Articles by Michelle Steel

Help Backyard Birds Recover from Sandy’s Drenching

In Sandy’s wake of wrath, our backyard birds need help. After days of sudden exposure to wet and cold, birds need to refuel with seed and suet to maintain body temperature and energy. “First and foremost, people need to get their feeders back up and fill them with fresh seed,” says Julie Curd, owner of Wild Bird Center of Annapolis. Even if you’re working with a small space, hang suet from a branch to satisfy...

Article - Creature Feature; by Michelle Steel; 11/1/12

Twin Beach Players’ Frankenstein

Yes, it’s scary. My nails prove it.

Twin Beach Players works Gothic magic recreating Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in North Beach Boys and Girls Club’s gymnasium. On opening night, the 14-year-old community company sent a full house back in time to 1816, into Dr. Frankenstein’s madness and Arctic ice. From the front row, I watched every detail, biting my nails. I’d have none were it not for Tyschka’s hilarious Grandmother, a welcome relief from the sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat...

Article - Theatre Reviews; by Michelle Steel; 10/25/12

The Man Behind the Mask

Skip Smith has been makeup man for presidents and celebrities. But monsters and ghouls are his passion, which he shares in Twin Beach Players’ production of Frankenstein

“This is all you get,” Skip Smith tells me, drawing the gauze-covered prosthetic from the Walmart bag. Dark and empty sockets stare at me for the second before Smith re-seals the bag. To see the mask Smith had created for Twin Beach Players’ Frankenstein (now playing in North Beach), I had to brave the little shop of horrors of his St. Leonard home. Monsters are Smith’s favorite subjects to work with, above even Audrey Hepburn and U.S. presidents....

Article - People; by Michelle Steel; 10/18/12

This Weeks Creature Feature ... Grand Daddy’s Galore

These bugs have legs 150 times stronger than ours

Clusters of long-legged creatures congregate around my screen door and atop my plants. Granddaddy or daddy long-legs, also called harvestmen, turn up just about everywhere inside and outside of my home. I find them on walls and plants, the clothesline and the stone patio. Daddy long-legs are arachnids, more closely related to scorpions than to spiders. They have one body section, two eyes and a segmented abdomen. Spiders have two body sections, eight eyes...

Article - Creature Feature; by Michelle Steel; 10/4/12

This Weeks Creature Feature ... On Their Way Out

With summer at an end, hummers prepare for their long journey south Two hummingbirds have been warring in my backyard over nectar the color of cherry Kool-Aid. They hover, frozen in time, sipping at the feeder and my hibiscus plants. I sit frozen too, watching them. I hear them first, hum-hum-hum-hum. Then I see them, with iridescent wings hovering in mid-air as they eat. Tireless and melodic, they remind me that life is meant to be savored. ...

Article - Creature Feature; by Michelle Steel; 9/20/12

North Beach Farmers Market Tops the Vote

The votes have been counted and the results are in for American Farmland Trust Best Farmers Market. The vote brings good news for the North Beach Friday Night Farmers Market, which earned the ranking of number two in the state. “But it gets better,” said Stacey Wilkerson, town clerk who also runs the market. “We are ranked number seven across the whole United States.” It’s a proud accomplishment for the town of North Beach...

Article - News; by Michelle Steel; 9/20/12

The Rescuers

When disaster strikes, these dogs are ready for work

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake hit the capital city of the poorest county in the Western Hemisphere, dumping 19 million cubic yards of rubble and debris on Port au Prince, Haiti, and its people. Two-year-old German shepherd Racker, of Eastport, rushed to the disaster, along with search-and-rescue dogs from France and Mexico. Racker worked at night over deep voids traversing a bridge made from a wrought-iron scroll fence. Search-and-rescue dogs like...

Article - Features; by Michelle Steel; 8/16/12

North Beach Farmers Market

A starting bell “makes for an orderly market”

Clusters of customers and a couple dozen sellers wait along Fifth Street for the bell to ring at 6 o’clock sharp. That’s the signal to start at North Beach Farmers Market. “We need a bell at a market of this volume,” says Mike Cox, a Mennonite farmer from White Oak Point Farm. “It makes for an orderly market where everybody’s on the same footing.” “This is my first night market, and it’s been a great...

Article - Good Living; by Michelle Steel; 8/2/12

Growing Bottle Trees

Plastic bottles sprout into art in Annmarie’s newest sculpture garden

Reuse. Reduce. Recycle. That’s Dale Wayne’s motto on merging the arts and the environment. This summer’s artist in residence borrows from the African tradition of bottle-trees — whose branches have been capped with bottles. Her bottle blossom trees are made from plastic bottles salvaged from Calvert County’s Appeal landfill. Nothing goes to waste making these blossoms grow. Cut, curled and glittered, the...

Article - News; by Michelle Steel; 8/2/12

This Week’s Creature Feature ... Praying Mantis

Good for the garden and for myth making

Masters of disguise, praying mantises camouflage themselves to capture beetles, bees, spiders, lizards and even frogs, then dine on the prey head-first. Mantises don’t hunt their prey. Instead, they wait unmoving and invisible on a leaf or twig, ready to seize any insect or amphibian unfortunate enough to cross paths. Turning their triangular heads up to 180 degrees in search of an insect, mantises are efficient and deadly predators. Excellent...

Article - Creature Feature; by Michelle Steel; 8/2/12