Outdoors

Dutch Oven Cooking – Pot Roast and Summer Vegetables

Hey there, folks! It's been hot. Like, really, non-stop heat index well north of 100 deg F hot. Too hot to do much other than hang out in air conditioning as much as possible. So as a result, I've been indoors too much! Now that it is August (classically cool, August...), temperatures have dropped significantly,…Read more Dutch Oven Cooking – Pot Roast and Summer Vegetables

Eastern Box Turtle

Eastern Box Turtles and the Wildlife Trade You Never Knew Existed

I was listening to a Smithsonian podcast this week (shout out to Side Door, great program!), and the episode started with the host joining a pair of wildlife ecologists in an "undisclosed location" in Virginia, looking for what I thought was the most common of common backyard critters, the eastern box turtle. My first reaction…Read more Eastern Box Turtles and the Wildlife Trade You Never Knew Existed

Black Bears Are Back: Southern Maryland Sightings Signal Expanding Territory

When Leon Smith stepped outside his St. Mary's County home in mid-July and found his bird feeder knocked over, he probably wasn't expecting to come face-to-face with a black bear. The rural Maryland county along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay is not an established part of the black bear's range, and the animals…Read more Black Bears Are Back: Southern Maryland Sightings Signal Expanding Territory

Gazing Into The Field Of Flowers

Summer Sunflowers

https://youtu.be/4iJyvVMHBKw It's high summer. Haze, high humidity, intense heat, and the threat of thunderstorms have become a daily routine. Last week, as the temperature briefly dipped into the mid-80s (F), and the forecast included thunderstorms for the next five days, we took a quick opportunity to get out to the local produce farm with a…Read more Summer Sunflowers

Noctilucent Clouds – Ethereal Indicators of a Changing Atmosphere

If you're in high latitudes, step outside on a clear summer night around twilight and look up. If you're lucky – and increasingly, you might be – you'll witness one of nature's most ethereal displays: noctilucent clouds. These delicate, ghostly streaks of silver and blue seem to shimmer against the darkening sky, appearing almost otherworldly…Read more Noctilucent Clouds – Ethereal Indicators of a Changing Atmosphere

Little Bennett Regional Park, Montgomery County, MD – NuCamp T@G

A couple weeks back I wrote about some modifications I was making to our little NuCamp T@G teardrop camper. This weekend, we took it out to spend some time with some good friends and fellow empty-nester couples. Our destination was new to us, but it came recommended as a place requiring a reasonably short drive,…Read more Little Bennett Regional Park, Montgomery County, MD – NuCamp T@G

Armadillos: Ancient, Strangely Cute, and Coming To A State Near You!

Armadillos are... unique. The ones that live in the United States, the nine-banded armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) are smallish mammals, around 30 inches long (about the size of a raccoon, groundhog, or skunk) but they are covered with leathery armored overlapping plates that wrap from left to right across their bodies. From underneath this "shell" emerge…Read more Armadillos: Ancient, Strangely Cute, and Coming To A State Near You!