To contact the Board, use the contact information located on page 4.

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1 Orion Woods Ledger Special points of interest: Issues regarding the neighborhood can be submitted in writing to any board member, or attend a board meeting. Board meetings are held once a month and rotate among board member homes. Please contact a board member to determine where the next meeting will be held. If you would like to advertise in the OWL, send an to a board member. To contact the Board, use the contact information located on page 4. Trash Volume 13, Issue 2 April 2009 Collection Day Friday Yard Waste Pick-up Begins April 3rd Did you notice the change in collection day for trash mailed to you from Allied Waste? Collection day is changing to FRIDAY, beginning Friday, April 3rd. Place trash at the curb after 6 p.m. on Thursday and before 6 a.m. on Friday. Please separate trash into three categories. Put recyclables (glass bottles, cans, plastics #1 & #2, newspapers, broken down boxes, cardboard but not waxed) into the recyclable container. Put yard waste (lawn clippings and bush clippings) into disposable yard waste paper sacks or a clearly identified yard waste container (no long branches). Yard waste pick-up begins Friday, April 3rd. Put all other garbage in a sack on the other side of your driveway. Allied Waste will take away large items such as washing machines by special request, prepaid. Pick-up will be on the regular collection day. Call at least one day before to make arrangements. First item costs $25, subsequent items cost $10. Questions? Post these numbers in your garage: Allied Waste Services, (800) or A special note: Thank you to the many volunteers who retrieve trash containers for everyone after the trucks come through the neighborhood! Windy days are coming so be sure to mark your address on your container. More Volunteers Needed Inside this issue: Economic growth 2 Police report 2 Watering schedule 2 Check your connections 3 Recipes 3 Board listing 4 Dates to remember 5 Everyone Is a Volunteer in this Neighborhood Step Up and Do Your Part! Help us keep Association fees low by continuing our tradition of self-management. When every resident does a little, the work is spread over many. Thanks if advance! Board Member. Consider being a board member. Your responsibilities might include researching contractors for snow removal, trash collection, street repair, electrical maintenance for front entrance lights. You will have a vote on budget matters. You can work on neighborhood activities such as the summer party. The board meets once a month. (This board meeting, incidentally, is open to any Orion Wood resident by advance notification to a board member.) Nominations for next year s board members will begin this coming fall. Seven people needed. Any resident can nominate. Entrance Monitor. Needed: Four people, four trash bags. Do you like a well-maintained, attractive front entrance? Be a entrance monitor for one month this summer: May, June, July, August. On the day before trash day (Thursday) pick up the trash that has blown into our front landscaping. Then put that trash out with your own. This job takes only minutes but pays big dividends in making our subdivision look clean and wellmaintained. Live closer to the bottom of Eagle Ridge Road? Volunteers are needed for the bottom entrance too. Continued on Page 3

2 Volume 13, Issue 2 Orion Woods Ledger Page 2 Let s Create Economic Growth within Orion Woods By Michael Hall You may not consider Orion Woods a center for commerce, but I would like to discuss how economic activity may be increased. There are currently many services that I would pay for but don t consider because of the cost or inconvenience. For example, I would hire a baby sitter much more often. Now I have to drive across the city to pick up a young girl to watch the kids. I don t particularly enjoy yard work, but hiring a service is more trouble than it s worth when the job is small. The service companies typically drive in from cities that are a half hour or so away so their pricing and schedule is prohibitive. I believe there is unlocked economic potential within our community. To begin increasing the economic activity within the community we must first increase the connections between people who want services, and those who provide. In short, we need a marketplace. This may seem just like a want ads or Craig s list. However, because our list is local to our community, the possible services and those who can provide them increase greatly. As examples, I ve listed below some of the services that I want: Babysitter for 6, 4, and 1 year old. Yard help (planting flower beds, etc.), tools provided. Cabinet/furniture maker. Small project for a mudroom. Let s help each other Police Report Report Suspicious Behavior to the Police Be sure to notify neighbors, board members and township police if you see suspicious activity About a year ago our neighborhood experienced a sudden crime wave. Thieves broke into several vehicles (looking for GPS devices, we think) and also broke into a garage and stole several items. Police said that Indian Wood Apartments were hit at the same time. We guess that it was the work of professionals who had cased the neighborhood in advance and knew where to go and what to take. In hindsight, we learned to take better precautions: 1 Put vehicles in the garage and at the least, keep them locked 2 Keep the garage door closed 3 Keep doors locked Has any criminal behavior happen recently? Board members have received no reports with the exception of a prank involving a paper bag placed on several doorsteps and lit on fire, a potential dangerous arson. Be sure to notify neighbors, board members and township police if you see suspicious activity. Keep Orion Woods safe! Watering Schedule Orion Township Trustees approved the following watering restrictions at its March 16th meeting effective May through August: Watering may only be done between 12:00 a.m. (midnight) and 5:00 a.m. Odd addresses should water their lawns on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Even addresses should water their lawns on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Failure to comply with these water restrictions set for in Ordinance 68, Section 37 will result in disconnection of the water service at the offending site. If you have further questions, contact the Orion Department of Public Works at , ext Watering restrictions

3 Page 3 Check Your Connection Hoses! Don t throw your money down the drain! Several house flooded in neighborhood 42 Eagle Ridge Road, 50 Eagle Ridge Road, 51 Eagle Ridge Road, and 3077 Talon Circle were among the Orion Wood houses that have suffered severe water damage due to plumbing malfunctions this past year. Connection hoses failed on two; a tub faucet broke on another. Since construction of Orion Wood houses occurred at about the same time, all using the same materials, it might be a good idea to inspect your plumbing system. Here are some specific things to check, based on the failures above: Check the connection hose from the floor into the toilet bowl. Replace with the silver polymer braid 3/8 inch toilet connector. Look for wear on the water intakes for your washing machine, especially the hot intake (because it wears out faster). Again, replace with the silver polymer braid connector. Check faucets for leakage and wear. Most are Delta brand. Cartridges or rubber fittings can be replaced to stop leaks. Check under your kitchen sink for wear on the connection hoses, especially to the sprayer and to the refrigerator ice-maker, if you have one. If you go on vacation, you might want to leave a house key with someone who can keep an eye on your house. You might also want to turn off your main water faucet in the basement. Recipes Jill McKimson suggested including recipes in the OWL. We think it is a great idea! Touché Pie From Lori Fielder I grew up in Maine. This simple recipe comes from our French Canadian heritage. In our family we always had Touché Pie over the holidays as a special treat. Now I serve it throughout the year. Ingredients: 6 medium potatoes 1 chopped onion 1 lb. ground pork 2 Pillsbury pie crusts Directions: Place the potatoes and onion in pot and fill with just enough water to cover. Boil for 15 minutes. Add pork. Boil until potatoes are tender. When done, do not drain. Mash all together. Place in pie shell. Bake at 350º until crust is light brown. Serve with milk gravy. Continued on Page 5 Have a recipe you would like to share? Contact Jill at or More Volunteers Needed continued from Page 1 Be a volunteer :) Homeowners Directory. Volunteers are needed to revise our Homeowners Directory. Do you have a copy of the 2005 Orion Woods Directory with Rules and Regulations? If so, you know it needs an update. In this effort you would contact your neighbors for name, address, phone, and . Orion Woods Ledger. Yes, that s this OWL, and we always are looking for volunteers to help with the writing, preparation, and distribution. Most needed is an editor who could solicit and collect articles in cooperation with board members. Special Thanks Orion Woods board members would like to express their special thanks to Kim Giles-Hill for her help in preparation of the OWL. Kim uses her desktop publishing expertise to prepare the original ready for copying. Thanks, Kim!

4 Volume 13, Issue 2 Orion Woods Ledger Page 4 Alteration Request Planning to build a deck or patio this summer? Putting in new landscaping? Before you do any exterior modifications, fill out the Orion Woods Alteration Request attached to this OWL. Give it to Madhu Narayanan, 54 Eagle Ridge Road, the board member in charge of alteration requests this year. The board is here to serve you and we will process the request ASAP. If you have any questions, Madhu at madhuk12@hotmail.com Real Estate Report Attached to this OWL is a report provided by Nina Fetzer of Century 21 showing the sales prices of Orion Wood homes from January 2008 to now. It shows as well the asking price of those home currently on the market. MLS is the Multiple Listing ID#. The lower prices shown -- $1,250 to $1,600 are for those properties leased or rented. See the Summary below for the Sale and Lease averages. All exterior alterations need Board approval per Association Bylaws. To contact a Board member, please use the following contact information Orion Woods Board of Directors President Adam Kline kline_adam@att.net Vice President Lori Fielder Lori.Fielder@comcast.net Treasurer Mike Milk mmmilk@comcast.net Member at Large Geoff Harris harrisgse@yahoo.com Member at Large Madhu Narayanan madhuk12@hotmail.com Member at Large Tom Sudduth TSudduth@gmail.com Secretary Mike Hall michaelhall@comcast.net Advertisements Future ads here Anything for sale? Advertisements? - Put them here.

5 Recipes continued from Page 3 Page 5 Homemade Yogurt From Narges Khoshkam, native of Iran We eat a lot of yogurt so I make it a gallon at a time. The easiest way is to use a glass bowl with a cover which you put in a microwave, oven, and refrigerator. Mine held a gallon of milk, perfect for the job until I dropped it! Directions: Nuke one gallon of 2% milk in a large bowl at maximum power for 66 minutes in microwave. The time is microwave dependent. The objective is to heat it up to about 190 F. Be careful to avoid boil over and spillage of the milk. This step is necessary to kill other enzymes in the milk. Once boiled, carefully place the bowl on the kitchen counter and let it cool down to below 120 F and above 100 F. This temperature range is ideal for yogurt enzyme. Pour one cup of live culture plain yogurt in the bowl and slowly mix it for a minute. It is recommended to warm the yogurt gradually to the room temperature before mixing it to avoid live culture temperature shock. Place the top on the bowl and wrap it with a large towel. Preheat the oven to 120 F for 10 minutes. Turn the oven off and place the wrapped bowl in the oven overnight. Next day without shaking the bowl, place it in the refrigerator. Congratulation you now made your first batch of yogurt. You can use some of this yogurt for the next yogurt production. The milk can be whole or skim milk, however, the skim milk is harder to make and is recommended for a more experience chef. This is our way without use of specialized equipment. For a generic yet more informative instruction, refer to Internet. For example: Yogurt. Mexican Salsa From Rocio Gomez, native of Guadalajara This is the authentic salsa used for tacos. It s very easy to make. The tomatillos are green, smaller than tomatoes, available at most grocery stores. You can make the salsa as hot as you want by the amount of chiles. Ingredients: 8-10 tomatillos, about a ½ pound. Cilantro, four or five strands ¼ onion 1 section of garlic Chile de arbol, red (also called Japanese dried chile) Directions: Peel the skin off the tomatillos. Put in pot, cover with water, and boil about 10 minutes. Let cool and put in blender with other ingredients plus a pinch of salt. (You can sear the chiles first for extra flavor.) Blend and serve with your tacos. "Coming next issue, a recipe for Quiche Lorraine along with a Simple Salad from Kossiwa Bruce." Dates to Remember April 6-10 Lake Orion Community Schools SPRING BREAK April 10 Good Friday April 12 Easter Sunday April 13 Thomas Jefferson s Birthday April 15 Income Tax Day April 15 Rubber Eraser Day April 18 Paul Revere Day April 22 Earth Day

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