Make Way for Ducklings, Virginia-style

Who remembers that childhood book about the momma duck and her little ones in Boston.  Last Thursday Joe and I were driving to National Airport [I refuse to use the new name] and found that traffic had halted on the 4-lanes where my street, Washington Blvd., crossed over I-66.  Was there a traffic accident?  Had that bus broken down?  If so, why weren't the cars behind it passing?  As we got closer, I saw a mallard duck (female) in the road, scooting from the center line back toward the curb.   Then:  Ducklings!  She was encouraging her 11 little fluffies that it is okay to walk on this non-grassy hard thing . . . "just follow me".  And so they did, with the help of a large man who had stopped all the cars in my lane. 

Momma had no trouble crossing and then hopping up on the curb.  But the curb was twice the height of the little ones.  They walked toward my car - hoping, I suppose, for a break in the "wall".  Eventually with Momma's encouragement the duckling leader gave a great leap and flapped his tiny undeveloped wings, scrabbled with his little feet and made it over the curb.  And so the rest followed, and onward they went, across the sidewalk, under the guardrail, and down the grassy slope on the other side.  And we drove on toward the airport.  Here are three photos of the adventurous ducklings.

City Alien? What's that?

On a recent quiet Sunday, Joe and I went to the National Gallery  of Art's East Building.  There are two exhibits of interest right now.   The first is paintings, woodcuts, etchings, sculptures by Paul Gauguin, made during his years in the South Pacific.  The second is the video work of Nam June Paik; they are in the Tower, which is difficult to find - appropriate, I think, because I find his work inaccessable. 
But that's beside the point.  On the walk to the East Building we passed by a large canopy erected on the Mall.  Beneath the canopy were chairs and tables, college age women and men, and things.  The things were electronic - no, robotic! and the three-wheeler in the image was rolling merrily around, turning, reversing, forward, left, right, as commanded by a young man with a remote control device.  What I loved about this was not just that it reminded me of one of the Star Wars robots, but also that the shiny dome is reminiscent of Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" [a/d/a "the bean"].  And the most playful addition is the appropriately-personalized license plate.

PS:  Look at the shiny dome - the large canopy is reflected on the right side.

National Volunteer Week and Garlic Mustard



Canada Goose and the Potomac River



Spring Beauty - really; that's its name.





So what do National Volunteer Week and Garlic Mustard have in common?  And what on earth is garlic mustard? 

Well, it is a plant, one that shoots up in early Spring.  It has a pretty flower, less than 1/2 inch across, 4 white petals; leaves are more or less heart-shaped and a bit serrated.  After blooming the plant dies away but can return year after year.   It spreads by seed and can produce up to 1,000 seeds.  The seeds can lie dormant for up to 5 years.  In addition its roots emit a toxin that kills the roots of adjacent plants.  Garlic mustard is an very invasive plant that is really very nasty  In other words, this plant will overtake and kill all the wildflowers that make Spring woodlands so interesting.  Here's what it looks like:

This plant is easy to uproot, as the roots grow more or less sideways and are shallow.  It is the ONLY good thing about this plant!  Although someone said you could make garlic mustard pesto. 

Next:  National Volunteer Week.  By Presidential Declaration, the week of April 10 through April 16, 2011 is National Volunteer Week.  So the C & O Canal Association's chairman of the Volunteers-in-the-Park committee organized groups of volunteers to yank out garlic mustard plants at specific places in the C & O Canal National Historical Park.   (The Park is 185 miles long so that's a lot of sites.)    I was one of 7 people who spent 2.5 hours at Carderock yesterday afternoon filling plastic sacks with this nasty invasive plants.   My back ached for the rest of the day.  But I slept very very well, thank you.