Articles by Margaret Tearman

Article - News; by Margaret Tearman - 1/20/11

2,593 Days to Justice

After losing her job as chief of U.S. Park Police, Teresa Chambers has finally won vindication — and maybe her old job, too.

She’s back. It took seven years, one month and six days. Then, against all odds, on January 11, Teresa Chambers of Dunkirk got the news she’d hoped for all along. Before the month is out, she’ll be reinstated to the job she loved and lost, U.S. Park Police Chief. Editor’s note: Chief Chambers told the early story of her one-woman fight in spring of 2005. Read it at http://bayweekly.com/oldsite/year05/issuexiii14/leadxiii14.html 2,593 Days Back in...

Article - Creature Feature; by Margaret Tearman - 1/13/11

This Week’s Creature Feature

Foreign Fowl Range Free in Calvert County

Backyard birds like the familiar cardinals, bluejays, wrens and woodpeckers are an everyday sight in Chesapeake Country. But guinea fowl waddling through neighborhoods? Or a four-foot emu trekking across fields? Not so everyday. A flock of free-range guinea hens enjoyed a pastoral New Year’s weekend wandering through a Huntingtown neighborhood, foraging for insects and seeds across winter-dormant lawns. The harmless birds are African natives that have been widely...

Article - Features; by Margaret Tearman - 1/6/11

What Goes Around Comes Around

Pay it forward in 2011

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted –Aesop The truck driver approached the tollbooths on the Bay Bridge, laboring to maneuver his big five-axle rig into an open lane. Heavy traffic made it a tough job. An elderly couple approaching the toll lanes behind him saw his predicament and slowed, waving the trucker into their lane, directly in front of them. Catherine Noone, toll collection manager at the Bay Bridge toll plaza, has seen many people pay it forward —...

Article - Features; by Margaret Tearman - 12/16/10

All Wrapped Up for Christmas

It’s not only what you give but how you wrap it

“It’s all about the presentation,” my mother told me. So she taught me how to wrap a gift. How to center a box on the paper, how to make sure the edges were even and no tape was visible. She used miles of ribbon. She taught me how to tie a proper bow. Those pre-made self-stick bows were, in her opinion, the epitome of laziness. It was meticulous work. On Christmas morning, it took seconds to destroy it all. Who was the genius — or maniac — behind gift wrap? Despite...

Article - Features; by Margaret Tearman - 11/25/10

Decorated with Art and Heart

Calvert Hospice grows a forest; behind every tree is a story

Small trees, tall trees — dozens of them, resplendent in holiday light and ornamentation — transform the halls of Huntingtown High School into a forested Christmas wonderland. These trees decked in holiday finery aren’t delivered to the high school in Santa’s sleigh. Instead, they are the work of hundreds of volunteers who labor for weeks, months — some all year — to create a Festival of Trees for the sake of Calvert Hospice. Tree Art “I don...

Article - Creature Feature; by Margaret Tearman - 11/18/10

This Week’s Creature Feature

As cold weather sets in and you fill your bird feeders, you’ll find hours of entertainment — and bafflement — in their behavior. What are they up to with all the strutting, head-bobbing, feather-fluffing and wing flapping? Get the answers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, now enrolling backyard birders in the online bird-behavior course Investigating Behavior: Courtship and Rivalry in Birds. Over five weeks, you’ll learn how to observe and interpret bird behavior in...

Article - Green Living; by Margaret Tearman - 11/18/10

Heroes of Sustainable Agriculture

Meet the Farmer, Green Grocer and Buy-Local Restaurant of the Year

Wilderness, farmland, paved land: That’s the trajectory Maryland has followed since its founding as Lord Baltimore’s colony 376 years ago. So a county that can keep its farm traditions alive does so with pride. Thus Calvert County, where 55,000 acres of land are zoned as Farm and Forest Districts, made its First Annual Sustainable Agriculture Awards this year. Citizens voted awards in three categories: Sustainable Farmer, Green Grocer and Buy-Local Restaurant of the year....

Article - Food and Drink; by Margaret Tearman - 11/11/10

Save the Turkey: Stuff the Ham

South of the Mason-Dixon line, ham rules the Thanksgiving feast

Full disclosure: I’m not a fan of green eggs — or ham. In spite of Sam’s urgings, I say ham is a good chunk of pork wasted, no matter if it’s smoked, spiced, spiraled or, heaven forbid, stuffed. Stuffing belongs in turkeys. Maybe a pork chop. But never a ham. Try it? No way, I sniffed. Even after more than two decades living in Calvert County, I still turned my nose at the locally celebrated gastronomical confusion known as Southern Maryland stuffed ham. I never...

Article - News; by Margaret Tearman - 11/4/10

Winter Sure Can Be Taxing

Digging out of last year’s snow cost over $54 million; guess who paid?

April, when we pay our taxes, may be the cruelest month. But winter is the most expensive season. At least it was in 2009-10, when what we saved in autumnal hurricanes was lost in the avalanche of winter snow. In Maryland alone, last year’s record-setting snow cost American taxpayers $54,699,527.85 — yes, the fed counts down to pennies. That’s how much cash the Federal Emergency Management Agency has shoveled into Maryland to help dig out from under last winter’s...

Article - News; by Margaret Tearman - 11/4/10

Batten Down Your Hatches

Winter is on the way

We lay in bed, just before lights out, and watched the small battalion of gunmetal gray tanks make their way across the top of our curtains. Three windows, three stinkbugs each. After fall’s bombardment, we didn’t get too worked up over just nine of the little buggers. But we did wonder what entrance they were using. My husband suggested our double-hung windows were probably not shut tight, and the slender gap at the top and bottom of each gave the invaders — and the now...