Assateque's Wild Ponies

Wednesday May 15, Day 23

Farms are getting bigger along this eastern shore.   They have large above ground sprinkling systems.
This area is a huge producing area for livestock fruits and vegetables. Wheat, corn, tomatoes, strawberries, peaches, and of course chickens (Perdue)  are among the crops they are known for.

Just keeping the orientation on what roads we are taking.  this one goes very close to the Atlantic shoreline, and we will cross over it from Virginia to Maryland.

I wanted to show my farm family what kind of equipment they are using. 

Finally, off onto the road to Assateaque! 

We were surprised to see this bridge called the Verrazano.  We knew of Verrazano Narrow Bridge in New York, but this guy was busy!

And we get our first glimpse of the wild ponies.  North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland all handle their wild ponies differently.  In North Carolina, they are managed by a non-profit.  In Virginia, it is a fire department that lets them breed, makes a roundup that forces the ponies to swim across the sound to the mainland where they are separated, mare from fold, and the excess horses sold.  This is to keep the population at a sustainable level.

In Maryland, the ponies are left to be as wild as possible.  They are not treated by vetranarians, for example.  They are managed with birth control administered by dart, which keeps the herd at exactly 103 animals.

This is an absolutely beautiful area that I would recommend to anyone.  Just be prepared for a lot of wind and sand blowing.  The horses eat the grasses in the marshlands during the spring, move to the beaches and water in the summer, primarily to avoid the mosquitoes, and then head into the scrub forest in the winter to get protection from the wind.

This girl is headed out to go windsurfing.

And a group of third graders are on a field trip to catch little fish, crabs, etc. and learn about the ecosystem.

Hoofprints in the sand...

This woman is fishing for blue crab.  Undoubtedly she has a line with a piece of bait on the end.  When the crab grabs ahold of the bait, it won't let go, and you can bring it up.

The Rangers had provided a program for the third graders, and afterwards, the Ranger asked John to help him dump the fish back into the sound. 

This man is surf fishing.  Hope he catches something to make up for the wind and sand blowing all around him! 

I liked this rig - it has a canoe, surfboards and a bicycle.  Ready for anything! 

On the Sound side - marsh combined with open water.

On our way off the island, we spotted this house which is being overtaken by vegetation.

And we are heading into another state, Delaware.  The States are coming quickly now, much different than in the West when you are in the same state for several days

We stopped in Milford, Delaware, to pay our respects at the Odd Fellows Cemetery to Louis and Bessie Spath, John's great grandparents.  Remember her?  She was the grandmother-in-law who accompanied John's mother to Las Cruces to get married.  

Louis worked at Sun Ship in the shipyards in Philadelphia.  He was a painter and became foreman.  He died on the job and his co-workers purchased this headstone for him.

This man George Wood was the Chief of Police in Prospect Park, PA, which is where the Spaths lived.  In fact, George lived with them through two census records.  I guess he was a good friend, or maybe like a son.

Dover, Delaware and getting our glimpse of C-17's on the ground.

We are passing over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Chesapeake Bay. Huge ships go through this 15 mile canal.  It was conceived in 1764, but finally built in 1829 and it cuts off 300 miles of the route between Philadelphia and Baltimore.  One of our favorite spots in the past was a restaurant where you could sit and watch the pilot get on and guide the ship through the canal.

Shaefer's Canal House restaurant reopened in 2012 after having been closed since 2005.  It is an enormous place and it was sorely missed by the many generations of people who came to eat and watch the ships go by.  

In looking at this map, we have come from Assateaque, which is near Ocean City Maryland, through the Pocomoke River Basin near Salisbury, then Milford  Delaware, and Dover, and we are headed to a town near Elkton, Maryland.  The C&D Canal is near Elkton.