Candy Apple Bites, Perfect Fall Treat

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Candy Apple Bites are the perfect taste of fall without committing to a large dessert. These bite sized treats will be great for your family’s Halloween celebration and no one will be eating too much sugar.

Ingredients:

6 granny smith apples

2 cups white sugar 400 g2 cups white sugar 400 g

½ cup water 120 mL½ cup water 120 mL

½ tsp red food coloring 2.5 mL½ tsp red food coloring 2.5 mL

2 Tbsp lemon juice 30 mL2 Tbsp lemon juice 30 mL

Candy thermometer

INSTRUCTIONS

Fill a large bowl with water and a pinch of salt. Peel the apples and use a melon baller to scoop rounds from each apple. Six granny smith or other tart apples should yield about twenty-five balls. Store apples in the water to prevent browning while scooping. Dry each with a paper towel and stick lollipop stick in each. Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and freeze for 15 minutes.

While freezing you should make the candy coating. Combine sugar, water, food coloring and lemon to a medium sized pan on medium to high eat, stirring a few times to combine. Boil and reduce heat. Simmer until candy thermometer reads 300-310 degrees F. Remove from heat. Using a toothpick drop some of the candy into cold water. It should become hard and brittle. Caution the liquid candy will be very hot.

You’ll have to work quickly dipping each apple pop in the candy and evenly coating them. Caution the liquid candy will be very hot. Set apple down on parchment covered sheet. When finished freeze to set the candy.

 

Halloween Safety Tips During Covid-19

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Halloween, like most holidays, will not be immune to the effects Covid-19 is having on our society. Many may have questions about the safety of traditional Halloween and Trick or Treating events and what safe alternatives may exist.

Many experts believe that traditional Trick or Treating does carry a high risk of spreading the disease. While surfaces aren’t a concern (one person touching a piece of candy then someone else touching it and consuming it) the rapid face to face interaction with many strangers presents many chances to spread the virus.

The CDC stated that crowded indoor parties, indoor haunted houses, traditional Trick or Treating o Trunk or Treating (a gathering in a parking lot to pass out candy), going to celebrations outside your community and hay rides with people outside of your family are all high risk activities.

They suggest instead, an indoor party with just your family, a controlled outdoor party, decorating more than normal, a family movie night, or a controlled neighborhood treat walk are all low risk options. A controlled walk might include a Halloween themed scavenger hunt while children admire home decorations from a distance.

Hope, Ohio and the Hope Furnace

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Hope, OH still stands but under the waters of Lake Hope. Hope, OH was flooded up the side of cliff as part of a flood control project. Other Ohio ghost towns met a similar fate. Lake Hope is now part of a state park and recreation area.

Two structures from Hope remain. The one-room schoolhouse isn’t far from the park inside the state forest. It has been renovated and is now used as a community meeting place. Inside the park itself the Hope Furnace still stands which was once used to smelt iron ore that was mined in the hills nearby.

There is a third structure, south of the schoolhouse on Wheelabout Road is an abandonded church which is in very poor condition and it is not recommended people go inside it.

Along with these structures there was once a post office named Hope Furnace which was built in 1865 and ran until 1890.

The Hope Furnace is an important historical marker for the region. Located northeast of Zaleski Village along SR 278 it is one of two extant iron furnaces in Vinton County. It ran for 20 years between 1854 and 1874 to smelt iron ore. It ran on coal or charcoal for fuel. It somewhat resembles a skinny pyramid and is made out of sandstone.

Like other iron furnaces of the time in region, Hope Furnace was once surrounded by a community of hundreds of residents as the production of iron and supplying of goods and services for the area required many workers and small business owners. Now no structures of the community remain; however, many artifacts can still be found in the area.

Warren G. Harding Home & Museum

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Visitors can tour the restored home of Warren G. Harding, the 29th U.S. President. The site is best known as the location of his 1920 “Front Porch Campaign.” The home is a National Historic Landmark and includes many of the Harding’s original furnishings. Just a mile away visitors can also visit the resting place of both Warren G. Harding and his wife Florence.

Harding was born in 1865 in Corsica, Ohio but spent his youth in Caledonia, Ohio. In 1882 Harding and a friend bought the Marion Star newspaper from Marion, Ohio. Harding won the Ohio General Assembly election in both 1898 and 1900. Harding, in 1903, became Ohio’s lieutenant governor.

Harding returned to the Morning Star two years later but following his Front Porch Campaign he became President of the U.S. from 1921-1923 and was the first president voted into office after women won the right to vote.

Historians cannot say whether or not his time in office would have been viewed more favorably if he had not died in 1923 not completing his term as president.

Many people don’t know that he did have several important law-making accomplishments. Harding established the first formal budgeting process for the General Accounting Office. This oversees government spending. Also, Harding created the Veterans Bureau which later became the Veterans Administration.

 

 

Restored Schoenbrunn Village, Home of Historic Ohio Firsts

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The Schoenbrunn Village is the site of many historic Ohio events and many firsts. The first settlement, church, schoolhouse and code of laws were all created in Schoenbrunn. The village has been restored to resemble what it looked like two centuries ago. This includes the original cemetery along with sixteen rebuilt log buildings along with a church and gardens. Non-historical buildings include a visitor center and museum.

Schoenbrunn Village was first founded in 1772 as a Moravian mission among the Delaware Native Americans. It was the first Christian settlement in all of Ohio. The villagers were successful in living there for a few years however encroaching settlers and natives aligned with the British forced the settlers to abandon their village in 1777.

David Zeisberger established the village. He had found a unique pocket of neutral land in a part high tense part of North America as the American Revolution geared up.

Five Native American families and Zeisberger traveled to the Tuscarawas River and found a suitable place for the mission in the Ohio countryside. It was here villagers established a school and a civil code—both the first in Ohio. Toward the end of its short history villagers were hassled by British loyal natives and the frontier folk pushing further west into North America.

By 1777 the villagers could no longer deal with the opposing forces and abandoned their village and ruined their meetinghouse upon leaving so that no harassers could use it in their absence.

The Schoenbrunn Village is currently run by the local organization, Dennison Railroad Depot Museum.