Over the years, I have developed a small breeding colony of red-bellied cooters, red-eared sliders, and painted turtles in a skypond that drains the evergreen fields at my small farm in Berkley. Mulched uplands for egg laying and basking logs encourage the reptiles to remain here. With the help of friends, I installed a long, […]
Green By Chance: Letting Lakota Go
I have been rehearsing this day for many months as my main mate yellow Labrador and I creaked our bones along river trails. Lakota was bred at my tree farm in October 1999 and I kept the largest, whitest, best feeder of the litter. Now his son, Snow Bear, has huge paws to fill. It […]
Green By Chance: Sweating Winter Flesh, Replanting America, and Dreaming about Who was Here First
It feels so good to get my hands consistently in the dirt again. A long windy, semi-white, pretty cold winter season is now on the shelf in my Franklin Planner. I’ve been transplanting firs and spruce for a month from my protected beds and out in the permanent field for eventual Christmas living rooms. Finally […]
American Serengeti: The Turkey Point Lollipop Cedars
Take Route 272 off of Route 40, down Old Elk Neck Road to see the top of the Bay from ancient clay cliffs. Our state preserved this peninsula of laurel, rhododendron, oak, and sweetgum for us to appreciate the Chesapeake’s beginnings. Bordered by Elk River above and the Great Shellfish Bay below, this finger of […]
Stalking Hawks Along The Silent Susky
Except for the open quarter mile below Conowingo, the great river is quiet. We had a cold, really windy December followed by a true January grip. No thaw this year. Yet our total snow cover is not impressive. I took Snowbear and Kiwi to Peter’s Creek, up Route 222, smack in Amish nation. Watched a […]
Green By Chance: Distorted Conifers Abound As Winter Continues Its Natural Pruning
Don’t try and remove the white burden from your Leyland Cypress, White Pine, or Eastern Red Cedars just yet. Another mixed precipitation will coat the existing winter weight shortly. I remember the permanent distortion on native cedars from an ice event three winters ago. The evergreens still show the rearranged branches on current walks. Interestingly, […]
The Last Stink Bug: Amusing Antics of an Unlikely Winter Companion
They were late to congregate in my old Conowingo Victorian, but when they did, they were multiplying with magnificence. Everybody was puzzled and overwhelmed, but I kinda just let them have their convention, like ladybugs, house flies, and other aphids had done over the decades. And then their appearance was relentless into late fall; in […]
Significant Spring Freshet Brings Bountiful Breeding Opportunities For Harford’s Amphibians
In the background I can hear the moaning sirens of Conowingo, warning down-streamers of the arrival of a significant spring freshet. Seldom in my recall of vernal pool options, have the diverse breeding playgrounds been so varied in choices. The spotted salamanders left their subterranean tunnels to once again swirl in a mass of yellow […]
