Technical Writer

Neighbors Who Love, Love to Party

I have just erased this post because upon reflection, it is not good enough for my one reader.  Here are yesterday's flowers, instead.

On the kitchen table.

Saturday Flowers, July 11

These are the flowers that will refresh my sight whenever I look upon them on the kitchen table this week.  As the week progresses, I will change the water and trim the stems, and the flowers will remain beautiful. 

I took a morning walk a little later than usual today, and did not encounter the great blue heron.  I came upon smaller water fowl, such as this fine duck in Carroll Creek.  If I were a duck, I would pay careful attention to the inevitability of a meal swimming by, too.

I came upon other birds, too, out in a flock, running through Baker Park.  Scroll down to the earlier post to see.

Pain is Weakness, or Birds of a Different Feather

Combat Marines have been stationed at Ft. Detrick in Frederick, Md. for a few years, but I did not know that until our paths crossed this morning in Baker park, during my morning walk.  Marines do not walk. Marines hustle along at a steady jog trot, shouting loud Marine chants to increase their aerobic training. It's a fine sight, and here it is.  I had seen them exercising earlier on the green, and before long they were off for a run.  They cut across Bentz St. and hooked back into the park, where I stepped into the path to catch them. I admired them as they passed, and noted the sharp, taut jaw lines and indomitable bearing of their leaders. They've got brains, training, and stamina.

After seeing this, I could not stop at 6 miles, and clocked 7.25 miles for my morning walk before hitting the front door again.

The Great Blue Heron, Aloof Yet a Neighbor

The street lights had not timed off when I encountered the elegant great blue heron this morning.  I saw him a little earlier, downstream fishing. He is on his way now to Carroll Creek at the edge of the lawn.  At the far end of Culler Lake is the stand of trees that is home to the charming night herons, birds who have a great deal to say about life and the universe, day and night, and loudly.  They win the prize for their commitment to elocution training, repeating over and over every comment made by each other.  It is unlikely that any of them will ever forget their lines, so dedicated is their practice.

The Carroll Creek is especially pretty farther ahead and off the path.  I have mentioned the old sign along this stretch of the creek, advising that children and the blind may fish for trout, but no one else.  I hope this means there are trout in the stream, and the stream is clean.  I can tell you that there are fish enough for the birds who make their living by the creek. 

Here is a photo of an area where it is only a foot or so deep, and a very good fishing spot for a bird.

Along the stream bank I found flowers in full bloom: black-eyed susans, monarda (bee balm), and many species from the close-by herb garden at Schifferstadt.  Insects and birds had carried the seeds and dropped them on the bank, where they naturalized. 

This area is near Schifferstadt, the lovely, 250-year-old exemplar of German colonial architecture on the edge of town.

Rumor once had it that Jacob Bruner built a secret passage leading from the stone-walled cellar to the outside of his stone house. 

I had been told this by a man who as a child had played with his friends in the cellar, and I know the story was true, but from the perspective of a child.  On a tour of the house 15 years ago, I saw what those children saw.  The cellar is a complex space, and a stone archway connects its rooms.  The stone archway was the secret passage the children saw.

The society that has preserved the house ( http://www.frederickcountylandmarksfoundation.org/), possibly knowing the rumors butalso aware of architectural possibilities in such a historic building brought in specialists who studied and probed and after much effort concluded that there was no hidden passage.  It would have been easier to hand a few nine-year-old children lighted candles, send them to explore the old cellar and report their findings over snow cones and ice cream.  Perspective is everything.

Handsome Farmers

The farmers' market on Saturday morning in Frederick is one of two or three I visit each week because lettuce, cherries, and squash blossoms picked and bought on Saturday must be eaten soon.  

Letting them languish beyond 48 hours seems disrespectful, and it also means that I return to these pleasant markets to enjoy the company of fascinating people on the hunt for blueberries ($3.75 a pint this week, but they are organic), shelled peas ($6 a quart, enough for peas at every meal for three days) and the live herb plants I like to bring home to tuck into the odd bare spot in the numerous pots on the back porch, the only place in the garden with enough sunlight for herbs, the rest of the garden being in shade.

 

I observe that farmers are handsome people.  Notice this the next time you are among them.  They radiate health, or at least the effects on their lives of hard work, long hours, but a close relation to the earth.

Saturday Flowers, July 4; Great Uncle Frank

The flower shop owner decided to take a holiday on July 4, so I found some bonnie sunflowers at the farmers' market on Saturday to bring home with the produce.  Here they are upon the kitchen table, where they will preside over breakfast and supper, and the morning crossword puzzles all week long.  The sunflowers have independent ways.

I arranged them when I returned home from my new walking route through the cemetery at the south end of Frederick.  Mt. Olivet cemetery has a two mile loop around its perimeter, and it is one mile from my house.  I make the 4-mile round trip in just under an hour now. 

Dwelling on thoughts of flowers, and admiring the flowers on the graves of this very old cemetery, I thought about my great uncle Frank, whose memory is alive in my family.  Cpl. David Franklin Koogle died on October 2, 1918, of influenza at Camp Meade in Maryland. He was 21.

My mother was born a couple of years after her uncle's death, but in my family we do not forget our people.  My mother says that her mother, Hazel Rebecca Zimmerman, and her grandmother, Susan Charlotte Koogle, for whom she is named, hired a taxi to go see Frank, all the way from Middletown to Camp Meade about 60 miles away.  They were not allowed to bring him home with them, and my great grandmother believed all her life that if she could have cared for her boy at home, he would have lived.

The camp is where the first deaths occurred in this state, and it was the hardest hit place in the state.  According to the site http://1918.pandemicflu.gov/your_state/maryland.htm'

"As the death rate from influenza rose, military officials began equating influenza deaths with those on the battlefield. A memorial service for those who died during the pandemic at Camp Meade was held and the presiding officer read the names of each dead soldier. As each name was read, the Sergeant saluted and said "Died on the field of honor, sir."

The loop road around Mt. Olivet is quiet early in the morning.  The cemetery is peaceful, except for the bob-white who rushes me, tail feathers broadly displayed, and then disappears into the grass by the edge of the cemetery.  Frank is buried in the family plot in a graveyard closer to his family home, but I think all graveyards are the same country, for those interred.

A Farmers' Market in Frederick, Maryland

With $14 in single bills in my pocket, I set off for the farmers' market at Church and East streets this afternoon, just a few blocks from my house in Frederick, Maryland.  I took the big basket because I needed lettuce, beets, and eggs from free-range hens, which Wendy sells at her Persimmon Pond farm stall.  Wendy is trained as an economist, but she threw it all over and became a farmer, and I hope she has never looked back. 

To go with fish for supper, there will now be a salad of red leaf and Black-Seeded Simpson (an heirloom variety) lettuces, and red and golden beets with their greens.  I like to cook the beats themselves in a little broth, and saute the greens in a pan with about a teaspoon of olive oil. Over the cooked greens and beets, I will drizzle my best balsamic vinegar.  The vegetables were picked just this morning, and now await their moment on the kitchen counter.

$3  Eggs from free-range, organically raised (and presumably happy) hens who enjoy the company of a small flock of sheep in the field

$3 Two heads of lettuce

$4.20 Three kinds of baby beets with greens, one pound

$3.75 A pint of organically raised blueberries 

Next week, I'll take my camera.

Saturday Flowers June 27; Birds of Culler Lake

This immature night heron was fishing this morning by the edge of Culler Lake, about 20 feet from the security of his roost in the tall trees.  His siblings were spaced along the edge of the lake, those who weren't strolling nearby under their heronry.  They are wary city dwellers, but as long as I stay on the path and do not venture onto their territory, they seem content to fish and stroll, not too bothered by me.

Here is the great blue heron, which stabbed a small something a moment after I took this photo this morning.  He is fishing well downstream from Culler Lake, in Baker Park.  This must be a very good place for fishing, and I have shown photos of this handsome bird as well as an adult night heron fishing from this very spot.

Off the subject of birds, here is the bouquet of flowers I arranged yesterday on the kitchen table.  They will brighten the kitchen all week.

Night Heron Fishing

With all the hungry young at home high in the tangle of trees by Culler Lake in town, this night heron is getting a jump on the day by fishing downstream from the family brood.  The immature herons were too high in their trees this morning to capture on camera, but I found a parent, already at work on their behalf.  I hope the kids appreciate the fish.

Nine Herons Sitting in a Tree

My feet hit the floor at 4:21 this morning, and I felt a surge of gratitude toward the cat who acknowledged me with a low, specific purr, "Yes, I let you sleep in, but don't get used to it."  Leaving my husband sleeping quietly behind, I have come downstairs to begin the morning routine. I feed Miss Tammietta.  She examines her kibble, then goes to the kitchen door with another expectant purr and I let her out.  One minute later, she's back inside having breakfast.

I have a friend who gets up every morning at this time.  Her forebearers are from an old village settled in the early 1600s on the coast of Maine.  She is such that I can imagine her, leaving her family sleeping peacefully, beginning her day by thinking with intent on the day ahead.  Had she been born in an earlier century, she would have stood in her kitchen and turned her mind to binding the rugged Maine coast against any storm that could lash it asunder.  My friend is such that she could probably call up a strengthening, binding spell upon need.

The clock has struck 5 a.m., and in minutes, when it is light, I will hit the pavement and walk over to Culler Lake.  I walked through the park Sunday evening, when all of Frederick seemed gathered at Baker Park for a concert, those who were not walking their dogs, or jogging or picnicking with their families near the city swimming pools.  The town was alive with robust enjoyment of a perfect, near-Solstice evening.

I went to the trees at the end of Culler Lake and saw that people had gathered beneath them and were taking photos at eye level.  The young night herons were displaying themselves.  These charmers are still quite young, with immature feathering still, but for baby birds, they are sturdy little things, quite larger than footballs, and poised in the gnarled intertwined branches of the trees, perfectly safe from their many admirers.

My friend Nannette told me that her husband counted nine young birds this year, and she can hear their raucous calls from her own house near the lake. In a few minutes, I will return to the stand of trees to visit the birds.