Bay Weekly | The Chesapeake's Independent Newspaper Since 1993

Giving It All Away

Free deposits and free withdrawals keep this bank solvent

Going for the Gold

It’s worth the work to attract these birds to your backyard

Preakness Treats

Celebrate with a Maryland original, the Black Eyed Susan

Piercing the White House Bubble

Kenneth Walsh on how 10 modern-day presidents tried to keep in touch

Chumming for Summer Rockfish

Tips on chum, tackle and tide

Conquering Chickweed

If you can’t kill this prolific weed, you can eat it

The Season’s First Planting Moon

The sap’s flowing, so you can get sowing

The gibbous moon waxes to full phase Monday, February 25. Early evening Thursday the 21st, the moon is between Castor and Pollux of Gemini to the north and yellow-hued Procyon in Canis Minor to the south. The Little Dog Procyon is the eighth-brightest star, with the brightest star Sirius, the Big Dog, trailing 20 degrees to the southwest. Seen from night to night against the backdrop of stars, the moon shifts westward a dozen-plus degrees, toward bright Regulus, the heart of...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll; 2/21/13

Winter Chores for Spring Fruit

Prune blackberries and raspberries; mulch strawberries

With the weather cool but comfortable to work outside, the time is right to prune both blackberries and raspberries. With regards to blackberries, remove canes that produced fruit last year by pruning them close to the ground. This is quick and easy if the plants are of the thornless varieties but can be painful if the varieties you are growing have thorns. Wear heavy leather or canvas gloves and heavy clothing with long sleeves to avoid being scratched. The most common...

Article - The Bay Gardener by Dr. Francis Gouin; by Dr. Francis Gouin; 2/21/13

Of Hares and Hounds

A few Marylanders still follow the hounds that follow the hares

Danny’s 12-gauge pump boomed out twice off to my left as a streaking gray rabbit cut in and out of a long, narrow copse of briars parallel to us. Raising my 20-gauge and trying to track the tricky rabbit as it neared my position, I fired twice as well, also to no effect. Then the cottontail melted into cover. He was gone. Dejected, I opened my over-under to reload when out of the corner of my eye I caught a small motion. The rascal had cut back out of the briars and...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle; 2/21/13

Restaurant Week Returns to Annapolis

Taste your way around town Monday, February 25 through Sunday, March 3

It’s time to hit the gym and pull on the Spanx as Annapolis Restaurant Week begins Monday, February 25. Diners have a week to visit 39 restaurants, enjoy a variety of menus and taste a myriad of flavors. It’s an adventure in the local culinary arts. From the 25th through Sunday, March 3, participating restaurants offer special menus — some just one but most offer multiple options — for a set price. Lunch is $15.95, dinner $32.95. Miss Shirley’s...

Article - The Dish; by Lisa Knoll; 2/21/13

Bay Watermen Become Chesapeake Tour Guides

Their innovation is award-winning

Chesapeake Bay waterman were coming close to extinction in 2010 when a group of Chesapeake non-profits got innovative. The bright idea: Training captains who make a living on the Bay to give tours of the water and their craft. Now, 80 watermen guide tours through the Bay where they make their living, earning extra cash during the slow seasons. The idea is so bright that the Watermen Heritage Tourism Training Program has won the Maryland Historical Trust...

Article - News; by Ashley Brotherton; 2/21/13

Eagle Goes Viral

How Bay Weekly's Betsy Kehne got the shot

Betsy Kehne had been waiting for three decades for the bird perched a stone’s throw from her window. At five years old, she’d grieved at learning that the pesticide DDT was pushing bald eagles to extinction. DDT was banned in 1972. By the end of the century, the number of nesting eagles in Maryland had increased sixfold to 260 pairs. Today, more than 2,000 bald eagles make their homes in the Chesapeake region, so that seeing them soaring...

Article - Creature Feature; by Ashley Brotherton; 2/21/13

A Good Day to Die Hard

Joyless performances make for a bad day for moviegoers

As one who thinks Die Hard one of the best action films ever, I must with a heavy heart urge all fans of John McClane to skip this movie. In 1988, off-duty cop John McClane (Bruce Willis: Looper) walked into an office Christmas party and became a terrorist-killing legend. Twenty-five years later, McClane has dispatched baddies in office buildings, airports, the burroughs of New York and the streets of D.C. The fatigue is starting to show. ...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 2/21/13

True-Life Drama with Scope, Depth and Satisfaction

Colonial Players’ two-person show Trying will surprise you in a good way

Trying will surprise you in a good way. Colonial Players is promoting this delightful two-person show as a work rich in history and contrasts, and it is. It is also a love story, refreshingly sweet and platonic. Judge Francis Biddle, a national and international statesman, needed a personal assistant as he gathered his memoirs and responded to requests for information on the Nuremberg Trial, which he presided over, and the Japanese Internment of World War II, which he had...

Article - Theatre Reviews; by Davina Grace Hill; 2/21/13

None of the Above

As Anne Arundel replaces a flawed county executive, it’s time to rethink how we hire our top leaders

On a scale starting with your favorite Valentine chocolate and dropping to a shot of syrupy cough medicine, where would you rank county government? Most of us, I fear, don’t place it in a heart-shaped satin box. Certainly not many of us who live in Anne Arundel County, which is one of eight of Maryland’s 23 counties governed by an executive. In the best of times, county government is medicine you’ve got to take. It...

Article - Letter from the Editor 2/14/13

Side Effects

What if the cure is worse than the disease?

In our world of Zoloft commercials, it’s become easy to believe that popping a pill will magically end your depression. What happens if those Prozac promises turn out false? What if there is no magic pill for your mental malaise? What if that magic pill makes you worse? Emily (Rooney Mara: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is a fragile woman in need of help. She lost her friends, her husband and her accustomed life to an insider-trading scandal. Now that her husband is...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 2/14/13

Giving It All Away

Going for the Gold

Preakness Treats

Piercing the White House Bubble

Chumming for Summer Rockfish

Conquering Chickweed

The Season’s First Planting Moon

Winter Chores for Spring Fruit

Of Hares and Hounds

Restaurant Week Returns to Annapolis

Bay Watermen Become Chesapeake Tour Guides

Eagle Goes Viral

A Good Day to Die Hard

True-Life Drama with Scope, Depth and Satisfaction

None of the Above

Side Effects

Classifieds

Subscribe to the Bay Weekly Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Calendar

March

Share an Event!