Lift Up Your Eyes

My name is JoAnn.  My husband and I live on the Chester River in a rickety 1880s farmhouse. We're a half mile upriver from the National Wildlife Refuge on East Neck Island.   Rivers + wildlife = good.   Peeling paint, leaky roof, naughty dogs and dusty horses = bad.  

What did you do on the summer solstice?  Just curious.  Hopefully you got outside to celebrate the onset of the season.  I organized a group paddle with the Friends of Eastern Neck.   It was BYOK (bring your own kayak).  Eight people turned out.  This was a smaller crowd than usual.  Maybe the heat — a steamy 95 degrees at 5:30 PM — had something to do with it.   We met at Bogles Wharf and tailgated a bit before pushing off.  Homemade basil pesto pasta = yum.   Sandwiches from Rock Hall Liquors and salty-sweet peanut chews = even yummier.  

As soon as we got onto the water, the temperature dropped 10 degrees.  Ahh.  Relief.   We looked up and saw three eagles touch down in a big tree.  Then a couple osprey circled and cried out.  Great blue herons fished along the shoreline while red-winged blackbirds trilled in the marsh.  Ahh.  The sights and sounds of Mother Nature.  What a good start to the summer of 2012.

The president of the Friends led the group past Shipyard Creek to Hail Cove. We checked out the oyster bars and living shoreline.  A healthy-looking fox wove in and out of the tall grasses on the beach.  He ran off when we pulled up, splashed around a bit and, and got out to look back from where we came. 

Have a great summer.  xoxo, JoAnn

JoAnn Wood is the Senior Program Manager at the Center for Environment & Society.  

This picture is from the Harvest Moon paddle in October 2011.