Tag Archives: nature

What Goes Around Comes Around

Posted on November 6, 2012 by AnnieRie

I have to admit, learning the new shorthand used in tweeting and in texting, as well as some of the acronyms around here has been interesting at best, and downright confusing at times.

It used to be that we, the govvies in the area, i.e., government employees, were the best at making entire conversations using acronyms designed to confound our non-govvy friends and family.

“I work at NHTSA on IVBSS and I will be at UMTRI next week”. “I work at NSWC on the MK 116 ASW FCS”. Our pasts. The DH and me.

What’s a DH, you say? Same as an OM. Dear Husband. Old man. One picked up on web forums years ago, the other an amateur radio standard. It is why my gmail account has xyl in the address. I am the wife, aka x-young lady, of a ham.

Now, my blogging friends here in the area are working to get uniform hashtags that we use when we tweet. Whenever I put up a post I sent it off to twitterland using #hoco. These days #hoco is overrun by colleges and homecoming, and we are getting lost in the noise about whose dress is best, and who can get more drunk. It seems to be time for us to find a new place to “hang out”, and we have graduated to using #hocomd more.

Jessie over at Jessie X, who also cofounded and administers hocoblogs where about 300 of us are more or less active about blogging in the County, or about the County, is working to get us to use more specific hashtags.

I feel like I am back at work, learning new acronyms after changing jobs. What used to be the geekiness of our govvy lives is now the new normal of social media. Like, learning a whole new language.

Add to that, in our world, where we have been active in amateur radio, a “shack on a belt”, or HT (handy talkie), once a sign of real nerdiness, with the hands free headphone really stood out. Now, you can lose yourself in the midst of the bluetooth crowd. What was once cause for comments, and a little ridicule, is now mainstream.

As I said, what goes around comes around. The entire world has become geeky. What the heck. If you can’t beat them, join them.

So, Jessie asked me to become the queen of #hocolocavore and #hoconature on the spreadsheet being assembled for county tweets. I promise to try and remember to use them. At least I do remember to use my hocoblog hashtags appropriately, like the one at the end of this post.

So, when I post about local foods and farmers, I will be using #hocolocavore.

And, about the Conservancy, or the birds, or the garden. #hoconature

And, since I am attempting to complete NaBloPoMo (look that one up!), there will be lots to read about Howard County.

hocoblogs@@@

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Life Without Heat

Posted on November 5, 2012 by AnnieRie

My heart goes out to all who were displaced and devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Life without power and heat really is awful. I watch the news and think how hard it is to live with no light and no heat.

We don’t have heat on our first floor due to a compressor failure, so I can only imagine what the people living north of us are going through. To us, it is an inconvenience, a nuisance but not life threatening. At least we have heat on the second floor because we have two heat pumps.

!!@@@$$$!! heat pump!

Still, getting up in the morning and coming downstairs to temps in the high 50s the past two days is not fun. We at least can turn on the emergency heat, that red light that means if you go out and watch the electric meter, you can get dizzy watching it spin. I told my husband it might be cheaper to burn dollar bills than turn on emergency heat. We only put it on for ten minutes in the morning and 5 minutes before dinner.

Otherwise, three or four layers of clothing and retiring to our bedroom after dinner to read or watch TV.

Our compressor was probably damaged after the derecho, as we replaced a capacitor soon after it. Two months later the entire unit died. An eight year old heat pump. They say nothing stops a Trane. Don’t believe them. It is taking a week for the new compressor to come in. We have been without heat other than emergency for ten days now.

Tonight it will go down to 28 degrees out here. Who knows how cold it will be on our first floor when we get up.

That is why today I put together a huge bag of gloves, scarves, sweaters and socks and took it to a clothing collection box. Those who have no power from the hurricane living north of here don’t have the luxury of heat on another floor, or that super expensive option of emergency heat.

I feel for them, big time. Keep them in your thoughts and find places to take some warm clothes and blankets. While at Walgreens today I saw they have a collection box. Every little bit helps.

hocoblogs@@@

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November Events at the Conservancy

Posted on November 5, 2012 by AnnieRie

Two upcoming events take place in the next few weeks at the Howard County Conservancy. Both of them are popular topics and are worth checking out.

The first one is this Saturday, the 10th. With winter coming, our winged friends need a little help being fed. A “wonder walK” from 10-12 Saturday morning will focus on how to make simple items to keep your neighborhood birds, and probably also the squirrels, happy. There will be a short presentation outside if the weather cooperates, or inside, if not, focusing on the birds that generally stay in Howard County in the winter, and what they like to eat.

There will also be the opportunity for attendees to make at least one “menu item” to take home or to hang out on the conservancy grounds, for the birds to enjoy. Plus, learn some tips to keep birds coming to your house all winter, including attracting bluebirds. The wonder walks are always free.

Another amazing presentation by the popular nature photographer, George Grall. NOV 16 – Fri. 7 pm – Revisiting Spring Pools: The Amphibian Awakening and More. His programs have completely sold out in the past, as his photography is awesome. Featured often in National Geographic, he has been writing articles and providing photos to the Society since 1990. Newsweek, Smithsonian, Life, Nature Conservancy, Audubon, International Wildlife, National Wildlife, GEO, Le Figaro, and a host of other international publications have also honored his work.

The George Grall program is one of those “don’t miss” evenings. Put it on your calendar. The admission is $10 in advance and $12 at the door, if there is any space left. Children under 8 are free.

hocoblogs@@@

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Surviving Sandy

Posted on October 30, 2012 by AnnieRie

Lessons Learned for the next crazy weather we have in this area.

Only buy a UPS if it has a mute capability. The UPS devices we have, on the TVs and the computers and the phone and the chargers, all six of them, are not all the same. We have three different models. One model muted. Two won’t. We got to listen to chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp for about 9-10 hours until they finally died. They were the ones that lasted the longest though. They were APC XS 1000’s. We had the iPhone on one of them until 11 am today when it finally died. The internet and modem one died about 9 hours in, but since Comcast stopped working five hours before our power went out and just came back thirty minutes ago, so much for having internet on the iPad.

Modify the bleeping cellar area where the sump pump is installed so a battery backup unit will fit in it. We procrastinated after the derecho and didn’t do this modification and spent most of the night with two hour sleep intervals interspersed with bailing sessions. Five gallon buckets every two hours, more after the wind shifted and rain ran down the south wall of the house into the cellar drain at the bottom of our basement stairs.

Always go to Giant and buy ice as soon as you can after the storm ends. It will guarantee that the power comes back in a few hours. We lost power last night at 11 pm and got it back today at 3 pm. Six hours after going to Giant and getting four bags of ice. Now, I need to find a permanent place for it, or let it melt in the coolers.

The seven cubic foot freezer did well. It was full, and when the power came back and I went down to check the temperature inside, it had only risen from -2 to +10 degrees. We had packed it with everything we could including plastic containers of water frozen solid. It worked well.

The fridge and freezer did OK. Not stellar, but OK. Fridge got up to 46, but the only things in it were fruit, veggies, a couple of bottles of wine and iced tea. Oh, and weird condiments like tabasco and some flavored vinegars. All the perishables were in the two coolers with bags of ice on top and they stayed below 40 degrees.

The freezer in the kitchen unit got up to 26 degrees, from the setting of minus 6. Still haven’t opened it, and the meats are buried below four bags of ice. Before the power went out, I did lower the temp settings on the fridge and freezer by four degrees more than the normal settings, so that helped.

I left one small feeder out for the birds, which got quite a few visits before, during and immediately after the storm. I went out this morning and brought back the big feeder, and it got mobbed almost before I could get inside. We even had a rare visit to the vertical of a hairy woodpecker, bigger and with the long beak, but looking just like our regular downy woodpecker visitor. When I grabbed the camera to photograph the hairy woodpecker he flew far up into the cherry tree.

the feeder I left up, with our resident downy

The weather radio and the iPhone were invaluable once we lost power. I am so thankful we only lost power for sixteen hours this time. The derecho 24 hour power outage was our worst experience here. This was the second longest. For us, we still have to decide if a generator is needed as long as we don’t get multi-day outages.

NOAA weather radio and iPhone, our links to the world for 16 hours

We used none of the bottled water as we had filled pitchers of water and put them in our small beverage fridge with containers of ice. We went through them. Never used any of the water in the tubs, as we were sleeping downstairs where it was quieter and we weren’t far from the sump pump. The well pump actually held pressure for about six hours and made it through quite a few cycles before finally cutting out. Now, we get to clean up and dump buckets that were sitting in the powder room.

enough water when you have time to prepare

Now, it’s back to cleaning up, and eating all this weird stuff I made in case our power stayed out. I have lots of egg salad and potato salad and tuna to make salad. Fruit, yogurt, and granola. I do think we are extremely lucky and am grateful for the dedication and professional attitudes at both Comcast and at BGE. I never expected to get a live person on the line at 1115 pm from BGE, but we did. She asked if we knew if any of our neighbors were out, and explained why they couldn’t do estimates due to the uncertainty of when they could begin. Plus, the Howard County government twitter updates kept us informed all night.

Just glad we did OK and that we live in such an amazing place, even with this strange weather. Now, we get to go out and clean up leaves and pine needles and tree branches for a few days, or maybe a week. At least I get exercise. Here’s to living in Howard County and enjoying fall even when it is chaotic.

hocoblogs@@@

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The Waiting Game

Posted on October 27, 2012 by AnnieRie

So now, we wait. Will we get slammed with 8-10 inches of rain? Should I get all the 5 gallon buckets I can find and just recycle the sump pump water for the toilets, or do I count on the tubs doing the job? Everything with the exception of the last two bird feeders and the bird bath has been brought in or lashed down.

It is the waiting for a hurricane that drives you nuts. Days of countless emails, weather reports, emergency notices, and then there’s the people out everywhere. Trying to get gasoline. Long lines. hitting the stores. I have stockpiled 8 bags of ice in the kitchen freezer in order to cover over the meat in there. If the power stays off too long, I will transfer all the meat to the heavy coolers if necessary. Interestingly enough, people don’t buy ice in advance. I made room for the ice in the freezer and cranked the temperature down a few degrees. I know we can drive west of here and load up coolers with ice, after the rains and wind stop. What is in the freezer now will keep it for at least two days.

TP and Milk. I love it that those two items seem to be the most popular before storms. Do people really think they will run out? Weird. Neither of them are on my preparation list.

The birds know something is happening. They are noisy, and flying back and forth to the feeders. Today, the nuthatches are back. With the downy woodpeckers, they are all over the suet and peanut feeder.

The nuthatch is on the suet while the woodpecker waits patiently. The finches and other birds have been coming in looking for the thistle feeder and the small hanging one, both of which are already down. The last one to take apart will be the primary feeder, which would be blown over. I really need to anchor that permanently now that we found the site where the squirrels can’t leap across the deck or jump from trees.

I also took fall folliage pictures today, figuring that the leaves will get blown away and we will come to an abrupt end of leaf peeping. This view today reminded me of how quickly the leaves changed this year.

Here’s hoping I get to see the gorgeous red colors of our maple in the back, which hasn’t turned yet. That may be good, or not so good. With the leaves on the trees, they tend to crack under their weight with heavy winds and rain. The maple is my birding tree, and one of the prettiest in the fall.

The view of it last November. We generally get the peak of the colors the first week of November. I just hope we don’t lose any more of our mature trees in this storm. It has been a pretty rough couple of years, when it comes to wind damage. Trying to sleep at night while trees crack and fall is not fun. This past two years we have hauled away at least a dozen trees from the property line, and we lost a few conifers in the ice storms before that. Besides the cover they give us, they are home to the birds and squirrels, which is why we have so many birds visiting us. They love the conifers.

Good luck all the east coasters in harm’s way. Stay safe.

hocoblogs@@@

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Hurricane Prep, The Smaller Items

Posted on October 26, 2012 by AnnieRie

Everyone always tells you what to do with the large ticket items. Water, ice, batteries, medications.

What about those little things? Like having a real phone in the house. All those fancy phones aren’t hardwired and require the power to be working for them to operate. My antique phone 😉

We also use UPS’s throughout the house to be able to charge cell phones and run small lamps with CFL bulbs. And, to run the cable modem and wireless router. At least for a short while.

How about the weather radio? And, of course a smart phone to check on things even without power. Like how long BGE will take to get power restored.

We have flashlights of all shapes and sizes in every room we use regularly, like the family room, kitchen, bath and bedroom.

We hope this storm will blow out to sea, but who knows. I suppose the more we prepare, the greater the possibility it will all be for nothing. It seems that only when we are caught unaware, like with the June derecho, that we have problems.

Thankfully, we are at one of the higher elevations in the county so we will be spared from flooding. And, with a new roof and a solidly built brick house, we can weather the winds. I spent all day today bringing in items that may blow around, with the exception of the bird feeders. They will come down at the last moment. Those squirrel deterrents will blow everywhere.

Here’s hoping this hurricane will miss us.

hocoblogs@@@

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1 2 3 Eyes on Me

Posted on October 24, 2012 by AnnieRie

Now, that phrase comes easily to me. The way to redirect 9 first graders from 9 different places to look, at me. Today I found how easily I have slipped into “teacherspeak”. Yeah, thirty five years ago I was a teacher. Now, I am a volunteer leading field trips.

Today, 110 first graders came to visit us at the Howard County Conservancy. I think I can say it is successful when you hear things like we did, when a first grader runs excitedly up to his teacher and exclaims, “This is so cool!”. Maybe it was petting our corn snake. Or jumping in the puddles from the well water hand washing station. Or, just everything he got to do today.

First graders are studying rocks, fossils and extinct animals in their earth science curriculum. Today, they got to identify animals, touch fossils and use magnifying glasses to study rocks.

bank barn foundation

They also got to see foundations, walls, roadways, sidewalks and all the other ways rocks are part of our lives. Oh, and they found woolly bear caterpillars, fed the goats, and some of them got to see a baby eastern worm snake (no pics, I didn’t have the camera with me).

Holly, our pygmy goat

In other words, they had a blast outdoors on a perfect fall day.

By the way, we could use a few more volunteers. Today, two called in sick. We had to expand the number of students we each had assigned to us on the hikes. Spring training takes place in March. We are a bit short on numbers, since the Howard County schools are increasing their enrollment. 80-90 students we can handle easily. When you hit 110 or 120 like some of our schools, we need 8-9 volunteers each field trip.

If you want a really rewarding way to add interest to your life, if you work at home and are flexible, or are retired like many of us, this is a no brainer. A great way to spend crisp fall and warm spring days making a difference.

hocoblogs@@@

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The Dark Eyed Junco is Back

Posted on October 23, 2012 by AnnieRie

I know the seasons are changing when the juncoes return to my yard. We saw the first one this morning. Not the one in the picture below, because it disappeared too fast to capture. They become less jittery when it really gets cold and even my coming outdoors doesn’t bother them while they feed. Here is one very inquisitive bird from last winter.

dark eyed junco

They feed on the ground, and wander around under the bushes and the feeders. The chickadees and finches push the less desirable food out of the feeder to get to their favorites, and the juncoes get the leftovers that drop. Their return reminded me to look and see if the Centennial walks are up on the Howard Bird Club site.

It is fall birding season and yes, the Howard County Bird Club is again offering their weekly walks in November in Centennial Park. It is where we first learned to identify new birds, by sight and sound. It is also where we are learning more about waterfowl, as a change from the birds that visit our yard feeders.

These easy walks good for beginning birders start at 8 am. in the west area parking lot, entered off Centennial Lane. They are the 4th, 11th, 18th and 25th of November. Club members bring scopes to let you get really good looks at the birds. It is 2-3 hours at a leisurely pace, and a great way to spend a November Sunday morning.

Some pictures from two years ago. The trip reports, available on the web site, show you what we found that November day in 2010.

great blue heron over Centennial Lake

3 male and one female mallard on a pond off the main trail

Oh, and when we go off the main trail, we often flush out other inhabitants of the park, like this young buck.

The buck, mallard and heron pictures were from the 14th, a day we did not see the cedar waxwings that were there on the 7th.

cedar waxwings

This is fall migration season. It is interesting to see what birds will stop at the lake on their semiannual flights. The bird club does these walks every spring and fall. Put them on your calendar and join us.

hocoblogs@@@

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Leaf Peeping and A Winery Visit

Posted on October 19, 2012 by AnnieRie

In the Shenandoah. Near the Appalachian Trail. The leaves are in full color these days. A good weekend to enjoy them. We had a date to meet a fellow radio amateur to pick up a crank up tower. He lives near Manassas. I don’t need an excuse to head west on I-66 and find some fall color.

the view from Linden

And, of course, add some chardonnay and rosé to our cellar. I like to get rosé to take to my brother’s for Thanksgiving. He cooks. I bring wine. Nice arrangement we have. The day started out a little dreary but got better as we drove west. I love sitting in the enclosed sun room and taking in the views.

Have a little cheese and sausage, with a Hardscrabble Chardonnay. Believe it or not, it does well with the sausage. The cheeses and sausage are local VA made. And, the 2009 Hardscrabble is a huge chardonnay. The type you want to put away for a few years. It will only get better.

The vineyard itself was lovely, as the grape vines are turning color as well as the trees and shrubs. The parking lot was full, so we were down in the overflow. Lots of leaf peepers out. Everyone was pouring wine today, including Jim and Shari. Haven’t seen Shari since the barrel tasting so it was nice to visit today. I bet the coming weekends are going to be crazy with the weather prediction of sunny and 70s. We did check out some of the grapes near the winery. Still a few clusters hanging. I know the late harvest grapes are still out there. The rest have been harvested.

We took the back roads home. Loving the views along the way.

leaving Linden

somewhere near Rectortown

Trying to identify what this is — have not seen it before. Off to check out my naturalist books.

Unidentified plants, all along the edge of a property near Purcellville

All in all a great day. Oh, and the second time near Atoka where an eagle flew over us. As usual, too fast for me to grab the camera, but that white head is so distinct. If you have time this weekend head west and check out the foliage. Even better, check out a winery. Grape vines are beautiful in the fall.

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A Typical Day at the Conservancy

Posted on October 16, 2012 by AnnieRie

Today I had an entertaining and interesting day at the Conservancy, with lots to see and do. After my first hike with the second graders, I had a slow group and got back after all the others had been assigned. But, that was good, because, I got to take pictures and record what naturalists do when we lead field trips. Today’s topic was “It’s Not Just Dirt”.

I checked out the students down at the soil pit. they were learning the layering of top soil. Seeing how things change as you go deeper into the soil.

They were also seeing the local “products” like black walnuts, that grow on trees in our region.

black walnuts

And, milkweed. A wondrous plant that attracts monarch butterflies. Our milkweed is splitting open and sending seeds over the land to hopefully land and create new plants in the future. We had students sending seeds aloft to float over the land to come to rest.

milkweed

We took them to the Master Gardeners historic gardens to show them what good soil will do. Like the wonderful greens in the salad table.

And, we taught them why good soil is important, and why compost is black gold.

The second graders loved their day in the grasslands, following naturalists around learning about what helps their favorite plants grow. This second grade, from Dayton Oaks, knew all about what grows around them. When asked, they knew carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, beans and fruit. Smart, aren’t they? They really enjoyed learning about science in a fun place. And, loved saying hi to Ranger, the owl.

When they were all done, after hand washing from the well water, they got to go off for a picnic lunch.

While I was out there, I caught at least a half dozen bluebirds wandering around looking for insects. These four on the fence were watching the ones on the ground. Stalking them was a little difficult.

Fall at the Conservancy. What could be better?

hocoblogs@@@

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