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Another Monday morning and the feet hit the floor.  Does it get any better than that?  We can certainly hope so!  Twenty six degrees here and that doesn't sound like South of the Sun, but we'll hit sixty today and warm up the rest of the week.  I will be headed for the dreaded stress test on Wednesday and up to Delaware on Thursday to watch my g-son play hockey.  Can't wait to see all that equipment put in motion Thursday night.

When I was his age, we played on the 14th hole of a golf course in pick up play or at an old cemetery pond.  The only guy with any equipment other than a stick and puck had knee pads.  If you got banged up you just went home and didn't talk to the thug what did it for a week, or at least until the next skating adventure.  Today those kids are insulated with $400 of padding and of course no one loses!  But then times do change.

This past weekend, I took another trip through my senior moments by posting some images of Maryland.  After all I did live there off and on for over fifty years.  So I should have at least one image worth publishing.  A housekeeping detail.  When you see a word or words highlighted, you know to click on it to go some other page.  Generally to the website or a page on the website.  Just a little computer lingo there.

 

Two of the image I favor were made on the major islands in the Chesapeake.  Namely Smith in Maryland and Tangier in Virginia.  The Queen Mary is coming to port on Smith Island.  Here the life and income of the residents necessarily centers around the water and the critters that can be harvested therefrom.  The Queen Mary is decked out with a single patent tong (that tall structure) used to harvest oysters.  Generally, the Bay's watermen will start the oyster season in the southern part of the bay and migrate to the north finishing up in mid-winter on the latitude somewhere around Baltimore.

 

Life on Smith and Tangier is basically simple.  The men fish for a living and the women run the family while the kids commute to the mainland for high school.  What cars are on the islands aren't even registered with the DMV.  No need as the roads are simple narrow affairs that can be travelled on foot or bike.

 

 

This crabber on Smith Island is preparing to take the pots out on the bay.  Island life includes little houses like that pictured above with a dock from which to work.  No land, just wood!  The wood supports their work area whether it be tied to the bottom or floating in their boat.  The blue crab has been the watermen's staple crop since the pilgrims first found that they could be roasted over a fire to make a delicacy.  I have finished these photos in color as sepia.  The sepia tones lending the images to express the age of the business these men conduct.  They have been around for generations doing just what you see in these photos.