Our Neighborhood Streets

The first indication that something was going to happen to our neighborhood streets, were he signs that appeared in late June…and then the big equipment at the front of the neighborhood. The neighborhood is about 25 years old; the streets did not seem that problematic but I was glad the work was being done proactively….and interested in how it would proceeed.

Markings were made on the street around the utility covers and the connections of cul-de-sacs to the primary street into the neighborhood. They started at the front of the neighborhood and scraped off the top few inches of asphalt from a few cul-de-sacs.

The increased heavy equipment traffic caused some break up of asphalt – a sign that it was old enough to be easily damaged.

The big equipment finally removed the asphalt from in front of our house in mid-July. A dump truck moved slowly in front of the big machine to collect the asphalt that was scrapped up. Smaller equipment (Bobcat size) came along and removed chunks of asphalt that the bigger equipment didn’t. And then there were street sweepers. Every night when the work was done for the day, the neighborhood was left tidy.

Ten days later, the asphalting was done in front of our house. The dump truck carrying the surfacing material links with the equipment and then the two pieces move forward and the layer is put on top of the road bed. Big rollers come along behind and compress the material. By the time all that happens – the new layer is flush with the concrete curb.

Our neighborhood looks spruced up with the new street - and the earlier work to replace buckling segments of sidewalk and clear out the clogged water retention pond. 2017 has been a busy year for infrastructure maintenance in our neighborhood!

Mt. Pleasant in July 2017 – Part II

Continuing from my Monday post about last week’s walks before and after photography session with summer campers at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm….The areas around the nature center were easy enough to walk around and through several times. There were cone flowers in the Honors Garden that were very attractive to the tiger swallowtails and other butterflies.

There were flowers growing up through the rungs of a bench that survived the campers (they managed to sit on the bench and not the flowers!).

We saw a cicada killer resting on one of the benches too.

I liked the view of Queen Anne’s Lace from below. The campers decided it looked like a tree.

All cone flowers are not pink!

In the quiet one morning – before the campers were anywhere near – I saw a cat bird in the garden (only heard it when the campers were around)

And a butterfly was interested in the pickerel weed at the small pond

Where there was a water strider moving around on the surface of the water.

Somehow some plants look otherworldly to me – as if they are two unrelated things glommed together. This is an example!

There were also early instars of an insect (maybe milkweed bugs) on one of the plants.

In the Garden Club garden with the ‘Flower Pot People’ there were mating milkweed beetles

And bugs

And several different instars of the milkweed bugs all on one plant!