Eastern Shore

August 2025: Garden, Lake, Ponies, and Living Shorelines

/ Chris Thaiss / Leave a comment

Monarch feeds on Peach Zinnia in our community garden, August 14

In this month’s blog:

Bounty and Beauty in the Late Summer Garden
Climate Log: Fighting the Good Fight–Ponies, Storms, and Living Shorelines
The August 2025 Photo/Video Gallery: Wildflowers around Our Lake and More from the Eastern Shore

Turkey Vulture eats meal atop post along the shore on Tilghman Island, Eastern Shore, Maryland, August 17

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Beauty and Bounty in the Late Summer Garden

Sachem Butterfly in Orange Marigolds, our garden, August 15

In August, our garden this year reached its apex in productivity, with some plants starting to decline, a few exhausted, and others still going strong–or even making a comeback. On August 22, the Community held its annual Garden Potluck, where gardeners from the five collections of plots across town came together to share stories about what worked and what didn’t, ask each other for advice, and bring dishes made from our produce and other goodies.

Chris’s Three Sisters (corn, squash, beans) stew, with zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, and green peppers from our garden, served at the Community Garden Potluck, August 22

So how have the diverse plants done this August?

  1. Still going strong: Plants still producing with no let-up in our plot are the profuse marigolds (yellow and orange), white and pink vinca, the spreading zinnias, one amazing green pepper plant,  hot burrito pepper, herbs (rosemary and oregano), and the late blooming and very tall cosmos.

Marigold explosion, still vibrant, morning, August 28

Pink and white Vinca happy in our garden, August 8

Translucent magenta Cosmos blooms, early morning, August 8

Zinnias and cosmos, still brilliant, morning, August 28

The last of 3 mild pepper plants, still producing, morning, August 28

2. Starting to decline: our three varieties of tomatoes: Husky Cherry Red, Juliet, and Sweet Millions–the most productive tomatoes we’ve ever grown and still putting out 2 dozen or more per day.

One day’s produce from our garden plot and that of a generous neighbor, August 8

3. Exhausted after production since April: Zucchini (May to mid July), Mint (May to mid August), Strawberries (April to end of July), Blueberries (April to June), Yellow Squash (May to mid July), Coneflowers (May to end of July), Swiss Chard (May to early August), Thyme (May to end of July)

Early morning sunlight through Swiss Chard, with Rosemary, August 8

4. Making a comeback after early success: the royally-hued Dahlias

Our Dahlias were colorfully prolific in May and June, and now have returned in August!

As we look over the five months so far of this new garden venture for us, three features stand out. The first is the large amount of rain we’ve had this half year (about 12 inches) compared to the deep drought our fellow gardeners went through last year. The second is how this prolific small plot has surprised us each time we visit (about every other day) with the uniqueness of the growing and fruiting patterns of each plant. Each one indeed has its own personality.

And the third feature is the absolute splendor of the creativity and dedication of the many friendly gardeners we’ve encountered and gotten to know. This collection of garden plots is an entreprenurial place, where the living soil, air, water, seeds, pollinators, microbes, and loving humans cooperate to make many, many small miracles from day to day. With more miracles yet to come in the rest of the year!

An American Goldfinch calls from across the garden plots on the early morning of August 12

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Climate Log: Fighting the Good Fight–Ponies, Storms, and Living Shorelines

Female Osprey preens on her nest in the marshes of Tilghman Island on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, August 17

As the Trump administration keeps

  • denying a changed climate of ever more dangerous heat, drought, and floods
  • defunding protections for animals, plants, and human beings, and
  • intensifying the burning of poisonous fossil fuels,

groups and localities around the US are fighting back through local and regional actions that try to sustain healthy living for all creatures. What can we as Americans do to promote health and counteract these dangerous anti-life actions by the new regime? The New York Times series “Fifty States, Fifty Fixes” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/climate/50-states-fixes.html is one effort. It asks readers to contribute their own examples of life-saving actions in their own communities–and thousands of readers throughout the nation have answered the call.

“Living shoreline” built with natural materials near Lewes, Delaware, August 21 (New York Times photo)

One such coordinated action–now being replicated in other states–is the “living shorelines” project in Delaware. “Living shorelines” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/climate/delaware-living-shorelines.html uses natural materials, including the power of plants and soil, to recreate the marshy wetlands destroyed by sea level rise along US coasts. These living shorelines are far more effective than the concrete and rocky barriers often used to delay coastal erosion. Not only are the living shorelines of deep-rooted plants stronger and more lasting than artificial barriers–but they provide homes for water creatures and in fact grow steadily more diverse and broader as time goes on.

On our recent trip to Maryland’s Eastern Shore, we saw the living shoreline at the Maritime Museum in St. Michael’s, August 17

Protecting the Marshes, Coastline, and Precious Ponies of Chincoteague, Virginia.

On our visit to the Eastern Shore, we joined a few surfers, several park personnel, and a beach full of Lesser Yellowlegs and Laughing Gulls riding out the effects of Hurricane Erin, August 18, on Assateague Island

Misty and Stormy. If you’ve been to the Atlantic Coast’s Chincoteague Island, Virginia, just across the Maryland state line, you probably know the story of Misty, the pony made famous by writer Marguerite Henry in the 1950s and 60s. Her 1963 sequel, Stormy, Misty’s Foal, describes in sad detail the tidal storm that took the lives of so many of the islands’ legendary ponies–which the states and the National Park Service have protected for over 100 years.

Six ponies in an Assateague Island saltgrass marsh, early morning, windy, rainy August 19. Care by national and state park personnel have extended life spans of the ponies, as well as their protecting the marshes and shorelines https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/maryland/2015/06/02/assateague-pony-population-aging/28347157/

We visited Chincoteague and Assateague islands on August 18-20, just as Hurricane Erin was moving up the Atlantic and beginning to build a storm surge on the coast. The whipping winds and intermittent rain made for a lively time for us and the birds, but the ponies and waterfowl were easily up to the task, as were the park personnel. The protection of shorelines and marshes in the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is a model of what federal, state, and local cooperation can accomplish.

A Lauguing Gull fights the wind on Assateague Beach, early AM, August 19

The pony herds draw many thousands of tourists each year–and the grazing ponies were on magnificent display in the saltgrass marshes visible to drivers for hundreds of yards beyond the roads of the refuge. We were able to get beautiful views of one herd and of their symbiotic relationship with the egrets and gulls who flock among them. In this video, Jean reads from Stormy, Misty’s Foal as I scan the herd and the birds. This excerpt is Marguerite Henry’s recounting of the legendary history of how a Spanish shipwreck in the 16th century brought the ponies to Assateague:

As we scan about a dozen members of the pony herd and their accompanying birds in the Assateague marshes, Jean reads from Marguerite Henry’s Stormy, Misty’s Foal (August 19, early morning in the rain)

Here are a few more of the photos and videos from our visit to Chincoteague and to the Wildlife Refuge (see a few more pics and clips of our visit to the Eastern Shore in this month’s Gallery, too).

Laughing Gulls and male and female Mallards beside our hotel in Chincoteague, August 18

Two surfers in the high waves, Assateague Beach, August 19, early morning rain

Three Lesser Yellowlegs run in the wind and rain of Assateague Beach, early morning, August 19

Large flock of egrets and four ponies active in the early morning wind and rain, Assateague Island, August 19

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Okra plant and bloom from the Tilghman Island Inn kitchen garden, Maryland, August 17

The August 2025 Photo/Video Gallery: Wildflowers around Our Lake and More from the Eastern Shore

Whereas our garden plot features what we’ve planted, our little lake provides a changing feast of wildflowers. The display changes as the months do, and new leaves, stems, and flowers appear, while others fade back or disappear until next year.  As citizens of our local refuge (even if not so named), these new flowers highlight the good work we humans do when we don’t do too much–and we let the plants and animals do what they are experts at doing.

A Bee feeds atop this Evening Primrose on the east bank of our lake. These brilliant flowers appear along the lake in August, here on the morning of August 22

In much the same way, our visit to the Eastern Shore on August 16-20 let us witness ways, such as the St. Michael’s Maritime Museum and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, by which humans can assist nature by deliberately limiting commercial development and preserving native habitats. But beyond preservation, in exhibits like “Sailing to Freedom,” curating groups such as the Maritime  Museum go beyond preservation to call out past injustices, which are starting to reappear in the current political climate of censorship of diversity and the censors’ rewriting of history .

The multi-room exhibit “Sailing to Freedom” at the St. Michael’s Maritime Museum illustrates the rich but rarely mentioned history of enslaved people and their allies using boats and waterways to escape enslavement in the pre-Civil-War United States.

At the Maritime Museum is the re-located home of the sister of Frederick Douglass, where the garden includes a “three sisters” display of how Native Americans planted the 3 plants (beans, corn, and squash) together. Note how the bean vines encircle the corn stalk.

At the Maritime Museum in St. Michael’s, this skipjack is one of many vessels that have been restored to tell the history of the fisheries for over centuries on the Eastern Shore (Photo August 17)

Wild Blue Chicory is one of the late summer wildflowers/herbs that grow around our lake, August 3

Purple Martins in the wildlife preserve at the tip of Tilghman Island, Maryland, August 17

With the Virginia shore 12 miles across the Chesapeake Bay, a Swamp Rose Mallow blooms at the tip of Tilghman Island, August 17

Magnificent Weeping Willow at the Tilghman Island Inn, August 16

In the Tilghman Island marsh beside the Inn, a male Osprey devours his catch, August 17

At the Tilghman Island Inn, a Black Swallowtail flits within Purple Top Vervain

Pokeberry in bloom along the north shore of our lake, August 3

Four Red-bellied Cooters sun on a log at the north shore of our lake, just after sunrise, August 3

Bumblebee in Cutleaf Teazel on the north shore path of our lake, August 3

Two Bumblebees in 2 Purple Teazel, north shore, sunny noon, August 27

Grey Catbird flits amid Woodbine along the west bank of our lake, morning, August 3

The Chincoteague Fairgrounds, where for 100 years the people have celebrated the annual Pony Penning festival and carnival. Pony Penning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_Penning strengthens the herd and protects the land, while also giving new homes to young members of the herd among farmers and ranchers of the region. (Photo, August 20)

South Corral on Assateague Island, where ponies are rounded up for the swim across the channel on Pony Penning Day each year (photo August 19)

Four Herring Gulls on the roof of our hotel in Chincoteague, early morning, August 19

Daisy Fleabane display on the east bank of our lake, August 3

Five Canada Geese exercise in the southeast cove of our lake, sunny noon, August 27

Bumblebee in Swamp Milkweed on the east bank of our lake, on a breezy August 3

Panorama toward the south end of our lake on the morning of August 22, with Evening Primrose and prolific Horseweed in the foreground

Gallery Bonus: Raccoon crosses the trail at the Seneca Regional Park, visited on August 8

Bonus 2: At Seneca Park, a side channel of the Potomac River flows swiftly through the forest, August 8

And so on toward September, with continued courage to protect and celebrate the great diversity of life…

September 2024: We Return to the Eastern Shore and We Start a New Garden

/ Chris Thaiss / Leave a comment

If you’re new to this blog, start with the About page, then come to Home.

Double-crested Cormorants celebrate sunset on the Tred Avon River, Oxford, MD, September 15

In this month’s entry:

Return to the Eastern Shore: Heroes, Horses, Survivors
Our Newly-Started Garden!
Another Potomac Valley Exploration
The September 2024 Photo/Video Gallery

On the Long Wharf in Cambridge, MD, Herring Gulls, Rock Doves, and a Turkey Vulture commune, September 14

Return to the Eastern Shore: Heroes, Horses, and Survivors

Frederick Douglass statue at County Courthouse, Easton, MD, September 13

One year ago, we took our first trip to the Eastern Shore of Maryland since we’d left California in 2022. On that trip, we focused on the quiet village of St. Michael’s, the even tinier Tilghman’s Island just across the Chesapeake Bay from Virginia, and the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. On this year’s two-days-longer trip, we focused on the historic towns of Easton, Cambridge, Vienna, and Oxford–as well as windswept Assateague Island all the way east at the Atlantic Ocean.

Early morning scan along a small beach at the western edge of the town of Oxford, toward the Choptank River, September 16

Heroes

The town of Easton thrives today near where Frederick Douglass grew up enslaved and from which he escaped as a young man. His life and struggles are immortalized in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass. Easton reveres its local hero through a powerfully-wrought statue in the town center and an annual Frederick Douglass Day celebration, to be held this year on September 28.

Douglass Day poster, Easton, Maryland (photo, September 13)

A second Eastern Shore hero, Harriet Tubman, the courageous, tireless leader of the Underground Railroad, is commemorated in nearby Cambridge, Maryland, through the Harriet Tubman Memorial Garden, and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Center, which includes the Museum of the Underground Railroad. On this Veteran’s Day, November 11, Tubman was honored, 160 years after her military service to the U.S. during the Civil War, by being named a one-star general in the Maryland National Guard. Over her lifetime of service, she liberated many hundreds of enslaved persons in Maryland and other slave states.

Mural of Harriet Tubman in downtown Cambridge, MD

Harriet Tubman grew up enslaved on the Brodess Farm eight miles south of Cambridge, and from there not only escaped herself, but led others from the farm to freedom. The peaceful fields and forest of this land today, marked by two plaques, are a quiet tribute to the lifetime of heroic service by this American hero.

Historic marker to Harriet Tubman at the site of the Brodess Farm, south of Cambridge, Maryland (photo, September 15)

Horses

According to legend, a shipwreck late in the 17th century left a small herd of horses stranded on long, narrow, sandy Assateague Island just off the Maryland coast. These horses survived on the salt marsh grass, and their descendants became over time the darlings of the human community that grew up near them, and were instrumental to the humans’ own success. In the 20th century, Assateague Island became the Assateague Island National Seashore, the land and horses protected by the national and state Park Services.  On September 15, we visited the island for the first time in many years, and were enchanted once again by the natural setting and its equine inhabitants.

One of the Assateague horses welcomes us to the National Seashore. We stopped and let the horse pass by to join friends. (September 15)

Not only were we and the other human visitors greeted by several of the approximately 75 horses on the island, but we were able to visit the very quiet, early morning beach, surrounding marshes, and woods. As one would expect, the island is being constantly reshaped by wind, currents, and climate change; so a second large responsibility of the Park Services is to revitalize the beaches and protect the native plant species.

Panorama of the Assateague shoreline, morning, September 15 

View from the beach across the marsh to the intracoastal bay and the mainland beyond (September 15)

Assateague mare and her foal, along the roadside, September 15

Survivors

Life on the Eastern Shore is about survivors, not only the enslaved humans who managed to escape, or the horses on Assateague, or the native plants and animals challenged by modern agriculture and overfishing, but all those over centuries whose descendants have endured and often thrived in an environment with arable land and plentiful sea life. Perhaps among the most challenged have been the Native American humans of this unique region, who made a living from this land and its waters over many centuries through responsible use of the natural resources–and then were decimated by Anglo tobacco growers, farmers, and fishermen from the 17th through 19th centuries. Descendants of those who survived still call this region home.

We actually came on this visit because we wanted to take part in the 32nd Annual Festival of the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians, celebrated in Vienna, Maryland, 25 miles east of Cambridge on the banks of the Nanticoke River.

Consisting of displays of foods and crafts, exhibits, demonstrations, ceremonies, and native dances, the annual festival draws members from several tribes and other visitors from the Eastern Shore and well beyond (like us).

Drew Shuptar-Rayvis, Cultural Ambassador of the Pocomoke Nation, exhibiter at the festival, September 14

Parks Docent describes habits of the Red Tail Hawk, at the Native American Festival, Vienna, MD, September 14

The Nanticoke River, looking toward south, Vienna, MD, September 14

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We Start a New Garden!

Our first plantings: Broccoli, Cauliflower, Red Cabbage, Mums, Daisies, 3 weeks old, in the rain, September 24

Shortly after we moved into our Northern Virginia community in 2022, I put our name on a waiting list for a 200-square-foot garden plot in one of our suburban city’s array of four areas open to residents for their gardens. Each of the four area clusters includes about 50 plots: the clusters are all fenced in and require a code to enter.  These four areas are closely supervised by the community, with each area governed by rules (organic gardening is required, for example), with the rules enforced by managers. Water is provided in each area, and mulch and compost are also available. Each plot holder pays a reasonable seasonal fee.

These plots are so popular that I waited almost two years for our name to come up. In that time, we learned as much as we could about growing vegetables and flowers in the rainier Northern Virginia climate–so different from the year-round, irrigated gardening I did in California for 17 years, and which is captured month to month in this blog from 2016 to June 2022. (Check out some of our entries!)

Here, we are starting very small, to get a feel for the climate and because winter is fast approaching. We planted 6 seedlings each of broccoli, cauliflower, and red cabbage, plus a few hardy fall flowers (chrysanthemums and gerbera daisies), just to see how they will do in the weather and how they are impacted by the squirrels, chipmunks, and cabbage leaf butterflies. We are learning so much from the other garden plots we look at–and we are mightily impressed by the variety and productivity of our new neighbors’ gardens. See the video below.

Keep watching this blog for monthly updates.

Pano-track of plots in the area in which we have our small new garden, in the rain, September 24

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Another New Potomac Valley Exploration: Rock Creek

Marsh on Rock Creek tributary above Jones Mill, Rockville, Maryland, September 3

Rock Creek begins in Montgomery County, north of Washington, DC, and flows through the District and into the Potomac at Georgetown. On September 3, we visited the northern-most part of Rock Creek, where the Jones Mill stood in the 18th century. As with the Conococheague Creek region 60 miles to the northwest, some of Jean’s ancestors settled in this Jones Mill area at that time. So visiting this area  and observing the waterways and flora helps us begin to imagine what those ancestors might have experienced, though the land has been greatly changed since those times. Fortunately, small parts of this densely-developed area have been preserved as parkland and even as nature refuge, rather than adapted and re-adapted decade upon decade as commercial, residential, and roadway construction.

Indeed, even to preserve this few-acre streambed as a wetland has meant substantial redesign and replanting, plus the addition of paths and bridges for visitors, as seen in the above photo.

Black Swallowtail Butterflies on Blue Lobelia, Rock Creek marsh, Jones Mill area,  September 3

Oxeye Sunflowers, Rock Creek marsh, Jones Mill area, September 3

Magnificent Black Walnut Tree, Rock Creek park, Jones Mill area, September 3

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The September 2024 Photo/Video Gallery

More from around our community lake, from our new garden, and from our travels this month

Maybe twice a year, we’ll be privileged to witness a beaver swimming in our lake. On September 26, in the rain just before sunrise, I watched as this beaver explored the swollen shoreline. This is our most extended view of this resident in two years.

A pair of Blue Jays atop an oak east of our lake, misty morning, September 25

Spiderweb view of the lake, southeast cove, misty morning, September 25

Ripe raspberries from a bush left in our new garden by the previous plot holder, September 24

Red-bellied Woodpecker in a neighbor’s plot in the community garden in the rain, September 24

Cocks-comb (Celosia) on porch beside our lake, September 24

Cauliflower plants thrive in pot on porch beside our lake, September 24

Wildflower montage below the lake’s north end dam: Goldenrod, Late Boneset, Cutleaf Teazle, Purple Thistle, Porcelain Berry, drizzly morning, September 22

Rock Doves by dozens fly on to and perch on stanchion west of the lake, drizzly morning, September 22

Exceptionally rare in the Eastern U.S.: Clark’s Nutcracker feeds on dried Evening Primrose on the Northeast bank of the lake, September 22

Mockingbird on Pokeberry bush at the north end shore of the lake, misty morning, September 25

Ferry trip: from Oxford, MD, to Bellevue, MD, across the Tred Avon River, September 16

The Robert Morris Inn, built 1710, where we stayed in Oxford, MD, September 15-16

Eastern Shore trip: Passing by a typical Easton area farm with the ubiquitous soybeans that we saw growing in the region, Sept. 13

By the Dorchester County History Museum, Cambridge, MD: Tracking the flora and Mallards in the marsh, September 14

On the Choptank River bridge, September 13: a paddle wheeler heads toward the pier in Cambridge

Assateague Island: Herd crosses the road where traffic has stopped, September 15

Assateague Island: A Herrring Gull at the ocean’s edge, early morning, September 15

Surprise Zucchini blooms and vine on the north end path by our lake, September 10

Community garden: male Cardinal perches in a neighbor’s plot in the rain, September 24

Red Wasp feeds on Porcelain Berry west of our lake, late afternoon, September 9

Snapping Turtle swims across the middle of our lake, always on the lookout, afternoon, September 22

Another patient watcher: Blue Heron amid Late Boneset and Bushclover, northwest corner of the lake, misty morning, September 25

And my camera is always on the lookout, too, as I hope to see, hear, and hold on to more memories. Still a few days of September left, then on to October in our colorful, exciting, fragile world.