Eel Grass

Unfortunately we had a bad week weather-wise - it was too windy, there were crazy tides, and thunderstorms popped up throughout the week. However, the rainbow was that this cleared up an afternoon for me to volunteer with eel grass restoration. There are a lot of different projects through our office, not just beach bird monitoring. My roommate and her boss are involved with oysters and eel grass, so it was awesome to see this part of their work after helping with oyster castles a few weeks ago!

A brief explanation of what we are doing is restoring eel grass to its native habitat. Wiped out by a combination of storms and disease generations ago, this eel grass is being brought back to the area. The grass provides habitat for many sea creatures such as blue crabs, it helps to anchor the substrate, it slows the energy of waves before they bombard the wetlands and shore, and it provides a number of other beneficial attributes to the shore. 

The grass is seeding right now, so we go and collect blades of grass in big laundry bags. The bags are brought ashore and the grass is nurtured throughout the summer until the seeds are ready to be "planted" in the fall. We collected around ten trashcans full in just a few hours with the number of volunteers we had. 

This article was written a few years ago and does a great job of explaining not only the eel grass, but also the other projects our office works on:

https://www.nature.org/magazine/archives/virginias-wild-coast-1.xml?redirect=https-301

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

I proved I was from the Midwest in a bad way. First I tried putting my wetsuit on in front of all the volunteers gathered on the dock. The first one I couldn't get over my beach-walking calves, so I had to try to get it off. The second one took some convincing- inching up a little at a time balancing on one leg or the other- but with my roommate's help I finally got it zipped up. Then someone informed me it was backwards. All in all I finally got a wetsuit on (the right way) and wore a vest and hood because the water temps were still a little frigid. 

After I thought I was done with my embarrassing wetsuit shenanigans I somehow got the cord of the laundry back tucked inside my hood... and had it caught on camera. 

As you can tell I was way too thrilled to be snorkeling out in the bay. I thought my face hurt from the snorkel, but maybe it was because I was smiling so big all day.

More Food

I'm not sure what I enjoy most - cooking the food, eating the food, or taking pictures of the food.

 
I always crave fresh spring rolls! These are super easy to make - mine had mint, peanuts, carrots, vermicilli, cucumber, bean sprouts, and celery. I made a peanut sauce with peanut butter, soy sauce, and teriyaki. 



Beets + grapefruit + blood orange + goat cheese  drizzled in lavender honey and topped with toasted almond slivers 



Fried. Monochromatic. Yum. Fried oysters, hushpuppies, and cornbread - plus not pictured: coleslaw and iced tea 



Homemade biscuits with sandplum jelly from my momma for the office on a rainy Friday!

  
"Fried rice" with cauliflower rice, onions, carrots, celery, and bok choy
  

I'm addicted to the taco truck and I'm not ashamed of it. The chorizo one is definitely my favorite.



Homemade pizza on herbed crust - turkey pepporoni as well as goat cheese and tomato.


Pork tenderloin, mushroom risotto, and asparagus made by my co-worker for a little dinner party. 



Black bean soup, grilled corn, and a cheese quesadilla

     
Breakfast for dinner with my roomie! She has chickens at her house, so she brings fresh eggs on Mondays :)

Whimbrel Watch

The Eastern Shore and barrier islands are a heaven for birders during the shorebird spring migration. I have seen so many awesome bird sights including little groups of threatened red knots feeding in the surf, hundreds upon hundreds of dunlin so tired from migration they barely have the energy to hop on one leg away from me, and huge groups of skimmers barking so much it's deafening. Other shorebirds of interest include the piping plovers and American oystercatchers that I work with, semipalmated sandpipers, spotted sandpipers, semipalmated plovers, willet, whimbrel, and sanderling.


My work has been doing a spring count of one of the species, whimbrel, for several years. We take about ten days in the spring and from 4:30-dark we count the whimbrel migrating north. They fly 4,000-5,000 miles in 4-5 days to the Hudson Bay or up to northern Canada. The whimbrel fuel up on fiddler crabs here in the area before taking the big trip north. A study found they eat about 0.72 fiddler crabs per minute to fuel up!

There was an article in the local paper talking about some of these birds and their journey: http://www.bayjournal.com/article/migratory_birds_shore_up_appetites_on_horseshoe_crab_eggs

This is the view for Whimbrel Watch! We count flocks of 5 to hundreds.

Solitary sandpiper

Dunlin by the hundreds

The ibis are so beautiful and majestic. We see mostly white, but the occasional glossy ibis.

Gorgeous red knots!  A new one for my life list.

Flat Stanley

I had a fun visitor last week - Flat Nora came all the way from Oklahoma! Flat Stanley is a children's book about a boy who flattens himself and is able to travel around the world. Nora made a paper version of herself and sent it to me so that she could experience a week in my life! I have always thought it would be the utmost compliment for my life to be one that someone would want to send a Flat Stanley to experience - bucket list checked off!

Flat Nora spent a day with the Diving and Boating Committee in a first aid and CPR class. The class was made up of divers/boaters from California, Louisiana, Texas, Utah, Florida, and New York and taught by an instructor stationed in Hawaii who does these classes globally.

 

Flat Nora went out on the boat with us to a barrier island. We walked many miles of beach monitoring the threatened birds. 

We found many nests but took the time to take a picture with this (not threatened or endangered) willet nest hidden in vegetation.

Flat Nora ate like a queen. These fried oysters were top notch

Flat Nora also attended happy hour on the screened in porch of the 1806 historic home. She ate more than her body weight in these fresh steamed local clams.

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de May fell on a Friday, so I thought it was essential that we celebrate. I always get these notions to take on a lot of cooking and underestimate how long it will take and how many dishes I'll have to do after the fact. All in all it was totally worth it and I was pleased with how everything turned out. That being said, it may take until next Cinco de Mayo for me to sign up for such a task again.

There were 7 of us - coworkers and significant others- who enjoyed coronas and margaritas and chicken enchiladas. I'm really grateful to work with such cool people that I want to hang out with outside of working hours as well.

The Daily Grind

There are so many beautiful sights and sounds while riding the boat and walking the beach every day. It's hard to try to capture everything while still doing my job 100%, but every now and then I get to snap a shot of the wonderful world around me. 

There's a beautiful barnacle and oyster covered log on one of the islands. It looks like it's covered in bouquets

Some things just seem out of place at the beach - including butterflies.

Food

Roasted butternut squash, monarch tomatoes, and spinach cooked in red wine topped with mozzarella.


  

Mahi mahi with a mango salsa, asparagus and blood orange


 

Fresh steamed clams! Yum. This was for a work happy hour

 

Sweet potato biscuits are an Eastern Shore food apparently. They were pretty good - and the hush puppies were amazing.



Soft shell crab eggs benedict


  

Crab dip


 

Squid ink pizza

 

 

You know you've found a good friend/co-worker when he introduces you to the taco trucks.