My older brother, Fred (red shorts) tries to tackle the ball at the regular weekly pick-up soccer game at Tubman Elementary (and other locations, varies by weekend) in Columbia Heights, Washington, DC
Another road trip to DC continues... This afternoon, my brother Fred played in his regular weekend pick-up football match, this week held at Tubman Elementary in Columbia Heights, DC.
Here are a couple of other shots of the match:
LOCATION OF TUBMAN ELEMENTARY, WASHINGTON, DC:
Taqueria "Atol de Elote," Takoma Park, MD
Great Cormorants flying North over the River Neuse towards New BernHuge numbers of Great Cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) that have been wintering in the local NC coastal areas (as well as SC and GA) are now migrating northward.
These pictures were taken on one of the early morning ferry runs from Minnesot Beach to Cherry Point... While waiting for the ferry and while crossing, endless streams of cormorants in V formations, single-file lines, and general jumble formations were flying above the river towards New Bern and final destinations well north of there.
The vast multitudes were difficult to capture in still photos, and I wished I had had a video capable digicam with me.(Click on image to enlarge)
HAPPY SWF EVERYONE!
I look forward to seeing the other Skywatch pictures from around the world on the other SWF sites listed at:
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Draught beer taps awaiting the imminent opening of the Broad Street Grill in Oriental"Scoot's," a long-time staple of Oriental dining, has closed... Proprietor and Chef Eric Stickrath has expanded, redecorated, re-branded, and re-purposed the eatery, which will soon open as the "Broadstreet Grill."
Pabst Blue Ribbon is only one of the new consumables Oriental will be able to enjoy at the BSG...
Chef Eric has largely scrapped the old "Scoot's" sandwich and pizza joint concept, and describes the new BSG concept as "creative regional cuisine in a casual atmoshphere." (and a non-smoking one, too)
Personally, as a moderate "foodie" and an experienced Europe-traveler, I would replace that seven-word description with a single word: "Bistro"... like the casual on-every-corner family oriented and affordable restaurants Parisians refer to as bistros... But nobody asked me.The "G" in the "BSG"
(Click on image for full size)
But don't worry, "Scoot's " fans... Pizza will still be on the menu!
New offerings will include fresh local Eastern NC flounder, scallops and other catches from local commercial fisherman Keith Bruno and seasonal organic vegetables from village farmer Sandy Beal, as well as steaks and as-of-yet-undisclosed new creations by Chef Eric...
Rumor has it Ms. Beal will have a menu item named after her, too.
Recipes are being tested while the renovation nears completion... at right, fresh made tortilla chips and a spinach dip were evaluated during my photo shoot:
(Click photo to enlarge)
The somewhat intimate-sized Scoot's dining room has been greatly expanded for the Broadstreet Grill... Chef Eric has leased the adjoining space in the building, knocked down walls, and added what might well be the longest bar in Pamlico County:(click image to enlarge)
When Chef Eric had the floor taken up from the new real estate, he discovered an old terrazzo floor... that is a rather complex floor created from layers of concrete topped with a sprinkling of marble chips, like you might find in really old central-city bank buildings, etc. (read about terrazzo on Wikipedia)... after renovation, the floor was undergoing some final waxing when I visited:(click image to enlarge)
And the BSG is hiring:(click image to enlarge)
Be sure to keep an eye out for my coverage of the actual opening...
It is something of an Oriental tradition to always say "two weeks" if asked when a project is going to be completed (no matter the actual expectations), but Eric is confident this one will be done in half that time.
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Decibel doodles on the blackboard at Town Hall during a special meeting of the Oriental Town CommissionersThe Town Board of Commissioners held a special meeting today to consider a number of matters, including the continuing drama over whether and how to change the Town's old-school "nuisance" noise ordinance.
Commissioners (and the Mayor, in blue blazer, above) differed on several particulars... One dispute was whether sound diminishes by 3 dB or by 6 dB when the distance from the sound source is doubled.
Apparently, a Professor of Sound who gave a presentation to the Board at it's last meeting had said that sound diminishes by 3 dB when distance is doubled.
Two Commissioners contended that the Prof. had been mistaken, and that the two Commissioners had done their own on-line research and determined that it actually diminishes by 6 dB when distance is doubled.
It looks like someone in the "6 dB" faction had done some doodling on the blackboard (or whiteboard, I suppose) before the meeting:
The Commissioners ultimately agreed to re-contact the good Doctor to find out if the answer is really 3 dB or 6 dB, and to conduct some field demonstrations of music played at various dB levels at several local businesses where live music is played during the season.
Speaking of Noise, here is some noise from George Clinton and the boys... an act I can only dream would play at one of our local venues, and I guarantee these guys would blast past any of the dB levels being discussed at the meeting...
Proprietor Cathy Jones, in front of the "Collard Shack" in Otway, NC
Today I dropped by the "Collard Shack," a colorful little... well, a shack that sells collards, among other things.
The little shack with its eye-catching sign is an irresistible must-stop on NC Hwy. 70 in Otway, NC.
Despite the sign, this little place offers much more than just collards... Though of course fresh collards are readily available...
Local honey, country hams, pecans, assorted preserves (strawberry, figs, sorghum, apple butter etc), rutabagas and potatoes are available...
as well as those must-haves, pickled pigs feet and pickled pork brains.
That's right, PICKLED PORK BRAINS IN MILK GRAVY are well-stocked here. Ms. Jones started carrying them on request from local customers, but only after she made sure they don't come in clear jars:
(click on image for full size)
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That's right, this is a Southern staple supply depot... No maple syrup or Ben & Jerry's here!
And, much like the famed "Love Shack," this is a "little old place where we can get together" with the visitin' porch out front, favored by locals in warm weather or cold, thanks to the wood-burning stove out front:
Clams, scallop and oyster shell remains in a cage on the stern of a commercial fishing boat, Harkers Island HarborToday's picture comes from Harkers Island Harbor, operated by the Carteret County Harbor Authority. Carteret County is home to most of North Carolina's commercial fishing licenses.
The harbor is inhabited mostly by 30-40 foot commercial fishing boats, about half the length of most of the commercial fishing vessels that line the two fish-house docks in Oriental's Raccoon Creek (as seen in the banner photo at the top of the blog.)
Vessels docked at Harkers Island Harbor
Fishermen gathering bivalve molluscs in the North River, Carteret County, NC
The scallop fisheries of the NC Outer Banks and Core Sound were re-opened at the end of January this year, after three years of being closed due to low populations of the pricey bivalve.
While scalloping will be allowed in these NC inshore waterways through April, they may only be taken by hand, hand rakes, hand tongs, dip nets or scoops, but not by dredges, which can destroy wide swaths of the sea-grass beds on which the tenuous scallop population depends. (the guys in the center of the picture are using rakes, and I believe the guy in the lower right is using tongs)
Recreational fishers are limited to taking 1/2 bushel of scallops on Saturdays and Sundays, and commercial fishers up to 5 bushels on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Today is Friday, a commercial fisher scallop day, but ther are also numerous oyster beds in the area, so I'm not sure if these are commercial scallop fishers trying for their Friday 5 bushel limit, or if they are folks gathering oysters, or even clams. (Perhaps a friendly local fisherman might know and drop me a comment or an e-mail educating me on the topic)
[2.08.09 UPDATE: I have been reliably informed by a local commercial fisherman that North River, Carteret County, is a very popular spot for taking oysters and clams... it is supposed to be "silly" with oysters... I had actually noticed that oyster shells litter the shoreline and the little island in the photo above, and I did see bunches of oyster clusters during low tide... Also, rakes are apparently used for taking clams, while hand tongs are used for oysters.]
Whatever they are after, these guys are wading in water that was about 35 degrees Fahrenheit at the time this shot was taken...
Notice one guy in the upper left of the feature picture at the top of the posting is wearing a wet suit ... he is handing up his floating barrel (used to store the catch on ice) to a dry helper in a boat... there is another guy in a wet suit almost fully submerged behind another floating barrel to the right of the boat.
At least the air temperature was up to around 50 F., as opposed to the below/at/just above freezing temperatures of the past couple of days...
There was ice along parts of this shoreline at 8:00 a.m. when I first passed this spot, and nobody was out there then.Pelicans join the party, perched on
a small islet in the North River
While in the area, I also used the 600 mm. set-up (described in "Technical Note," below) to add a couple of new birds (both are ducks) to my photographic life-list:Redbreasted Merganser (mergus serrator)
(male, top: male & female, bottom):
American Widgeon (anas americana) (both male):
Technical Note on the headline photograph:
I am using a borrowed Canon Rebel XT1 with a Pentax 300 mm. f.4 lens, with a 2 X converter, for a total focal length of 600 mm.
I did not have a tripod with me, and the converter cuts down on the light intake, so I had to open the lens all the way and set the ISO at 1600 in order to get a fast enough shutter speed (at 1/1000) to get a fairly crisp shot with this long lens.
I therefore got more "noise" (anyone remember when we called it "grain"?) and less depth-of-field than I could have desired for this shot... The closest person in the feature picture at the top of this post is about 250 yards away, and the background shoreline is 1.4 miles away.
Here is where these fishermen were wading in the 1 to 4 foot waters:
Western twilight sky as seen from the 5:45 PM Cherry Point-Minnesott Beach Ferry in the middle of the Neuse RiverI took this picture on Tuesday evening while returning to Oriental from near Harker's Island, NC.
The 5:45 PM ferry from Cherry Point to Minnesott Beach is a little too late to catch the sunset these days, but I was treated to this magnificent twilight sky during the crossing.HAPPY SWF EVERYONE!
I look forward to seeing the other Skywatch pictures from around the world on the other SWF sites listed at:
Snow descends on mallards (anas platyrhynchos) swimming past a man-made Osprey nest platform near Harker's Island, NCSnow came down across Down-East North Carolina today, dropping one to two inches across the region, with up to one inch of accumulation in places. It was nice big fluffy snow, not like the minuscule flakes of the November flurries.
I know, I know, for all you folks with that "flinty Chicago toughness" our President so admires, it's no big deal... just like a mid-July day. But it is unusual around here, though it caused no problems along the coastal counties... some wimpier inland counties delayed school and government openings, but not the hearty down-easters.
This picture was taken near Harker's Island, along Core Sound, near Cape Lookout. I will be back and forth to the area over the next few days, and hope to get some good pictures in the area.
A stretch of the ICW north of Beaufort, NC
Fresh steamed oysters-30-
Superbowl Sunday... I was invited to a pre-game oyster-bake out near Dawson's Creek today.
Regular readers will know that I am not a huge seafood fan, to say the least, and oysters are near the bottom of my "edibles" list...
Nonetheless, I did eat a few, and they pretty much tasted like the garlic-butter-worsteshire sauce or horseradish-ketchup-tobasco sauce I dipped them in. I did eat one without sauce, but quickly washed it down with plenty of Pepsi-cola while repeating to myself "I did not just eat a slimy mucous from a shell" over and over again.
The other folks at the pre-game party thoroughly enjoyed the oysters... the host's father told me he had eaten somewhere between 30 and 40 of the bivalve mollusks, the very thought of which made me feel a little green.
As one of my favorite authors, Jonathan Swift, once said "He was a bold man that first ate an oyster."
I struggled with the oysters, but enjoyed the company, the other available edibles and drinkables, and the accompanying pool tournament in the back shed before heading back to Oriental and the local pub for the Superbowl. My favorite part was the guy hitting the Koala.
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