I grew up on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay and spent all but 3 years of my life here. Just like almost everyone, I've boated on the waterway and driven around the watershed and taken it for granted for many years. But about ten years ago I bought my first kayak and started to mess around in the water a lot more than I had in a while. Soon, I volunteered with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to "ground truth" for underwater grasses, or go out in a kayak to look for the underwater grasses that may have been indicated in aerial photography. I was shocked by what I learned about grasses and what their disappearance meant. The Chesapeake Bay had declined sharply in the 20 or so years that I'd been working in business
I had an "environmental epiphany." I ended up writing a novel about a woman having an environmental epiphany and I read everything I could get my hands on about environmental issues, not just Bay issues. I started to participate in activities to learn more, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation VoiCeS program. I cashed in my business career and currently work as a freelance writer and part-time park interpreter. I've become a Virginia Master Naturalist.
I talk the talk and I also walk the environmental walk, as other entries in this blog illustrate. Part of my new sustainable lifestyle is all about projects that have to do with sustaining habitat, sharing habitat with all of God's creatures. I raise oysters for the Virginia Oyster Restoration program, for the really big reef projects discussed in the NPR piece. In July, we turned in our 2009 crop. I understand they were added to the reef being built in Timberneck Creek, just across the river from my park in the county where I spent my first 18 years.
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