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.
