(upbeat rock music) (mouse clicking) (keyboard keys clicking) (upbeat rock music) (car engines rumbling) (upbeat rock music) (car engine rumbling) (upbeat rock music continues) (keyboard keys clicking) (mouse clicking) (light music) - [Karen] I like to call the Oak Openings region one of Ohio's biodiversity hotspots.

(light music continues) - Oak Openings Preserve is our largest metropark the largest of our 19 metropark system.

We have an area called Springbrook that was Springbrook Park, and it all began there and over the years we've added onto it because of the sensitive ecological attributes of this park until we reached 5,000 acres.

A lot of folks in Toledo are familiar with Wildwood Preserve in West Toledo, which is our busiest park.

This park is 10 times larger than that so it's by far our biggest metropark and full of lots of unique features, both natural and manmade.

- Every time I step out of the office and I go into one of the natural areas that our metropark offers I can be assured that I will observe something new that I have never seen before.

(light music continues) This is a treasure.

There's a lot to be seen when you come to the park itself or if you come and visit other areas within what we call the Oak openings region.

It's a refuge for rare species and home to the highest number of unique and rare plant and animal species combined in the whole state of Ohio.

- [Scott] I think over the decades we learn more and more about just how truly unique this is and its collection of biodiversity.

It's incredibly rare and beautiful and offers quite a few amenities for visitors.

Kind of like Toledo area's own mini national park At Oak Openings we have some features that you won't find in other places.

Two campgrounds, two cabins that you can rent for overnight.

And where we're at right now, the Cannaley Treehouse Village, which we believe is unique for a public park anywhere in the country.

We have three lakes for fishing.

We've got miles and miles of trails, including our only horse trails, so it's a destination from all over Ohio for people to bring their horses And we have a 12 mile mountain bike trail.

So all of that here in this park makes up about 10% of the acreage with 80 to 90% purely for preservation.

So it has become even more important than ever to preserve the nature that's here.

(light music continues) (birds chirping) - It's a birder's paradise.

It's just a great destination for any birding enthusiasts, especially during the migratory times in the spring and fall and through our summer breeding season.

We do a lot of ecological monitoring in the metro parks and we engage a lot of our citizen science volunteers to help us with this process.

They actually go into the metroparks and they monitor our long-term surveys like butterfly monitoring.

We do cavity nesting, bird monitoring, we do rare plant monitoring.

We're constantly and consistently evaluating a lot of our natural areas.

- [Scott] Our area, especially the Oak Openings is super cool.

It's unique in the world and one of Ohio's crown jewels.

Our version of conservation is not that you put a fence around it and keep everybody out, but you bring people in and inspire them to love and care for for what they see.

One of the techniques of conservation and our view is getting people to love nature to begin with.

In recent years we've really upped our game in that regard by building things like a Treehouse village, a mountain bike trail in the flattest part of the country, and adding some really interesting obstacles to make it challenging.

Giving people new reasons to discover the parks.

We might interest a lot of people in a nature walk for other people that might be a unique destination like this.

We need people to to care about these parks so that they're here for the next generation.

So you are welcome and invited to come enjoy our little corner of Ohio.

(lively music) - This tower to me is going to be very iconic and I think what it shows is progress.

I think it shows pride.

I think this city has a lot of pride.

(lively music continues) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Want to see your favorite local story featured on our show?

Head to our website at, "WBGU.org/scenicstops."

Find the blue button and let us know where we should go next.

(keyboard keys clicking) (mouse clicking) (somber music) - [Eric] This tower to me, is going to be very iconic and I think what it shows is progress.

I think it shows pride.

I think this city has a lot of pride.

- We just want it to have a landmark for Bryan and it's right next to our property where we make all the Dum-Dums.

So literally the water in the water tower is the water that's used when we cook the Dum-Dums.

So there's something kind of special about that.

When we heard that they needed to paint the water tower again we got in touch with the city and said, "Hey, we got an idea."

And we went through a a lot of different iterations.

The first idea was to have it look like it was filled with millions and millions of little Dum-Dums.

But then Eric, the artist, pointed out that it would be really hard to kind of see that unless you're really close.

We all thought it got a little bit too busy and let's just focus on Dum-Dums which is just an iconic brand for us and it's something that everybody can recognize.

Well, Dum-Dums have been around since 1924 and Spangler Candy, we've been making them since the 1950s.

We make over 2 billion every year and we really are the lollipop capital of the world.

We make more lollipops in this facility than any other plant over the entire world.

So that's something we're real proud of.

We are in the business of making candy so we don't really know how to paint water towers but the advice that we got was to actually have it hand painted by Eric Henn who has done things like this all over the country and they thought it would get a better, it would just look better to get kind of the vibrant colors that we wanted instead of a wrap.

And it's, we think it's going to last longer.

We chose a red because we actually call that Dum-Dums red.

It's, if you look at our bags, most of our bags are that exact same red.

(lively music) So the Dum-Dum is a 65 foot tall Dum-Dum and we have eight of 'em.

So it is, I think, the largest lollipop in the world.

- What I enjoy the most is the challenge to paint something that is like real high aerial work.

It's not the norm, it's not on a canvas it's an actual industrial structure and it makes my job more interesting.

Safety is very crucial.

The weather is right up there with the height challenge.

Weather determines everything.

Then you got to be aware if rain is coming later in the day it takes four hours for this paint to set up and cure.

And once it cures, it's like an auto paint.

It's got a really hard finish and nothing really penetrates it.

(upbeat music) The way that you typically get things correct before you start actually painting is on paper first you figure out square footage and you get the diameter and the height of the structure, the tower, and you figure all that out, like how wide, how tall something's going to be and then you make your patterns from that.

I have to freehand all the shading and blend for the shadows that's on the paper and the wraps and then the bottom lettering.

So there's always free hand involved in there.

My tools are ingenuity and skill to get to that spot with the lift.

And then as far as actual application I use paint brushes and rollers.

I rarely spray anything.

- [Kirk] It's just amazing that he's able to do so much work just by by him himself in a lift and up in the elements with the wind and moving the carriage back and forth.

We actually have dozens of flavors of Dum-Dums.

There's eight flavors on the water tower and we tried to pick flavors more for the color just so that we had a nice kind of balance of light and dark.

But obviously we got some of our favorite flavors.

The mystery flavor is iconic and something that just people enjoy and trying to find out what they're going to get.

But we did a kind of a mix of the popular ones and the traditional ones like root beer, very traditional flavor, cream soda, very traditional flavor and a flavor that's really associated with Dum-Dums.

- [Eric] I like the root beer one.

I like the colors in it but also the watermelon next to it and then the mystery one.

So those are my three favorites.

They're all fun to paint.

It makes an interesting day when you get to bring out new colors.

There's a new flavor every day.

It makes it fun.

- What is my favorite Dum-Dum flavor?

Well, I guess the way I answer that is it's a little bit like saying who's your favorite child If you do have one, you certainly can't say.

- [Eric] What this tower ranks as far as past towers.

I'd give it a hundred percent for coolness.

- [Kirk] Yeah, what's the community response been?

I've been surprised at how many people have just been really excited about it.

I think it just brings a lot of kind of civic pride and I think they're going to come over here and get selfies in front of the water tower.

I mean, why not?

(upbeat music) - Well welcome to Freeze Daddy's.

It's our ice cream shop here in local Monclova.

We've got just the classic things is what everybody loves, the turtle sundaes and the Buckeye sundaes and everybody has their favorite.

(upbeat music continues) (keyboard keys clicking) (mouse clicking) (upbeat music) Well welcome to Freeze Daddy's.

It's our ice cream shop here in local Monclova.

We have everything in the traditional mom and pop ice cream shop has, at least in the Midwest, right?

So we have soft serve and we have hard dip.

We have shakes and flurries.

We can make any type of sundae you want to see, a classic turtle sundae or we can make a magic sundae with a whole bunch of toppings on it.

We can make a chili dog with some great chili sauce, nachos and cheese, soft pretzels, walking tacos, about anything for anybody.

(upbeat music continues) Something that really brought us into Freeze Daddy's and loving it so much is the environment.

We have two and a half acres.

We've got a huge sandbox down there, cornhole.

We got tether ball and swings for the kids and lots of seating areas.

So you come and you stay.

People have birthday parties together and many gatherings, of course, it's such a fun thing to do with ice cream but they come and they hang out for quite a while sometimes.

(upbeat music continues) We inherited an awesome menu and have basically tried not to mess it up.

The biggest seller is always soft serve cones and cups.

Believe it or not We've got just the classic things is what everybody loves.

The turtle sundaes and the Buckeye sundaes and everybody has their favorite.

Everybody wants their own little thing whether it's a flurry or a shake or a chili dog with certain things on it.

You got it.

(light upbeat music) When Freezes Daddy's started from the original owner he wanted the word freeze in it somewhere.

So he just came up with Freeze Daddy's and the crazy bear.

But then there's a fish out there and the original owner, Ron and Terry Loeffler, she was an art teacher at Maumee High School.

She had all her students put their thumbprint on that fish out there, which is cool.

Like they all have their little imprint on Freeze Daddy's and I'm sure they all remember those fun little things, just like they're making memories every time they come to get ice cream.

(light upbeat music continues) Some of the fun little finishing touches around here is all the artwork for all the sundaes and stuff.

So the Moose Track sundae might have a moose and the ingredients are hanging from his antlers or something.

And those are all designed and done by my uncle who's no longer with us, but it's a neat little memory to have that great artwork for all the sundaes as opposed to just something printed off the internet.

So that's exciting.

That's something that's, it's a fun little touch.

(light upbeat music continues) We are blessed to have an amazing staff whether there's two people in line or 25 people in line.

We just say take care of that next person and give them the time they deserve.

So we're always ready with a smile and with a hardworking, diligent effort to take care of everybody.

They're really good at what they do and they're always super helpful and trustworthy.

They're pretty amazing.

(light upbeat music continues) As my late mother always said, like, you're making memories.

Anytime you do anything, especially with family or friends you're getting together and you're making a memory, right?

And that's what stays with you throughout life is making memories.

So it's something you do with your parents or your grandparents or your friends.

You celebrate birthdays here.

People are inside, people are outside.

They have memories that they remember.

Do you remember when we were Freeze Daddy's?

That's what you're looking to do is find places to go and make a memory at and that's Freeze Daddy's, so love to have people come out.

It's always fun to meet new people and see 'em having fun and having smiles on the face and running around the yard.

(light upbeat music continues) - What Lilac Festival actually is is 100% a community event.

Most people attend the Lilac Festival for multiple different reasons.

One of the biggest is as a part of this community it's the first time to get out and about and really be around everybody.

(keyboard keys clicking) (mouse clicking) What Lilac Festival actually is is 100% a community event.

(upbeat music) Most people attend the Lilac Festival for multiple different reasons.

One of the biggest is as a part of this community it's the first time to get out and about and really be with everybody and be around everybody.

You see faces you haven't seen since last year's Lilac Festival and so we really enjoy that.

We have so many happy people walking around just really enjoying it.

(upbeat music) - One of the great things about living in a community like Defiance is knowing everybody.

You know, and sometimes people get worried about that but it is a great community.

People I've grown up with, even even adults that I grew up around are still active members in our community and we all just see the value in that small community life and wanting it to be a place for our kids to grow up and our grandkids.

(upbeat music continues) (vocalist vocalizing) Well Defiance to start off has great history with the rivers, with the the foregrounds.

So there's great history behind Defiance like a lot of other areas of northwest Ohio.

But then on top of that we really take pride in the community to put on events that we want people from all over to come to.

You know, there's great scenery and people really care about our community and are making it look nicer and making more people want to be able to stay here.

(upbeat music continues) (lively music) - It grown a lot since I remember coming as a little kid from like a dinky little festival to now like so many vendors and so many people here rushing the streets.

My favorite part of it, I think is just coming together as a community and you really feel just a sense of togetherness.

(lively music continues) The It's Not Pottery stand.

I actually have like a kind of personal connection with him a little bit.

So I always like to check out his artwork.

It's all functional pottery, which is really cool to me.

And then I also just like to see what the different handmade like crafts are and I think that showcasing some art from the area is always really cool.

- I come out to the Lilac Festival to sell my wares.

I've been around the Defiance area for about 22 years and the Lilac Festival has been a function I've come to for like past 20 some years that it's been around.

It's grown and grown every year and this year there's more vendors here than there ever have been.

One of the reasons I would come to the Lilac Festival even if I wasn't a vendor here, we have a lot of great food vendors here and a lot of handcrafted items.

I do appreciate handcrafted stuff myself.

(lively music continues) - So for us, I mean we do honey and a lot of the... a lot of the drive of honey is local.

I mean, local honey is far better than buying honey from across the country.

And so we target our market to people within 50 miles of our house.

And so a lot of the people that come and buy from us today they bought from us many times over.

They're customers that we recognize from other shows that we do locally.

They're people that I've gone and taken care of bees for 'em, they're people that I have hives on their property.

It's a lot of fun to do business that way.

(lively music continues) (upbeat music) ♪ Sometimes we spend all our lives ♪ ♪ In the rear view mirror (keyboard keys clicking) (mouse clicking) (cymbals tinkling) - All right, coming at ya.

(upbeat music) ♪ Sometimes we spend all of our lives ♪ ♪ In the rear view mirror ♪ Am I'm losing all of this light ♪ ♪ Just can't see it clearer ♪ Well but what we've left behind ♪ ♪ Or what lies ahead is just a game ♪ - My name's Kevin Ashba and I'm a singer songwriter based in Columbus, Ohio.

♪ It's the only thing that's not unknown ♪ I joined up with Rustgaze, I got on at the ground level basically.

We started doing stuff long before Rustgaze was even a thing.

We were just in Omar's living room basically.

We started accompanying other artists and I was playing on a lot of people's music and pretty soon it was inspiring enough to want to do my own for real, you know.

(laughs) ♪ Come so far from where we started from ♪ Having people to bounce ideas off of is just really important.

And in fact, I would be lost without that because there's too many possibilities.

It's endless.

♪ Oh and when the rays descend - The collaborations in the area are like one of my favorite things personally because I think I tend to work really well with other people.

Like it helps me, it helps gimme more ideas.

- I think anyone who comes through the doors at Rustgaze Records with you know, an eagerness to collaborate, I think will improve in somewhere.

- It's really inspiring because when your friend asks you a question about their song, you can get really excited for them because maybe you're a fan of the song too.

Or maybe you have this thing in your mind where, "oh wait a second, let me tell you my idea for that," you know.

- I think it's the factor of not being lonely in it and you have this kind of companionship in it and when, you know, if Kevin's down one day, I'm up and can pull him up and make him remember of why he is here and why he is doing it.

'Cause what he does is special.

♪ I'm as hopeful as the rising sun ♪ (person clapping) - [Person] Whoop, whoop!

(cymbal tinkling) - That's another cool thing about the artists that work in this studio is everyone's really willing to help each other on each other's tracks.

Like Nick has played the drums on my track.

He plays drums on Kevin's tracks.

Like Kevin does backups and keys for me and I do, you know, backups and stuff for him.

So, and Frank does bass on a lot.

It's just cool to see everybody help each other's tracks to make 'em better.

♪ When you stumble upon something you'd ♪ ♪ Never thought you'd find We just did a big show at the Lima Civic Center and we just collaborated.

It was me, Frank, Nick, and Kevin.

And we had never, we're not a band, we'd never done that before.

We all kind of do our own thing, but we came together and made that show our thing, you know, and it attracted a lot of people, it drew a big crowd and I found people that had never seen me before through that, which is really cool.

But yeah, we all kind of do a good job of supporting each other and coming out to each other's shows when we're not all working together.

(upbeat music) - A typical day in the studio is a lot of sitting around.

Preparing microphones, preparing, you know, miking up a drum kit, miking up guitar amps, just getting that perfect sound before you even start recording.

A lot of the time is spent with this kind of excited state of preparation.

♪ It's what they (indistinct) piece of mind ♪ - Sometimes when we come, we have a plan, I come to work on original stuff that I've written and sometimes I'll come by myself and we'll work on Omar will help me record and get the bones of the track down.

And then other times we'll have everybody come in and we all just kind of look at each other and like what songs do we all know?

And then we just start playing, start jamming and they just kind of evolve.

There's not a time limit on our projects and stuff.

Like sometimes we'll show up at 1:00 PM and be here until 10:00 PM and there's no pressure to get anything done in a certain amount of time.

You know, we can use that time to really work on whatever we're working on and make it as good as we want it to sound, you know.

(Kaitlyn vocalizing) ♪ Oh, oh, oh - I think too, passion is a good word for it 'cause I think in a bigger situation, a bigger studio, you've got, you know maybe a label that's like really wanting to crank out like a bunch of, get a bunch of views, get this going and then you got this guy under this guy that's like in charge of getting the band to crank out these songs.

You know, I think that's a big thing.

I don't think there's near as much passion in like, you could say a commercial grade situation where here it's more, I don't know.

I don't want to use the word organic but it's a little more, I don't know, natural, I guess.

- [D L] So far the three people that Rustgaze have released records by has been a country singer, soul singer and a kind of grizzly old rock singer.

None of them sound like each of them, but we all get along and we all have this common thread of Rustgaze Records.

(Kaitlyn vocalizing) (upbeat music continues) ♪ Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh ♪ Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh ♪ Da-Da, Da-Da, Di ♪ Da-Da, Da-Da, Da-Da, Di ♪ Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh ♪ Da-Da, Da-Da, Di ♪ Da-Da, Da-Da, Di ♪ Da-Da, Da-Da, Da-Da, Da-Da, Di ♪ ♪ Oh-Oh (cymbals tinkling) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)