Tag Archives: Western Loudoun

How Narrow the Band in Western Loudoun

Posted on December 14, 2018 at 12:05 am by John Flannery |

In this picture is a broadband source to connect to the Internet

Out in Western Loudoun, near Lovettsville, there are various ways to get on the Internet.

There is of course by satellite connected to a dish by your house.

There are broadcasting links atop various structures including a silo out by Stevens Road. What else would you expect in the country? It had to be on a silo.

Dishes are put outside home windows pointed toward the “broadcasting” structures including the devices affixed atop a silo.

You have to look long and hard to see the connecting devices including atop that old silo.

Connection to the Internet via silo

The County Board has promised it was going to make a difference to broad band in Western Loudoun.

But little or nothing has happened to do so.

Some were surprised by the recent pronouncements by Loudoun’s Economic Development folks that “Loudoun County Leads Virginia in Broadband Use.”

“According to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau,” according to the County’s Economic Development Crew, “Loudoun has the highest percentage of households with a fixed broadband (not mobile) Internet subscription in Virginia.”

Unfortunately, this is “somewhat” off the mark as they are really only talking about eastern Loudoun.

There was a broadband survey that the County conducted earlier this year. It was in May and was extended through July 27, 2018 for residents to express their opinion.

There was an online map that showed the reaction.

Only “blue” was “great” and that was dominant in the eastern part of the County; “green” was “hit or miss” online (heavy in the West), and “red” was “terrible” (dominant in the West) and, as a result, the map of Western Loudoun looked like the onslaught of a teenage acne condition.

The survey map that was – and isn’t any longer

By the way, if you go looking for this map, as it appeared, and found in this article, it’s vanished; one source argued that’s what the County does to “hush” up what they don’t want the community to consider.

The original url was http://loudoungis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=1a995526e50c424896bfa48fdb793d9e .

When you go to that address (url) now, you will find a map and an array of only blue dots and no legend as to what the blue dots represent. Continue reading →

“FOREST BATHING” – GOOD FOR YOU

Posted on October 16, 2018 at 8:56 am by John Flannery |

You owe yourself a walk in the woods, not only to observe the natural beauty but because it is good for your health.

First, there is the view.

There are roads in Western Loudoun and the Region engulfed in forest, on either side and above, like the imagined course of the famed night ride of sleepy hollow’s headless horseman.

These local roads course through nature’s living “tunnels” and, this time of the year, the leaves change and fall. Continue reading →

Back to Nature

Posted on August 28, 2018 at 8:41 am by John Flannery |

Acadia

I went for a trek in Acadia in Maine, along the Northern coast, in a light cool rain – and no one was on any of the paths through the woods.

You could hardly be closer to nature.

In the difficult places, in the woods, you have to pause to walk, to move more carefully, to pick your way.

I found inch high purple orchids, slightly agape, hanging in an array, against a seeming wall of wide green leaves and stems.

We have sights like this here at home but not everyone appreciates what we have.

There were large patches of soft green-white moss beneath my foot fall in Maine, and tender fibrous growths clustered on obstructing over-hanging limbs.

Where there wasn’t moss on the forest floor, there was what had once been vibrant flora, flattened dead tree limbs, pressed moist leaves and branches, fallen by age or wind or the brush of a deer, or even another human passerby.

We don’t have to go anywhere to have something like this in Western Loudoun but too many don’t appreciate what we have. Continue reading →

Mike Pugh – In Defense of a Meadow

Posted on July 31, 2018 at 9:21 am by John Flannery |

Mike and Sian Pugh in the Meadow he’s defending – an echo of American Gothic?

Mike Pugh is from Kansas where, as a young man, he worked a fair amount of his time haying.

Despite his work in the fields, he didn’t consciously consider how he might be forming a partnership with nature that would stay with him.

This connection with the land became clear when he came to Western Loudoun County where many are struggling to preserve the land’s rural character.

Mike didn’t expect he’d become a combatant in a debate to preserve what he found. Continue reading →