POTD: Intersect

Another cool shot by Rockville Central reader Temperance Blalock.

POTD: Corner

Cool night shot in the snowy aftermath by Rockville Central reader Temperance Blalock.

Everyone Meets At The Montgomery County Agricultural Fair

Montgomery County Agricultural Fair

Be prepared to “Barnyard Boogie” during the largest county fair in the State of Maryland. From Friday, August 13th through Saturday, August 21st, 2010, the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair will include all of the time-tested favorites at the fairgrounds in Gaithersburg. You can expect the pig races, animal barns, and home project competitions along with the thrilling carnival rides. Ever since I moved to Montgomery County 18 years ago, I’ve always sought out this community gathering.

As Temperance Blalock told me,

Every year I see at least one person there that I haven’t seen for a long time; it’s one place that almost everyone in the area visits at least once during the fair, so it’s definitely a thing that brings together the community.

Beyond the rides and attractions, the Fair seeks to educate everyone about agriculture and encourage future generations to farm. Although growing up a city girl right outside of New York, I spent many of my summers working at my Uncle Woodrow’s dairy farm. The Fair brings back memories of caring for the cows, pigs, and ducks. I love the smell of the hay even after all those hot days in the barn loft! Since many people don’t have the opportunity to work on a family farm, visiting the Fair is a perfect way to teach kids about the lifestyle. The little ones love the animals so much.

Behind the scenes, the agricultural center helps terminally ill children with a special VIP program. A group of 4-H and FFA members along with staff and volunteers bring the fair to Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. and Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville. Young patients who can’t attend are treated to a fair like atmosphere in the hospital. This program also brings children facing life-threatening illnesses to the Fair to be treated like royalty for a day.

Montgomery County Agricultural Center, Inc., a private, non-profit organization, depends on more than 2,000 volunteers to make the Fair successful. The business community also sponsors programs providing financial relief for the VIP Terminally Ill Program, Senior Citizen’s Day, and the entertainment. Since the first group of people began the Fair in 1945, volunteers make it happen. In 1949 they had a good, old-fashioned barn raising but today volunteers are needed for clerical work in the office, ground maintenance, concession stands, off-season rentals, banquets, and committee service. To become a volunteer, call (301) 926-3100.

Who’s going to the Fair?

Participating at the Fair is a tradition for many Rockvillians. Please let us know in the comments if you are competing, performing or volunteering. We’d love to know!

Animal Exchange

Photo of the 2009 Hermit Crab Races from the Animal Exchange

Every year you can count on Ruth Hanessian’s Hermit Crab Race from the Animal Exchange. Stop by the competition (next to the pig race) on Wednesday, August 18th at 3:30PM. This is serious competition with engraved cups for the fastest and the funniest. If you don’t have a crab, she’ll rent one to you for the competition. One year the Kensington Fire Department came and raced their crabs. Usually the “king and queen” come to the races, and Ruth always likes to see the royal court. This year, as she did last year, she’ll assign a crab to each of the court members.

Ruth also has fond memories which lead her to the Fair each year:

I love the Fair because when you grow up in a no-pet apartment in New York, this is the most wonderful exposure to the real world that I can possibly imagine. As a child, I traveled to my Aunt Mary’s farm and had never seen a ground frog or chickens before the visit. Of course I had to go across the barbed-wire fence. I was so amazed at what animals really are.

Last week my kids and their friends caught crabs while on vacation in Maine and released them by having a race across the beach. Everyone was yelling at the top of their lungs for a winner so I know the hermit crab races will be a highlight of the Fair.

Temperance Blalock

Double Blind Brew

Regular Rockville Central contributor, Temperance Blalock, won first place in the “spice/herb/vegetable” category for her Holiday brew last year and she’s back for the homebrewing competition. She’s submitted 13 batches of Double Blind Brew. When asked about the experience, she explained:

I love the fair so much!! I love the food, the smell of horse manure, the loud noises, the people wandering around in huge packs, the sun beating down during the day, and then the hypnotic lights of the thrill rides in the evening and the night.

And, I LOVE the high of winning a competition. It was so exciting when I won a blue ribbon last year, and now this year it’s not just myself, there are three of us “brewers” now in Double Blind Brewery, and Andy and Lucie are tremendously excited about winning. Actually, the most fun part is receiving back the “notes’ from the professional judges. We learn a lot from those.

She tells us a “closed” brewing was done this past weekend. They’ve already picked the 20 semi-finalists, which will be judged publicly this coming Saturday at the fairgrounds.

Rockville Swing Band

Photo from the Rockville Swing Band

The entertainment schedule packs a big boogie punch with our own Rockville Swing Band taking the stage at 7 PM on Tuesday, August 17th. The Band will perform contemporary jazz big band arrangements as well as traditional swing charts from the Golden Era. The talented members of the band come from all over the DC metro area for weekly rehearsals in the cottage of the Rockville Mansion and this promises to be a real crowd pleaser.

Here’s all the details:

FAIR HOURS (Gates close at 11PM for entry)
Friday August 13th: 3 PM-12 Midnight
Saturday, August 14th - Saturday, August 21st 10 AM-12 Midnight
Animal & barn exhibits, Home Arts, Arts & Crafts and Old Timers not open until Sunday, August 15th at 12 Noon!!

CARNIVAL HOURS
Friday August 13th: 3 PM- 12 Midnight
Saturday, August 14th-Saturday, August 21st: 12 Noon-12 Midnight

How much is this going to cost?

General Admission: $10.00 per person. Children 11 and Under are FREE. Free same-day re-entry is available with hand stamping at the gate

Parking: $5.00 per car. My son’s Boy Scout Troop 447 from Rockville works to park the cars. When you go, please be careful not to run over my son and husband! Please be courteous and pay attention to everyone in the red hats. The Troop has been parking cars for over 40 years and their system works if everyone cooperates!

Free parking at Lake Forest Mall with a free shuttle to the Fairgrounds stop at Lost Knife Road and Odendhal Avenue.

If you want to go on the rides, the Carnival Mega-Pass one-day ride wristband: $25.00

Wristband discounts:

On Friday, August 13, Opening Day, Carnival Mega-Pass one-day ride wristband
will be $9.95 from 3pm to Midnight.

Monday, August 16 & Wednesday, August 18, Family Day, purchase Carnival Mega-Pass
one-day ride wristband for $15.00 from 12 noon until 5pm, ride until midnight.

Tuesday, August 17, Senior Citizen’s Day, Free admission to all ages 62 and over
from 10:00am to 4:00pm.

You must pay extra for the Grandstand shows including the Rodeo, Tractor Pull, Monster Truck Madness and Demolition Derby. But, you can even ride in a monster truck! Info on discounts is in the brochure.

Meet you at the Fair!

Reader’s Note from Temperance Blalock: Speed Cameras and Traffic Citations

Chart by Temperance Blalock

After seeing today’s POTD: Speed Sentinel, Temperance Blalock sent along this chart and Reader’s Note:

There’s a great deal of information available on the City website regarding speed cameras and traffic citations (http://www.rockvillemd.gov/police/speedcameras.htm). The “raw data” for many of the fixed-pole camera locations is presented, and I thought I’d play around with it and see what underlying trends I might be able to find. The “average speed” in itself wasn’t really helpful, other than to show broad trends of speed decreasing. I would have much rather seen the “average speed” only for the speeding ticket recipients.

The total numbers of vehicle passes and citations issued, by themselves, didn’t really show anything. However, when I divided the number of vehicle passes by citations issued, to get a number for “citations issued per vehicle pass”, I found an interesting pattern.

The “spike” in Fall 2009 was repeated almost uniformly in the five locations that I plotted. What do you suppose that this could “mean”? Is there a coincidence that it occurred shortly before the City election? Or perhaps the cameras were all recalibrated around that time? Or could the citizens of Rockville have suddenly been spontaneously seized with the urge to drive recklessly?

by Temperance Blalock

If you would like to contribute a Reader Note or other piece of writing, please send submissions to [email protected]. The more community voices, the better Rockville Central will be. Please remember that the views of contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors.

Contributor Opinion by Temperance Blalock: The Creeping Police State Speeds Through A Red Light

>One recent morning, as I prepared to cross the street in downtown Rockville (in a marked crosswalk, on a WALK sign, so there’s no question about the legality of my actions), I watched a Rockville police car sail through a red light right in front of me. While I’ve grown wearily resigned to the apparent dispensation granted to motorists to violate traffic laws outside a narrow scope, although the city pays lip service to “pedestrian rights”, it’s still rankling to see law enforcement do it with impunity.

For awhile I’ve contemplated buying or borrowing a video camera, and then just standing at any given intersection and recording the red-light runners, for my own sense of futile revenge if for nothing else. And I admit that I have harbored fantasies about uploading some of the more egregious cases to YouTube, particularly the ones where it’s law enforcement that’s breaking the law.

So, imagine my horror when I ran across an article on Gizmodo, and then started Googling further on it and discovered that is now apparently ILLEGAL to record law enforcement in public in the state of Maryland. Now, I always knew that it was illegal in this state to surreptitiously record a second party without disclosure, but I didn’t realize the broad application to that law meant that it is also illegal to record a second party with full disclosure of the act of recording. In an era where 99 percent of citizens carry a cell phone with an attached digital camera, where most phone interactions are preceded with “this call is being monitored for quality purposes”, where the average person is recorded dozens of times a day with implied consent out in public, and where municipalities rely on red light cameras for both traffic enforcement and revenue generation, the lines have become too blurred to define “consent” in these archaic laws.

It’s time for citizens to start demanding a lot more of our government, including re-defining the current laws about recording citizen/law-enforcement interactions. We should demand of political candidates that they disclose how they intend to legislate on these matters, and we should demand much more transparency of law enforcement, so that citizens do not feel that their only recourse against potential police corruption is to record the interactions. The police are already recording us via web dash cams, and the public should have equal rights to do the same.

Are Cameras the New Guns?

Debate Sparks Over Video Recording Of Arrests

Maryland Wiretapping Law Needs an Update

By Temperance Blalock

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to [email protected]. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

Contributor Opinion by Temperance Blalock: Why Are Pedestrians Penalized More Than Motorists?

>I’m a real coward when it comes to crossing the street in downtown Rockville. I’ll stand there patiently, waiting for the light to turn, and I’ll wait there interminably, looking incredibly silly when most people would sprint across against the light, mostly because I know how fast cars will suddenly appear and barrel through an intersection at ten or fifteen miles above the speed limit. I’d rather be safely silly than sorry.

And so it was that I was heartened to receive an e-mail from the City entitled “Rockville City Police Department Issues Pedestrian Safety Reminders“. Hey, maybe I could take a respite and relax, knowing that the police department is at least temporarily going to monitor the safety of pedestrian crossings.

But then I saw the following:

Fines for pedestrians who do not cross in a properly marked crosswalk or who cross against the signal could face a fine up to $500. Motorists who do not yield to pedestrians who are in a marked crosswalk could face a fine up to $40 and one point on his/her driver’s license.

This is outrageous. Why are pedestrians penalized at a rate more than ten times that of motorists? How could this possibly be justified? If a pedestrian and a motorist “meet” in an intersection, there is no way that the pedestrian could inflict ten times the rate of damage on the automobile.

Given the fact that I have almost never seen a motorist (other than myself) yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk in the seven years that I’ve worked in downtown Rockville, this is a joke. Yes, I’ve seen plenty of jaywalkers and reckless pedestrians in that time, but none of them just barely clipped me with thousands of pounds of steel.

So, for the time being I’m going to continue to cower in the crosswalks, as long as pedestrians continue to be fair game in the traffic wars.

Temperance Blalock

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

Contributor Opinion by Temperance Blalock: Why I Love The Census

>When you look at the “fine print” on your 2010 census form, regarding privacy, you may notice that it says that your census data will be kept private for 72 years. You may wonder what is the origin of that interval, and it’s mostly due to the expected lifespan for an American, combined with the expectation that the data can eventually be available for family genealogy purposes.

I did extensive genealogy research for about a decade, and by far the best resource was federal census records. Before the advent of the internet, genealogy was an esoteric, secretive endeavor, usually performed by a small cabal of researchers, most of whom worked on getting people the proper documentation for membership in societies like the Daughters of the American Revolution. A lot of the research materials for sale to the layman were little more than collections of surnames from the phone books of major cities, but at least that was something concrete for people who were looking, sometimes blindly, for a connection to their ancestors and distant relatives.

Then the web came into being, and suddenly people could make instantaneous connections that they could never have hoped to make from their own limited knowledge, and there was a great revolution in genealogy. It had its drawbacks, though, including the propagation of a lot of incorrect data, but that was overwhelmed by the great benefit of being able to share information. Family trees could be organized in software databases and shared on websites, and people could access census data from sources like Genealogy.com and Ancestry.com.

I was especially fortunate to live in the DC area, so I could go down to the National Archives (back when it was open in the evenings and on Saturdays) and get immediate access to all of the federal census microfilms, from 1790 up to 1920. I transcribed thousands of census records for a book I was planning to write about Civil War pensioners in Tennessee, and I learned to love census records with a passion. It was so fascinating to see the evolution of a family, every ten years, to watch children being born and married off, to watch assets like land being accumulated, to watch names and ages mysteriously change, and to bring those individuals to life in my mind and my database.

Because so many of my Blalock family were living in the hills of Tennessee from the early 19th century, I was especially impressed at how thoroughly the census collectors were able to track down almost everyone. In the course of collecting those thousands of individual records, it was very rare that I completely “lost” someone in a census year: granted, it might take a lot of sleuthing to eventually find them, but the success rate was very high. I try to imagine the journeys of those census takers, traveling through wilderness and rough weather, tracking down homes and families, often met with hostility or suspicion. It makes it seem almost paradoxical, to me, that in our wired-up world it could be equally hard to track down everyone. But, the modern world has its own limitations.

I was really excited when the 1930 census was released eight years ago, because that was the first time that one of my parents was alive. I found my infant father living with his parents in Oklahoma, and was astonished to read that his name was recorded as “Murray Blalock”. WHAT?? I had never heard of this before. My father’s legal name was Richard, but growing up he was called Culmer. Where could “Murray” have come from? I had no idea - Dad died in 1992, and so sadly I couldn’t ask him. Thus, I am eagerly awaiting the release of the 1940 census in a few years, so that I can find out what he was called as a boy. And this is only one of the fascinating mysteries I have encountered in my travels through the census.

Why don’t you take advantage of that access and do some research yourself? Learning about the census is exciting, believe it or not.

Temperance Blalock

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

The Rockville Flag by Temperance Blalock

>I collect flag images from the Internet, and I recently ran across a site called 15 of the world’s strangest flags and at the top of that list was a flag that looks almost identical to our Rockville city flag. It’s the city flag for Fryslan/Friesland/Frisian, Netherlands. Their flag uses the red images to represent lilypads.

The Wikipedia article goes into some detail about the symbolism of all the components.

One of the best vexillology websites is “Flags of the World”, which has a short entry on the Rockville city flag. It describes the red parts here as “red cross bottony”. A cross bottony is a heraldic symbol, a cross with each side ending in three rounded lobes. This symbol also appears on the Maryland state flag, which in turn is based on the heraldic banner of the Calvert family.

I can’t get over how similar to each other the flags of Rockville and Friesland are: other than the lilypad/bottony difference, and the fact that Rockville’s blue bands are wavy but Friesland’s are not, they are strikilingly similar, including the shades of red and blue.

I wonder if it’s just coincidental?

Temperance Blalock

This is a contributor submission. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit pieces for consideration on all sorts of things — the more voices the better.

Debit Card Fraud In Rockville by Temperance Blalock

I’m passing along this information in case it happens to anyone else around Rockville. Sharing information is a way to create awareness and protect each other from such crimes.>Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from my bank’s fraud department informing me that someone had drained my checking account using my ATM card number. This was alarming on a number of levels, the main one being that my ATM card wasn’t lost, and that I am hyper-vigilant about shielding the keypad when I type in my PIN number. I’m also vigilant about checking my online balance almost every single day, but these transactions were done over the weekend so they didn’t show up in my account until Monday, at which point the damage had been done.

Fortunately, the transactions were “flagged” as suspicious by the bank, due to their being out-of-state and for the maximum daily amounts, and the bank alerted me. However, I was dismayed to learn that, had they not informed me right away, and had I not noticed it for more than 24 hours, I would have forfeited many of my legal consumer rights, or at least made it a lot more difficult to resolve the situation in my favor.

At this point now the bank appears to be expediting this so that I can eventually get my money back. However, I don’t know how long it’ll be until I can actually get my funds, and meanwhile I have overdue bills that are going to be delinquent. I’m lucky that I delayed bill-paying from last week, when I was scheduled to do that, otherwise I’d be dealing with a lot of NSF charges that might, or might not, have been excused.

I feel so vulnerable, mostly because I wasn’t lax or careless. I didn’t loan my debit card out, I’ve never given anyone the PIN number, and I only use the card at “legitimate” places like grocery stores and gas stations and ATM machines. All of my transactions were done in downtown Rockville. However, crooks no longer need the PIN number to do their fraud, and it’s difficult to tell whether a monitoring or “skimming” electronic device is watching a transaction.

I’m not quite sure what I could have done to avert or avoid this, other than to refrain entirely from using the debit card. Every transaction is a potential opportunity for the crooks to steal the information. When I do receive my new replacement card, I’m going to review my spending habits and make changes. I was depending on my debit card as a way of being “financially responsible”, of not charging to credit cards and not putting myself under the burden of paying interest on unpaid balances, but that’s possibly not the best strategy.

One other noteworthy thing: a lot of “phishing” scams are predicated under the fraud of scaring or frightening the consumer, using a crisis as a pretext. My first reaction, on receiving such an alarmist voicemail, was to attribute it to an actual attempt at fraud. The first thing I was asked was for my card number and my PIN number, so it was an internal battle that I should even provide that information for verification, since doing so would have opened me up to an entirely different type of fraud than was actually perpetrated on me.

Here’s a link to more details about exactly what the consumer’s liability and rights are when there’s debit card fraud.

PIRG: ATM Debit Cards

Several sobering facts:

“If the thief drains your checking account, you have to fight with the bank to get your own money back.”

“The law limits consumer liability for credit card fraud to $50. For debit card fraud, your liability is $50 if you notify the bank with 2 days of learning of the fraud, and $500 or more after two days, up to the entire amount stolen under certain circumstances.”

Here’s a link to information on exactly how the “skimming” devices’ hardware works:

How To Spot ATM Skimming and PIN Capturing Devices

Temperance Blalock

This is a contributor submission. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit pieces for consideration on all sorts of things — the more voices the better.

A Voting Story by Temperance Blalock

The >Rockville City Election is this Tuesday, November 3, 2009 and we have been encouraging everyone to vote. Last time only 20% turned out. Rockville Central friend, Temperance Blalock sent along this story about a time when voting was taken much more seriously.

I’ve heard and read lots of amusing stories of this nature, about how election day in the South in the late 19th century was a rambunctious and dangerous occasion, because voters took it so seriously.

I was glad to hear all of the recent talk about the significance of citizen participation in the election, that they MUST actually VOTE. It’s sad that so many people are blase about it.

I’m an amateur historian and genealogist, with a special interest in the Civil War in the South, and the period of Reconstruction. My Blalock ancestors were Southern Unionists, living in central Tennessee (Bledsoe/Cumberland counties), and the communities were polarized between the Democrats (former Confederates), and the Republicans (former Southern Unionists). Election Day in the 1880-1890s was a MAJOR event of the year, and the people exercised their right to vote with a vengeance. Not only did they make sure that their (male) family members all went to the polls and voted, they would even kidnap family members who had other allegiances and would forcibly take them to the polls, and intimidate them to vote a particular ticket. The bottom line was that eligible voters (only males) took their right to vote with a deadly seriousness, and gunfights at the polls were a regular occurrence.

I’m reminded of a story about one of my distant relatives, which I read in a book called “My Swafford Ancestors” by Tommy Swafford of Bledsoe County. The story goes that this man, I’ll call him Sam, walked 10 miles from his home to the polls to cast his vote. When he arrived at the polls, he ended up in the middle of a gunfight between two groups, and was hit in the backside with a rifle shot. He decided it was too dangerous to remain at the polls long enough to cast his vote, so he walked back the 10 miles to his home.

When he got home, he told his mother about the gunfight. Mother said “but, did you vote?”, and Sam said “No, it was too dangerous.” Mother then very resolutely told him that he must return to cast his vote, and she put a big pillow on the back of the mule, perched Sam on the pillow, and told him not to come back until he had cast his vote.

Temperance Blalock

Please join us in voting!

We welcome submissions on all sorts of things — opinions, shopping, restaurants, performances, art, cultural events, and more. Get in touch with us if you would like to submit something: [email protected]

POTD: Beautiful Day!

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This shot of a beautuful day is by Rockville Central friend Temperance Blalock. Of it, she says, “I took my camera with me today, looking for lovely sights, and I like this one. This is a lovely example of ‘green space’, a slice of tranquility behind the Old Navy at Montrose Crossing.”

Thanks Temperance!

POTD: Beds

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This shot is by Rockville Central friend Temperance Blalock. “More flower beds at Wootton Mills Park community garden,” she says.

Reader's Note By Temperance Blalock: Keep Your Emergency Kit Prepped

>Last weekend I found myself in somewhat of an “emergency” situation: I couldn’t get access to my home (an apartment) for an afternoon and an evening, because of an 8k run whose trail ran right in front of my home. Several blocks were blocked off by the police, and so when I returned home that afternoon and found out that I couldn’t’ return home until about 1 AM or 2 AM, I had to make a decision. I ended up going to sleep the night at a family member’s home – lucky for me she was willing and available to take me in on short notice. Not lucky for me that I didn’t have an emergency supply of clothes or toiletries stashed away in the trunk of my car. What was really annoying was that I HAD such an emergency supply in the car for many years, but I had recently cleaned it out because it had been sitting there for years and needed to be recycled/replenished.

I have been aware of the importance of having “appropriate” emergency gear ever since 2000, when I got a bit “caught up” in the Y2K hysteria. It wasn’t entirely a waste of time, since I did educate myself about what is an appropriate reaction, and what supplies should a person actually store?

The City of Rockville has a web page on Emergency Preparedness. It’s a good summary of the basic steps that should be taken, the most fundamental one being that one needs separate kits for separate functions. The supplies that one maintains in the home for “shelter in place” are different from the ones that should be maintained to grab and flee the house (aka “Bugout Bag”). There should also be variations kept in the car, and variations kept in one’s desk at work.

As for my recent emergency, I could not get access to my home kits, nor my work kit (since my passcard to get into work was in my apartment, which I couldn’t get to). So, since I had no kit of personal supplies in the car, I was left with no change of clothes and no toiletries. Lucky for me, my host had a spare nightie that she lent me, and I could use her shower facilities and soap and other toiletries. But still, I felt very precarious and disoriented. And it’s time to completely rethink what’s appropriate for each of the kits. It’s amazing how fast time flies, and thus how quickly supplies decay or expire (if they’re consumables), and how frequently one must monitor them. One must also take a jaundiced look and see whether one is focusing incorrectly on inappropriate tools: it’s great to have a fishing rod in the car trunk, in case one is suddenly plunked in the hills of West Virginia and must catch fish to survive, but is that a realistic thing to have, given that one is a suburbanite and such drastic measures are highly unlikely?

This Reader’s Note is by Rockville Central friend Temperance Blalock, a frequent contributor.

To submit your own reader’s note for consideration, just drop us a note!

POTD: Psychedelic!

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This photo is by Temperance Blalock. Of it, she says: “On North Washington St., this political handbill has been attached to the electrical utility transformer box since last October. It is now fading, and with the psychedelic effect of the poster, it looks like a ghostly relic of the 60s.”

Far out!

POTD: Garden

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This charming shot is by Rockville Central friend Temperance Blalock. Of it, she says: “The community garden at Wootton’s Mill Park, [one] Thursday evening.”

I love these community gardens.