Learning Life's Lessons on the Chesapeake Bay

Today on the radio I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew McCown, Associate Director of Echo Hill Outdoor School and Founder of their Summer Explore trips. We didn't have time to talk about everything Echo Hill Outdoor School does, but go to their website www.ehos.org - and I'll give you a description here.

Since 1972, Echo Hill Outdoor School (www.ehos.org) has provided students with “hands on” outdoor education experiences in Worton, Maryland, just off of Still Pond Neck Road on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Each year, more than 5,500 students attend Echo Hill Outdoor School’s programs and learn more about the wonders of nature, the value of history, and the diversity of individual qualities.  The school’s teachers are dedicated to creating a safe and supportive environment for students to feel challenged and successful with the freedom to think, question, and express themselves.

A number of Echo Hill’s classes take place on the various waters of the Chesapeake Bay region. Classes vary from a half day bay studies class to a week long excursion on the school’s skipjack, the Elsworth or the buy boat, the Annie D, which are the foundation of the School’s Chesapeake Heritage Initiative and Summer Explore Trips programs.

And on September 19, Echo Hill Outdoor School is having a Community Paddle on the Chester River. BYO kayak, canoe or rowboat, or rent one of theirs. This fun day includes guided nature tours, races, challenge courses - an opportunity for paddlers of varying skill levels to experience exploring a particularly picturesque stretch of the Chester River in the company of the teachers and naturalists of Echo Hill Outdoor School. Plus you get a T-shirt and an after-paddle BBQ, and the opportunity to support the tuition fund for the public school residential outdoor education programs which have experienced significant budget cuts. More information is on the website www.ehos.org, along with registration forms.

If you miss the paddle, you'll still have a chance to meet the staff of Echo Hill Outdoor School, and see and tour the Elsworth and Annie D. during the Chestertown Wildlife Exhibition & Sale on Saturday, October 17. The boats will be docked at the foot of High Street, and the staff will be happy to chat with you about all their programs.

Built in 1901, the 40-foot skipjack, the Elsworth, is one of a handful of skipjacks remaining on the Chesapeake Bay.  The Elsworth is listed among 21 skipjacks built prior to 1912 on the National Register of Historic Places.  Skipjacks are the last fleet of sail-powered work boats in the United States.  They were designed to dredge for oysters in the Chesapeake Bay.  The Elsworth dredged for oysters commercially between 1901 and 1996; the last seven of these were with Echo Hill Outdoor School, which acquired the Elsworth in 1988.  The Outdoor School began rebuilding the Elsworth in 1996 and the boat is now used solely by the School for educational programs, helping students connect with the ecology and history of the Chesapeake Bay.

The oyster buy boat, Annie D. (left), was built in 1957 on Tangier Island, Virginia.  With a wide beam and roomy cabin, the Annie D. was built to buy and transport oysters.  The working mast and boom were designed as a crane to load and unload oysters rather than for sailing purposes.  Oyster buy boats played an important role in the economy of the Eastern Shore before the building of the first Bay bridge in 1952.  During the oyster season, buy boats would travel up and down the Bay purchasing oysters from watermen and carrying them to the great shucking houses of the Eastern Shore.  During the months when oysters were not in season, the boats transported produce and lumber across the Bay.  The construction of the Bay bridges and the decline of oyster harvests gradually eliminated the need for oyster buy boats.  The Annie D. was donated to Echo Hill Outdoor School in 1983 and, after being restored, began its service with the Outdoor School in the summer of 1985.

Echo Hill provides a general outdoor education program to students from grades three through eight on a weekly basis. Additional programming is offered to younger children, high school and college students, and adult groups. Residential outdoor education programs, Adventure programs, and Day programs are offered to school groups, private groups, clubs, and other organizations from March through mid-December.

In order to keep tuition affordable, Echo Hill Outdoor School depends on the generosity of individuals, corporations, foundations, local, state and federal governments for donations and grants. Support from these sources is vital to helping Echo Hill Outdoor School continue to make a difference in students' lives. Representatives will be on hand at the Exhibition to answer questions about programs and how you can support Echo Hill Outdoor School, located at 13655 Bloomingneck Road Worton, Maryland 21678; 410-348-5880, www.ehos.org.

On the trail of our Eastern Shore Wines

I'm hanging out in one of my favorite Chestertown spots this afternoon - Village Bakery & Cafe. It's true I love them for their WiFi, but even more for their yummy food and pastries and - CUBAN COFFEE!!

I'm back on the Shore today for the kick off of the Chesapeake Wine Trail www.chesapeakewinetrail.com which took place at our friend Al's Cassinelli Winery & Vineyards on Route 213 between Church Hill and Chestertown www.cassinelliwinery.com.

Al is no stranger to these pages; you can find an article about the Winery under our Feature Archives - but today was a special day. Representatives like Marketing Coordinator Regina Reilly of the Maryland Wineries Association were there to kick off the event, with representatives from may of the Chesapeake wineries on hand. Dignitaries and local friends of the Winery were there as well - seen here WCTR Station Manager Ken Collins, Augustine Cook from the Kent County Economic Development Office, Bernadette VanPelt of the Kent County Tourism Development Office, Kent County Commissioner Roy, and Mrs., Crow.

We heard some impressive things. Like the intention of the Wine Trail is to promote the rural economies of Maryland. A Virginia study determined that for every dollar spent at a winery, $7 more gets spent in the County. Hard to ignore those kinds of numbers. People come, they stay, they eat, they tour wineries, they shop - it's win-win for everyone.

And what a great way to keep our traditional rural economies active and vibrant in an very environmentally-friendly way.

There are currently 7 wineries on the Eastern Shore, with 3 more coming soon - more than ample reason to come for a day, a weekend, a week.

So drink up. We'll raise a toast to you - perhaps not in a glass quite this big, but the Eastern Shore sentiment and hospitality will be just as large.

There's always lots to do on the Shore - if you're headed to this neck of the woods you can check www.kentcounty.com (one of the many responsibilities of our County Tourism Department of Bernadette, Jen Davis and trusty volunteer Mary).

I was thinking today how very grateful I feel to be surrounded by so many fine people, and how much that has enriched my life. On the Shore paths cross again and again, and lives and works and passions intersect. As I've been working on the 30th Annual Chestertown Wildlife Exhibition & Sale (www.chestertownwildlife.org) I've had the opportunity to work with so many wonderful people and organizations in the area - Echo Hill Outdoor School www.ehos.org, who will be bringing a skipjack and buy boat to the Exhibition, Al Cassinelli who will be pouring up Eastern Shore Wines, Drew McMullen of the Schooner Sultana fame www.sultanaprojects.org who, with his staff and volunteers will be staging Downrigging weekend this fall.

I've still got a lot of week left to go, but I'm looking forward to the Kansas City BBQ at the Imperial Hotel www.imperialchestertown.com this Friday, where it also happens to be First Friday in downtown Chestertown www.chestertown.com. Catch a Playmakers Camp show at the Prince Theatre www.princetheatre.org and catch up with us at the Farmers Market on Saturday.

Life is good.

_displayNameOrEmail_ - _time_ - Remove

_text_

Chef Robbie Jester & the Governor's Cook Off

Local Boy Makes Good
A Tale of Chef Robbie Jester, Harbor House & the Governor’s Cook Off

It is true that the best things come in small packages. Like the email that appeared in my inbox one day that said “Hi, I’m Robbie Jester, Chef at Harbor House Restaurant in Worton”. He was interested, he went on to say, in what we were doing with Homegrown and Green, because he believed it really tied in with what he was doing at Harbor House – about 80% of what they serve up is locally grown and produced, even down to the Delaware Pike Creek Roasted Coffee and the Hop-Ocalypse
IPA beer from Clay Pipe Brewery in Frederick.

And so it was only fitting that Robbie join us on the radio to tell everyone in the area what he was doing over at Harbor Housewww.harborhousewcm.com (the “wcm” after the name stands for Worton Creek Marina – as in “Take a look at this view!!!”).

Robbie is one of those people who has always been a chef. He started cooking things in the Harbor House kitchen when he was about 12 years old, and has always enjoyed working with food. After getting a degree as a massage therapist (my husband was amazed at my restraint that I didn’t ask Robbie to take a crack at that kink in my shoulder), he came back to cooking and attended the Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York.

The results of this are pretty amazing. It’s clear that Robbie has tremendous respect for the local growers and producers – both for their long, hard work, and their commitment to producing top quality foods. And he knows his stuff. “What’s best out there right now?”, I asked. “Berries. And peaches. White peaches. And corn. The bi-color and the white”, came the answer. “What’s the difference in the corn?”, asked me, who never met an ear of corn she didn’t like. Bi-color, it seems, is earthier, good for sauces and cooking. White corn is just sweet, sweet, sweet – eat it and love it.

Robbie’s been head chef at Harbor House for three years, and he’s come  know his customers well and how to deliver the things that are oing to keep them customers. “I’ve worked in kitchens where chefs get angry if a customer asks them to change something in a dish. Not us. We want you to tell us what you want.” That’s not just empty words – it’s the real deal. Go to their website – there’s no menu posted (but there are some fantastic dishes pictured) – instead it says “If there’s something you’re craving, call us”.

And they do get calls. Customers come for special occasions. Customers sail over from Annapolis. Customers come (and return) because when they come in they could well find their favorite dish named after them on the evening menu. I’ll get to that in a minute. Customers come because of the food.

Let’s back up to that first email I got from Robbie. Because what it didn’t say was “And one of my dishes was just picked as one of the 16 selections in Governor O’Malley’s ‘Buy Local Cook Out’!” (If you want to read more about this, and about the other Shore winners like Lew Dodd of Cedar Run Farm, Margaret Frothingham of Arnold Farms, Vic Priapi of Priapi Gardens, and Eileen & Michael Jacobson of Kent County, go to www.chesapeakefoodie.com, a fabulous website put together by Elise Kolaya – she REALLY knows food!)

Indeed, in the Salad category, there’s the recipe:

 

Maryland Crab, Blueberry, Lemon-Cucumber and Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Honey-Lavender Vinaigrette

Chef: Robbie Jester, Harbor House Restaurant

Producer: None other than our own radio sponsor – Wayne
Lockwood of Lockbriar Farm.

Now I got really excited when I read this because a month or so ago I had one of Wayne’s lemon-cucumbers and I’ve been craving one ever since. Robbie assures me that they are coming back. It’s a 68 day growing season, he explained, so they will arrive shortly. So go to Lockbriar or one of the markets where they sell (you can find the listing on their website www.lockbriarfarm.com) in the next few weeks and try some.

Meanwhile, back at WCTR, Robbie brought some samples of his salad with him for us to taste. It was the one time I wished we were doing video radio so everyone could see them. Some dishes look good. Some taste good. Some have a wonderful aroma. This has it all – in triplicate. WOW! “Is it on the menu?” I asked breathlessly. And indeed it was. So nothing would do but we had to head to Harbor House for dinner.

We called for reservations. Gave the names in our party. And sure enough when we got there we found “Angels Klompus” on the menu (shrimp wrapped in bacon served with horseradish honey mustard) and Garland Lobster. And we could also try dishes named for Betsy, John, Chuck, Carol and Lloyd – to name a few. It’s the kind of touch you find at a place like The Inn at Little Washington.

The menu alone was worth the price of admission, but the food topped it all. I got lost in the Honey-Lavender Vinaigrette, and I am not embarrassed to say I was eating it with a spoon and begging Robbie to bottle it and sell it. Hmmm. Maybe that’s our next adventure – Homegrown and Green: The Store! The traditionalists in our party went with crabcakes – “the largest lumps in the world” – but I went off the reservation with Jambalaya – “the Creole Classic with Eastern Shore Flair”. Spicy where it was supposed to be, smoky and flavorful – mmmmm.

I’m no food critic, but we do travel a lot and like to try good restaurants wherever we go. Recent stops include a couple of culinary school restaurants and renowned eateries. They should all just close and go home. Chef Robbie Jester puts them to shame.

I enjoyed the Delaware Pike Creek Roasted Coffee. We all had dessert. I couldn’t pass up the white wine and cinnamon poached donut peaches served with fresh whipped cream and berries, though it was hard to turn down the Berry Shortcake with Lockbriar Farms berries and cherries served over country style sweet biscuits. Rave reviews as well for the French Apple Crisp and Valencia Orange Sorbet. We left knowing we’d had a very fine meal. And then remembered on the way home
we forgot to try the Maryland’s Harvest Sangria! Well, it just means there’s another visit to look forward to. I hope it will be soon. 

Just a little Taste of Life on the Shore

After a hectic week on the western Shore it was good to get back over the bridge to “life on the Shore” -  poking around at the Crumpton auction, stopping in at The Finishing Touch and Bookplate in downtown Chestertown, enjoying a delightful meal at the Imperial Hotel. Friday morning it was back in the saddle and on the air at our local radio station 1530 AM WCTR where I had the opportunity to interview Barbara Ellis (www.EasternShoreGardener.com) about the Plant A Row for the Hungry program (www.gardenwriters.org/par). Like many Eastern Shore entrepreneurs, Barbara wears a lot of hats, and we ended our interview hearing about her latest venture: Fur and Feathers Pet Sitting Service. All things to all people.

It reminded me, what with the launch of the West Annapolis 2^nd Sunday Neighborhood Green Market (see our Upcoming Fairs & Markets link on the left), I’d been remiss in getting the story about Cassinelli Winery & Vineyard (www.cassinelliwinery.com) posted. Al Cassinelli was kind enough to give me a personal tour of the Winery, and I couldn’t have asked for a more hospitable host.

Al and Jennifer Cassinelli started their vineyard just outside of Church Hill four years ago and are now celebrating their grand opening in a big way. We had the pleasure of serving up their Reisling, Merlot and Rose this past First Friday and it got rave reviews. Another genuine Eastern Shore entrepreneur, Al and Jennifer both have day jobs – the Winery is a family affair, with both kids lending a hand, a dog to greet visitors and a cat to keep the mice at bay.

Stop by on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 for a wine tasting. You’ll know you’re getting close by the long white fence running along Route 213. If you can’t get over to Church Hill, check their website and catch them at one of the upcoming wine festivals. And if you’re not a wine connoiseur, they’ll be happy to have you stop by seasonally to pick apples, peaches or pumpkins.

And if you like Festivals, save the date and come over to next year’s Delmarva Chicken Festival (www.dpichicken.org). This year’s Festival took place June 19 and 20 at the 4H Queen Anne County Fairgrounds in Centreville – the first time in this location. There was a huge turnout, and we had to park at a distance and take the shuttle to the Festival – no ordinary shuttle – they were all tractor-pulled get ups with long wooden benches. We could hear the music and smell the aromas on our ride in, so we were ready to go as soon as the wheels stopped moving.

First stop, the Baby Chick Display, including a hatching incubator and a petting station, a delight for kids and grown ups. Events like these give the non-profit organizations an opportunity to publicize their work and to raise money.

We sampled traditional food stands like lemonade from the Queen Anne Volunteer Fire Company, and the innovative Farm to Table Livestock Club’s Frozen Cola. We had hoped to catch up with Kent County Tourism Development Director Bernadette VanPelt and her trusty assistant Jen Davis, but there was just too much to see.

What with the petting zoo, baked goods, music and displays, there was plenty to do. We did catch up with our buddy Lisa Ford and her ingenious recycled craft (and I did my all out best to get her signed up for our Annapolis Market – it’s looking good!).

We were a day too early to catch Jack the Penguin, the band in which Keith Thompson plays (WCTR Jock and master of the boards for Homegrown and Green on the radio), but with good reason. Tonight we’re heading to the Prince Theatre www.princetheatre.org to catch Short Attention Span – 5^th Annual 10 Minute Play Festival. Friend Mark Sullivan, husband of Francoise Sullivan, graphic & web designer extraordinaire, of www.moo-productions.com, has a play in the series, and it will be great to catch up with them. 

                                                                   But the highlight of the Chicken Festival is the infamous Giant Fry Pan

used every year at the festival. The original pan was built in 1950 by Mumford Sheet Metal Works in Selbyville, Delware. It measures 10 feet across and 8 inches deep, with an 8 foot handle, and weighs 650 pounds. It has the capacity for 160 gallons of oil and 800 chicken quarters. That’s a lot of chicken. And all of it was being eaten by many happy festival goers – even those who never eat anything else fried all year long!

The highlight for me, however, was more than the chicken. This is rural America at its best. There were people of all ages, and many three-generation families. They were participating in one of our oldest ways of coming together around shared interests and values, based on one of our most traditional economies. I picked up a fact book from the American Farm Bureau Federation. You might be interested to know that today 98 per cent of all U.S. farms are individually or family-owned, accounting for 86% of farm products sold. Americans spend just 10% of their disposable income on food, less than Japan, France, China, the Philippines and Indonesia, for example. And when it comes to preservation and environmentalism, farmers are part of conservation programs addressing soil erosion, wetlands preservation and restoration, air and water pollution, and wildlife habitat enhancement.

If you missed the Festival, no worries. You can catch an Agricultural Fair in just about any County in Maryland. Go to the Maryland Association of Agricultural Fairs & Shows website www.maafs.com and click on the Members Fairs link on the left.

Any if I’ve got you thinking about a trip to my corner of the shore, well come on. Start with a visit to www.kentcounty.com for information about events, attractions, activities, lodging, dining – just about everything you want to know. Here in Kent County we have nine museums, small towns to kick back in, the Eastern Neck Wildlife Refuge, and some spectacular public landings to put in your kayak or canoe. Enjoy the pick-you-own pleasures at Lockbriar Farm www.lockbriarfarm.com, the sponsor of Homegrown and Green on the radio. If you’re here on Saturday morning (and now Wednesday from Noon to 5) you can catch them and other local farmers in Fountain Park in downtown Chestertown.

And if you’re thinking of spending the night, Joe at the Imperial Hotel will put you up and Chef Tom Pizzica will feed you right www.imperialchestertown.com. Or you might go for one of America’s Top Ten Most Romantic Inns, right here in our backyard – the Brampton Inn www.bramptoninn.com. Between the breakfast and desserts, you may never leave the property. Owner Danielle Hanscom will be my guest on WCTR on Friday, June 26. Tune in and hear all about what it takes to make National Geographic’s Top 150 Stay List. Catch a little music and the local scene at Andy’s www.andys-ctown.com. What more can you ask for? As for me, I’ll be here on the Shore. Or in Annapolis. Or somewhere in between. Wherever it is, life is good.

Creating a Neighborhood Market

Creating a Market:

A Vision of What's to Come at the

West Annapolis 2nd Sunday Neighborhood Green Market

One of my favorite things to do when I'm travelling is to find the local farmer's market. It's a great way to get the "flavor" of an area and meet the people and have a genuine experience of a place. Each one has its own individual character, and some of my favorites are the ones that offer a mix of vendors and merchandise.

So when the opportunity to be a part of creating a monthly Neighborhood Green Market in West Annapolis came along, I drew upon some of the most successful markets in the country.

One of those is the Fremont Sunday Market in the Seattle area www.fremontmarket.com, that's been going strong for almost 20 years - long enough to attract the attention of a major magazine (like Country Living if I recall), which is how I discovered it some 10 years ago. More than a traditional farmer's market, the Fremont Sunday Market is a mix of produce, plants, food vendors (both producers and ready-to-eat), along with antiques & vintage goods and craft. 

The mix feels natural, as if these things have always stood side by side, and when you think about the origin of markets - centers for commerce and exchange of all the goods people needed for their lives - there is indeed a centuries-old tradition.

Markets provide the opportunity to meet and interact with the "producer" of the item you purchase. Several years ago I met Leah who created Smart Monkey - Refurbished Yarn & Knitwear (read more about her at www.smartmonkey.etsy.com). I have told almost everyone I know about what she's doing, so I was thrilled to see her at the Market this time.

Leah purchases sweaters at thrift stores, deconstructs and washes them, and then sells the

fibers to use for creating new garments. It is her personal effort to save the planet, one garment at a time.

Leah is not alone in her endeavors. Amy Gibson and Andrea Read (www.colorstorydesigns.etsy.com) are a pair of crafters who are putting together some original, creative designs using recycled magazines. My photo doesn't do their work justice so please do check out their site to see their great work.

And if you wanted flowers, they were there. Along with a band and plenty of people with dogs, and famlies with children happily in tow. It was clear that both vendors and attendees were "regulars", and that there were relationships and friendships that had formed between them at the Market.

You never know what you might find - a coffee table, a baby gift, the perfect thing for dinner, a magazine from the year you were born.

Or you might pick up something from Carol Kiyan of Running Dog Designs. Her recycled bags, wallets and jewelry incorporate found objects - gameboard pieces, sewing patterns, record albums - with recycled materials to create hip, stylish and green accessories. If only I could convince her to come to Annapolis to set up!

And between visiting with vendors, customers stopped into the local shops to see what was new or just to say hello to a shopkeeper whose acquaintance they had made by coming to the Market.

It is a great way to spend a morning, or a day, for everyone. Markets are a vital part of local economies in many communities; the Project for Public Spaces (www.pps.org/markets) offers a wealth of information about the benefits of markets to every part of a community.

We invite you to Come Grow With Us at the West Annapolis 2nd Sunday Neighborhood Green Market, beginning Sunday, June 14. We will be creating a pedestrian walkway on Giddings Avenue between Ridgely Avenue and Annapolis Street. And we will keep updating this site with information about our vendors. If you are a grower, craft or antiques vendor who is interested in participating, email us at westannapolisgreenmarket@gmail.com  or call 410-810-4898 for more information. And if you'd like to be on our email list for updates, that's the email to use as well. We look forward to seeing you June 14!

Bringing Together the Best We Have to Offer

There's something about rural living that's connected - to the environment, to the community and to one another. And if we ever needed any evidence of that, the past few weeks ought to convince us.

It started when John Seidel, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Environment & Society at Washington College in Chestertown was our guest on Homegrown & Green on the Radio. To give you a little background, the Center was created in 1999 "to shed light on the reciprocal relationship between humankind and the natural world. . .Environment and culture are interconnected, and changes to one affect the other. Educating for a sustainable future calls for integrating many disciplines, fostering meaningful experiences in nature, and teaching peope how to manage their behavior to sustain healthy communities and ecosystems". That's a quote from their brochure, because I never would have been able to say it that well myself.

John talked with me about the early settlers of the Eastern Shore, and how their farming economies influenced many aspects of our current ecosystem, lifestyle and even government that is more heavily vested in counties than townships. But the thing that really got us going was some of the initiatives the Center is putting forward that are at the heart of what Homegrown & Green is all about.

First there's  georgegoesgreen.com - aimed to raise awareness of stewardship and sustainability on campus at Washington College through things like composting, recycling, eating locally grown foods - it's a fairly extensive (which you can see at georgegoesgreen.com). Turns out that George Washington, the College's founding benefactor, was "the first public figure to promote sustainable community practices".

But wait, there's more! This Fall the Center will launch Chesapeake Semester (chesapeake-semester.washcoll.edu) - an outdoor adventure set on the Chesapeake Bay, North America's largest estuary (and the third largest in the world!) - an experience that will help you "sense your place and change the way you see the world".

Or you could opt for the popular Summer Field School at the Washington College Public Archaeology Lab and research historic materials and process artifacts.

So it was no surprise to find John and Liz Seidel (who runs the Lab) at Chestertown's Earth Day Fair April 25. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Because before we went to the Earth Day Fair, we talked with John Hanley of Hanleyman Services, LLC on the radio.

And just so you know how small a town Chestertown really is, my husband and I made John's acquaintance last year just after he had undergone rotator cuff surgery, and just before my husband underwent his. So they've been trading rotator cuff progress for about a year now, and we were delighted to encounter John in his new line of work. He's so powerful, in fact, that his merely showing up at our house made the garage door start working again. I highly recommend him!

But what we learned about John then was that he had a new project flourescent bulb recycling. Turns out those long flourescent tubes release mercury into the atmosphere if they are just busted up and thrown away, and that is some very nasty stuff.

John has a program for recycling those bulbs that he has started commercially and is just now introducing household bulb recycling for those curly CFL compact flourescent bulbs.

And he's also on Mayor Margo Bailey's Green Committee, so part of what we talked about was Chestertown's Earth Day Fair which took place on Saturday, April 25 in downtown Chestertown in conjunction with the Humane Society of Kent County's Annual Mutt Strutt and ACATemy Awards.

It was a glorious day, with our terrific Saturday morning Farmer's Market in full swing, music, green crafters and vendors, and a special shredding demonstration by Bob from East Coast Storage.

 

Now that's not all there is to say about Bob because the connectedness just keeps on going.

Sunday, April 26 was Taste of the Town at Wilmer Park in Chestertown, and that's an event that we have been very involved with. And it was Bob and Inky at East Coast Storage who saved the day and made sure there were plenty of trash cans available - they delivered and picked up two truckloads of their 64 gallon shredding bins for us to use! That is service beyond what anyone could expect And a good time was had by all at Taste of the Town- that's another story.

Summer Days Math & Science Camp for Girls

I've had the very great pleasure of knowing Tracy Davenport, Founder and Director of Summer Days Math & Science Camp for Girls, for several years now, and she's one of those people that, the longer you know her, the more you admire her.

Tracy is a woman who, as a girl, was good at math & science. And as a girl, particularly in those formative years from ages 9 to 15, she discovered that for a lot of girls it wasn't "cool" to be good in those areas. Tracy, being who she is and having been raised in a family that encouraged her math & science aptitude, went to college and became an engineer, but she realized that the lack of women in her profession may have had something to do with girls moving away from math & science at this critical age.

So she set out to do something about it. In 1995 she founded Summer Days Math and Science Camp for Girls right here on the Shore in Kent County, www.mathandsciencecamp.com. This one week experience offers a rich and diverse program for middle school girls, many of whom attend on scholarship, and inspires them to visualize themselves as future scientists, mathematicians, engineers and rocket scientists (well, that's my wording, not Tracy's, but they could be if they wanted).

         

Camp also serves as an opportunity for girls to develop self-confidence and the skills to maintain positive, supportive relationships with one another which they can then practice in their home, school and professional environments throughout their lives. The girls live and study on the campus of Washington College in Chestertown, an inspiration in itself to envision themselves there one day. In fact, last year I was fortunate enough to attend "camp graduation" and Washington College President Baird Tipson himself congratulated the girls on their learning and told them he would "look forward to their applying to Washington College" in the future.

When I asked Tracy where most of her referrals come from, she said from mothers and grandmothers who want their daughters and granddaughters to have the opportunity to pursue education in fields that they didn't have. So if you're one of those Moms or Grandmoms, Tracy won't be surprised to hear from you.

For many of the girls, this represents an almost life-transforming experience. I am reminded of a poster I have that says "I am not the same having seen the moon shine from the opposite side of the world". It speaks to the power of experience to open our eyes to a whole different realm of possibilityes. That's a pretty powerful accomplishment for a week! For many girls, the experience of being in a rural environment and in nature and on the water, is something they will remember for years. And it's augmented by visits from women working in math and science who come to talk to the girls about their experiences and careers, and to encourage them to pursue their dreams.

Indeed, it's an accomplishment that has not gone unnoticed. Summer Days Math and Science Camp for Girls has received national attention from the The Association of Women in Science Magazine and National Public Radio. In 2002, the camp was recognized with the Maryland Excellence in Minority Achievement Award. There are more awards, but it would embarrass Tracy to mention them all, so please just go to www.mathandsciencecamp.com and read about them. And if you want to get a peek at some happy campers, here you go! As the young folks say, "Peace out".

Cooking it up with the KCHS Culinary Arts Program

Cooking It Up With

the Kent County High School

Culinary Arts Program

You'll be seeing this photo a lot in the next couple of weeks. No, it's not a casting call for "Top Chef" - at least not the television show. These are the students of the Kent County High School Culinary Arts Program, and their instructor (front and center) John Keller.

I first found out about the Program last year as part of the Taste of the Town committee (do you have your tickets yet for our 2nd Annual Taste of the Town?? Go to www.tasteofchestertown.com to purchase online or find local spots to purchase them). There was a photo of them in the Kent County News as they were heading off to a statewide competition. So this year when we started planning Taste of the Town (really, you need to go get that ticket now!) we decided the most fitting beneficiary for the event was the Kent County High School Culinary Arts Program.

Which is how we met John Keller and his terrific group of students, ranging from the 10th through 12th grade. John was my guest last week on Homegrown and Green on the radio - AM 1530 WCTR - where he told us a little about himself and his background. Having worked as a professional chef across the East Coast and in Europe, John arrived on the Shore 12 years ago as the chef at The Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels. No slacker, him.

Not only does John teach at Kent County High School, he also teaches at Chesapeake Community College, and some summer programs as well. But you can tell from talking to him that his heart lies with the Culinary Arts Program.

The Program is one of the Career Technology Pathways at the High School, providing professional-grade training to our local youth in a variety of areas. He talked about how "vo-tech" 20+ years ago was for "the kids who weren't going to make it to college, so may as well teach them a trade". Today's Pathways are vastly different, emphasizing professional career-focused skills. I hope Jack Steinmetz over at the Kent County Office of Economic Development and Cindy Genther, Executive Director of the Kent County Chamber of Commerce, caught the show and are reading this - the County's future work force and entrepreneurs and rarin' to go! And with our vibrant tourism industry and a host of inns, and restaurants ranging from casual to fine dining, it's a great fit to have local kids professionally trained for local and regional employment.

When representatives of the Taste of the Town committee first sat down and talked with John we asked him what the Program needed, and chef's uniforms were at the top of the list. Because when you're working toward being a professional, you have to act, feel and look like one and take it seriously. So thank you to Linda Dawson and PNC Bank who stepped up as Chef In Training sponsor, enabling the Program to purchase uniforms and to participate in Taste of the Town.

So last week Bob Ramsey of The Finishing Touch in downtown Chestertown took himself out to the High School and took this photo of the students in their new uniforms. You'll see it in the April 9 edition of the Kent County News. And you can meet them in person at Taste of the Town where they'll be serving up Chocolate Dipped Macaroons - YUM! - and competing for the title of Best Taste of Chestertown in the Dessert category. And Bob, being who he is, after making them take several "serious" shots, said - "Ok, now one just horsing around". Ain't life grand??

Just Another Ho Hum Weekend on the Shore

There are things about living on the Eastern Shore that just make life worth living. I'm reminded of it every day by the sheer grit of people holding on, doing something new, being themselves. My favorite today, as we drove past Downey's on Route 213 in Chestertown, was the Girl Scout Troop selling cookies under threatening skies, holding up a sign saying DRIVE THRU GIRL SCOUT COOKIES. Who needs Facebook when you have this kind of ingenuity?

We had forgotten about the monthly breakfast put on by the local Masonic Lodge (always a favorite! Look for their sign on Route 291 between 213 and lower High Street), so headed to the Village Bakery and Cafe owned by some pretty terrific Eastern Shore entrepreneurs, Ruth and Bethany Stoltzfus.

These ladies run a really great restaurant and bakery - breads, donuts, pies, danish, cakes - oh yum! - and serve a mean breakfast and lunch. This week they began serving dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday as well. And I'm pretty sure I overheard the waitress saying soon they'd be having live music during dinner. If you haven't been there, you must give it a try. You can also get a sample of the terrific food they serve at Taste of the Town on Sunday, April 26 from Noon to 4 in Wilmer Park just past downtown Chestertown www.tasteofchestertown.com. You can read more about Taste of the Town on our Projects page.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The weekend for me started Thursday afternoon with a special dinner from Procolino's Italian Eatery.

Two of my other favorite entrepreneurs Salvatore & Vincenzo Scotto run a pretty terrific operation at Procolino's Italian Eatery, and its popularity is proven by the regular lines of people ordering pizza, subs, calzones and main courses. They even offer something called a Killer Salad which, given the opportunity, I would live on them. Grilled chicken, roasted red peppers and eggplant, olives and mozzarella, you can make dinner and lunch the next day. Plus they throw in a few garlic knots - you haven't lived until you've eaten these. And you can at Taste of the Town. Worth the price of admission! They recently remodelled their back room and the atmosphere is pure bistro!

Friday, the weekend got kind of interesting. We are fortunate enough to live near both farmland and a creek. The wildlife is pretty spectacular - herons, hawks and osprey, resident foxes, jumping fish, and snakes in impressive sizes. Occasionally I hear a barred owl during the night. But our most prestigious residents are a nesting pair of bald eagles who live in the neighboring field. They fish in the creek and come eat their catch in one of our dead trees (left there expressly for that purpose). They seem to like it here and that's fine by us. I drove up our lane one day this week and they were sitting on the branch next to their nest, looking things over.

So yesterday my husband wasn't surprised to see one of the eagles hanging out in the marshy area off the creek. But he was surprised when he saw the eagle again in the same spot after about an hour. A little more observation revealed that he (we're making assumptions about the eagle's gender) was injured. So first a call to the Department of Natural Resources who gave us names and numbers of regional rescue groups which led to a few more phone calls, one of which led to our friend Trams.

Now by all rights, it should be someone else's turn. Trams Hollingsworth, after all, was our first posted article (you can read it in Feature Archives), and her spectacular photos grace our About Us page. But the Shore really is a small place, and some people just keep popping up. Turns out, Trams is a part of Tri-State Rescue but, to quote her in our first phone call "I don't know about catching an eagle. . ." Well, after a chat with rescue-experienced local vet Mike Forney, who assured her there's nothing to it, as wildlife rescues go, Trams and her husband Billy headed over, armed with a blanket and a rather large net. (Mike couldn't come. He was taking his wife Kirsten, who owns Dockside Emporium in downtown Chestertown, out to dinner at the Village Bakery).

Our eagle wasn't sure what to make of all this, but Trams has her ways. After trekking through muck and brambles and approaching from behind him, with Billy moving in with the net, everything was in place. And in a movement that seemed like nothing at all, they had succeeded in performing a rescue mission.

We heard them talking through the steps Mike

told them to do to secure the eagle and voila - wrapped up in a pink blanket, the eagle made his way toward help.

And when they called Mike Forney to say "Mission accomplished", he told them to just swing by the Village Bakery and they'd figure it out from there.

So here are the updates: It was a very tired, hungry eagle who'd sustained an injury to his leg. Saturday Trams transported him to a rendezvous with Tri-State Rescue where he's going to eagle rehab. Everyone feels good about his prognosis, and we await word on his return to our back field. I understand Trams took a lot of pictures, so there's more to come, but that's her story to tell.

Meanwhile, I'll have to content myself with the osprey building their nests, here on the Shore.

Trams' Story - March 2009

The other day I saw our first crocus peep out in our yard. The mere fact of this is due to our wonderful friend and gardener and much-beloved Chestertown resident Trams Hollingsworth (whose photos you see on our home page and here). I could never do justice to telling her story - her own words are the best for telling this tale.

I arrived on the Eastern Shore in 1969.  A guidance counselor in my urban public school had suggested that my parents ind me a far-away boarding school.  So as my friends were starting their tenth grade at Bethesda Chevy Chase HS my parents were driving me over the Bay bridge to the Gunston School.  I remember seeing Centreville, Maryland for the first time, and sobbing “But I haven’t been THIS bad.”

In the forty years since, I’ve made my way 18 miles up route 213 to Chestertown.  Washington College gave me a degree in English Literature.  That qualified me to wait tables in most English-speaking countries.  So I did.  In 1981 I followed Paul McCartney to the small Caribbean island of Montserrat.  I went to this small British colony with the intention of marrying Paul McCartney and never working again.  But things didn’t work out exactly as I planned.  I never met Paul.  Instead I came home to Chestertown with a nine-year-old orphaned Montserratian street hustler whom I had adopted in Her Majesty’s High Colonial Court.  That story was first published in the Washington Post Magazine and is reprinted in Here on the Chester, an anthology of Chestertown stories published by Washington College. 

In summary,  Chestertown is the village that carefully raised my wild child while my determined child dragged me along with him toward responsible adulthood.

Around the time my son Lenox began his career as a police officer, I quit my job as a college administrator to become a manual laborer.  It was this sunny spring Saturday and I was closeted in my office between board meetings.  I remember turning from my computer, looking out the window, and then calling a friend who is a professional gardener and asking her if she would give me a job.  She said yes and  I wrote my letter of resignation.  Of the so many whimsical things I’ve done in my life, whimsical things like adopting a child,  this phone call ranks high on my list of Fate’s blessings.

When Carol Mylander hired me I couldn’t tell a peony from a petunia, much less call them by their Latin names as she insisted.  But, to the amazement of past employers, from Playboy Club to Washington College, she taught me how to take directions.    Together we earned our Master Gardeners from the University of Maryland and, as our business grew, Carol made me a partner in Cultivation.  We work, with our really great crew, in some of the most beautiful places on the Shore.  Sometimes we are hired to maintain formal boxwood and rose gardens so that they’ll look as they have for the last hundred years.  But sometimes we’ll be given a blank slate of small yard or wild riverfront.  Then the challenge is designing and planting four seasons of native beauty to bring in all the migratory butterflies and birds and native wild animals that should, we think, share in every garden.   And when we’re especially lucky, our clients concur that I should be looking for the appropriate marble faun, bird bath or quiet-time bench, at the estate auctions I haunt for my night-job as antique dealer.

 (Pictured on the left, Katherine, Susan, Jessica, Carol and cabbage of CULTIVATION, as photographed by Trams.)

Since I started working in gardens I have also learned to keep a camera in my tool bucket along with tools and seeds. You never know when the cornflower seeds will blossom from inside the osprey nest.  Just so happens, the blue flowers popped above the nest rim the same day as the chicks’ gold eyes.  Click.

I took plenty of  butterfly on zinnia before I got a little bored of that.  

But I’ve yet to tire of the preying mantis biting the off the head of her mate and then chewing it slowly enough for me to get my close up lens focused.  I sell some of my photos around town and, therefore some people think I’m a professional photographer and they ask to hire me for weddings and stuff. 

 I explain that I have no real talent for photography.  I’m just lucky enough to have so much beauty in my life that even an unprofessional photographer can capture some of it.   I work where the birds nests are and I work in such peace that a hatchling makes a relative racket. Time for me to wipe dirt and seeds from my close-up lens and wait for the rest of the clutch to emerge.  Click, click. click.  And the trick to getting rare close-ups of a baby bunny...  Raise it in your sweatshirt pocket after the clients’ dog drops it at your feet in the vegetable garden.

Gardening is the only job, of so many I’ve had, when I’m eager for my vacation to end.  Gardens, if planned right, are beautiful for twelve months a year.  But there’s not too much to do in December or January but make wreaths of  everything,

watch birds devour berries, and take photographs of ice-glittered deadheads.  Then in February, we begin again.  This is the time to prune your butterfly bushes and crepe myrtles.  

Stunt them now and they’ll explode in summer blooms.  Now, on the season’s last snow, is the time to broadcast premergent where you don’t want cool season weeds to green up in spring.  Just be sure not to “Preen” where you hope annual and wildflowers might reappear. And now is the time to clean last year’s nests out your birdhouses.  The osprey have been coming earlier than their traditional St. Patrick’s Day eta.  The blue birds and purple martins won’t be far behind.  Then in March....  everything starts happening.

If you have garden questions, you’re welcome to call us.  Carol can answer in Latin.  Trams in English.  We, with our really great crew, are Cultivation.  778-1560.