Calendars for a New Year

What visions will 2008 hold for you?

by Carrie Madren, Bay Weekly staff writer

Now is the time to make a decision that will hang over you for the next 12 months: What calendar will take you through the next 366 days?

We reviewed 11 calendars with ties to Maryland, Chesapeake Country and of places we know and love, plus a 12th to make us weatherwise. You can bound through 2008 with a Chesapeake retriever. Storm through with spectacular weather. Ogle over nearly naked firemen. Or marvel through gorgeous prize-winning photos.

Choose carefully. You’ll be referring back to your selection for the next 52 weeks, depending on it to bring order to your year.

In wall calendars like these, the year stretches before us like a clean slate divvied into to an organized, clean-cut grid. Later, you’ll add scrawlings, reminders and details of appointments, events, activities, dinners, concerts, book signings, holidays, travels and all the commitments of a new year that will fill up at the speed of light.

January

Chesapeake Bay Retrievers Calendar

Bound into the New Year with 12 Chessies, photographed playing and working in marshes, gardens and at home. Pups and adults — all in their glossy signature red-brown coats — pose in chest-deep water, peering through flowers and ready to retrieve by the Bay.

You’ll also find pre-marked major holidays within this 101⁄2-by-13-inch rectangular calendar, where squares are small, so you’ll have to abbreviate your appointments.

Published by Willow Creek Press; $10.39 from www.Amazon.com and $12.99 at local bookstores.

February

The Maryland Natural Resource Calendar

Winners of this year’s DNR photography contest show off their artful takes on nature and recreation in this high-quality calendar. January begins the year with the first-place winner, a Marion Warren-esque silhouette of a waterman’s boat. Following months bring a colorful buckeye butterfly, a bird’s eye view of a bustling Ocean City beach and a ruby-red and gold sunset witnessed by a kayaker. Packed with rich color, each photograph brings a new bit of nature or calming scenery to your wall.

In addition to all the pre-marked major holidays, this calendar keeps you afloat on recreation, fishing and hunting seasons — blue crab season begins on April 15 — plus days Outdoors Maryland airs on PBS and suggestions for enjoying Maryland’s natural resources. Days are little more than a square inch in this 81⁄2-by-11-inch calendar, but you’ve got plenty of white margin to make notes.

Published by Maryland Department of Natural Resources; $9.99 from www.dnr.state.md.us/giftshop/.

March

Chesapeake Bay Calendar

For the second year, see the Bay through photographer Walter Choroszewski’s eyes as he flies through wispy clouds and over Kent Island, catches gulls descending and captures our shoreline from the water. Journey through the New Year with photos of the sun setting over Cove Point and the beauty and geometry of the Bay Bridge as seen from 1,000 feet in the air.

Choroszewski has been photographing the Mid-Atlantic region for over 25 years, so we get to fly through the months ahead with him to see the Chesapeake though an artist’s eyes. This square 12-by-12-inch calendar provides adequate room day by day for events and notes.

Published by Aesthetic Press; $12.99 from www.aestheticpress.com.

April

Carol Dyer’s American Folk Art Calendar

Regional folk-artist Carol Dyer’s colorful, crisp and clean-cut scenes take you through an idyllic year. Dyer — who lives near Washington, D.C. — depicts scenes from historic Annapolis, Maryland, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, Washington, D.C. and more in quaint scenes.

Horse-drawn carriages, ladies’ hats, skipjacks and other throwbacks to simpler, slower times inspired the artist in detail-rich paintings. In the Annapolis works, you’ll delight in familiar skyline and storefronts around City Dock, Eastport Yacht Club and Church Circle as beaming ladies and gentlemen strolling the streets, merrily going about daily business.

Pencil in your 2008 plans in this large 12-by-14-inch format that affords adequate space for notes.

Published by Barnes & Noble calendars; $11.95. Available at McBride Gallery on Main Street, Annapolis, and Barnes & Noble bookstores: 410-267-7077.

May

Chesapeake Bay 2008 Calendar

Sail through 2008 on the Bay, where images of sailing, fishing, hunting and landmarks overhang each month. Your year-long cruise includes Turkey Point Lighthouse, Drum Point Lighthouse, Baltimore Inner Harbor’s cityscape, downtown Annapolis, the USS Constitution, a pier at St. Michael’s and more.

Pre-marked holidays make this 12-by-12-inch calendar useful art, though the small grid forces you to be brief.

Published by Browntrout Publishers; $12.99 at www.calendars.com.

June

Furry Friends: Calvert Animal Welfare League Calendar

The adorable puppies and cuddly kitties in this calendar are all local pets, whose owners submitted their mugs for Calvert Animal Welfare League’s first annual calendar. A panel of judges chose the shots from among some 150 entries. Each month you’ll find dogs and cats of all sizes romping in seasonal scenes. For June, Boeing, a light-brown kitty, peeks out through summer impatiens. Come October, you’ll romp with Grizz, a tan-and-black puppy posing with a pumpkin.

Each month pets’ owners reveal what their dog or cat has taught them about friendship, for a cute quote of the month. Furry Friends takes you through January 2009. At 8 by 101⁄2 inches, this one measures in among the smallest of our calendars, but with no pre-marked holidays, it’s a clean slate.

Published by Calvert Animal Welfare League; $7. A few last copies still available at the League’s Prince Frederick center.

July

Healing by Design: Calvert Memorial Hospital

Artful photographs worthy of an art gallery mark each month in Calvert Memorial Hospital’s colorful 2008 calendar.

Each month, photographer Gary Medovich offers a new up-close glimpse of nature. In February, a colorful, striped leaf; March, a bleary rain-streaked window with tulip poplar leaves pressed to the pane; May brings pink-and-white tulips and October blooms in pumpkin-orange mums.

As you plan out the months ahead, read about hospital staff and new programs, with photos of the hospital building and staff at work. In addition to major holidays, keep track of health-related awareness holidays, like National Sleep Awareness Week in March and World Breastfeeding Week in August. Plus stay on top of health fairs and happenings at the hospital. The space in this 93⁄4-by-12-inch calendar aren’t confined to a grid, so days flow from one to another.

Published by Image Marketing in Annapolis; free. Pick one up at the Calvert Memorial Hospital building or at any of its satellites and at local libraries and senior centers. Or order one mailed to you: 410-535-8233.

August

Chesapeake Beach

Locals snapped and submitted their best photos in and around Chesapeake Beach this year for the Bayside community’s annual calendar.

This February, you’ll find the signature town clock amid ice-glazed tree branches and bushes. Come May, you’ll find an orange-yellow sunrise over a waterman’s boat traversing misty waters. June brings retreating waters on a Bay beach, with a view down to Calvert Cliffs. There are wildlife shots and kids, too, as in October’s collage of Halloween bedecked trick-or-treaters.

Boaters can stay afloat of tide times each day, while community members can stay in the know with pre-marked town hall meetings, concerts, festivals and children’s programs. On non-event days, there’s plenty of room to record, in this 9-by-12-inch calendar.

Chesapeake Beach 2008; free. Town residents get their copy in the mail; all others pick up at local libraries, post offices and businesses.

September

Old Farmer’s Almanac Weather Watchers calendar

Storm through the new year with weather from around the world in the Old Farmer’s Almanac Weather Watchers’ 2008 Calendar.

Dramatic photos depict circular, lenicular clouds over Mount Hodges on the island of South Georgia; a rainbow over crystal-clear Talbot Lake in Alberta and green-and-red northern lights over Chena Hot Springs in Alaska. Also find a web of lightning bolts over Tucson and a supercell storm in Nebraska.

Each month, become more weather savvy as you learn about the weather patterns in the photos through an Ask the Old Farmer question-and-answer. You’ll be writing small in this 81⁄2-by-11-inch calendar.

Published by Old Farmer’s Almanac; $11.99. Available online at shop.Almanac.com or in local bookstores.

October

Gents of Kent Island Calendar

The raciest fire department in Chesapeake Country strips down again this year to bring you The Gents of Kent Island. The calendar benefits the building of the new fire station in Chester, which was finished this year, with a ribbon cutting that made January’s photo.

Pushing the envelope starts on the cover, where the new fireboat spews rushing streams of water from jets manned by nearly nude firefighters with strategically placed equipment but wearing nothing but their life preservers. And so it goes, for 12 months worth of local men — and a few women, too — smiling coyly from tongue-in-cheek poses. The models come from beyond the fire station — including the Kent Island Big Band (covered up by their music stands); the Kent Island Outrigger Canoe Club (decent only with their paddles) and VFW Post 7464 (bearing signs of service by a tank).

You’ll see a bare barrel-chested Boog Powell, former Baltimore Oriole, pose among baseball bats and balls for April. For September, the fire fighters drove to the beach — with the Bay Bridge in the background — to pose with a strategically placed bag and hose, with a few modest firefighters waving out the windows.

This 10-by-12-inch calendar offers small grid spaces for days but plenty of margins for notes.

Published by Kent Island Volunteer Fire Department; $13. Order by phone: 410-643-6288 or send $13 plus $3 shipping to KIFVD, P.O. Box 27, Stevensville, MD 21666.

November

Annapolis 2008

Photographer Russell Mader shot scenes from around our state capital to bring us Annapolis 2008. He captured snow-covered boats, peach-and-lavender sunsets, wintery Main Street and the dome of the Naval Academy chapel, with the Blue Angels flying overhead.

On the 81⁄2-by-11-inch calendar pages, pre-marked holidays guide your 2008 planning, leaving space for you to add your own events, briefly.

Published by Russell Mader; $16.50. Available at www.lulu.com.

December

Discovering Maryland Wall Calendar

This spiral-bound calendar takes you from the mountains of Western Maryland to the marshes of Assateague Island. You’ll find a stately row of skipjacks at Tilghman Island, the Patuxent River at Broomes Island, a bustling Annapolis City Dock, and a bright St. Michaels on a sunny summer day.

In patriotic theme, this white-background calendar is trimmed in red and blue, with eagles, roses and United States flags throughout. You’ll find all the major holidays — plus such important notes as the coming and going of Daylight Savings Time. For the size of the calendar — 81⁄2 by 10 inches — the day squares are ample for making notes.

Published by American Products Publishing Company; $9.95 from major bookstores.