biking the Northwest Branch Trail

The last ride I took on Pearl, back in July before our trip, was up the Northwest Branch Trail along the—wait for it—northwest branch of the Anacostia. I’d never been up beyond University Boulevard, and likely won’t go again. Not because the trail wasn’t nice; it was, even with the stretch of gang-tagged trees making me only too aware of the spate of sexual assaults taking place in our area.

The non-fear-based downside is that the trail ends in rocks only a few miles from my house, at the Beltway overpass, so it’s not really made for a nice long ride. I ended up at the rocks right around high noon, so it wasn’t the best light for photos either, with the stark contrast of canopy and glare. Nonetheless, I parked Pearl—taking the probably unnecessary step of hiding her behind a huge rock—and walked up the trail just far enough to see the small waterfall. I have to admit, I was hoping for something a bit more dramatic when the kid coming out of the woods carrying his bike told me there was a ‘waterfall’ up a bit, but it was nice for what it was.


Pearl and the rock.


Waterfall below.


Beltway above.

As for wildlife, I saw loads of larger birds—flickers, grackles, robins, a thrasher, red-bellied woodpecker, hairy woodpecker—but nary a small one. I’m guessing they were quite a bit higher than the trail, up at the tops of the trees that were growing up the rather steep banks.

biking the Northwest Branch Trail

visits to Lake Artemesia

In an effort to get out into nature more, we walked to Lake Artemesia twice from our house in the weeks before our trip.

The first time, we took a meandering route, first heading to check out the new condos going up in Hyattsville. From there, we walked over to the river, and followed that path north to the lake. On that route, past Linson Pool and up behind the College Park airport, we had several good wildlife sightings. Just beyond East-West highway, I finally spotted and identified a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, a new life bird. My birding acquaintance had been hearing them nearly every time we were out together, but I hadn’t gotten a good glimpse of one. As we were making our way around the back of the airport, we came across the largest muskrats we’d ever seen chomping away in the grass. Initially we thought it was a groundhog, but as it scuttled off it definitely had the long skinny tail of a muskrat. Finally, once we’d rested and made our way around the lake, we came across a doe on the path back to Paint Branch.

Our second walk to Lake Artemesia was both more direct and less eventful. From our town, we walked to Rhode Island Avenue in College Park and north, crossing Paint Branch to the path where we saw the deer. We brought an early dinner, and had a small picnic on a bench. We saw plenty of birds, although no entirely new ones for me. I did spot a Common Yellowthroat, which I’d only seen a few times before, entirely by accident as I was tracking some Song Sparrows through a bush.

Since those two visits, we’ve been back a couple of times in cars with friends. On our most recent visit together, we spotted several Killdeer, in addition to the general horde of Wood Ducks and the local Great Blue Heron. The most exciting sighting was a pair of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds chasing each other about; I got a good look at the red collar of the male with the binoculars. That sighting marks only the second time I’ve seen hummingbirds away from feeders, the first being earlier this spring at the pond.

It seems that Killdeer are starting their migration, as I also spotted one at the University Hills pond earlier this week. That particular visit was eventful for me, birdwise, as I got a better look at several Blue-gray gnatcatchers flitting around and spotted a pair of Solitary Sandpipers (another new life bird!). The identification of the Solitary Sandpipers was my best guess based on size, behavior, location, and general non-breeding coloring (as best I could tell, neither the bills nor the legs and feet were yellow). Since they were poking about on a freshwater mudflat, that seemed the most likely species, but I’m open to other suggestions. There isn’t usually a mudflat there at all, so I can thank the drought for bringing them and the Killdeer into the neighborhood. A pair of Wood Ducks was also hanging out with the regular Mallards, and several Eastern Kingbirds were darting about. It’s always fun to see these species which, while common in these environments, are unusual to me after my early life in the woodsy Midwest.

I’ve been told that Lake Artemesia is a favorite resting spot of all kinds of birds during migration, so I’m excited to see what I find there over the next couple of months.

visits to Lake Artemesia

back on the grid

We’re home. We brought back 16 quarts of blueberries, already down to 12.5 and dwindling from there. My general approach is to eat as many as possible while they’re fresh, then freeze or bake them as they get a little more wilted. Rough life, I know.

Being back on the grid house-wise means being back off the grid car-wise. I dropped off the rental car this afternoon, after my final run to the store for things I’d forgotten on the weekend (rice milk and walnuts) and a visit to the garden. I discovered (not surprisingly) that my pepper plants were on their last legs, a combined effect of high temperatures and the pipe for the water to the garden in the process of being replaced. That I have peppers at all is a happy result of the kindness of my garden neighbor who has been watering my plants every day he’s there. I was happy to catch him this morning, and gave him half of the last of the jalapeños (the only pepper plants that thrived on my neglect, although the poblano didn’t do too badly, either). In exchange, I was offered an oddly tubular eggplant, which is currently roasting with those from our farm subscription in preparation for being mooshed into baba ghanoush, which itself is destined for the freezer. Yesterday I made my first batch of hommus as a warmup to today’s efforts with the eggplant, both recipes from the second volume of The Vegetarian Epicure. It was quite good, and very garlicky. I tend to double the garlic for most recipes, and always forget that’s not generally necessary for those from hippie vegetarian cookbooks.

In addition to food, I’m thinking a lot about paint. We have the paint for two rooms of the house (upstairs bathroom and family room), and as soon as I replace the tiles in the downstairs bathroom in the spot where we took out the frightening electric heater we’ll start using that one and get to work on the upstairs one (which will be painted, caulked, and grouted to within an inch of its life). The painting of the family room waits on the removal of the drop-down ironing board cabinet and the repair of that wall, as well as, of course, the moving of all of the stuff that’s currently blocking the walls. I’ve almost settled on a color for the bedroom, and that paint job will be easy as we’re also switching rooms. I’m trading down, taking the second small room as my space, and we’re planning to use the largest room as the bedroom, so it’ll be easy to paint during that transition.

And that’s the status report from the homefront. Welcome back.

back on the grid