In her 1962 book, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson essentially launched the modern environmental movement by imagining a spring without songbirds, due to the overuse of pesticides.  So fierce was the public reaction to this idea of a “silent spring,” that regulations were imposed on the pesticide industry almost immediately.  We recognize that spring, more so than any other season, is marked by an explosion of sounds.

In my last installment I wrote that silence might be winter’s greatest gift.  Nature is full of balance.  Darkness becomes light and silence is eventually broken.  It’s hard to characterize the cacophony of spring sounds as anything other than exuberant.  Nature seems to be echoing the sentiments of most Kent Countians, as we fling open our windows and deeply inhale, exclaiming, “The winter is over and I have survived, bring on the good times!”

The shrill cry of osprey is perhaps the most familiar springtime sound to those who live near the water.  I focused on the “fish hawks” in last year’s Spring Column (https://www.chestertownspy.com/field-guide-a-closer-look/), so this year I’ll touch on two other species that are making themselves heard.

Many hunters in the area will consider the call of wild turkeys to be the most welcomed sound of spring.  The wild turkeys have spent their winters separated into three distinct groups: mature males (toms), immature males (jakes), and females of all ages (hens).  Maryland’s Spring Turkey Hunt doesn’t start until mid-April, so for the next month the toms are free to wander the fields and woods of Kent County with impunity.  In the early mornings and evenings, their gobbles echo from the woods as they attempt to lure females and ward off competing males.  Turkeys are notoriously wary and therefore sightings can be rare.  However, their drive to find a mate leads them to travel and announce their presence.  Visiting a heavily wooded area, like Eastern Neck Island, during the first or last hours of sunlight should provide an opportunity to see (or at least hear) some of Kent County’s wild turkeys.

The high-pitched call of the male spring peeper may not be as dramatic as the gobble of a tom turkey, but it is certainly a staple of Kent County’s springtime soundtrack.  In the winter, these frogs exist in a Han-Solo-like suspended animation; having produced a high amount of glucose, their bodies will freeze, but the sugars keep their cells from rupturing. No wonder their calls are so boisterous in the spring!

In the early evening, if you pull your car over to the side of the road near any of the area’s creeks or marshes, you’re sure to hear thousands of tiny peeps bouncing off each other and swirling together into crescendos.  Females are most attracted to the males with the loudest and fastest calls.

If you stand and listen long enough, the peeps will suddenly stop.  When something has alarmed them, such as the arrival of an eavesdropper, the frogs will fall silent for a few moments.  Eventually, one peeper will start up again and before long the chorus is back underway.

When you were young, did a relative ever tell you that children should be seen and not heard?  It seems that spring peepers were raised to believe the opposite.  Although, their sounds fill the night air, they can be almost impossible to spot.  One reason for this is their tiny size.  Spring peepers rarely grow longer than an inch.

How does such a small frog produce such a deafening sound?  Imagine standing at the base of The Grand Canyon and shouting.  Your voice would bounce from wall to wall.  These tiny frogs employ that same technique, positioning themselves near crevices in the soil that help to amplify their sounds.  Additionally, the spring peeper has the largest vocal-sac-to-body-ratio of any of Maryland’s frogs. (source: Maryland DNR)

My fiancée has always considered the call of the spring peepers to be a signal that she was in Kent County.  Before moving here, their calls were the noises Gretchen most sorely missed whenever she was away.  I once bought her an alarm clock that offers several nature sounds (including spring peepers) to help serenade her to sleep, but it just wasn’t the same.

In less than a month, we’ll move into our new house, which abuts some of the marshes that border Morgan Creek.  We’re looking forward to those cool spring nights when we can throw open the windows and listen to the calls of the spring peepers announcing, “I have survived, bring on the good times!”

How’s your hibernation going? Do you cast a wary eye out the window every morning wondering what new terror will confront your daily commute? Is it snow, ice, slush, freezing rain, 33 degrees and raining, or have a few days of warmer temperatures turned your front yard into a swamp?

It seems like this winter has provided us with the full spectrum of possibilities. But, if winter is a mountain buffeted by the valleys of fall and spring, we’re well past the summit and making our descent. We’re just about 30 days away from hearing the shrill cries of the first returning osprey. This week, pitchers and catchers from every Major League Baseball team will begin their 2011 campaigns. A friend posted pictures on her Facebook page of daffodils emerging in her garden. While we’re almost guaranteed to receive a last gasp snowstorm, winter is on its way out; even the groundhog said so!

So, enjoy the winter season while you still can. If that sentence made you spit out your coffee, I invite you to reconsider some of the pleasures of winter that are almost impossible to ignore.

[slidepress gallery=’mann0211′]My dog, Angus, celebrates each of the four distinct seasons that we, as Marylanders, are fortunate enough to experience. Whenever I take him out into a freshly snowy world, he greets it by rolling onto his back and shimmying through the powder. It’s as if he’s so excited to see the white stuff, he wants to greet it with every pore. Throughout this first year of dog-ownership, Angus has helped me to see nature more completely; winter is no exception.

The stinging cold wind coming off the Bay late at night smacks my face like a whip. I pull my hood lower and walk with a compacted stature, trying to hold onto every degree of body heat. It’s on nights like this that I marvel at nature’s resilience. In preparation for these conditions, the trees have dropped their leaves and gone dormant. Animals grow thicker coats, or huddle together, or burrow underground. One night in these conditions could easily kill a man, but nature endures it with an unblinking stoicism that I find humbling.

A walk through the woods after a fresh snow reveals the secret world that exists despite the fact that it’s imperceptible to most of us. The tracks on the ground show where deer and birds have made their way. But it’s the markings of raccoons, feral cats, rabbits, and foxes that amaze me. Here’s proof of the busy travels of these seldom seen creatures. For me, the mammals are the easiest to relate to. Despite ever decreasing habitats, they’re able to survive in harsh conditions with limited resources available for food. Faced with challenges that would bring most of us to our knees, nature once again reveals an indomitable spirit that provides me with a tremendous amount of inspiration.

Perhaps winter’s greatest gift is silence. If you’re brave enough to venture out to a park, beach, or trail, you will most likely be alone. After a long enough cold spell, even the waves of the Chesapeake are frozen in place. The suspended animation that seems to overtake the entire landscape has the same effect on my inner environment. It’s hard to arrive at such a still and quiet place and not become still and quiet yourself. In today’s hyper-connected world, there are fewer and fewer places where we can experience still and quiet. So, I value winter for its ability to hit the pause button on the world. If we’re willing to take it, the opportunity is there to stand peaceably among a frozen landscape and hear nothing but your breath, your heartbeat, and your thoughts.

How lucky we are to live in such a place.

Mystery Tour is one of my favorite classes to teach at Echo Hill Outdoor School.  This class, which is open-ended by design, usually involves exploring some aspect of life in Kent County.

Last week I took a group of eighth graders from Severn Middle School to two local farms.  It is one of the privileges of living in Kent County that we can not only choose what type of food we consume by buying local produce and meat, but we can also visit the places it comes from and meet the people who produce it. Our first stop was Crow Farm in Kennedyville.  There we met Judy Crow, who lives on this third generation farm, and her son Brandon Hoy.

Brandon explains how to coax the grapevine to grow vertically.

The vineyard on the farm was just planted this spring.  It takes about three years for grape vines to produce a harvestable product.  At this stage Brandon, who is the vineyard manager, is still coaxing the vines to grow vertically.  They have to be taught to climb the wires suspended above them rather than spread over the ground.  I found it amusing that these students, who are far too young to drink wine, could now offer informed opinions on why Vidal Blanc grapes are a good choice for Kent County’s climate.

Once his grapes are ready to be harvested, Brandon plans to sell them to a local winery.  His ultimate goal is to eventually have a winery operating on the farm.

Next Brandon took us to one of the pastures where his cattle graze.  It was appropriate that we met the grass before we met the cattle since it’s the grass that sets Crow Farm’s Black Angus cattle apart from the livestock on the majority of the farms across this country.  Crow Farm’s meadows are sectioned into acres and the herd has access to just one acre at a time.  This ensures that the cattle graze thoroughly, rather than eating just the types of grass that they prefer. As they graze, the cattle leave waste deposits on the field.  Once they move on to other sections, these deposits have time to break down and fertilize the soil.  Ideally, by the time they’ve eaten the grass on the last acre, the first acre has grown back and is once again ready to be grazed upon.

Cattle, like all ruminants, evolved to eat grasses.  However, corn-fed cattle gain weight faster and do not require roaming space, which makes it a cheaper way to bring the meat to market.  Brandon explained to our group that the difference between his cattle and those raised on a diet of corn is like comparing a person who eats well-balanced meals to someone who becomes obese from eating nothing but fast food.

Bob Payne greeting Severn students

The Crow Farm’s cattle are processed at a facility in Dover, DE, and the butchered meat, which is individually packaged and frozen is then returned to the farm.  In addition to supplying some local restaurants, Brandon and Judy also sell their beef to individuals who come to their farm.

Our next stop was Bob Payne’s dairy farm in Betterton.  Bob’s been milking cows on this farm for over 60 years.  He’s welcomed students from Echo Hill Outdoor School to his property for over 35 of those years.  He realizes that agriculture is a foreign concept to many people these days, and one of the things he stresses to young visitors is that you don’t get days off.

“Three hundred sixty-five days a year, twice a day, somebody’s got to do it,” he’s fond of saying.  I watch as the children contemplate the meaning of this.  Birthdays, Christmas, weekends, days when you’ve got a headache… to a farmer those are all workdays.  He explains how to mild a cow. “All you have to do to milk a cow is put your thumb right tight on that tip and then squeeze.  That milk coming out of there is about 101.5 degrees.  That’s the normal body temperature of a cow.”

I’ve heard Bob say these words so many times over the years I’ve got them memorized and have actually done a little milking.  But as each child stoops down next to the massive, shifting, breathing cows, it is often the first and last time they will ever experience such a thing.  Some students giggle or squeal, but most are left in quiet awe at actually seeing where milk comes from. The milk from Bob Payne’s farm is part of a dairy cooperative which sells to Giant stores in the Baltimore area.

I try to stress to the children that Bob Payne’s dairy farm and the Crow Farm are unique places.  There aren’t millions of replicas scattered across the country stocking our grocery stores.  But they aren’t ready to understand this point.  For many of them, these are the only farms they’ve ever visited.  Until they grow older and learn differently, they will think of every farm as a place inhabited by a farmer who will take time out of his/her workday to tour visitors.  They will think all cows spend their days roaming through meadows of lush grasses.  Corporate agriculture is not yet even a concept to these students.

I notice a group of my students in one of Bob Payne’s fields letting a calf suckle on their fingers.  They’re laughing hysterically.

I’m jealous.

The third annual Dragonfly Heart Camp took place last week at Echo Hill Outdoor School.  Thirty campers with pulmonary hypertension who’ve had heart and/or lung transplants joined a team of doctors, nurses, and counselors from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for a week of bonding, team-building, and outdoor exploration facilitated by the Outdoor School teachers.  This year’s group was the largest yet for a Dragonfly Heart Camp.

The camp was founded by Kent County’s Rhonda Cataldo.  Her daughter, Sarah, battled cardiomyopathy for a year before receiving a heart transplant at the age of eight.

Some campers were a few years removed from their procedures, while a group of three teenage boys had received transplants just four months ago.  Dragonfly Heart Camp offers them a chance to interact with other children who share their medical histories.  When they go swimming at the beach, there are no questions about scars on one’s chest or abdomen; they understand each other in a way that might be impossible for outsiders to comprehend.

For children who’ve spent so much of their young lives in hospitals, Dragonfly Heart Camp gives them the chance to indulge in the simple summertime pleasures of childhood.  Campers who had never before held a fishing rod, squealed with delight at the tugs on their line and hurried to reel in a perch, or catfish, or rockfish.  They chased fireflies at night and roasted marshmallows for s’mores.  Footballs and Frisbees seemed to fly through the air whenever there was free time.

Perhaps it’s a byproduct of facing the fragility of health and life that causes the Dragonfly campers to embrace an existence of fun and frivolity.  Pranks abounded throughout the week.  At anytime anyone was fair game for a water balloon bombardment, an ice cube dropped down one’s back, or a shaving cream pie to the face, as two of the CHOP medical staff can attest.

The week at Echo Hill Outdoor School also gives the campers a chance to interact with the CHOP staff outside of the hospital.  Suddenly Dr. Hannah and his crew aren’t just the people in scrubs who tend to you when you’re not feeling well, but they’re also the one’s teaching you to float on your back, or picking blueberries with you at Lockbriar Farms, or helping you to get over a bout of homesickness at night.

On their final night together, the Dragonfly Campers gathered around a campfire to sing songs and reminisce on their week together.  Some favorite memories for the younger girls included makeovers and dance parties in their dorm at night.  The boys enjoyed playing water basketball in the Bay and Texas Hold ‘Em at night.

For all the hardships they’ve endured, the campers see themselves as lucky.  They know they’ve overcome long odds to be where they are today.  They recognize that tomorrow is no guarantee.  One of the older boys broke down when telling the story of a girl he’d met in the hospital.  They became friends over the course of many months waiting for a transplant.  He’s four months removed from his surgery; she did not survive hers.  At an age when most teenagers are stressing over pimples, he’s left to wonder why he’s still alive and his friend is not.

On the final day of camp, their families arrive for the Closing Ceremony.  For most of the campers, their time spent at Dragonfly Heart Camp marks the first time since they got sick that they’ve been away from their families.  The reunions are emotional events marked by tears and bear hugs.  As the parents watch a slideshow of their children, who were once too weak to get out of bed, racing down the zip-line, posing with fish they caught, or simply making funny faces for the camera, they beam with pride.  Thanks to a combination of the camper’s resolve and the medical staff’s vigilance they’ve been able to spend this week like children do at summer camps all across the country.

As the time comes to head their separate ways, it’s obvious that the children of Dragonfly Heart Camp aren’t ready to leave each other.  Already they talk about coming back to Echo Hill Outdoor School next year.  Returning to the place where complete strangers can meet, already knowing where each other comes from.