Bushel

A Tilghman waterman who has been convicted 10 times of culling undersized oysters was found guilty of the same offense again yesterday in Anne Arundel Circuit Court and was sentenced to a year in jail, all of it suspended, and to a 60-day suspension of his oystering license. Charles Aaron Lomax, 23, appeared before Circuit Court after he appealed a District Court's guilty finding in March of his possessing more than 5 percent of oysters smaller than three inches in diameter while he was working on a boat Jan. 12 at Hackett Point, near the Bay Bridge.

With half their crop already in the bin, Maryland corn farmers are well on their way to a record harvest of 155 bushels per acre, the state Agriculture Department reported yesterday. Ray Garibay, head of the Maryland Agricultural Statistics Service, said the corn yield was running 11.5 percent ahead of the previous record of 139 bushels per acre set in 1996. Garibay said some lower Eastern Shore farms are expected to yield up to 300 bushels of corn from each acre planted. He said the previous high was 250 bushels per acre.

A government survey confirmed yesterday what Maryland grain farmers have been saying for a few weeks: This year's corn crop could be the state's best ever. "As things stand now, farmers expect to harvest a record 150 bushels of corn per acre," said Ray Garibay, head of the Maryland Agricultural Statistics Service. That would surpass the previous record of 139 bushels per acre, set in 1996, by 8 percent. Maryland farmers are not the only ones to benefit from the timely rain and excellent growing conditions.

NEW YORK - He stopped for ice about an hour after the bars closed Friday night; a couple of bags from the Royal Farm Store at Ponca and O'Donnell streets just two red lights away from the ramp to I-95 north and Gotham. The convenience store clerk, who'd seen and heard just about everything on the late shift, had never witnessed this: A middle-aged man asking for tongs in the middle of the night while a posse of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs scuttled along the sidewalk outside. Nope. No tongs for Peter Walsh, artist, self-taught scholar and long-time Baltimorean with two bushels of live Chesapeake Bay blue crabs in the trunk of a rented Toyota.

OXFORD -- A parasite that has been killing crabs from the Gulf of Mexico to Long Island Sound for more than a decade is a suspect in the decline of the commercial crab catch in Maryland's coastal bays.The parasite, known as Hematodinium (he-mat-a-DIN-ee-um) sp, threatened Georgia's $4-million-a-year crab industry this year and shut down crabbing on the Atlantic Ocean side of Virginia's eastern shore in 1991-1992. The commercial catch in Maryland's coastal bays was cut in half last year, the most recent year for which figures are available, and apparently declined again this year.

Ella May Ruby does not let 1,000 apples and 150 pounds of dough intimidate her. A baker for most of her 79 years, she can easily take those ingredients and turn them into flaky, golden dumplings for today's Apple Festival at Piney Run Park in Sykesville.She and her husband, Jack, have run the festival since it started 13 years ago. She directs the production, making sure volunteer dumpling-makers have a steady supply of butter, flour, sugar and cinnamon. She relies on unwritten recipes handed down from her grandmother.

With the summer heat behind us, September has proved to be a fantastic crabbing month, with catches of up to three bushels in four hours.It is important to take extra bait this time of year as crabs are now extremely aggressive feeders, unlike in previous months, when bait typically lasted half the day, with crabs stripping the meat, but leaving the neck bones intact.On a recent trip, I found myself out of bait by 9: 30, even though I had taken more than 100 necks for thirty traps. At one point, I thought the crabs had to be stealing the bait, retreating to the shallows where they prefer to feed rather than in the open waters with the equipment.

The sound of snapping fresh green beans broke through the din of the television, turned up high enough for the hardest of hearing at Lookabout Manor senior home.At a table behind the couches that face the television, a half-dozen residents of the home worked through a bushel of beans that Jeanie Meeks brought in from her husband's farm, and asked for more. It sure beat watching reruns on the large-screen TV."They kept asking me, `When are you going to bring some more beans?' It brings back all the things they used to do," said Meeks, a former nanny who one year ago was a daily visitor to the home, where her mother was living.

As mid-June approaches, crabbers have been encouraged by reports of good catches for this time of year. On June 8, instead of joining my friend who caught 1 1/2 bushels in Shipping Creek, I chose to crab the upper Chesapeake, as many readers requested a report for this area.Somewhat disappointed, I caught only three crabs using 20 traps in 7 to 8 feet of water on the western side of Hart/Miller Island, and no crabs in the Gunpowder River in front of the state park. I'm expecting the upper bay to become more productive later in the summer and will keep readers updated.