Breakfast on the Bay with Jeanne, Bobby, and Val
The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay made a three-minute video of Jeanne, Val, and me working at Whiskey Creek Angus.
Drams from Whiskey Creek Angus Spring Surge—May 2021
Spring Surge of Grass During the month of May, everything grows like crazy. Here at Whiskey Creek Angus, the grasses and clovers in the pastures grow more in this month than in any other. As I write, the grasses in the hay fields are waist high and their seed heads...
A Humble Man and the Scarlet Ibis
We were in Trinidad to “bird.” Yes, the verb of the word bird: to look for birds. It was our last vacation before the coronavirus pandemic. Trinidad is an independent republic and the southernmost island in the Caribbean Sea, lying just seven miles off Venezuela’s coast. It is one of...
Farming and Nature Proceed Despite the Pandemic—Swoope Almanac May 2020
Most of the world remains sequestered at home from the COVID-19 pandemic. Demonstrators with assault weapons dressed in military gear protest stay-at-home orders. You might get harassed for wearing a face mask in public. Our political divide widens. Farming Proceeds Despite the Pandemic On the farm, there are no politics...
Of Grass, Voles, and Short-eared Owls—Swoope Almanac March 2020
Winter in Swoope The grasslands in Swoope are brown and dormant. Late in the afternoon I stand on our deck with my binoculars and search the wide-open pastures for Short-eared Owls. I can see for several miles north and sweep slowly 180 degrees to the south. First, I spot a...
Nanan and Northam—a Dichotomy in Leadership
“If you save your own backyard, then you start to save the world,” wrote the late Winston Nanon, the man who saved the Caroni Swamp and the bird that became the national bird of Trinidad—the Scarlet Ibis.
Anegada: Beautiful Beaches, Queen Conchs, Iguanas and…Cats
Jeanne and I recently traveled to the most remote island of the British Virgin Islands—Anegada. Most mornings, we were the only people on the beach at the Anegada Beach Club. The beaches here are the most beautiful we have ever experienced with white sand and crystal clear water loaded with...
Cuckoos for Riparian Forests
I watched it devour a whole nest of tent caterpillars. Yellow-billed Cuckoos, we need a lot more of them – they prefer to eat hairy caterpillars like the eastern tent caterpillar that defoliate trees. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Coccyzus americanus, sometimes called the rain crow, nests and forages in the riparian forests along our...
Tree Swallows, Mercury Contamination and Middle River
Cows, Calves, and Cranes – Swoope Almanac March 2018
Earth awakens from the cold during the month of March in America’s legendary Shenandoah Valley. Days lengthen, migrations begin, chloroplasts awaken and absorb the energy from the sun’s photons – photosynthesis begins….pastures slowly turn from brown to green. Life’s energy is on the move.
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