for this year’s #GingerbreadMadness. This year, you can win bragging rights and a prize for the best decorated gingerbread house. Keep reading to find out more.
Continue reading “Time for a little (Gingerbread) Madness”
Did you know that with your library card, you have free access to over 16 million books, audiobooks, movies, and music from public libraries across the state? This borrowing magic happens through a service called SearchOhio. Did you know that SearchOhio will deliver the item you borrow from Dayton, Cincinnati, Lima, or wherever, here to RML at no cost? If you don’t know, keep reading to find out how it works.
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It’s time to get dressed up in your favorite book-inspired costume and join us for our annual fun-for-all-ages Halloween party. Why should you come? You’ll miss all the fun if you stay home!
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A few weeks ago, we shared some free resources that can help you and your students with homework. Most of that post focused on helping younger students. “What about helping my middle and high schoolers,” you ask? “They have research papers, term papers, reports and presentations that can be pretty tough to complete.” We agree, and we have some help for your older students, too. Best of all, it’s available anytime and it’s all free.
Continue reading “Older students need help, too”
Did you eat a warm, juicy tomato from your garden this summer, only seconds after picking it? How many zucchini did you get from that plant you grew and tended all summer long? Are your cucumbers still going strong, even as the weather cools?
We hope your garden harvest was amazing but remember that it’s more than the fruit and vegetables, it’s also the seeds. Each seed that you save can grow into its own plant and feed you again next year. In one tomato, there are an average of 150 to 300 seeds. You could save the seeds from just one tomato and have way more than you and your neighbor need for next year.
We launched our Reed Seed Library in Spring and distributed a lot of seeds. As you close down the gardening season, think about saving seeds for next year – for yourself and to donate back to our seed library.
Before you save seeds, you’ll need to know if your seeds will be true-to-type. In its simplest terms, will your seeds produce the exact same plant next year? This all depends on pollination.
Some plants like tomatoes, peas, and beans are self-pollinators and will generally produce the same seed. Wind and insect-pollinated plants like squash, cucumbers, corn, and melons, are more likely to cross-pollinate unless you’ve taken precautions beforehand. If your plant cross-pollinates, the resulting seed will be a hybrid – a combination of both plants’ characteristics. A hybrid isn’t a bad plant, it’s just not the original. Don’t let the worries about cross pollination keep you from saving and donating your seeds. Those hybrid vegetables will still feed the family and taste amazing.
It’s a little different for each plant but harvesting your seeds is not difficult. Your garden crops (and their seeds) will either be dry-fruited or wet fruited. Example: Beans are dry fruit. If you leave a few green beans on the vine, in time the pods will mature, dry out and do most of the work for you. Collecting those seeds will be as easy as picking some of the mature, nearly dry pods and bringing them inside for further drying and cleaning.
Tomatoes are wet fruited. To harvest those seeds, you need to cut apart the ripe fruit and extract seeds from the flesh and pulp before drying them. When you are harvesting any seed, the most important thing is to make sure your final seeds are dried properly. Wet and mold are your enemies.
We’ve just skimmed the surface of pollination and seed saving. If you’d like to dive deeper into these subjects, we have some books to help, so stop in. You can also check out these great resources below.
The most important thing to remember is to make sure and label your donated seed properly, as in the illustration below. Then we can correctly file your seeds into the library.
If you’d like to package your seed in our handy, labeled folding packet, stop by the second-floor desk and pick some up or download and print them yourself. Once your seeds are dried, labeled, and packaged, bring them back to our staff at the second-floor desk.
Our seed library’s inaugural year was fantastic. With your help, we hope to make it even better next year.
Did you grow anything using seed from the library this summer? What was your best crop?
School is about to start and with it comes something dreaded by students, parents, and caregivers alike: homework. With some helpful, free tools that you can access at home, we can make it a little easier.
Continue reading “Help With Homework”
Planning on voting in the November election? Need to update your registration? Do you know whether you are registered or not? We can help you register to vote so you’re all ready when November gets here.
We always have voter registration forms on hand. Stop in anytime we’re open, any day of the year, and pick one up in the community information room. Take it home and fill it out or fill it out while you’re here. Turn it in to the Portage County board of elections or give it back to us and we’ll forward it to the board of elections; you choose. If you want to vote this November, the deadline to register is October 7th.
If you want to make sure your registration is up to date or aren’t sure whether you’re registered, before you stop in, you may look up your registration on the board of election’s website.
For absentee ballots, complete election information and all of the election deadlines visit the very helpful Portage County Board of Elections website or give them a call (330-297-3511).
Every year we get to vote on the decisions being made in our communities, state, and nation. This year is an especially important voting year, because of the November presidential election. Reed Memorial Library can help you make sure you’re ready to vote.
Did you know you can read the Record Courier online, free, wherever you are? All you need is a digital device (for the reading online part) and one of our library cards. Even better, when you read it this way, you don’t get pop-up ads to distract you from the news.
Keep reading to get the scoop.
Continue reading “Read the Record Courier (free) Online”
Are you headed on a trip this summer? Later this year? If the trip you are planning is outside the country, make sure you have a passport or that the one you have is up-to-date. If you need to get one for the first time, we can help!
Continue reading “Need a Passport? We Can Help!”
Most of you have had that feeling, after unpacking a box. You turn the empty box over in your hands, maybe close the flaps and have that moment when you just – pause. Then you think, “Should I really get rid of this box? I could probably use this box later. It’s a nice box.”
We have a better box (maybe even the best box). It’s a box that feels great in your hands, one you can enjoy having with zero guilt. A very cool box and it’s full of very cool stuff.
Each month, no matter your age, you can sign up to get a Bookworm Box from us. We have boxes designed for Littles (PreK-2nd), Kids (grades 3-6), teens (grades 7-12), and adults. We’ll handpick some books, gather a couple of activities or a playlist or something fun to do, throw in some goodies and pack it all up in a sweet cardboard box decorated with Cornelius’ handsome face. Come in, check out your box, take it home and live it up.
Dig into the books and have a ball with the goodies! When your due date is up, put the books in the box and return it to us for next month’s refill. Each month is a different theme, different books, and a new adventure in reading. And it all comes in a very cool box.
Our June round of Bookworm Boxes have been claimed. Registration for July’s adult box is open now and youth Bookworm Box registration opens later in June. Sign up to try a different kind of reading experience. We think you’ll find out that it’s your new, favorite box.
Sincerely, Cornelius 