Outdoors Maryland; 1603

Outdoors Maryland is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you. Coming up. Just a peak water main come together in a show of unity and hope for the future of the bay. The mountains of western Maryland are fragrant with this sweet Steve of February. And. A new kind of Maryland farm rekindling optimism. Outdoors Maryland is produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. DENR. Inspired by Nature. An early morning fog shrouds the shoreline of parish creek as the working boats

of Shadyside head out into the bay. For decades this has been the routine here. The town of shady side has always been a home for Waterman. But now many here fear that the waterman's era in Shadyside is coming to an end. Dawn breaks off the Thomas Point lighthouse with a fishing boat called Grace. Captained by Tommy Hamill. A fifth generation Waterman from Shadyside. By mid-morning the boat's crew has emptied the second power. That. With what appears to be a rich bounty of rock fish and perch. But the captain is disappointed. For this time of year. This will be on the low end. We have another month left. Hopefully we get a whole lot of blustery weather Hallock has been working on the water since he was 13. Just like his forefathers did in a previous century making a living on the water

is all he's ever known. When I was a little boy. From the time I could probably walk talk Howel with knew what I want to say. Something that. Good bye kinda just sticks with you. Most of the watermen of Shadyside have similar feelings. A lifelong attachment to the water and emotional tie to the life of their forefathers. But for many a working life on the Chesapeake Bay has gotten increasingly difficult. The catch is smaller and the costs greater. Thirty years ago there used to be 80 watermen in Shadyside. Now there are less than 50. The oyster harvest is all but gone. The number of crabs keeps going down. At Shannon's restaurant a favorite of many of the town's retired water men. The first cups of coffee often bring out the memories and stories. Clyde Alderson a retired carpenter was also once a watermelon where they used to be

quite a few ornamental but now does that mean that you do not do or not for now not that maybe some of the old timers are still doing it you know. Very few new people come in and I'm doing it so. Here. Goes there's nothing I did they say today Shadyside is a town of sharp contrasts. The old and the new. New developments replacing more modest homes yachts and pleasure boats taking over marinas. A new boat dealership where there was once a haul out area for working boats once quiet country roads now busy with traffic. John Van Osteen is one of the younger of Shea besides Waterman. He says most watermen can no longer afford to live on the water. If you look around the creek and we're slowly losing places and work out of. That out of the past three years we've lost five places at work but can tie up in this creek. I'm every home on this creek 30 years ago was a working water and that's not the case today. The case today there's probably

three of the hands on this river. I'll be back. One of those is the home of Billy Joe groom all his life. Groom has been a waterman. He's now repairing engines to make enough money to avoid selling the family home. Just the way of life that was so pleasant to live when you could or stare and the wondering for have been there in the summer. It could have been no better but I had to make some hard choices. And. It's not one that I'm happy with it's just something I had to do. The group believes water men are being squeezed out of their own community. For me when I was growing up it was a little crazy here. You could learn Lake County pleasure boat on two hands. Well now you can toward a little warning. Yeah just up in 50 years time everything's just thrown around. If you could take the story of the American Indian and switch it over to the waterman This is the

same thing always up in Calgary and shot. And we're just going down the back it will be gone. But many of the watermen aren't that pessimistic. JR grows a fourth generation Waterman is credited with helping to bring the waterman and the community together by coming up with the idea to revive the blessing of the fleet and old Shadyside tradition. It used to be just prayers for the departing boat captains. The owner. Now it's become a waterfront festival with a boat parade and a docking contest. All right. On. The right. All right. We pay every blessing of the fleet every year. And we tried to get it to community involved where you had to come by and see Yosh and we did talk to the ailment and

just see that we are right here making a living for our families just like everyone else. The blessing of the fleet has also attracted water men from all over. So has the new waterside educational center where the festivities take place. This center called discovery village has allowed the water men to tie up and use their dogs. It has welcomed them and has made Shadyside a magnet for displaced watermen. I definitely feel the shade is one of the last day and for water. We have a few water men that had to come to shade us because they couldn't find a merino to tie off that would accommodate all. So Shadyside is definitely all one of the last chance for Waterman on the western shore side. Still lack of dock space is only one of the many problems with the troubled water men of shady side. John Galloway has worked on the water for 20 years. Just like his father and grandfather

before him Mike Billy Joe groom he's one of the few Shadyside Waterman to still own a home on the water. His wife works and that has helped. But with his young daughter's future education to think about. He's now starting to make some changes. This is a first year since 1980 one that I've had an orchard in a one on one want to work on long land it's first time for me. It's got sad you know I miss a lot of like a western but is how they can make enough money at it to survive the winter. Like so many of shady sides Waterman Galloway says he will do whatever he can to stay in the business. But for many of these watermen there is a sense that the good days are over. They used to be I'll just crack hard make pretty good money and I got a grandpa grab smart hard work just don't cut it anymore. Despite all these obstacles Tommy Hallock believes that besides Waterman will find a

way to survive. Yeah. Great thanks. Alex family has been fishing in these waters near Shadyside for nearly one hundred fifty years and he intends to keep that tradition going. Man I'm an optimist I will be here back in be here one way or another I can tell you that right now. I think there's a lot of people feel the same way it's what they've done it's what they've always done pretty much what they're going to do. Only a thin veneer of ice remains on the lakes in the mountains of western Maryland. All around are the beginning signs of Winter's demise. A cold wind blows through a forest of old sugar maple trees even as an

afternoon sun baits the tree trunks with warmth. With this convergence of both cold and warm temperatures one of nature's rituals is set to begin. And the woods filled with the hypnotic sounds of the tapping of trees. Randall story or has been tapping maple trees on this land ever since he was the age of his two daughters. Little Water generations of the story or family have tapped the trees on this land for over 100 years. For Randall story or the sugar maples with their crusty barks and twisted branches are like old friends. I mean no more son Leslie and her. Granddad and grandmother bought the place but one of the third generation of Ford generations now come along. Curries are probably three hundred years old somewhere in that neighborhood.

They've always been tapped as well as we can tell they say BND and it even kept some of the trees and the feria. Randall and his wife Kay get their two children Andrea and Jessica involved in the SAP gathering process every year. It's a family tradition. The store years are one of only 16 licensed maple syrup producers in the state of Maryland. Like many others in the business they are dairy farmers. Money from the sale of the syrup helps pay the feed bill for the cows. More than a hundred years ago there were scores more farmers like that who both milk cows and tap trees. That was in the days when they collected the sap with wooden buckets and horse drawn wagons. Will gather that tree right over there for but much has changed since then. Each year the story are still harvest a portion of the maple syrup from galvanized metal buckets. But even that is becoming rare.

Both are just like other maple syrup producers. The store years now mostly rely on long lengths of plastic tubing flexible pipeline strung through the woods like a network of multicolored spiderwebs. Aided by gravity and a vacuum pump bubbles of sap flow almost continuously through these tubes on their way to the sugar camp for processing. Labor saving are the biggest factor for us we don't have enough labor to do it all. And the faster you can get the water from the tree to serve the better quality SERP it may that's coming from the curry right now it's warmed up enough for start to like barely again. It's run probably about an average of about half a tale. Like many other maple syrup producers. The store years business is a family enterprise for uncles cousins nieces all help out.

Each year the extended Steuer family strings 20 miles of tubing through 65 acres of woods. Forty thousand gallons of maple sap trickle through the labyrinth of tubes and hoses. Hard work for relatively little pay. Michael Steuer is Randalls cousin and a partner in the business. There's an old saying in. A maple producers there's a lot of money and sorry all you get is get out of it. For the story or family producing maple syrup is all about much more than work and money. It's the glue that holds the family together. Nowhere is that more evident than at the sugar camp where at harvest time the cold night air fills with a pungent aroma of maple syrup. And festive laughter. At some surprise. Inside clouds of steam below from two open steel pans heated by wood fired furnace in US adults and children all members of the larger

story or family do their part. Right. Just like a big family reunion or get together and tell stories and have a big time and we really work hard at it. Thank you. There's more than there is hardware. Bob Custer is one of Randall's cousins. He and Michael Steuer specialize in boiling the sap. Firing evaporated a big job with the hot dogs. The big evaporator burns about four chord of whatever 16 to 18 hours. It's a constant process you know to keep the fire hot and to keep the liquid in the evaporator toiling and getting rid of steam. Or mauling the water. Out of the sap. That sustains. We have the ball about thirty nine gallon water all. You get one gallon sour. Word. Will government down have to keep the constant hate under when she let the fire die down let all mix back together. Gallons of maple sap boil in thinking slowly changing from foamy white to the

color of liquid amber. Would say about an hour. The thicker it gets you'll see that the bubbles on the top of the circle get larger and larger and they'll get a real glassing look. On the top. SEE out sheets off the ladle. When it's taken out that overflowed our hygrometer thirty two point specific gravity then we know that it's pure maple syrup. Fairfield general Klein. Just a little bit on the heavy side somewhat and. Then it down just a little bit. Mention me right on the money. Three hours after firing up the furnace the store your family has produced the night's first batch of maple syrup. Everyone is pleased at the quality because of the

unusually dry winter and the lack of moisture for the trees. No one was sure what to expect. To share what you think you're going to get what you wind up with a different thing that really looks good. With daylight comes the final stage after being filtered. The maple syrup is poured into vats Randall's mother Evelyn and Kay along with two of her nieces. Bottle the syrup in containers. For Randall uncased oyur the arrival of maple sap season signals the beginning of spring. A time to reflect on the lives of their ancestors who in past decades walked these same wooded paths and tapped many of these same trees. It is also time to reflect on the future which they hope will mean another generation following in the same footsteps. Let's go.

Oh let's go. Oh. Many years ago Michael Heller left his professor's job to get his hands dirty down on the farm. Not any farmer but a working two hundred eighty five acre experiment in Maryland's historic Prince George's County. Donated to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation more than two decades ago. Claggett farm raises livestock and vegetables to save the bay. The key theme for the farm overall is what we call sustainable agriculture and this includes farming profitably as a key part of it. Farming to protect the environment as a second key part but the third key part is connecting with the community connecting with the community to support the farm and the farm supporting the community.

About 3000 people visit the farm each year. Groups travel here from far and wide to learn about sustainable farming. From Eastern Europe sub-Saharan Africa Central and South America. Many days bring bus loads of students on school field trips science classes especially. Important Decision makers common governmental policy makers community and environmental groups and key players area farmers. They share hard won experience and know how. Now I always tell people that probably the biggest education that's occurred on the farm is the education that the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has got because we know what corn prices are what prices are with wheat prices are what fertilizer but. We understand a lot of the issues that farmers are having to deal with day in day out as. We deal with them here on the farm daily. Couple of my best friends are farmers but. It's a practical.

One. Agriculture has to do with saving the bay might be summarized in a few choice words. Too many nutrients. If you were to ask five ecologist what is you know the biggest problem of the day. All five would say nutrients would be the number one problem nutrients to be them or to a new trains of a number three. Agriculture is the biggest single source of nutrients entering the bay. These demonstration plants compare runoff from far east pavement lawns and three ways of planting crops. So few people understand that the water quality of the bay really is tied to what happens on the land not in the bay itself. And with these floods we are ill treating different types of vegetation management. Farmers and landowners like Thomas Henderson are intensely interested because the green that same goes will be on crops to costs at all after the plants are hosed down by a look at first the amounts of water that

come off of each one and then we look at the quality of that water and it can be a powerful comparison. We had a farmer from Pennsylvania who looked at the one of the plowed with no conservation practices and he said you know I used to farm just like this he says and I might as well that you know been taken dollar bills and peel them off and let them flow down the stream because he said I was my fertilizer that was the water that and the soil that I need to grow more crops. Thomas Henderson uses many of these techniques on his nearby farm. When I bought it in 78 there were gullies in the fields that were so deep and so wide that you couldn't drive a tractor across and you find almost no runoff. Now we tie the farm down quite well with a number the practices that are demonstrated here Claggett farm including the contour strips the snow till plowing the sod buffers which of course improves the quality and quantity of the crops. Cattle are a wonderful part of the farm operation because we have so many steep hills.

That the only way to farm the hills is to put them in permanent grass. And we're able to avoid using fertilizers and herbicides. Requiring a lot of heavy equipment to plant crops. Harvest crops that we see. Time. We save money. And we say on pollution to the environment. One of the reasons that the grass farming is so effective today. Where it wasn't 10 20 years ago is because we've developed new techniques for managing the pastures. We move the cows from one small piece of pasture to another every day. That means the cows have to eat everything. And you get a lot more young nutritious grass by cutting it every week. And that's what the cows essentially are doing raising letting it Rast grazing letting it rest. And this is called rotational phrasing. It's a very effective sustainable farming practice. There's another kind of harvested clog in a growing community that connects people

to the land through the food they eat. How it's raised and how it's distributed. About half of the farms vegetable crop is sold directly to 100 in 50 area families who buy shares in the weekly harvest during the twenty six week growing season. Steve Hansen family joined Claggett CSA community supported agriculture program last spring. The arrival here is like a step back in time for me I grew up on a farm. And the commitment that they have to working with the community and their commitment to the organic produce the quality of the vegetables they have here. It was a win win win. In collaboration with the Capital Area Food Bank. Much of the other half of flagons healthy crop is given away free to families in DC's inner city. Joan Briscoe co-founded victory triumphant missions. She comes to the farm once a

week to pick up fresh vegetables for distribution the next day. All this makes a big difference. Because we're able to offer a whole variety of foods for the people. And too often what we have is just plain stuff. Now we just feel so good about having this fresh home. The water. Drains into the Chesapeake Bay where my. Drain into the day. Arms drain to. Our major focus here on the farm really is education. We've got the commercial operation and that's where a tremendous amount of time and energy goes. But the whole purpose of that really is to be able to demonstrate and teach the connections of Agriculture to the ballet. This field trip to Claggett farm for Westbrook elementary school students is the first of a sequence to farm then River and finally to the bay.

Teacher Sandra Geddes leads the trip. They really focus on everything that happens on the land in the water from tiny streams to larger rivers and then eventually to the Chesapeake. Bay is always a focus. And now the experience of just stay with children. It's the end of another long day at my good farm. Now the farm is is an education in itself and every day is different. You have to solve new problems all the times or new opportunities. And I can't imagine a more interesting stimulating job than working on a farm. It's wonderful when you feel like your efforts may have some positive benefits. For the world generally.

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and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you.