Eagles at Chincoteague National WIldlife Refuge

Tobacco at the Maryland State Fair

One thing that I always enjoy at the Maryland State Fair is seeing the many different varieties of things that people grow in our state. There are heirloom watermelons such as Moon and Stars ( a personal favorite), nuts such as walnuts and pecans, grains, and hay. One thing I always seeing on display are the tobacco hands, such as this one, which one a blue ribbon. I hate smoking and the tobacco industry, but I do like this because it hints at local history.

Currently tobacco farming on Maryland is on the wane, but it was once a big industry. During Colonial times tobacco was a big moneymaker. At first, workers were brought over from England but over the years African Americans took over this work. It takes a lot of work to harvest a field of tobacco. The local tobacco industry suffered after the Civil War, was revived during World War I, and then waned again. Now, many Maryland tobacco farmers have given up the crop in favor of other, more profitable things like vegetables. To see a recreation of a Colonial tobacco plantation, consider visiting the Spray Tobacco Plantation in St. Mary’s City, Maryland.

The Warehouse at Camden Yards

Last week I had the good fortune to be at an Orioles game. I haven’t been there in years and years. In fact, the last time I was there was when Brady Anderson was our great power hitter. I had forgotten that such great views were accessible from the top levels of the ballpark. Here, this shot looks south over that end of the city, bordered by the warehouse on the left. Unfortunately, the north side view is now ruined by an ugly modern building. (It was more fun when we could see the Bromo Seltzer Tower.)

I actually used to work at Camden Yards during the mid 1990s. I had a lot of good times with the people I worked with and it yielded plenty of crazy stories. But, the crowds, like the one on my recent visit, tend to be cheerful. I worked there in the days when it was still newly opened. Then, some considered it the ultimate ballpark and I would often meet people from far away who were simply astounded by it. Early one morning some guys arrived in a beat up old car and told me that they drove for three days only to go to Camden Yards.

This old warehouse was always the most interesting thing about the ballpark. It was built for the B&O Railroad in 1905, back in the days when this area was all rail yards. According to baseballpilgrimages.com the warehouse is 1,016 feet long and 51 feet wide. In the days when I worked there it was not fully occupied. I remember during one of the first games of the season I wanted a restroom and my supervisor suggested that I go in the warehouse and find one. Well, a guard gave me a third degree and sent me to an upper floor, which was unfinished but had working bathrooms. It was pretty interesting up there so I took some time to admire the view. When I came back down the guard was annoyed that I spent so much time up there and indicated that she was watching me on closed circuit TV the entire time. Well, let’s just say I made a real effort to know the locations of handy public bathrooms after that.

Trees and Buildings

A couple of weeks ago I read an article in The Sun about Station North, that area around North Avenue and Charles Street. I think the article talked about how the area was not moving forward as it should. It included some hyperbolic statement about trees growing out of building windows. Well, what did I find on a recent sweltering summer day, but that very thing? They seem to be rooted in the surrounding architecture and not coming out of the window, but that is city life for you. I can’t remember correctly, but I believe this is in the 1800 block of Charles Street, down from Pearson’s and the corner of North Avenue.

I Love Zinnias

Yes, I do and I try to grow them every summer. I usually have a mini variety in pots and semi-doubles in the main flowerbed. This year I tried some new types but they didn’t quite make it. I find that mysterious, as zinnias are the one flower that will grow for me anywhere. In fact, they were the first flower I grew in the all cement yard next to the outhouse.

Well, as you can see some of them are recovering from the drought and heat of early summer and beginning to bloom. I believe this is a Candy Cane mix. I also have them in white with pink streaks, and pink with white streaks. They add a lot of splash and I will certainly grow them again next year. Last year one of my neighbors had a great bed of cactus type zinnias in their front yard. I want them next year but I’m afraid they’d look too crazy in with the candy canes.

And yes, I wrote an article about zinnias. Actually, I wrote this last winter but deleted it a few months ago and re-wrote it for summer. I had planned to introduce a “flower of the month” thing to my column but it seemed hokey so I dropped it. I wanted a winter series but I’ve since come up with better ideas. I also liked the photos in that article, but since Examiner is migrating to a new style we don’t have control over our layout and things look wonky unless they are super simple.

Peachy Goodness!

Yesterday while we were out and about we stopped at Baugher’s farm – they of the famous pies that pop up in stores around the area. My intent was to get peaches because I tend to get a bit peach crazy in summer. While pick-your-own is only on weekends there, they still had a wide variety of goodies to choose from.

I haven’t tried all of the pictures fruits so far, but the Red Haven peaches are sublime. The white peaches are OK, but I’ve never found a white peach that is as good as others. The donut peaches here aren’t quite ready yet and neither are the white nectarines. The apricots are a bargain at $1 a pound – a sign explains that they are smaller than usual and have harmless spots on them. But, they are quite tasty and better than the prettier apricots I’ve been getting at the farmer’s market.

When we were kids there were peach trees on our property so I have lots of nostalgia connected with them. Of course, my brother and I didn’t appreciate them but I remember watching the peaches grow at all stages, from hard green buds to rotted ones on the ground. They were often buggy so my brother and I mainly used them to throw around. Still, they were great trees to have around.

Wordless Wednesday - the Baltimore City Hall Garden

Squirrel Flophouse

It has been hot here. Well, that is an understatement. It is more like an unrelenting summer of 90+ degree days with no relief. At least it has rained here and there so I don’t have to worry about my garden being dry anymore. The grass in front is growing again but the back is a disaster. First, most of the grass died. Then, we had heavy rain that flooded the back lawn. Now when I go out barefoot I feel the weird texture of the crunchy grass that has been pounded into the ground by the rain.

Aside from the heat, my big activity has been squirrel watching. This little guy (we call him the “squirrely squirrel” because he is a little nuts) is often sleeping on our porch, rolling around in different positions like a little kid. Yesterday he flopped into one of my potted plants. I usually keep seashells on top of the soil of my potted plants to deter squirrels from digging. Well, we found him sleeping on top of the shells.

As for Examiner I’ve pulled back from them a bit in favor of things that pay more money. I did write a little heat series earlier this month, beginning with an article on preventing heat stress in plants. Next I did a story on facts about brown grass as it seemed to be a bit of a fascination at the time. One of the TV stations (I believe channel 11?) was running a “worst lawn contest” and everybody I knew seemed to be talking about their brown grass. An easy offshoot of these topics was “Five heat tolerant plants”. No wonder there is so much bamboo in North Baltimore. Them, yesterday I wrote about larkspur simply because I am tired of writing about heat.

Wordless Wednesday - Butterflies at Sotterly Plantation

Wordless Wednesday - A Visit to St. Mary's City, Maryland

A Fell’s Point Pier

I was in Fell’s Point the other week and noticed that this old pier is still there. It is cut off from land, but there is a fence around the general area and has been for some time. I don’t know what is up with it but every time I go there I expect it to be gone. There used to be 2 piers in this spot. One, I believe maybe this one, belonged to something maritime related, like the Navy or Coast guard. It wasn’t used much and it was fenced off from the public. The other one, which was next to it, was just rotting.

I'm a bit nostalgic about these piers. Back in the early ‘90s a friend and I used to take a lot of walks around here and explore the area. There were still a lot of those warehouses too and they had not been torn down or renovated. Since my friend was a guy I felt comfortable going around these areas and he even convinced me to walk out on some of these old piers. We also used to poke around the one in front of the old coffee warehouse, which is not part of the Frederick Douglas-Isaac Meyers Maritime Park.

It was fun but scary to go out on them as they were unstable but it was like being on a part of history. In those days we mostly saw local fishermen out on those docks and they were usually friendly. Towards the end, before the spot was sold and developed, I began to avoid the area as it became a gathering place for homeless people. The new pier by the coffee warehouse is pretty and functional but I wish I had photographed the spot in the old days.

A Visit to Sotterly Plantation

I had the good fortune to visit Sotterly Plantation on Friday. This was impulsive, as we originally planned to visit Mount Vernon in Virginia but then thought it might be too stressful due to the holiday. Sotterly was so beautiful and peaceful, but it was a shame that this place wasn’t seeing more visitors on a holiday weekend. We were there for hours and other than workers, we only saw one other family.

This plantation is worth some time. Visitors should go during summer because even though the house is beautiful the grounds are a great place for gardeners and nature lovers to explore. There is an old tobacco road that goes by an original slave cabin. This leads past the former tobacco fields and down to the water, where there is a shady picnic bench. (Carry out your trash on your own.) Along this path is an eagle’s nest, which is surprisingly visible. There is also another path through the woods.

Ahh…the formal garden is another place where you will want to spend time. The second photo above shows a part of it. There are lots and lots of flowers, and more butterflies than I’ve ever seen in my life!! I used up one memory card taking zillions of butterfly pictures. That will be my Wordless Wednesday this week.

I Should Take my Own Advice

This volunteer petunia is thriving happily in a sidewalk crack in Fell’s point. I wish I could say the same for all of my flowers.

When I went to put out the recycling this morning I watered my garden. I’m a little down because I seem to be loosing my impatiens to mildew and my one garden bed is a scorched mess. But, this is up against the wall of my one neighbor’s garage and gets a lot of reflected light. The other side of the yard is sheltered by the other neighbor’s fence and so is faring much better. Thankfully, my new herb garden is on that side.

I’m still fretting about the scorched bed and my beloved zinnias, which usually do well no matter what. I want to run out to find a garden center that still has drought tolerant plants like portulacas but I know that is unrealistic.

In my “July in the Baltimore garden” article today I wrote that if you have a scorched flowerbeds you can cover it with mulch or move potted plants to the area. I have enough mulch for the sad impatiens bed under the tree. The scorched bed next to the wall could really use mulch, but since my arm still hurts from the last time I got mulch I’m avoiding that. I don’t want to transplant anything when there is no rain so I may well move my potted plants to the sad flower bed and go from there.

An Old White Coffee Pot

I just like this decaying White Coffee pot restaurant and I believe it is on the corner of Howard and Franklin. I’ve been watching it fall apart over the years because I sometimes pass it while going back and forth to the library. I have some dim memory of it being open, and then a phase where I wasn’t sure if it was open or closed. I also believe that in college a friend went to look at renting one of the places above the restaurant and was frightened away by the general decay of the area.

New Gaps in the Cityscape

This was going to be a Wordless Wednesday but it didn’t quite make it. If I find a building being torn down I always stop to photograph it, even if I don’t quite remember what was there before.

The one above was on Eastern Avenue and Broadway but it fell down a couple of months ago. I happened by on the day when they were tearing down the remains. I’m sure it was an auto parts store as the person with me was reminiscing about how he used to buy car parts there. I don’t know the age of the building but it was one of the typical three story brick buildings you see all around Fell’s Point.

I photographed the remains above last summer, so it isn’t recent but I always like three pictures for Wordless Wednesday. It is on North Avenue and Charles. (I think?) This was some old Victorian thing and I believe a carryout at some point? This one really puzzled me as I’ve walked by it a thousand times and had no idea what was once there, except it was in bad shape and boarded up towards the end.


I was wandering down Park Avenue a couple of weeks ago (as you can see in last week’s Wordless Wednesday) and noticed that they were knocking down parts of Lexington Mall. That spurred me on to a photo expedition in the area as now I bet they’ll be knocking down everything around there. Again, I don’t remember what was here but I am not often on this street anymore. Actually, almost nobody is and during the past few years it’s been a bit of a ghost town. People only seem to use it as a shortcut to the light rail.

Wordless Wednesday - Beach Wood at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge

Stormy Sky

I actually took this photograph in January but it seems to fit the stormy summer mood of today. This should be on Cathedral Street somewhere, not far from the library.

I'm thinking of just turning this into a photo blog because I have so many other writing projects that I don't have time for more research. I'll research when I can, but I just love taking photos of things in Baltimore City. In the back of my mind I have a coal chute article planned but not researched yet. I'm suddenly seeing so many coal chutes around here. You never know whan something odd like that will preoccupy you.

A New Camera

I impulsively bought a new camera on Wednesday. Well, I never do anything impulsively and as my father reminded me, I’ve been drooling over this camera for months. It is a Cannon Powershot SX120 with a 10x optical zoom. I wanted a point and shoot that was both easy to carry but with better features for nature photography. The most powerful zoom I had before this was 5x so I was due for an upgrade. The zoom is always my favorite camera toy.

My first real camera was a Cannon, given to me by my father on my birthday, perhaps when I was 19 or 20. It was a film camera that I still have. I originally wanted one when I moved to digital but they were too expensive and so I settled for Kodak instead. I’m fairly happy with Kodak—they make great walking around cameras, but I’m glad I finally got my Cannon.

Wordless Wednesday - Remains of Civilization near Park Avenue

Wordless Wednesday - Alley Flowers

Wordless Wednesday - Assorted Alliums

Summer Flowers and Tomato News

The other afternoon we went to the Peabody to get tickets for an upcoming performance of the ballet Sleeping Beauty. Well, for some reason they were not sold at the box office but in the dance department. Because of that, we got to take an interesting walk through the Peabody. When we went through their courtyard to get to another building I noticed that they have a nice little variety of summer flowers out there already. Besides these, they have hollyhocks and pincushion flowers.

I’ve been a little busy this week but thankfully there were some tomato related news stories I could write about for Examiner. First, late blight was reported again this year. Also, cold damage is now plaguing home gardeners. I found out about both of these issues through the Grow It, Eat It Page on Facebook, so I am finally convinced that Facebook has some use after all.

Wordless Wednesday: Roses are in Bloom at the Flag House

The Flag House

Photographing Nature – With People in the Way

On Saturday afternoon we took a ride out to Catoctin Mountain Park. Well, it was very busy on a sunny Saturday afternoon, but well worth the trip. I would like to come back at a time when it wasn’t so crowded, though. As you can see, people were climbing all over the place and it was impossible to take serene nature pictures of places like the falls.

I don’t always like people in my photographs, but I know I have to have them in there sometime for both visual interest and for size comparison. I particularly like this one below, which I took of a little boy at the cherry blossom festival but never got to use. I think it is because I didn’t want to imply that people pick the blossoms or damage the trees. Yes, I know that sounds crazy but if I write for the public I have to try and be a little responsible at times.

Part of the problem with people is that they don’t match the colors of the subject that I’m photographing. For example, people will wear screaming red or orange. This makes them appear as a bright blob in the background when I don’t want anything detracting from the color of nature. I think I’ve become a bit redundant with my close-ups of pretty colorful flowers, but oh, well. For my “What’s Blooming in Baltimore ?” slideshow this month I tried to give some of the photos more of a sense of place. I stuck them in the middle of the slideshow, though because they are not as splashy. I’m working on it, though. I’m also disturbed that the photo at the top of my article appears so green on my monitor, but Examiner is fruity this morning so I don’t want to try and remove it or I may just frustrate myself.

Wordless Wednesday: Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge

Sidewalk Footprints

I love being barefoot, even in the summer. I walked around barefoot one day recently for National Barefoot Day, which helps raise awareness for children without shoes. Of course, it was warm and springy and lovely, but I will consider going barefoot in the city more often.

Investigating the Tulip Library

When I went to visit the cherry blossoms in DC a few weeks ago I stumbled on the Tulip Library, which is also near the Tidal Basin. I was excited by it, but there were no brochures or other information available. I only knew it was the Tulip Library because some excited kid came running up to his mother to report that he found the sign.

At home, I didn’t have much luck. Little research is on the web and the National Park Service write up mostly just mentions the history of tulips. The most helpful was this 2007 blog entry from Washington Gardener magazine. (Hmmmm…note to self…change blogger theme.) They have a link to a PDF of an old brochure, which was better than nothing. If Tulip Library had been here in Baltimore City I would have the good old Pratt library vertical file to play with. (Yes, I know that this garden is in another city. But I also like to write about places within easy driving distance of Baltimore because most gardeners love to visit other gardens.)

Well, with my arm still on the injured list and my ability to do a lot of typing and mousing curtailed, I pulled out the Tulip Library research and put up an article. It is not what I wanted, but if I don’t do this now the topic won’t be relevant again until next year. (Then, I can revisit it and do a slideshow or something.)

The photo at the top of this post was my first choice for the article, but it looked too similar to the photo on the National Park Service PDF and also to the one I selected for Sherwood Gardens. Tulip gardens are rather hard to photograph at times because of the way the flowers are spaced. If I don’t get a good angle and lots of flowers blooming at the same time I end up with a picture of little dots of color amidst the dirt.