Town Crier Articles

All April Articles (Text Only - No Photos)

Posted on April 1, 2020 7:00 AM by Town Crier Staff

Categories: General, Life in New Town, NTRA Business

Invader in Our Midst: Japanese Stiltgrass

Patti Vaticano

We have an insidious invader in New Town, a deceptively pretty and even delicate foliage that sports bright, lime-green leaves on slender stems. This is Japanese Stiltgrass, also known as Eulalia or in Latin, Microstegium vimenium. If looks can be deceiving, then Stiltgrass is the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, offering incursion tactics extremely hard to combat. Even where the grass has been established for a short time, it forms a dense mat of ground cover with leaves growing up to 40 inches long and rooting at the stem nodes, deadly to all other plant growth and efficiently preventing regeneration of forests, fields, and home gardens, thereafter. Within just three to five years, the plant creates impenetrable, single stands which crowd out native herbaceous vegetation with alarming precision, reducing the growth and flowering of native species, suppressing entire native plant communities, altering and/or overwhelming insect colonies, slowing plant succession, and altering nutrient cycling. Only the full eradication of Stiltgrass will assure the recovery of native species, both plant and insect, from the destruction that it brings.

This curious aggressor prefers moist soil that is shaded from full sun. It is found in marshes, ditches, low-lying woods, floodplains, woodland borders, damp fields, woodland thickets, lawns, and along stream sides and roadsides. Wet soils that have periods of standing water are not suitable for Japanese Stiltgrass. Regardless, its seeds can survive and germinate after extended periods of inundation. Although moderately prolific, with a single plant typically giving rise to as many as 1000 seeds, the seeds remain viable in the soil for three to five years, and the plant can spread rapidly, particularly following a disturbance such as flooding or mowing. An additional means of rapid growth of this grass is via the white tail deer, which, while not feeding on the grass itself, remove its competition by feeding on other native plant species of wood and field.

Proper identification of Japanese Stiltgrass is crucial in the war against growth. It’s lime-green leaves, four to five inches in length and half an inch wide, taper at both ends and should not be confused with Wavyleaf Grass, whose sheaths and stems are noticeably hairier than those of Stiltgrass. Waveyleaf Grass is also an invader, though with somewhat weaker abilities, and eradication of the two would require very different tactics. Stiltgrass is an annual plant, beginning its life cycle from a newly germinated seed each year. Waveyleaf grass, on the other hand, is a perennial that can reemerge from an established root system to spread its seeds. Recognizing these life cycle differences is key to establishing an effective control strategy for Stiltgrass.

Native to Asia from India to Japan, Japanese Stiltgrass was first discovered in this country in 1919, in the state of Tennessee. Since then, it has spread to all states east of the Mississippi and south of and including Connecticut. One of its uses in the Orient was as a packing material for porcelain from China, and this was, most likely, its means of introduction to our area. Japanese Stiltgrass is now found in every county in the Commonwealth.

Teddy Bears Emerging from Hibernation in New Town

Mary Cheston

NBC News describes it as a nationwide phenomena – but it has now gone viral globally – Australia, New Zealand, Canada! Teddy bears appearing in windows as a welcome distraction for children as well as a sign of unity and a way to stay connected during this period of isolation. I think it captures a little bid of the kid in all of us and reminds our neighborhood children that we’re thinking of them even if we can’t hang out together like they’re used to.

We’re asking New Town residents to join in by displaying a teddy bear (even just a paper version) in their windows or porches or wherever makes sense for your home or business. We’ve already had over 30 families sign up with our coordinator Sarah Yaneza to let us know they’re taking part. It’s not too late to participate. Let’s make the boredom more “bearable!”

Parents (and adults) can use the bears as any incentive they like or as a math project or just a fun diversion. There are two organized activities:

1) Scavenger Hunt – every other day we are featuring a bear on the New Town Residential Association Facebook page. This is a fun way to target your daily walk. If you’d like to keep track of where you find them, Sarah can let you know how you did at the end of our hunt season.

2) General New Townwide Hunt – find as many locations as you can with a bear displayed, and keep track of the addresses. Then let Sarah know by April 25th. We will crown a champion “hunter/huntress” in the May Town Crier.

If possible, please leave your bear on display until April 25th to give children a chance to find them all and to extend the smile to our whole community through Virginia’s initial shelter-in-home period. Keeping a safe distance on your walks is important also.

Register your bear’s location by email to sarahbyaneza@gmail.com. (I apologize for the typos in earlier eblast messages, but this email address works-promise!) Happy hunting!

Noon Talks – “The Universe is Unfathomably Large”

Mary Cheston

With slides and vivid video, Professor John Delano succeeded in persuading a rapt audience of New Town residents that indeed the vastness of the universe exceeds common imagination. The March 11th Noon Talks in New Town was entitled “NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth.”

Starting with an explanation of the characteristics that made Earth suitable for complex life, Delano proceeded to demonstrate how technology since the 1990’s has been able to measure and track minute events throughout the galaxies to determine where else these characteristics are likely to exist. The video feed from the Hubble, Kepler and Tess satellites have identified 4,136 known planets, mostly the size of Earth or bigger. Scientists have been able to analyze the data to further plot a habitable zone within which only about 25 planets are believed to have the conditions for liquid water for life. All of these planets are thousands of light years from Earth.

But what form might this life take? The investment in Mars research is focused on identifying microbe life that may not be DNA-based. From meteor samples, scientists know that the building blocks of life--proteins and amino acids--are abundant but how they are linked/built together will determine whether life as we know it exists. Attendees peppered the speaker with questions varying from the cost benefits of sending humans v. technology into space, the advances of China on the moon, the U.S. Space Force, and whether any other life forms may have already visited Earth.

NASA is “on the verge of remarkable discoveries” Professor Delano explained. Watch for the launch of the Perseverance Mars rover in July 2020 and the debut of the Space Launch System in 2021, the world’s largest rocket launcher capable of launching a payload of 70 to 140 tons. NASA is simply gathering information to describe nature and determine whether life is common or rare. “The implications of these discoveries are left for others to explore,” he said.

Virtual Meetings - Staying in Touch

Mary Cheston & Max Pfannebecker

While meeting together may not be possible for some time, we’d like to encourage our New Town neighbors to continue the business of the NTRA through technology. Now is the time to experiment with virtual meetings whether it’s for book club discussions or landscape planning.

If you are holding an NTRA Committee meeting, provide the meeting time and date, and the NTRA website team will post your meeting on the site calendar. That calendar item serves as public notice of your meeting and interested community members are aware. Provide a contact number for more info or the link to the virtual meeting itself for members of the community to join.

Here’s how Committee chairs can continue to organize electronic meetings using software apps like Zoom Meeting or Skype.

Zoom Meeting - https://zoom.us/

Free to join. You set up a meeting time and the software provides a link for you to share with all your members.

Members just click on the link and share their video via computer screen or phone. (You may also download the app itself.) The free meeting time is limited to 40 minutes, but if you need more time, just set up sequential meetings and take a stretch break in between!

You can share a screen with items for discussion or just see each other to promote conversation. The software allows people to “raise their hand” to speak and helps moderators to keep the flow on track, one speaker at a time.

Skype

Maybe you already use Skype for personal chats, well you can use it for group calls as well. Just set up your group phone list. To add video, all your participants will also have to have downloaded Skype, but you can call any phone number through the internet without video.

Don’t let months go by without advancing the important business of our Association! You can also use these apps for virtual happy hours or family chats – just to keep in touch with some smiling faces.

In any case, be sure we have the most up-to-date info on the NTRA website. Send your calendar items, minutes or other community information to Mary Cheston, Communications Committee Chair at atmcheston@aol.com

Face Time for Work and Home (Max Pfannebecker)

Beyond just conducting our various business communication virtually, many once-social citizens are taking their personal meet-ups to the virtual world. Coworkers and friends all over the world are "meeting" for five o' clock cocktails on ZOOM to talk toned-down shop in a relaxed atmosphere and trade battle stories of home schooling their kids through the remainder of the 19/20 school year. Some residents are taking yoga classes, playing cards, or learning new crafts via web-based conferencing as well. Some of our own New Town residents have even taken their regularly scheduled book club online (pic below).

In this month's letter from RAB Chair Chuck Stetler, he states that "we will realize how very little we need, how much we actually have, and the true value of human connection." An eloquent statement at a time in history when we can maintain togetherness while sacrificing physical contact during a global outbreak. Our cherished friendships and relationships survive in sprite of social distancing, stay at home orders, or even quarantines. We have the opportunity through almost any connected device to see our families, whether separated by towns or entire timezones, to share love and laughs.

Community Event Defines Family for Charlotte Park Residents

Max Pfannebecker

Inspired by the Italian response to the Covid-19 crisis, Charlotte Park resident John Marston (also the resident member of the BOD) felt a need to create and embrace a light-hearted spirit of connectedness in New Town.

Planning several days in advance, Marston circulated an email to his Charlotte park neighbors and urged them to spread the word of a March 21 event to bring music and laughter to a somber time in the lives. In the offing was a coordinated kazoo rendition of Sister Sledge’s “We are Family” performed by anyone who wished to hum or play a kazoo.

At 5 pm the music queued from his front porch on Rollison Dr and echoed down the empty street. Slowly neighbors cheerfully emerged, carrying a tune (even if not the right one ????) on their kazoos, smiling, laughing, and groovin’ to the music.

All down the length of Rollison smiling neighbors crept out onto ther porches and steps to join the party.

“we understand that everyone has different perception and might consider such an activity frivolous and disrespectful of this serious crisis we face” said Marston. “We honor the diversity of perspectives on how to handle the stress and anxieties. Not everyone agrees to the light hearted ‘breaks’ from worry and grief. Many of us are dealing with very difficult situations with family and friends. So, please make sure that this sharing doesn’t give a message that everything is laugh or we lack empathy and compassion.”

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