Those lyrics from singer/songwriter Susan Osborn were on my mind this week as I remembered someone whose shoulders carried all of Newton County a decade ago.  As I relayed in a personal Facebook post on Thursday, that man was former Newborn Mayor Roger Sheridan.

Earlier this month, the City of Covington announced plans to pave portions of the Cricket Frog Trail inside city limits, finally bringing closure to an effort begun well over a decade ago to convert an unused (and nearly abandoned) rail corridor across Newton County into a multi-use trail.

Beginning in 2009, I became one of the vocal, persistent advocates pressing the City of Covington and Newton County to carry through on plans initiated in 2005 by prior administrations to acquire the corridor from Norfolk Southern and pave it for a trail. 

Tomorrow through next weekend, communities across Newton County will host Arbor Day celebrations to plant trees and pay homage to their benefits.  Especially in this age of climate change and forests lost to development, agriculture, drought, and fires, the replanting of trees has never been a more necessary act.

But, there's something deeper, more essential, and even perhaps spiritual about giving life to a tree that will likely outlive its planters to shade, shelter, and serve generations yet unborn today.

As the Greek proverb says:  "Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in."  The awareness that actions we take (or don't take) today have consequences for generations to come is at the heart of why Sustainable Newton exists.  As our motto says:  "There 's no time like the present to give our children a better future."

It is great when projects turn out like you intended and do what you expected.

We participated in the Solarize program in 2019 and upgraded our existing small, grid-tied solar system to a bigger and more capable system. The goal was to supply about 50% of our monthly electric power consumption and to have batteries to supply power at night. Not only at night, but also on that rare-for-us occasion the grid power goes out.

Our solar panels and batteries have been living up to our power generation expectations.  And, then came this month's flooding and eight hours of no power coming from the grid. I was working here at the computer when our power went out the first time, and I didn’t even notice it was out, except that the lights went dark in the other rooms. The next morning, I heard the gas furnace and blower come on, and I thought “Great – that’s just what I expected.”  I then checked on our refrigerators, and they were operating just fine.

It's just so great when a plan comes together and works as expected.