Transformations

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In a New York Times Op Ed piece, A Nation of Villages, David Brooks talks about today’s planners and developers transforming unlikely ex-urban spaces into new communities that balance a desire for privacy with a need to be part of a community.

This brings to mind a development in Fulton, MD that will alter my Thanksgiving ritual.

For 67 years, Henry Iager and his family have owned and operated the Maple Lawn Farm, where they grew turkeys and Holstein cows. For the past ten years, I have stood in line for an hour or so a day or two before Thanksgiving and come home with a big bird who, until a couple of hours before I loaded him into my car, lead a darned good life scratching around the barnyard. His diet likely included a fair number of worms and such, in addition to whatever close-to-organic turkey chow the Iagers provided. No one minded the wait, since they had a bottomless urn of hot cider and a festive atmosphere. And we were rewarded by a juicy turkey that will make it impossible for me to settle for something previously frozen and bloated from the super market.

Last week, a favorite Howard County colleague informed me that Maple Lawn Farm is about to be turned into a planned community. It is to be similar to Kentlands, a development where it looks like they took a little bit of Cleveland Park, added a dash of Georgetown, then moved it all to Gaithersburg – and pulled it off!

Now, I like Kentlands, and I think we could use more communities like it in the area. But I like Maple Lawn turkeys even more. Sigh.

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