Are you 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12 years old? If so, this article is for you. We would like you to join our community this summer at the Rappahannock Nature Camp!
Read More »
This Week’s Paper
All the news
For the current week's full Rappahannock News — usually available by 9 p.m. Wednesdays — check out our new eEdition, where you can sign up for your four-week free trial subscription!
Advertisement
Environment/Conservation
Letter: Join the Nature Camp community
Letter: Thanks to the Theatre
Wendy Weinberg once again hosted terrific community events at the Theatre at Washington. On Saturday, Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) representatives gave an informative talk on the dire prospects of uranium mining in Virginia. About a week ago, five staffers in Richmond were charged with writing regulations, by this summer, to oversee mining and storage...
Read More »
Uranium: ‘Not the time to relax’
More than 50 attended a town hall meeting held by the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) last Saturday (Jan. 28) in Washington on the possibility – and the possible risks and impact – of uranium mining in Virginia, including in Rappahannock County and surrounding areas.
Read More »
Letter: Thanks for letting us keep up with Jones (and other neighbors)
Rappahannock News reporter Alex Sharp VIII did a nice job on the advance of the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection (RLEP) talk by our Long Mountain Road neighbor Bruce Jones. Bruce and Susan Jones are truly dedicated to the ideals of life in the county. The public talk is proof that RLEP is doing...
Read More »
‘Intricate Relationships’ matter
The perpetual friction between “come-heres” and “from-heres” in Rappahannock County is not limited to humans. Homegrown naturalist Bruce Jones speaks on ways to bring native flora and fauna back home.
Read More »
Clark Hollow Ramblings: It ain’t so. It just ain’t so.
I have been reading with some interest the issue of lead poisoning in our bald eagle population. First, I can’t tell you how glad I am that the bald eagles have taken up residency here, or returned here, whichever is the case. They are absolutely so majestic I am glad Ben Franklin didn’t get his way...
Read More »
The Rapp for Jan. 26
Another Fourth (Estate) Friday meeting with our staff; two Friday films; oysters, Little Washington wine, art and a fundraiser Saturday; Israel at Trinity; uranium at the Theatre.
Read More »
The Rapp for Jan. 19
Going wild in your backyard, and the Benevolent Fund's Plan B fundraiser.
Read More »
In 2011, 650-plus acres protected
Data released this week shows that three properties in Rappahannock County totaling more than 650 acres were protected by conservation easements in 2011.
Read More »
Letter: Get the lead out of hunting ammunition
Last week’s article on the bald eagle killed by lead poisoning in Fauquier County – as well as news of a second eagle in Manassas that died of the same cause – is a sharp reminder of the need to get the lead out of hunting ammunition. Lead left in the gut piles of...
Read More »
Letter: If it’s hunters’ lead, why no dead vultures?
Regarding your Jan. 12 article reprinted from the Fauquier Times-Democrat: I find it to be a long stretch to blame hunters for the problem. The article, in quoting the Wildlife Center senior executives, makes it sound as if hunters are such a sorry lot that large amounts of...
Read More »
Lead said to be poisoning eagles
This story doesn't have a happy ending.
On Dec. 29, a Virginia conservation officer from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries rescued a bald eagle and brought it to the Wildlife Center in Waynesboro.
Read More »
Photo: The mitigators
From left, participants in last week’s Culpeper Soil & Water Conservation District (CSWCD) all-day workshop on restoring and protecting streambeds, wetlands and habitat included Rappahannockians Beverly Hunter, Jonathan Marquisee, David Massie, Don Loock and Donna Marquisee and CSWCD staffers Richard Jacobs and Evan Blumenthal. Attendees learned about private conservation-incentive programs (besides those long offered...
Read More »
SCBI: Making room for leopards, pandas and . . . students
Just two miles downhill from Chester Gap on U.S. 522, some of the world’s most exotic and endangered species are raising families within the heavily secured confines of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) in Front Royal – and they’re about to have company.
Read More »
The coyote is ‘here to stay’
That unusual sound you hear after dark in Rappahannock County – between the more familiar bark of distant dogs and the occasional passing plane – could very well be the yip and howl of the eastern coyote.
Read More »
The Rapp for Nov. 10
Middle Street Gallery's grand opening, CCLC's annual fundraiser auction, a solar-energy talk at Hearthstone, and RCCA's annual meeting.
Read More »
Letter: Farming is the credential to consider
In the 1930s, during the pit of the great depression, an ecologically disastrous event occurred in the heartland of America. Soil from barren, dry fields began blowing away and created what we now call the Dust Bowl. In the wake of this disaster, soil and water conservation districts were formed as a way to...
Read More »
Letter: Reelect the current Soil and Water board members
On Tuesday, Nov. 8, we have the opportunity to vote for two candidates for the Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District board. There are three candidates; two are incumbents and both deserve to be reelected to this very important board. John Gehno and Monira Rifaat are farmers and have the experience and sense of...
Read More »
Wild Ideas: Virginia’s Little Switzerland
A fall visit to Highland County, Virginia's "Little Switzerland," much of which lies in George Washington National Forest.
Read More »
Wild Ideas: Different day, different web
The difference between utility and utility plus beauty is the difference between telephone wires and the spider web. – Edwin Way Teale, American naturalist, photographer, and writer Spiders are arthropods in the arachnid (Arachnida) class, named for the Greek mythological character Arachne. According to the myth, as related in John Compton’s “The Life of...
Read More »
Wild Ideas: A young opossum rescue
Driving out of my hollow recently on a brutally hot, humid morning, I saw a woman with her dog at the side of the road and an opossum dead in the middle of it. The woman seemed distressed, so I stopped to see if she needed help. She told me the opossum had babies...
Read More »
Stone walls: definitely not a dry subject
When some people see an old stone wall snaking through a pasture, they view it as much a part of the property as a house or a great oak tree, a testimony to the labors of a long-ago resident and something that should be preserved, even restored. For others, the same stone wall represents...
Read More »
Sustainability: The dance goes on
As if it wasn’t enough of a challenge to follow all the rules and guidelines necessary to have your products designated as “organic,” Nick Lapham has also tackled . . . biodiversity. Certain newspapers that would attempt to cover certain rural Virginia counties filled with singularly distinctive people must exercise caution when calling out...
Read More »
Editorial: Blame the bears
From all accounts, the Earth Day litter cleanup, sponsored by the local Democratic Committee, was a great success (see Jed Duvall’s letter this week). Apparently there is now much less litter on Route 211. But is that a good thing? The question should be asked. For some of us, the colorful food packaging and...
Read More »
Evening View: A party to protect the land
What has quickly become one of the county’s premier social and fundraising events, the Rappahannock Evening View, will be held Saturday, May 21 at Mountain Green, the home of Ashleigh and Alex Sharp located between the town of Washington and Shenandoah National Park.
Read More »
School and Sports Briefs for March 31
RCHS Lady Panther soccer and Panther baseball coverage, and environmental work by Wakefield Country Day School students.
Read More »
Sperryville column for March 24
Celebrate mutts with wine; a happy Hunter Jenkins birthday; more room for pizza; clean sweep news; adult ballet classes; a school board vacancy.
Read More »
Library announces three new collections
Top-ranked books and information fill three new reference-book sections at the Rappahannock County Library. They are oriented to educate caregivers and readers interested in farming and gardening, and in conservation and nature issues.
Read More »
Opinion: As in the Blue Ridge, another way of life heads for extinction
Let's talk about an endangered species. I could talk about the Delmarva fox squirrel (Acipenser brevirostrum) or even the bog turtle (Clemmys muhlenbergii). Instead, I will first briefly mention the Blue Ridge Mountain dwellers (Montanus habitus), who went extinct in the 1930s when the federal government resettled them to make way for the Shenandoah...
Read More »
Letter: Farm Bureau stand is a shortsighted one
The Farm Bureau national lobby group’s recent decision to file a lawsuit in federal court to stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from limiting the amount of toxic pollutants that flow into the Chesapeake Bay is both shortsighted and ill advised. Efforts to prevent the EPA from regulating such pollution will damage the environment...
Read More »
You can prevent forest-fire damage, too
The recent spate of brush fires caused a scare, or at least some anxious moments, for many a Rappahannock County resident Dry leaves and grass, high winds and low humidity combined to leave the county vulnerable. No structures were lost nor were there injuries. There are some things homeowners can do to protect their...
Read More »
Natural wonders
If it turns out that nature is indeed your mother, then Lyt Wood is pretty sure she wishes you’d call more often.
Wood, a Rappahannock citizen for going on 35 years now, will turn 59 this summer during the 25th annual Rappahannock Nature Camp -- a two-week day camp for 8- to 12-year-olds he helped...
Read More »
Editorial: Are we hypocrites?
With the budget battle raging in Big Washington, just about everyone I know in Rappahannock — Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative — agrees that it is irresponsible to keep running huge federal deficits, as we have for the last 10 years. To keep living on borrowed money, we’re essentially robbing our children and...
Read More »
Wild Ideas: Tracking more than footprints
When I was a kid, I fancied myself to be a great tracker. When I was roaming the forests and meadows near my suburban home, I imagined I was a Native American, since we kids learned from Westerns that they were the best trackers. The goal was to find and observe animals, and ultimately...
Read More »
Sperryville monopole OK’d; AT&T’s school site adjusted and delayed
Meeting before a partisan crowd of about 40 at the high school auditorium, the Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors took two unanimous actions Monday night in the matter of two of AT&T’s five proposed cellular installations. One was unanticipated, the other clearly unwanted by those partisans.
Read More »
The Rapp for Feb. 10
The head of the American Bird Conservancy has a talk at the library Friday; the Redds add another color to their Sunday jazz concert at the Theatre in Washington; the county's first-responders give out their annual awards for service; memorial dinner for Christine Timbers Saturday features the Dark Hollow Boys bluegrass band.
Read More »
Wild Ideas: Quacking frogs get a jump on spring
Even as a kid, I was an avid frog watcher. Even before the Spring Peepers’ chorus heralded the arrival of spring, I’d pull on my boots and go to still-icy pools to listen for the sound of Lithobates sylvaticus, the Wood Frog, kicking off the annual frog-breeding cycle. The Wood Frog, a forest dweller,...
Read More »
Wild Ideas: The tactile masked bandit
The North American Raccoon (Procyon lotor) is smart, curious, bold, omnivorous, and opportunistic -- like a small bear in a mask. Our relationship with them has been a conflicted one. We’ve been captivated by the raccoon’s antics, confounded by some of its behavior and annoyed at its skillful thievery. Not only have we captured...
Read More »
Easements down, but totals add up
The numbers are now in: 296 acres were recorded as conservation easements in Rappahannock County in 2010. These were fewer acres than in previous years, but nonetheless bring the total amount of land protected by conservation easements here to more than 28,600 acres, or 17 percent of the total land. As measured by a...
Read More »
Letter: And the reason for 200-foot towers is . . . ?
When something is being shoved down my throat I want to know why. I hear some say we will get broadband Internet with AT&T’s cell tower plan. I hear others say cell phone service. Others say it will help our volunteer fire and rescue teams. But I don’t hear specifics. I see maps that...
Read More »
Follow Us!
Follow Us!
© 2009-2012 Rappahannock Media 
Follow Us!