Miles River, Easton MD January Sunrise

Cold and windy morning - but clear - a January morning on the Miles River, Easton, MD.

Chesapeake Ice - St. Jerome's Creek, MD

There's a decent coating of tidal ice down here in St. Jerome's creek - about 2 inches think, but a bit slushy and carrying no more than 20-30 lbs or so...

Southern Maryland Weddings|Bridal Show Sunday 1/19 - JT Daugherty Conf. Ctr.

Southern Maryland Bridal Show, Sunday 1/19, 11:30 - 3PM - at the J.T. Daugherty Southern Maryland Conference Center, Lexington Park, MD (St. Mary's County). Right near the PAX River Naval Air Station Main Gate on Southbound Rt. 235.

Visit their website for additional Southern Maryland and St. Mary's County events, including an Inauguration Lunch, a Valentine's Day event and more...

St. Mary's County Economic Stimulus - from Local Businesses?

In this business blog/article at the Loudoun Times, a local business challenges all other Loudoun County businesses to "step up" and promote, collectively, their own county - using their own websites and Internet assets. Simply by linking back to the county's core government economic development and tourism promotion websites, using words like "Loudoun County Business Environment", may help business, real estate and tourism investors find the County, and spend money.

This is a good idea for ANY county - including those here in Southern Maryland, i.e. Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties.

Southern Maryland Businesses - read the article, and take notice....link your sites or blogs back to the county's PR machine, at St. Mary's County Department of Economic Development.

Prime Time for Real Estate Investing - Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia

It's now prime time for Southern Maryland Real Estate investing - for residents and businesses who've been sitting out the economic downturn, and are ready to put their sidelined cash to work.

While this article at Northern Virginia Real Estate Journal focuses on Northern Virginia real estate investing, it also speaks to the broader Chesapeake Bay watershed and Washington DC metro regional real estate environment.

Save the Chesapeake Bay with Alpacas in Southern Maryland?

Couple of interesting, confluent articles in the Washington Post (WAPO) today.

First is the editorial entitled "Failure on the Chesapeake Bay", which very frankly segments the tasks required to clean up the Chesapeak Bay into four main areas - aggressively regulating farm runoff (of nitrogen-based pesticides and livestock waste), enforce maximums on daily loads of wastewater from municipalities and businesses allowed to be pumped into the Bay, limit the catch of oysters and crabs by Watermen, and mandating "green-building" techniques for new commercial and residential construction. While these task seem pretty straightforward and clear, there's a considerable lack of cross-the-board political will to create and enforce the absolute regulations (not negotiations) required.

The second article was about the Southern Maryland (Bushwood) "Moore or Less Farm", and Jim Moore's (owner) shift in farming operations away from production of traditional livestock (mostly raised for slaughter) to Alpacas...these llama-like animals are raised for their renewable wool, plus their much-reduced appetite for costly feed. The article further details how many farmers, seeking more profitable returns in the face of declining prices and increasing costs, are turning to greenhouse-grown vegetables, grain, specialty animals like the Alpacas, agri-tourism and jobs off the farm.

These two imperatives, to both "Save the Bay" and "Save the Farms" are inexorably intertwined, it's clear. Dramatic measures to cut back on pollution from farming may actually be already underway and made more tolerable, due in large part to the economic pressures already forcing farmers to convert to activities with less "nitrogen-footprint". Farms with smaller, fewer large animals, less insect and drought-intolerant crops, and more income fed by agro-tourism rather than fertilizer: these are farms better positioned to help save the Bay, for the benefit of everyone including the "aqua-farmers" (i.e. Watermen), who themselves may end up participating in more imaginative forms of aqua-culture as the EPA regulates and implements new methods of growing and sustaining underwater bay life.

It seems everyone can help, as well - we can help, for example, promote the agro-tourism part of the equation, by highlighting the great farms and agriculture-oriented tourism destinations in St. Mary's county and other Southern Maryland areas.

Check out the Southern Maryland Agriculture Development Commission site out to find details on these farms and things to to or visit. Also the Southern Maryland Trails site ("Earth, Art, Imagination"), with its "guide to all things handmade, home-grown, locally harvested and authentically Southern Maryland". On this site you'll find farms like "Moore or Less", featured in various ways including on the "Barnwood and Beach Glass" trail loop.

Happy 375th Birthday Year, Maryland!

It was in 1634 when more than a hundred English settlers landed on a safe harbor in the Potomac River they named "St. Clement's Island." Every March 25 we celebrate Maryland Day at Colton's Point that looks out at the historical first landing site.

2009 should prove to be a very exciting year for Northern and Southern Maryland businesses, residents, organizations, tourists and visitors, as we observe the official "Celebrate 375 Maryland" events and pageantry!