Features (All)

Article - Good Living; by Diana Beechener - 12/9/10

What Are You Doing Next Year?

12 calendars to spruce up the march of time

In the pages of this illustrious paper, I get credited only as staff writer occasionally. For the most part, I’m Bay Weekly’s Calendar Editor. I’m the one who tells you what’s happening in Bay Country every day of every week. It’s my job to rely on calendars, to get the dates right and to plan ahead. I look at a calendar every day. Every. Single. Day. To do my job, you really need a good calendar. John Wayne watches over my desk, a strong black-and-white image to...

Article - People; by Diana Beechener - 12/2/10

Debut of a Dream

December 5, Andrew Greene’s Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra plays Buster Keaton

In his right hand, Andrew Greene lofts a conductor’s baton. In his left, a DVD remote. The 19-year-old University of Maryland civil engineering major lives in the 21st century, but he longs for the 20th. Compressing time, he is conducting the Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra in rehearsal of its original score to Cops, Buster Keaton’s silent 1922 classic. The orchestra is Greene’s tribute to an entertainment form that died away nearly seven decades before he was born. “Back...

Article - Good Living; by Roberta Safer - 12/2/10

Avoid the Christmas Crisis

This Jewish Jeweler sets gifting guys on the right road

No matter what people have told you, it is not just the thought that counts. It really is the gift. It should not be so, but it is. Christmas is beloved by children and by women who get the right gift. But the annual holiday of giving strikes fear in the heart of any man — husband, father or boyfriend — for he must choose gifts. Small matters he may delegate to his secretary — at least if he works in New York or Washington. He can ask his Significant Other to do the...

Article - Creature Feature; by Diana Beechener - 11/25/10

Art with a Bite

A soda can alligator takes top honors at the Maryland Department of the Environment’s Rethink Recycling contest

Josh Tichinel’s alligator may not be able to swim the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. But the soda-can reptile is a reminder that we can all help save the Bay through creative repurposing. The Northern Garrett High School student won the Maryland Department of the Environment’s Rethink Recycling art contest. “The contest is important “because it raises awareness about the importance of recycling and reuse,” says department spokesman Jay Apperson, who also notes that...

Article - Features; by Margaret Tearman - 11/25/10

Decorated with Art and Heart

Calvert Hospice grows a forest; behind every tree is a story

Small trees, tall trees — dozens of them, resplendent in holiday light and ornamentation — transform the halls of Huntingtown High School into a forested Christmas wonderland. These trees decked in holiday finery aren’t delivered to the high school in Santa’s sleigh. Instead, they are the work of hundreds of volunteers who labor for weeks, months — some all year — to create a Festival of Trees for the sake of Calvert Hospice. Tree Art “I don...

Article - History & Lore; by Aries Matheos - 11/18/10

A Small Boy with a Long View

Finding an Indian arrowhead is Daniel Kraus’ best history lesson

Long, long ago before there were packaged turkeys waiting to be cooked for Thanksgiving — or the Thanksgiving holiday at all — Native Americans hunted their food. Mayo Elementary School first-grader Daniel Kraus learned that lesson firsthand when he laid hands on an ancient Native American arrowhead. A day of family bonding turned up a discovery that linked Daniel, and the Kraus family, with an ancient past. “Dan’s godparents came down, and since they don’t have...

Article - Creature Feature; by Margaret Tearman - 11/18/10

This Week’s Creature Feature

As cold weather sets in and you fill your bird feeders, you’ll find hours of entertainment — and bafflement — in their behavior. What are they up to with all the strutting, head-bobbing, feather-fluffing and wing flapping? Get the answers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, now enrolling backyard birders in the online bird-behavior course Investigating Behavior: Courtship and Rivalry in Birds. Over five weeks, you’ll learn how to observe and interpret bird behavior in...

Article - Green Living; by Margaret Tearman - 11/18/10

Heroes of Sustainable Agriculture

Meet the Farmer, Green Grocer and Buy-Local Restaurant of the Year

Wilderness, farmland, paved land: That’s the trajectory Maryland has followed since its founding as Lord Baltimore’s colony 376 years ago. So a county that can keep its farm traditions alive does so with pride. Thus Calvert County, where 55,000 acres of land are zoned as Farm and Forest Districts, made its First Annual Sustainable Agriculture Awards this year. Citizens voted awards in three categories: Sustainable Farmer, Green Grocer and Buy-Local Restaurant of the year....

Article - Creature Feature; by Diana Beechener - 11/11/10

Marine Most Wanted: Middle Branch Manatee

The National Aquarium is looking for a manatee with a bad sense of direction

If there is a manatee swimming in the Middle Branch of the Upper Patapsco, it must be cold. The sub-tropical marine mammal was reported in mid-October. Since then, nothing — despite a plea to boaters for updates. “With this one we haven’t been able to confirm an actual sighting ourselves with photographic evidence,” says Baltimore National Aquarium’s media/public relations director Jen Bloomer. This could be good news: The wayward swimmer could have fled the cold...

Article - Green Living; by Amy Russell - 11/11/10

My Six-Month Vegetable Journey

While touch and go at first, I now know my veggies — and how to cook them

Remember me? And my journey? For the past six months I’ve navigated Solomon’s Island Road every Thursday to restock my kitchen with the week’s produce that came in my share of the Community-Supported Agriculture farm I joined in April. I have embarked on a great food experiment: I am teaching myself to cook, I wrote back then. I know nothing about vegetables beyond the traditional broccoli and carrots. Knowing that I will have to branch out of those comforts if I really want...