If you are like me and you have a pumpkin that’s been sitting around the house, sorting mail, and other such things. Then don’t forget that today is the day to bring it outside.
October, 2008
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Oct 08
Maryland Daily Pumpkin
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Oct 08
Hotel Gunter
Here’s a picture of a lamp post and the top of the Hotel Gunter in downtown Frostburg. The hotel has a rich history, much of whcih centers on its basement which has been used for game cock fighting, a prison, and a speakeasy.
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Oct 08
BOA Building
Built in 1929, this was the tallest building in Maryland at the time. Little did the Baltimore Trust Company know about the impending depression when their new state of the art building was completed. Shortly after the depression began, the building switched hands to the government but in the 60′s was sold to the Maryland National Bank. For years the gold top of this building had the letters MN on it to signify the bank. Now that it’s the BoA building, theres little to signify its purpose.
About the arcitecutre. It was supposedly inspired by the Mayans. The heads sticking out above the entrance are Mayan heads. Indeed the building, in Art Deco fashion, is adorned with all manner of deorcations as you proceed from bottom to top.
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Oct 08
Hydrants
Here’s the original of this picture:hydrants1.JPG It comes from a truck I saw the other day which I found really interesting for some reason. I guess I just never saw how they transport fire hydrants. I never guessed how many different colors there were either.
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Oct 08
Government House
For 125 years, this has been the home of the Governor of Maryland. It is located on state circle, but outside the circle, which is occupied by this building. It was built in 1870, and since that day this building has hosted the executives of Maryland, the Royalty of England, famous works of art, and much more.
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Oct 08
Snakehead
This is a picture of the nefarious snakehead fish. Believe it or not, this guy can actually get out of the water and walk on land. Not a native of the Chesapeake, it was introduced to the waters when a whole bunch of these guys were dumped into the northern area of the Potomac. They weren’t rounded up in time and their numbers have increased dramatically. The problem with that is they have a voracious appetite and the ability to walk on land certainly increases the area of their destructive capabilities.
Today’s photo like Wednesday’s was taken at the Calvert Marine Museum. I wholeheartedly encourage you to go.
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Oct 08
Tired of Oysters Yet? Well good, cause they won’t be around much longer.
You all are probably pretty tired of hearing about Oysters, so this will be the last one for a while. I’ve been posting a lot about the festival but haven’t shown a single oyster. I also haven’t said much about them. So this post will be about the shellfish itself.
Oysters were once the most plentiful thing in the Bay. In fact, before Maryland was known for crabs, it was known for oysters. Why shouldn’t it be. When MD was settled you couldn’t go 10 feet into the bay without finding an oyster bed. Not only have they been plentiful, but they are delicious and easy to eat. MD oysters are a good, middle of the road oyster. Not too sweet or buttery like the upper west coast oysters and not too salty like the upper east coast oysters, our oysters are a great middle ground. Our oyster beds also used to also be huge, growing oysters up to 10 inches.
Like the crabs, Oysters are quickly disappearing from the bay. Unlike Crabs, they are disappearing at a much faster rate. Here’s a quick link to help understand the problem. If you go to the section titled Oyster Landings, you can see that the harvest which used to be in the order of Millions of bushells is now down to less than 45,000.
For further reading: here’s a recent study from the DNR webpage. Read the whole thing if you are interested in the statistical methods behind oyster population estimates, but if you aren’t that interested, you can just go to page 13, which shows the oyster populations between the mid 90′s which was estimated in the 700,000 range and in the mid ’00′s when the population was estimated in the 350K range.
So what happened? Well a few things happened. Most recently, the lower areas of the bay have been afflicted with Oyster killing parasites. There is also a clear problem with over-harvesting.
Not that this is the full cause of over-harvesting, but here’s an anecdote I picked up this weekend. The government began to allow people to lease space at the bottom of the bay to grow oysters for themselves at the beginning of the 20th century. Apparently this worked well for some, but for others, instead of using this as a space to grow oysters, which consumes energy and time, they would use their leased space to hold oysters they took from public beds until they were ready to sell them. I like this story just because its an example of a government policy that was sort of intended to protect harvest areas and to promote oyster growth, but which was used for just the opposite purpose.
So, when I’ve told these things to people over the last few days I’ve gotten some interesting responses. Everything from “what can you do” to “did you sign a petition.” The strange thing is that there are few petitions to sign and it seemed like the most common way to help the bay was to spread the word. So that’s what I’m doing here.
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For those who would like to help more: there are plenty of ways. There’s an active discourse on the desirability of introducing foreign oysters to the bay. If you care and if you can help, let a legislator (state or federal) know about it. There are also studies being done regarding the parasite populations and the regrowth of plant life in the bay. These studies and the organizations doing them can always use extra funding and maybe extra help. You can even volunteer to help ”garden” new oysters. The easiest things for any of us to do are not pollute the bay (remember that means the inner harbor too) and buy a bay plate if you are an MD citizen who is about to get a new car/truck/or van.
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Oct 08
Not the Baseball Rays
We’re keeping the nautical theme at MDP this week. Have you ever seen one of these egg cases lying around on the beach? They’re usually empty. I’ve seen a whole bunch of them, but never one with an baby ray in it. At Calvert Marine museum there is a display which conveniently backlights an egg case with an actual embryo in it. You can very clearly see that it will develop into one of these.
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Oct 08
King Oyster
Of course every oyster festival needs a leader. This one has King Oyster, seen here talking with one of his citizens. The orb at the top of his scepter seems to be made of a combination of many different shells. That’s ok, I’m not going to judge the king.
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Oct 08
Awwww Shucks
These men are not under arrest. They are competitors in the National Oyster Shucking Competition held this past Saturday as part of the St. Mary’s Oyster Festival. Before you compete in shucking 24 oysters as fast as you can, after inspecting your oysters, and after prepping your area, you must raise your hands to signal that you’re ready to shuck.