Spring, Two

Finally, Spring in Easton, and everything is in bloom -- daffodils and forsythia, apple and cherry blossoms, and wild flowers everywhere.  A mist of green on the trees, as they start to bud.  Perfect for a riding  Despite having a bunch of painting to do -- getting the house ready for Elizabeth and Matt's wedding -- I went for a nice ride each day last weekend.


On Saturday, I rode with Kathy, and we did the Oxford/Island Creek/Trappe route -- which I've ridden (and written about) before, but may never have mapped -- for around 35 miles.  We started at around 8 am, and it was a overcast and a bit cool -- even with arm covers, I was cold, without full fingered gloves.  But the sun came out, and the winds stayed down, for a great ride.

                                                 We've had a lot of rain on the Eastern Shore, and many of the fields are covered with standing water.  (I have a picture of one of this in my last blog entry).  It will be interesting to see how this affects the summer crops.  The drainage gullies along the side of the roads were full -- so full that there were ducks swimming in them.  Unfortunately, the ducks wouldn't cooperate for a photo.  But one of the "oreo" calves did.

Kathy's a great riding partner, strong and steady.  She grew up in Oxford and works in real estate/insurance.  Kathy knows a lot about what's going on on the Eastern Shore.  She told me that one of the big farms out on Island Creek Road had been foreclosed -- a 50 acre cattle farm.  I knew the place -- they had a nice corral, with a few horses, along the road.  Kathy said that the cattle had been sold off and that the bank was trying to sell the farm.  The family that owned the place ran a big landscaping company -- a father and sons operation.  They did a lot of work for local developers and grew (too) quickly during the boom -- bought up a lot of equipment a lot of equipment from Las Vegas landscaping that got caught on the front end of the bust.  One Friday, the owners showed up and took the truck keys from their employees -- they were out of business, 100 folks lost their jobs.  Very sad.  During the boom, the farm would have sold for more than $6M.  The bank initially listed it for around $4M; Kathy said you could get it for $1.7M.  Very sad. 

Here's the link to the route:  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3683573

On Sunday, I rode solo.  I rode out to Bellevue, past Bella Luna, one of my favorite restaurants, to the ferry dock, and then around town.  Bellevue has a working dock and a largely African-American population.  There was a family with a Chesapeake retriever on the beach, throwing sticks in the water for the dog to fetch.

After riding through Bellevue, I took a bunch of side roads, out Ferry Crossing Neck and Deep Neck Roads.  These are nice, quiet roads for cycling, but not a lot of nice water views -- big estates, with private roads, kept me away from the water.  But the trees were in bloom, and the views across the open fields were beautiful.  Not a lot of wildlife -- the field on the way to Bellevue, which usually has a flock of wild turkey eating the scrub -- was empty. 

This was a nice ride, but I wouldn't recommend it for a first (or second) ride on the Eastern Shore --  not a lot of water views, and the "there and back" routes aren't the best.  But there's no such thing as a bad ride on a sunny day on the Eastern Shore.

I've mapped the Saturday ride before, and here's the Sunday route:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3623373

It's Been A Long Time Coming

It was a long, cold, snowy Winter -- probably did the least amount of outdoor bicycling since I first started to ride.  But March may be going out like a lamb, and both days this past weekend were perfect for early Spring rides.  I've been nursing a sore knee, so Saturday was a test day -- a short ride around the Woodland Farm/Waverly Island area.  The fields are very wet, with lots of standing water because of the snow melt and heavy rains.  We'll see how that affects putting in the Spring corn crop.  Cycled by Playtor's Cove, went home, and iced my knee.  

All was well, so I set up a Sunday ride with my local riding partner Cathy.  This was her first ride since getting hit by a car last Fall, so between that and my knee, we kept it to about 25 miles. We headed out the Oxford Road, through town to the ferry -- which they were prepping to reopen for another season. (The Oxford-Bellevue was established in 1683 and is reputed to be the oldest continually operating ferry service in the country.  The first operator was Richard Ryston, who was paid 2,500 pounds of tobacco a year (about $25) to operate the ferry.)

We did a loop through Oxford and then headed back to Easton.  The daffodils were in full bloom, and the buds were just starting on the trees.  I took my "Spring picture" of Peachblossom Creek -- I now have pictures of the Creek from all four seasons -- as well as a shot of Cathy.   Did both rides on the Basso.  The knee felt great.  Hoping for longer rides through the Spring.

First Eastern Shore Ride of the New Year

There's still plenty of ice on Jack's Cove -- the geese look like they're walking on water.  But the sun was out, the temperature was 41 degrees, and the wind was light -- a great day for a winter ride.  I started down the Oxford Road, over Peachblossom Creek, a fast turn around the Island Creek loop, back through Trappe, and then home on the Easton-Trappe road.  The fields were cleared long ago, and the leaves are off the trees -- perfect for broad winter views.  On Island Creek Road, near Martin's Point, I could see the Choptank River glistening in the afternoon sun, something that's not visible most of the year.  Overall a great ride to start my Eastern Shore cycling year.

Ice on Jack's Cove

Very cold and very windy.  Snow on the ground and

ice patches on the road.  Have to wait a bit for my

Easton New Year's Ride.  But the oysters and beer

at the Washington Street Pub are fine.

Winter

We had a major snow storm last weekend, and there's still plenty of snow on the ground.  Beautiful, but not ideal for outdoor riding, at least for the next day or two.  The roads are plowed, but things are sloppy, with patches of ice.  So, it's time for indoor training.  I set up the trainer in the garage, got the iPod going, and then got myself going -- until the chain on the Basso slipped a link, which put an immediate stop to everything.  I've got a chain wrench in Takoma Park, but not out here in Easton.  So tomorrow, I'll make a trip to the Bike Doctor to get the chain fixed.  Hope to be riding outside in a couple of days.

Missing Colors

We haven't been in Easton for a few weeks -- too much going on back on the western shore -- but I was still hoping for a "mid-Fall" ride -- full color, on one of the same routes I did (and photographed) in the Spring and Summer, to show the changes in the seasons.  But there have been heavy rains and winds during the last couple of weeks, so when I went out this morning, the trees were bare -- all the leaves had fallen.

I started out the Oxford Road, past Peachblossom Creek, and then over to the Easton-Trappe road.  It took me a little while to get into the rhythm of a late Fall ride -- subtle colors, with the sun struggling to break through the high, thin clouds.  Peachblossom Creek was beautiful, in a quiet way.  The fields on the Easton-Trappe Road were barren, which made gave the terrain a more open feel.  There were geese and ducks on the ponds and in the air.

The most interesting part of the ride may have been the side trip to Trappe Landing, which has appeared in a number of other rides.  After the turn off, I saw an eagle fly overhead -- awesome.  Down at the Landing, there were far fewer trailers than on earlier visits -- fewer folks talking their boats out this time of year.   But there was a group of three hunters who had just pulled their boat -- a well camouflaged open skiff -- out of the water after a morning of hunting.  They hadn't had any luck, but agreed that a morning on the water was better than just about anything else -- "sure beats working."  We talked about how it was a perfect day for bike riding, with almost no one around and plenty of wildlife to see.  I mentioned that I'd seen an eagle, and they said that there were eagles circling overhead during their morning on the water.  We wished each other a great weekend, and they said that after some rest, they hoped to be out hunting again.

On the ride home, I noticed that many of the smaller trees and bushes still had their color -- something I missed earlier in the ride, in the hopes of seeing that in the big trees.   I also saw some beautiful scenes of waterfowl on some ponds, in the protected area on Spring Road.

The mid-Fall on the Eastern Shore seems to be about the striking beauty of spectacular colors.  Later, as things get quieter for the Winter, it gets more subtle -- hunters on their boats, waterfowl on the water, and traces of color below the big trees.  A nice transition, before the cold sets in.

NOTE to Self

Make sure that you check that you have EVERYTHING before you head to Easton for the weekend.  DON'T presume that your bike shoes still are in the car from the Sea Gull weekend.  Otherwise, you'll have to write about something other than biking.

Big changes out here in the last two weeks.  During the Sea Gull, the leaves had barely begun to change, and the fall waterfowl were just starting to make an appearance.  This weekend was a full Fall experience.  The ducks were plentiful on the water, and the geese were everywhere -- fattening up on the cleared cornfields, flying overhead in large Vs, and cruising the waters in flotillas.  The sound hasn't become constant yet -- but that's coming.

We're now proud participants in the Department of Natural Resources "Marylanders Grow Oysters" program.  We've got three cages full of oyster spat hanging in the water off of our dock.  Each cage is supposed to grow 150 to 200 oysters, which will be collected next year and placed in protected oyster beds in the Tred Avon River.  (No, we're not supposed to eat any of them).  In addition to being rather tasty, oysters are an important part of the Bay's ecosystem, because they filter the water.  A single oyster can filter 2 gallons of water in an hour. The Bay's oyster population used to be so large that it filtered the Bay's entire water volume every three to four days. Today that would take nearly a year.  So every little bit helps. 

http://www.oysters.maryland.gov/

Something else I've learned in my time in Easton is that those supposedly charming reeds along the water's edge actually are an invasive species called phragmites, which grows so thick that it chokes out other plants and wildlife.  We had a heavy stand along much of our shoreline, and we discovered that the state and the county have a herbicide program to kill phragmites.  We had the spraying done this fall, and it looks like it worked -- the plants have dried up and appear dead to the roots.  I went out on Sunday with the hedge clipper and started to cut them down.  They are very thick, and it will take a while to complete the task.  Clearing the phragmites showed that there are a number of other plants along our shoreline -- some flowering bushes and some small evergreens.  We'll have to see how things go in the Spring -- whether, without the phragmites, we suffer any erosion of the mud banks.

That's all for now.  Next time, I'll remember my bike shoes