It’s a fool’s errand, trying to paddle on a tube. Each stroke spins the float, so attempts at forward motion just look arduous and silly. I gave up trying to get anywhere just as I noticed the pair of loons.

They’d been noticing me already, and were surprisingly nonplussed. I’m used to them being skittish even from a good distance, quick to dive away. But these two seemed to care less as I drifted closer. The female cooed a bit, preened some, gave me a look, preened some more. The male watched me calmly. This went on for what seemed like quite a while.

I came within 25 yards of them. Must’ve made quite a sight, splayed belly up atop the tube, motionless with a kayak paddle in my hands. While they regarded me, I noticed something nearby: a feather resting atop the sea’s surface, one she’d just shed.

I stayed perfectly still. We were on a collision course, the feather and I. Closer, closer, I reach down and grasp it between my thumb and forefinger. Now it’s affixed to my beach hat, a gift from a loon.

By Van Smith

Baltimore, July 5, 2020

After months of co-quarantining to end the school year, everyone needed to get to get-aways in West Virginia and Massachusetts. What follows is a pictorial taste of the Cacapon River and the South Shore coast, taken on the Nikon in late June. Grateful to have places to go to.

Basil, sage, kale, strawberry, tarragon, purple beans, mini sweet peppers of many colors, eggplant, lavender, tomatoes, Mexican gherkins, sunflower, thyme, lettuce, spinach.

By Van Smith

Baltimore, May 20, 2020

For our kids, an addictive screen-based existence suddenly has become essential to ongoing learning and socialization while cooped up in the house all the time due to the pandemic. This contradiction – a requisite addiction – has prompted much stress-inducing parental hand-wringing followed by a barrage of changing regulatory schemes to manage the new and troubling lifestyle. Among them has been an ongoing edict to engage in demonstrably analogue activities on the regular.

“Make some art,” I said, as I masked up and put on my helmet to go get some needed commodities. By the time I got back, they’d done exactly that.

The eight-year-old’s seashore.

The ten-year-old’s night sky.

by Van Smith

Baltimore, May 12, 2020

Five years ago today, the mallard whose ducklings had hatched in our Fells Point neighbor’s backyard all made their way up his back steps into his kitchen, across the living room, out the front door, and then, having hit the sidewalk, crossed our front door to the Anne Street wharf a half-block away, all in a hurried line, adamant to get to the water. They all plopped in, showing courage many, if not most, of us could not muster. Here’s the video.

Yesterday, this happened:

Then this:

And this:

And then, this:

She chose rush hour to get a move on with her ducklings. Even during the current pandemic, plenty of cars frequent these East Baltimore streets near Patterson Park during rush hour. So our eight-year-old and I ushered them toward the park, helping them cross streets. Some drivers were averse to our clumsy attempts to help the ducklings, but eventually, at Patterson Park Ave., where our efforts were joined by those of many other neighbors and passersby, they all got across the street and into the park, where presumably they headed toward the rowing pond.

Good times!

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Apr. 30, 2020

Almost a year ago I wrote a short piece for Hmm Daily about my long history of chronicling sea-level rise in Baltimore’s waterfront Fells Point neighborhood, where waterfront prosperity has all but drowned out the district’s distinct character. Just a couple of weeks ago, I posted here about a recent tidal anomaly there, with harbor water seeping up through the storm drains to fill the streets. Over the years, my ongoing interest in this inundation theme has prompted several documentary projects, including the continuing disappearance of James Island on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, first in 2007 and again in 2013.

Today, this afternoon, Fells Point is underwater again. The anomaly is not only due to a higher-than-normal tide, but also to gravity-driven rain runoff and a driving wind pushing water inland. Here are two photos conveying the situation – I tried to take many more, including of the underwater marina slips and some good perspectives from right at the water’s surface, but I misfired my iPhone camera somehow in the heavy rain.

Addendum: I found the lost photos, and here are a few more of them.