History – Page 19 – Birding Boomers

Plant Sale at Paca House

May 16, 2015joannie65354 Comments

It’s spring and plant sales are popping up everywhere. And I love plant sales more than a hoarder loves yard sales. One of my favorite spring plant sales is at the Paca House and Gardens in Annapolis, Maryland. Really, what is not to like about a plant sale at a historical garden that you get to see without having to pay the usual entry fee? It has become a bit of an annual tradition for me and one of my gardening buddies and we pretty much turn it into an all day thing by lollygagging over lunch at a local haunt talking about what plants we bought and where we are going to plant them and so on and so on. And not to be left out, I’ve recruited my dear sweet husband to do all the driving and negotiating those tiny alley sized roads in downtown Annapolis. He just drops us off at the sale and then comes round to pick us up an hour or so later. We also let him buy lunch — it works out splendidly.

Never been to Paca House? Well, me neither – not actually. I’ve only seen the back of the place from the gardens. But I’m sure it is quite lovely inside the house and I’m sure I’ll go there one day but not this year. I’ve actually never seen the front of the house either since we always come in from the rear on East Street right by the Water Witch Fire Station #1 in Annapolis. And every year I take a photo of the Water Witch #1 and tell myself I will look this up on the internet and find out some more about a Water Witch Fire Station. And this year I did!

What I found out was that this is not a fire house anymore. It has been “re-purposed” into office space. Rats! What is the good of having a cool looking fire house when it is not used for a fire house anymore? Oh well, it once was one of three fire houses in Annapolis: Water Witch Company on East Street, Independent Fire Company No. 2 on Duke of Gloucester opposite City Hall, and Rescue Hose Company on West Street next to Loew’s Hotel. The three fire houses were consolidated into a new facility located on Taylor Avenue….so no more Water Witches….in Annapolis, that is. But there are Water Witches in Port Deposit/Conowingo and somewhere in Cecil County so all is not lost. Out there somewhere is a water witch just waiting to put out a fire or two. But knowing that doesn’t help me get to the bottom of why it is called a water witch rather than a pump house or a fire station in the first place.

I seem to recall something from my childhood about water witching being another name for dowsing and guys who would come out to your property with bent willow sticks to help find water. But I never heard them called water witches. But this is pretty much what I found out when I checked good old reliable (sometimes) Wikipedia for water witch. But it doesn’t tell me how a fire station became a water witch…..was it the job of our very first volunteer firemen to go out and find water? Of course, there is the obvious connection of fire trucks pumping water but I’m not sure that really explains it. On the other hand, I can just imagine a volunteer fireman walking around with a bent willow stick witching out a good spot to dig while the town burns down all around him. Oh well, if anyone knows, leave me a comment so I can stop wondering about it and get back to the gardens at the back of the Paca House, which, by the way, was probably established right about the time that old Water Witch #1 was founded so the estate was, no doubt, a big potential customer for the Water Witch in case of fires.

So William Paca House (to be precise) was built by the gentlemen for which it is named between 1763 and 1765 making it, as the brochure says, a beautiful example of a “Pre-Revolutionary War” home and garden. Now, aren’t we thankful that those dastardly British skipped Annapolis on their way to burn Baltimore during the War of 1812? Otherwise, we’d not have this example of the houses built prior to the war. As for William Paca – he is known hereabouts as being a signer of the Declaration of Independence as well as for being the Governor of Maryland for three terms.

The house is a Georgian mansion and I realized I wasn’t exactly sure what made it a Georgian mansion as opposed to say, a Federalist mansion. I’m not really up on architecture so I had to take a moment and look that up too. (Now, you’re wondering if I will ever get to the part about buying plants. Maybe not, but I promise to show you something of the garden as we go.) Turns out Georgian architecture refers to the “styles” that were current between the years 1720 to 1830. And you know why? Because those were the years when Kings George I, II, III, and IV ruled in England. So for a hundred years or so the King was named George and the architecture became known as Georgian. If you want to know more about Georgian architecture, look here. Essentially, the houses are simple 1-2 stories, kind of boxy, and very symmetrical with the front door in the center of the house, with rectangular windows capped with elaborate crowns and cornices with decorative moldings/dentilwork. I think maybe when the Levitt Brothers pared them down in size, dropped the fancy moldings and made them affordable for all Americans (certainly on the East Coast), lost the “mansion” part and became those “colonials” so popular in America today…built some years after the Revolutionary War, of course. For those of you who live around here but didn’t know, the Belair section of Bowie, MD was built by Levitt and Sons.….the Levitts didn’t just build Levittown, you know……they were building those houses everywhere.

And moving right back to the gardens: So my friend, Glo, and I grabbed our cardboard plant boxes (or whatever they are called) and started filling them with herbs and native plants. The plant sale area is laid out such that you get to spend some time looking at herbs and vegetables, then you walk up through the wall and into the bottom part of the garden and then back up the walkway and through the garden wall (it is a walled garden after all) and into the area where the rest of the plants – annuals and perennials – are laid out to be sold. So, on your way, you get to tour the garden. So, with our boxes about halfway full, we found a nice place to stow them giving us plenty of time to explore the two acre walled garden before tackling the annuals and perennials.

One thing I always notice about this garden is the pollarded and espaliered fruit trees. Pollarding does get my attention and I do find myself thinking that it is really akin to butchering the trees. The pruning technique is radical (to me) but has been used in Europe for many (hundreds of) years. I recall seeing trees that had been pollarded when we visited Amsterdam several years ago.

The trees lined the streets but looked more like huge sculpted tree menorahs than trees. I asked about the trees and was told they were mostly Linden Trees and would look lovely when the foliage grew back in spring. In this country, we see this process used on Crepe Myrtles – extreme pruning leaving the trees looking pretty horrible (to me) in spring. But the trees do seem to recover okay although they look like sticks and then sticks with powder puff leaf balls before they ever start looking like trees again. I will say that I do not pollard the Crepe Myrtles in my yard and they bloom just fine…..for those who would say the process means more blooms. Proponents of the technique say that it makes the trees live longer because they [the trees] are always having to recover and renew themselves and are never allowed to grow old [as trees go]. (You should read that sentence like you are a snobby hoity toity landscape designer who never deigns to actually get his hands dirty.) I’m not sure I buy that explanation but I do like the explanation that, in Europe, they do not have a problem with large tree limbs falling into power lines in those towns with pollarded trees during storms……because there are no large limbs to fall….now that makes sense.

At Paca House, there are two ancient figs that are pollarded (or appear to be) and are also trained against the brick garden wall. As it is early spring when the plant sales are conducted, I have never been able to see the figs with leaves. But the ancient-looking gnarled tree trunks are quite impressive even without the leaves.

Now, the apple trees on the other hand are trained and espaliered to make a low edging to the walkways. I have never seen this before and I do not know what the technique is except to call it espaliering….or, making short walls out of trees. In years past, I have seen the trees filled out and marveled at the effect. And, yes, I have seen the tiny knee-high trees (some peach but mostly apple) with lots of setting fruit so I have to assume they are very productive trees regardless of their height. In the last couple years, the garden appears to have been re-vamped completely and the little apple tree walls have been removed (I suppose they get too old and start dying out) and new trees have now been planted and are now in training. Just the thing to get me back next year so I can see how the trees have progressed.

There is also an apple tree archway that provides a covered entrance to another part of the garden that is pretty neat – no other way to describe it. It is just pretty neat to walk through an archway that is an apple tree or maybe several apple trees together. I like to imagine just taking a stroll in the garden and reaching up overhead and picking a little snack and you go from the vegetable garden to the topiary garden….find a bench….read a book….gardens can affect you that way.

The garden is really pretty formal with gigantic hollies pruned into perfect cones and a centrally placed circular herb and rose garden that should be lovely later in the year.

There is a side/kitchen garden comprised of maybe ten raised beds that appear to have been planted in but so far no little sprouts are showing this early in the year although the Rosemary and Lavender is growing like weeds…..err, maybe more like herbs.

If you stand just at the back of the house, there is a broad graveled walk that goes all the way to the summer house at the very back of the property. There is also a pond with a lovely arched bridge just before you reach the summer house (or folly as I would think of it).

But what always grabs my attention is the beautiful and very large Buckeye just to the right of the summer house. It is always in full bloom just in time for the plant sale each year. I fell in love with it the first year I went to the plant sale. I guess I had never really seen or noticed a Buckeye Tree before so didn’t realize they bloomed. When I asked about it, I was informed that the tree was a very special Buckeye – it was a cutting from a tree that was on George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon, down near Alexandria, Virginia. I am not clear on whether or not the seedling was taken from a tree that George Washington actually planted or just one that is planted there today as being consistent with trees that George might have had on his estate. I think maybe the latter because I do not think Buckeyes live so long….but you never know. For want of a better name, the lady I asked just called it the George Washington Buckeye but I think it is really a Red Buckeye Tree.

Well, you know I had to have one….and you know they just happened to have a seedling on sale right there at the plant sale that very day….and you know I had to buy it right on the spot. What else could I do? I brought it home and potted it up – it wasn’t much more than a stick after all – and I nurtured it (sort of) for a couple years and when it got big enough (bigger than a stick), I planted it in the ground. It is doing splendidly and this year produced its first bloom – a beautiful red bloom just like I had seen on the mother tree. Not a single regret do I have in buying that tree…..my very own bit of history and connection to good ole George right in my front yard.

So, now we’ve circled the garden and it was time to get back to the good part – buying flowers. And, as it turns out, there’s not much to talk about for that part. They had mostly native plants and plants that might have been planted in gardens back in the 1700’s. I bought a couple more hollyhocks to replace the one I had bought last year. Since hollyhocks are biennials, last year’s plant is doing well and should bloom this year before dying out. The two new plants will grow this year and bloom next year. It’s a circular process that means I’ll have to keep putting in new hollyhocks each year to replace the ones that bloom and die. Not as good as perennials but better than annuals. It keeps a gardener digging in the dirt year after year after year.

I also got the herbs I had mentioned and some Swamp Milkweed in my never ending quest to attract butterflies and, specifically, Monarchs to my flowerbeds. And a little Thyme and Bronze Fennel (love that color). I did not get Rosemary this year – just haven’t had luck with it in the past. But I did get a Cardoon plant to try…..it sounds so Madagascar so why not? And then there’s the Hyacinth bean vine for the trellis in the Hosta bed and a new little lemon colored miniature Hosta and a Moonflower vine for a hanging pot for the deck and……well, you get the gist of it, I filled my box so the good folks at the Paca House got their money’s worth out of me….til next year, that is. (Oh, in case you’re wondering, the box was full…..I just forgot to get a picture before some of the plants were planted.)

Bombs, Birds, and Beyond

September 2, 2014joannie65353 Comments

In my last blog, ”Redcoats and Farmers and Birds”, I explored North Point State Park near Baltimore, MD. My original intent was to check out a local birding hotspot but it seems one cannot explore North Point without getting a little involved in the War of 1812 and, that is especially true this year because September 2014 is the 200^th anniversary of the Battles of North Point and Baltimore and the writing of The Star Spangled Banner₁ by Frances Scott Key. Well, if you’re gonna talk about Mr. Key and the poem (Defence of Fort McHenry) he wrote “by the dawn’s early light”₁, then you might as well get right to it and visit Fort McHenry. So we did. And why not write all about it? So I am…and I am dividing my thoughts into three parts.

Part One: The Bombs:

So in that last blog, the British were anchored off Baltimore and unloading troops at North Point and were heading up North Point Road while their ships bombarded Fort McHenry and the Baltimore Harbor. The British has just finished burning Washington and were heading in to do the same to Baltimore. One of the comments I received from that blog advised that the port city of Alexandria, Virginia on the Potomac just south of Washington, DC had elected to surrender to the British thereby preventing that lovely city from being burned. I suppose in a war you have those same two options – fight or flee – or, in the case of Alexandria, give up and live to fight another day. On the other hand, I found myself wondering about Annapolis – how did this city survive? The British ships would have passed right by on their way up the Chesapeake to Baltimore. It seems the British had bigger fish to fry and Annapolis just wasn’t on the radar (okay, considering radar hadn’t been invented yet). Baltimore was a much bigger prize if your intent is to give those dastardly Americans a good butt-kicking.

But on to Fort McHenry – You are just going to have to check some of the links and read up on the war all by yourself. I am only giving you the quick and dirty version herein. Fort McHenry is located at a strategic point where the Patapsco River flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The city of Baltimore and its Inner Harbor are on a bit of a cove – the northwest branch – right at the conflux. Fort McHenry sits on a point looking out onto the Chesapeake. The entrance to the port is relatively narrow so the Fort with its big guns was very adequate to protect the inner harbor. Fort McHenry was defended using cannons firing 18, 24, and 36 pound cannonballs with a range of about one and a half miles. The British ships fired rockets and mortar rounds with a range of about two miles. So, of course, the British were anchored just about two miles away off Sparrows Point (about where the Key Bridge crosses today). It is easy to understand why Mr. Key was a bit concerned about the ability of the troops at Fort McHenry to successfully defend the harbor and why he kept watch through the night hoping to see the flag raised at dawn. At dawn the flag was raised and he wrote his famous poem. Here’s the quick and dirty part – the British were repelled and Baltimore survived the bombardment and are planning a big ole party called the Star Spangled Spectacular on September 10-16, 2014 to commemorate the battle and the victory.

Just a few last thoughts on Fort McHenry and war. The original fort called Fort Whetstone was built in the Revolutionary War because the citizens feared an attack that never came. Fort McHenry was completed in 1803 just a hand full of years prior to the War of 1812. The fort was used for training for the most part during its active history but it is noteworthy that during the Civil War, the big guns were sometimes aimed at the city rather than away from it. I suppose some folks in Maryland didn’t want to remain a part of the union, had loyalties to the south and caused some problems in the city. I got this bit of info at the museum at the Fort but haven’t been able to confirm it on-line so take it with a grain of salt either way. I’m sticking with the museum info – it makes sense since, even today, I have found that the good people of Maryland cannot seem to figure out if they are southern or not. The 141^st Coastal Artillery Company departed Fort McHenry in 1912 after 110 years of service there so technically, it was not an active fort anymore but during WWI, it was used as a hospital and, during WWII and a bit afterwards, it was leased by the Coast Guard for port security work. Now it’s a National Monument and open year round to tourists and, well, birders.

The Star Spangled Banner: Lyrics – Frances Scott Key, “Defence of Fort McHenry”, 1814, Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Music – John Stafford Smith, “To Anacreon in Heaven”, 1775, England.

Part Two – The Birds:

I started this latest quest to explore parks in and around Baltimore for the birding opportunities. Last May, we attended the Maryland Ornithological Society (MOS) Conference at Solomons Island, MD. During dinner one night, we were seated at a table with a couple of lovely ladies who were avid birders and members of the Baltimore Bird Club. I asked about birding in Baltimore and mentioned a couple places I had heard of like Robert E. Lee Park (yep, back to war again) near Jones Falls. I was surprised when one of the ladies mentioned Fort McHenry. Now, I had never been there but had this overall impression that it was a park with the remains of an old fort sitting up on a hill just outside the Inner Harbor at Baltimore. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the thought that someone would do some serious birding there. But I was informed that there was good birding there and I should go to the “back side” over in the wetlands. Wetlands at Fort McHenry? I just couldn’t figure that one out. So, there was nothing to do but go and see for myself. I heard about North Point State Park at the same conference although from a different source and that had turned out to be a great park for birding so why not Fort McHenry?

So we went. And we learned a little bit (a very little bit) about the War of 1812 as evidenced by my summary above. (The information was available – I just didn’t learn it.) But we did find the wetlands. But that is where the good part ends. The small marsh on the back (southwest?) side of the peninsula was easily found at the end of the Sea Wall Trail but I could not find any way to actually access the wetlands. I have to admit summer is not the ideal time to bird in and around waterways so was not surprised that we didn’t see many birds at all in the park. The park is mostly mowed lawn with some trees but not many so it was not exactly prime habitat for birds from my perspective. I can imagine that there would be plenty of waterfowl in the winter in the harbor and the river so I would recommend that anyone going birding at Fort McHenry focus on wintertime birding. I think perhaps one could sit in the park overlooking the wetlands and do some birding with a good high powered scope but there do not appear to be any obvious trails through the marshy area although a ramshackle bridge can be seen near the rocky riprap about midway through the wetlands. There were a couple of gourd house stands set up for Purple Martins but I didn’t see nary a bird when I scanned the area. I did find a page for birding on the Fort McHenry website (Birds) that gives information about birding at the site and includes links to bird lists for the area.

So maybe my best bet is to head back in the winter and see what we find there. But if you’re going in August, go for the war, the fort, and the history — grab a good spot on a bench along the seawall and just enjoy a beautiful summer day. Oh, if you get lucky, it’ll be one of the days when they fire the cannons – now that part was way cool although I missed it when they fired off the big 25 inch cannonball ones.

Finally, Part Three – Beyond:

If you want to stick with the sane parts, stop reading now and call it a day. Otherwise, continue on with me for some serious speculation on the far side with my tongue stuck firmly in my cheek.

As of late and over the past six weeks or so while I have been healing from an injury to my right shoulder, I find that I am watching quite a bit of television as one is apt to do when one is recovering from something or another. And it turns out that one of my favorite shows (lately) is Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. If you are familiar with the show, you will know that it explores the possibility that the earth was visited by extraterrestrials in ancient times (pre-history) who influenced (sometimes good and sometimes bad – mostly just meddling in) the development and history of mankind. So, as I strolled around the park at Fort McHenry I couldn’t help but be struck by the star-shape of the design of the fort and I began to wonder about things celestial as I wandered about the place.

So let’s talk about the shape of things at Fort McHenry. Here we have a perfectly shaped 5-pointed star that can really only be appreciated or fully viewed from above. So, it stands to reason that it was built by someone or something (maybe terrestrial or, then again, maybe celestial) who could see the whole site from the air or maybe even from space. Right – just like the Nazca Lines in Peru. After all, there were barely even balloons in 1789 when Fort McHenry was built let alone flying vehicles that could have properly surveyed the site from the air. (Although I will note that one Benjamin Franklin was somewhat into flying kites or so we have been told but I wonder where exactly he got his ideas about electricity! Do you think he might have been an alien?)

So we have a five-pointed star but looking at the maps and charts in the museum on site, I discovered that the shape was actually a five-pointed star built on what looked like another partially obscured or busted up star with some sort of arrow right through the middle of it. You guessed it – the original buildings on the site must have represented the home universe for the extraterrestrials who visited Baltimore in ancient times before it was called Baltimore and had some sort of native name like “place of the blue crabs that are steamed with Old Bay but not boiled”. If you study star charts, you will no doubt find a solar system with an earth-like planet in a binary star system with one fully active vibrant sun and a second sun that is a dying. The extraterrestrials who visited this site have thus left clues to their original home so that we could find our way to them in a future when our technology was advanced enough to recognize that particular constellation. Of course, the arrow through the middle of the fort points to the rising sun on the summer solstice in alternate leap years when the moon is in retrograde and Mars is in its perihelion. Yes, the home of our extraterrestrial ancestors is out there somewhere – perhaps in Alpha Centauri or Andromeda.

But, of course, you might tell me some gobbledygoop about military forts and strategies and that the 5-pointed star design was somehow superior from a military standpoint for the best defense of a given point of land. Or, that any idiot can climb up a tree and see the shape of the fort without ever having to step foot in a spaceship. Or, that the Pentagon is also a five-sided stronghold and no one ever said it was built by extraterrestrials. Hold on – now wait a minute. The Pentagon is five-sided just like a five-pointed star….well, sort of….maybe a stylized star – if you squint your eyes, you can see that right off. And I seem to recall visiting other historical forts over the years like Fort Pulaski near Savannah, Georgia that had five sides too. I’m seeing a trend here. Obviously, these were all sites that had significance to humans throughout the ages even before the US decided to use the sites for military strongholds and built on top of the older prehistoric artifacts and monuments. (Did you like that leap in logic? We’re on a roll now. I just have to figure out how to work Stonehenge into the whole thing.)

So, we have Fort McHenry sitting on a point that was clearly a sacred site to the Native Americans and clearly the perfect site for a fort to be built to protect the good people of Baltimore. As I walked on the ramparts circling the fort, I could actually sense the sacredness of the site – a faint tingling going up and down my spine. (Okay, it could have been that I’d been in the sun too long or that my ears were ringing from the cannon firing demonstration but there was a tingling, I swear.) And then, it occurred to me that the flag was in exactly the right position just to the center front of the star to be protected and it is no wonder that Frances Scott Key was able to see it in the early hours that fateful morning. It was obviously in a mysterious vortex of some sort of magnetic phenomenon and no cannonballs from any primitive wooden ships would be able to harm it….ever…as long as it was centered in that vortex.

I think it would be just a matter of time before archaeologists discovered the original foundations and remnants of buildings that were built long before the Fort was ever conceived of or built. If there were some big old rocks in Baltimore, I’m sure they would have petroglyphs on them and historians would spend years trying to figure out what they meant and how the stones got there in the beginning. It is absolutely plausible that this was the site of a landing spot for spaceships and vehicles used by extraterrestrials in ancient times. It makes sense in that location right at the top of the Chesapeake Bay. And there are several of these “forts” up and down the east coast that could have been used by the ancient aliens. It is just so clear if you think about it for a moment or two.

And what’s up with that park up the street from Fort McHenry called Federal Hill Park? Right in the middle of this part of the city, there’s a big hill sticking up above the row houses like a green knob. According to one lady that I talked to, this is one of the oldest parks in the US and has been there as long as anyone can remember. It was there long before the colonists arrived and is still there today looking like an Indian mound right there close to downtown Baltimore. It makes sense that there would be a smaller complex near a giant space port like Fort McHenry, now doesn’t it? Do you think there might be tombs inside the hill or maybe a ring of stones at the summit – maybe Baltimore Henge? (See, I got it in there after all.)

Again, no doubt the ancient history could be revealed with further study of the site and more archaeological digs. But, alas, we shall never know because the United States Government has declared these sites to be national monuments that are protected from further study into their origins. What do you suppose they are hiding? And so the mystery will ever remain just that – a mystery….or maybe a Government conspiracy. How shall we ever know?

Note/Disclaimer: For all you believers out there, you need to know – I just made this last part up – all of it. Okay, the part about the Fort being in the shape of a five-pointed star is true and the Pentagon is five-sided and there is a Federal Hill Park in Baltimore. The part about the alien site at the Fort all originated in my television-saturated mind.