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Mosses – Our Local Sustainability Experts
When you go for a walk today, take a moment to marvel at the amazing wonders that we call mosses. Bend down close, even get on your hands and knees, and examine all the shapes, textures, and colors that you will find in a bed of moss. Then ponder their powerful ability to be there year round, staying green throughout even the coldest snaps in winter and quickly rebounding from droughts in summer. Very few living organisms on our planet are this resilient.
Then again, why am I so surprised? These organisms have been around for more than 300 (more…)
BikeHoward and Bike Safety
BikeHoward – A Big Step Forward.
I am very much in favor of BikeHoward – the Bike Plan for the County – being voted on by our county council this Monday. I strongly encourage you to support its approval and implementation. Let your council representative know this weekend of your support as well (councilmail@howardcountymd.gov). More trails and safer ones will help get more people (more…)
My Favorite Places – Lake Elkhorn Outcrop Offers a Journey to the Center of the Earth
Rock outcroppings offer us a peek at the normally hidden, inner world of our planet. In the Maryland Piedmont good outcrops are few and far between. In Howard County they occur along the major rivers that border the county. Good exposures to the inner workings of the earth can also be found in the quarries at Savage (gabbro), Marriottsville (marble), and Old Ellicott City (granite). Collectively these outcrops provide us with a record of a long history of plate tectonic movements driven by major thermal convection cells deep in the mantle of the earth.
The black gabbro outcrops along the eastern edge of our county are remnants of oceanic (more…)
800 Trout
February/March is that time of year. That time of year when the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) begins stocking our lakes and streams with thousands of 12 inch rainbow trout. I know this because all of a sudden the fishermen are out in droves. Trying to catch the 800 trout that were dumped into Lake Elkhorn last month. More will be stocked this month.
In Howard County, MDNR stocks Lake Elkhorn with 2000 trout, Centennial Lake with 2500, and they also stock the Patapsco River with (more…)
Million Frogs Calling
Image used by permission from Michael Benard’s Spring Peeper Page
I wonder at times if the suburban area in which I live is more biodiverse today, or less so, relative to the farmland it once was. Has the onslaught of development left our natural green infrastructure – that we depend on for clear water, clean air, and healthy soils – better or worse off than 50 or 100 years ago? Yes habitats have been reshaped a great deal in the last 500 years, but is it possible that we are doing a (more…)
Floating Through Coral
While on a recent snorkeling trip I lost myself in the submarine habitats that skirted a small island in the Caribbean. I floated by forests of pink reindeer coral followed by a distinctly different area of brownish orange staghorn corral and then a multihued collection of fans waving as I passed. The fish population was ever-present and diverse, ranging from large, colorful parrot fish and jacks to Sergeant Majors and grunts. I loved watching Trunkfish blow away the sand in search of food and to see pencil-like Trumpetfish hovering near fans. An octopus skittered around on its tentacles right (more…)
New Post – A Sense of Place
I have spent a good deal of the last 10 years defining and describing A Sense of Place as that concept relates to the village, county, and watershed where I live (see The Chesapeake Watershed). I have also attempted to do it for places that I have visited, worked, and lived (see Saving the Places we Love). It is a daunting task. I hope I have achieved it, in some small measure, or at least inspired others to try to define their community for themselves.
I am now involved in another attempt to do this. This time through community storytelling. The Howard County Conservancy is hosting two events (more…)
Blizzard 2016 – Shrews, moles, minks, chipmunks, squirrels, feral cats, beaver, muskrats, coyote, fox, and all the birds – where do they go in a storm?
I was out and about this morning, still seeing and hearing signs of life, but wondering where all our feathery and furry friends will be spending the next few days. Some may have flown away, but most stay close by. As the snow piles up, many of them may be confined to their burrows but others will be making intricate pathways beneath the snow. Pathways that we might never see. I bet the weather below the snow will be milder that the windy conditions we will be experiencing. Here is a photo of tracks that I followed for hundreds of feet along the banks of Lake Elkhorn and which then took a ninety degree turn and shot out straight across the lake.
In addition to all the bird and mammal tracks I saw along the paths and on the snow covered, frozen lake, I saw this interesting trail capturing the movement of what I think was probably a duck from what is left of the open water onto the ice and then back again. Must have preferred the open water to the frozen water. Probably a mallard, since I don’t see any hooded merganzers, ringnecks, or redheads hanging around. I am also wondering how long it will be before the aeraters and their open waters get covered up. (more…)
Major Issues
A comment I am hearing more and more often is how do I choose the most important issue to focus on. There are so many issues, most of us get overloaded and sometimes we become less effective. To help you through this process, I have listed some of these issues here and have pointed you toward ways to help address the ones that resonate with you the most. You don’t have to support them all, but (more…)
Ten Steps to Saving the Place You Love
Friends have been asking me to flesh out the top ten steps for saving the place you love that we have listed on the front of our website. I hope you find these suggestions of value and please add any comments to make them stronger.
There are, of course, many ways people go about the challenge of saving a place that they love. There is no right way. But if you are just getting started or have come up to a road block, these steps may be of value to you:
Step # 1. Realizing that Action is Necessary – This is the first big step because (more…)
Saving The Places 