National Night Out for Soldiers Delight!

Beneath a large white tent kindly provided by our hosts, the Owings Mills New Town Community Association (OMNTCA) for this year's National Night Out event on August 6, The Soldiers Delight Friends Group set out items of interest for children and adults. It was the group's wish to provide an opportunity for community members to learn more about the unique and important Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, a habitat close to many of the homes that make up the Owings Mills New Town community.

The weather was hot but not unbearably so for National Night Out 2024 which, since 1984, is celebrated on the first Tuesday of August as a day for local families to get acquainted with their police and fire departments, with the business community, and with each other. Residents walked from their homes to the grassy "Central Park" area of the New Town community in Owings Mills to dance to live music, sample restaurant fare from all across Owings Mills, and enjoy the summer weather and each other.

SDCI Board President Laura Van Scoyoc, Vice President Lynell Tobler, Maryland Department of Natural Resources Wildlife & Heritage Service outreach specialist Edwin Guevara, Master Naturalist Natalie Snyder, and WH&S seasonal naturalist Ben Giraldo, arrived early to set up the booth, staffed the two-hour event, and then took it all down and carted it away afterward. Bravo to such dedicated board members and volunteers!

SDCI displayed a variety of items at its booth for visitors interested in learning more about the fascinating geological makeup of the serpentine barren, a narrow stretch of the earth's upper mantle stretching from Nova Scotia to Alabama that heaved to the surface, likely during convergence of an ancient oceanic plate with our continental plate more than 450 million years ago, about 200 million years before the Age of Dinosaurs! Most of this strip of land has been covered over by development. But here, at Soldiers Delight NEA, the unique attributes of a globally rare ecosystem are on full display for all to see. 

From left, Olivia McCartney, 3, her sister Alaia McCartney, 4, both of Owings Mills, and Master Naturalist Natalie Snyder enjoy spraying water at the faux flames of our "prescribed burn" activity for children

One of the most enjoyable activities SDCI offers at its outreach events is an opportunity for children to don a water-filled bladder-pack and take turns shooting spray at small targets in front of a board of painted flames, simulating the actions our highly-skilled burn teams employ when conducting a prescribed burn at Soldiers Delight NEA, an annual program necessary to keep the flora and fauna of this unique habitat from being choked out by invasive vegetation.

As children gleefully squirted water at our faux flames, SDCI board members and volunteers explained to their parents and passers-by the important history of Maryland's "burn culture," when early Native Americans lit fires to herd deer for hunting, inadvertently preventing invasive vegetation from crowding out the unusual and, in some cases, globally rare plants that call the serpentine barren home.

SDCI collects a host of invasive plants growing wild all over the community for our display each year

Probably the single most important outreach message we impart at Soldiers Delight Conservation, Inc., is to implore neighboring residents to purchase only native plants with which to landscape their yards. The dangers of planting non-native, invasive species of plants, vines, shrubs, flowers and trees, many of which can be purchased at any local garden center or big box store, cannot be overstated. To our target audience, the homeowners in the Owings Mills New Town community whose properties are near or adjacent to the Soldiers Delight wildland, our message is especially urgent: the seeds from common but invasive ornamentals, groundcovers and landscape specimens, several of which were displayed at the SDCI booth, are eaten (and later expelled) by birds, caught in animal fur, and carried on the wind out of neighborhood yards and into Soldiers Delight NEA and other wildlands, where they sprout and spread with abandon, crowding out irreplaceable native flora.

The Owings Mills New Town neighborhood common area, an expanse of green space with a community garden and a dog park, enjoyed a steady stream of happy residents enjoying National Night Out's various offerings. Demonstrations by local fire and police departments, fun displays of all kinds, including a large bounce-house, and a raffle with valuable prizes rounded out the evening's entertainment.

Our SDCI volunteers greeted many neighborhood families during the two-hour event. The Owings Mills New Town Community Association’s National Night Out is always a fun occasion -- and SDCI was certainly happy to be invited back this year!