About 40 egrets were blown from pine trees when a powerful wind gust traveling 80 miles per hour swept through Portsmouth on Sunday night. Melissa Manasse has lived in a neighborhood on the Elizabeth River for five years and has become familiar with the egret colony that calls a stand of loblolly pines home. “I enjoy them,” Manasse said of the graceful white birds with the long, S-shaped necks. .
Patience. Local farmer William Mills knows all about patience. The fruits of his labor from four years ago are just now getting ripe enough for the picking — or tall