Category Archives: Community

What I Will Be Doing on Black Friday … And Small Business Saturday

Posted on November 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

Anything but gift shopping. I never got why it was so important to run out to save a few bucks on things we really don’t need. The stress factor alone would get to me. I know I just am not that big of a bargain hunter to stand in long lines or fight crowds. Too many years commuting to DC, I guess. These days I go out of my way to avoid crowds.

So, what will I be doing tomorrow and Saturday? Besides cooking a turkey sometime, and writing the Christmas cards while my husband is on his radio.

Friday is supposed to be lovely. We considered a trip to one of the local wineries that open on Fridays, for a picnic lunch. It is still high on our list. We haven’t been down to Glen Manor since last spring. They are just below the entrance to the Skyline Drive. Leaf peeping season is about done, so on Friday while everyone else is at the malls, we could have the back roads of Virginia to ourselves.

the view from the deck at Glen Manor Vineyard

Fall is also the time when our sunsets are spectacular. We haven’t sat on the front porch and enjoyed one while having appetizers. If it does get close to sixty degrees tomorrow, it may be one of our better days to sit and relax and watch the world drive by.

A November sunset last year from our porch

Saturday is Small Business Saturday. One of those events promoted by a credit card. This one is an American Express promotion, but it certainly does have merit. Giving money to our local businesses and supporting our local economy is not a bad thing at all. It is one of the primary areas of writing that I focus my blogging on quite often.

Saturday I intend to wander out to a few of my favorite places while my husband is occupied on his radio. It has been a while since I hit the Silver Spring Farmer’s Market. Atwater’s Bread and Mock’s Greenhouse tomatoes sound good right now.

Maybe Mother Nature’s in Oakland Mills to replace a feeder that the squirrels have finally trashed. With a stop for a sandwich at Bon Fresco in the same area.

For me, a much more sedate way to spend the holiday weekend than fighting to find parking at the mall.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Birds, Community, Day Trips, Farmer's Markets, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Wine and tagged community, day trips, farmer's markets, Food, heirloom tomatoes, local businesses, Locavore, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Over the River and Through the Woods …

Posted on November 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

… one thing I don’t miss these days. The long trips over the holidays. On clogged highways. My husband’s family lived out of state. It always meant traveling in the winter on snow covered roads. We tried avoiding bad weather, following forecasts and working our schedules around the best travel days.

I-70 at noon Wednesday

One Easter we got trapped by a late ice storm and didn’t get home to get back to work. Having relatives in the highlands of northeastern PA meant treacherous trips on I-81 and I-83. I feel for those who have those same dilemmas and who face the clogged roads to make it home to visit. But, I would be happy to have his family still with us, and take those trips to see them. We miss our families most during the holidays. My mom is still active and we cherish the years we have by sharing holidays with her.

Today we get to leisurely drive about 30 miles to share Thanksgiving with my brother and his extended family. Since the 1990’s he has always sponsored midshipmen at his home, first in Catonsville and now south of Annapolis. It means quite a bit to the families of these young men that they have a safe place to come and share a day or two, or a meal or two, with someone who looks out for them. Many of them still keep in touch.

We go to his home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and Fourth of July, usually. Plus, birthdays, weddings, graduations, Mother’s Day, and just sometimes to see old friends, having a base for get togethers is comforting and familiar. It does mean we have made our own personal traditions, that dovetail with the family visits.

I don’t know how many years we never had a Christmas tree. Lately, we do get one since we are home on Christmas day. The first few times we got one when we married more than 30 years ago, they would dry out and drop needles all over the place, since we went to PA for four or five days. I have yet to succumb and buy an artificial tree. We now buy ours locally at either TLV or Pine Valley

Around our current home, all the trees grouped by the driveway were former Christmas trees from the previous owner. Bought with the root ball, they were planted and some of them are 25 years old. If we were younger, we would do that, but at least we recycle our tree into mulch with the county. I do love the grouping of trees at our home, though. They make me think of the memories of the family whose children grew up here 20 years ago.

Today I will eat my brother’s turkey and fixings. He cooks most of the dinner, just as my dad loved to cook. We will come home tonight and brine our turkey and have our dinner tomorrow or Saturday. This is also a big radio contest weekend, and luckily, my husband now contests from home. It means we can have that dinner, and make our own memories in our home. Now, off to find the brining supplies for the turkey and put together the cooler to take to my brother’s.

Then, I need to figure out where I am putting the tree, and go up in the attic and get the Christmas lights out. And, do Christmas cookies and cards. Ah, the beginning of the busy season. Don’t forget about Small Business Saturday! Go out and buy something, presents, food, trees, whatever, from the small local businesses in Howard County.

Happy Thanksgiving!

hocoblogs@@@

The End of the Season

Posted on November 17, 2012 by AnnieRie

Planning for Thanksgiving? You still have one more chance to get in on local goodness supporting our farmers. Oakland Mills market Sunday morning from 9 am until 12:30 pm. The final day of the market until the spring.

I hit Glenwood today. Four of the Glenwood vendors will be at Oakland Mills tomorrow morning. If you do nothing else, getting apples from the customer appreciation sale by Lewis Orchards is worth the trip. Ten dollars for half a bushel and you can mix two types. I like Fuji because they are good eating apples and will work for applesauce and pies.

Half bushel Fuji apples

I got some fresh cider from them also. They were doing a brisk business today, as you can see by the stack of upturned 1/2 bushel baskets. I was in line about five deep when I first got there to get the apples. It was good to see each vendor doing a decent business with cars coming in. I was there before 10 am. When I left the cars were still pretty constant coming in.

I got eggs and a ham hock from TLV. I know I can continue to get them out at the farm. Honey from Breezy Willow. And, a pecan pie for one of the desserts I will take to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner, from Stone House. The eggs are for my Christmas baking, which I will be starting the weekend after Thanksgiving.

TLV, Stone House, Cosmic Bean and Lewis will be at Oakland Mills. I don’t know about the produce vendors there, or whether Great Harvest will be there. Zahradka and Breezy Willow were doing a brisk business today, with people getting veggies for their holiday meals. Lots of broccoli and cauliflower. Squashes. Brussels sprouts on the stalk.

Stone House will be around for a while at TLV, during Christmas tree cutting season. Check their site to see which days. I got my pecan pie today that just needs a quick heat up in the oven. All sorts of pies, cakes, cookies, cupcakes and breads. I have two loaves of their specialty breads in my freezer to heat up with soups.

A big thanks to all our local vendors and farmers, who have given us almost seven months of markets here in the county. I know I appreciate them being here, and hope to see them all next spring.

hocofood@@@

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Posted on November 16, 2012 by AnnieRie

I have been working on a series of posts about life in Howard County. We are cleaning things up and whenever I find something from years past, I think: I should do a post about this.

So, I am. The trigger for this post was the cleaning in the files in the study and finding a box in the corner with old ADC maps in it. There must be five different Howard County maps in there, but my favorite is this one.

ADC map of Howard County 1976

In 1975 I moved here, right out of college. My husband moved to his place in 1977, before I knew him. This is his map, bought to find his way around here, since he used to live in Montgomery County, where he worked.

Interesting little things from the index, like the total number of schools in the county then. Germane to see how many fewer schools there were back then, when the entire county probably had less population than Columbia has now. Columbia back then was just a small percentage of the land.

The shopping center list was pretty sparse as well. It shows four village centers for Columbia.

One of my favorite pages is the one of Clarksville, before River Hill. Notice that the old Rte. 32 jogged right then left around Rte. 108. No highway then.

“downtown” Clarksville

My first roommate when I lived in Wilde Lake worked here. Who remembers this? What is there now?

I moved to Columbia hoping to find a job at APL, but the recession of the early 1970s made it hard. I taught school for a while at a Catholic school, and lived with multiple roommates in Partridge Courts, then in an apartment in Long Reach. My husband’s townhouse was one of the Howard Homes camp out town houses in Owen Brown. Remember those?

Thirty years I lived in Columbia. Half my life, as I turn 60 next month. It was definitely an interesting place to be, but now I have to admit I far prefer leaving a city to live in a mostly rural area. I realized that after 22 years in Baltimore and 30 years in Columbia, that these last eight years were the only time I didn’t live in an apartment or row house, fashionably named town houses somewhere along the way.

Anyone else have older Howard County artifacts or photos around?

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in Commentary, Community, Howard County, Remember When and tagged commentary, community, hoco loco, hocoblogging, Howard County. Bookmark the permalink.

The Last Weekend of Howard County Farmer’s Markets

Posted on November 14, 2012 by AnnieRie

Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. East Columbia, Glenwood and Oakland Mills. The last three dates of the markets. Will you be stopping by to get items for Thanksgiving dinner? Or, getting a fresh turkey locally?

Pumpkins for pies. Sweet potatoes for a casserole. Apples as well. Sausage for the stuffing. Bread for the stuffing. Eggs. Greens. Lots of good local foods to use for the dinner preparation. Also, many of us have ordered pies from Stone House. Stone House will be setting up at TLV during the tree cutting season.

The regular farmer’s markets may be ending but the local farmers will still have places where you can buy their offerings.

TLV Farm is opening for Cut your own Christmas trees, right after Thanksgiving. They also stay open on Saturdays the rest of the winter for those of us looking for meat and eggs.

Breezy Willow made this announcement in our latest email. Since we just joined their Early Bird for March through May, we will be heading out there on Saturdays to fill in our needs the two months we don’t have a CSA delivery. Here are the words from their email.

“You may still order from our website throughout the winter. We will be opening on Saturdays at Breezy Willow starting the first Saturday in Dec from 10-2pm. Our Alpaca socks and scarves will be available along with more gift items, more information to follow.”

England Acres will be open on Saturdays and Sundays. They are open all year round, and we head out there often particularly for dairy and cheese. They also get other items from farms in the area. They are west of Mt. Airy off Rte. 144, just over the Frederick County line.

Olney Farmers and Artists Market (OFAM) has announced an indoor market starting in January at the Sandy Spring Museum on Rte. 108. They also have a holiday mart on the 2nd of December.

If anyone knows of other farmer’s markets near us, let us know. We will be frequenting the markets to get supplies, particularly meat and eggs, and any root veggies they may have. I will be reporting here what we find.

Also contact me here, or you may be receiving an email to sign up for the event at the Conservancy that I am coordinating. It will feature an indoor “Meet Your Local Farmers” event on the 20th of January. Farmers will have some items to sell, will be doing CSA signups, will be talking about living and working on their farms. More to follow as I work out details with participants and the Conservancy.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Community, CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, West HoCo and tagged community, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

The View from the Yard

Posted on November 8, 2012 by AnnieRie

No, not Camden. Dayton. Our yard. Where we have spent countless hours the past week, cleaning up and getting ready for winter. We spent lots of time outside, since our house was so cold. I was going to title this post, Heat, Glorious Heat.

When I came home today from dropping off food, cleaning supplies and clothes at the hocorising household for Mrs. hocorising to take to Jersey, I came home finally to a warm house. The heat pump is fixed. All is right in my world. Some mornings the temps on our first floor were in the 50s, and we were wearing fleece sweaters and/or vests all day. Going outside to work was better than shivering in the kitchen or family room.

So, what did we get to see outside. Mostly, since the leaves are falling, we got to see what trees were down, or coming down, since the canopy is gone and you can see the bare branches. It looks like we still have a fair amount of work to clean up the large pieces, so we don’t lose the trees we want to keep on our property line. You see, we moved out here for the privacy and between last year’s hurricane, this June’s derecho, and Superstorm Sandy, we lost quite a bit of deciduous cover.

sheared off trees of heaven

Some of our better older trees were damaged too. The derecho sheared off trees, while the hurricane uprooted them. We now need to decide what to plant to maintain our property line.

What also is amazing is how many pine cones came down. I have been collecting them for the Conservancy to use at the Natural Crafts Fair for Christmas. The first weekend in December as part of the crafts fair, they set up an area for children to make really adorable gifts using pine cones, acorns, wood, sticks and other natural items. I have a boatload of pine cones. The description from the web site. Put it on your calendar.

HC Conservancy — DEC 1 – Saturday 9 am to 3 pm Natural Holiday Sale and Crafts. Enjoy a lovely Saturday. Browse tables of natural gift items, create critters from seed pods and natural gatherings. Enjoy beautiful music with a cup of tea. Our popular holiday sale with talented local craft vendors, delicious refreshments, and nature critter crafts for the children of all ages. FREE.

Now that the ground cover is gone, and you can see the property line, you can find the old fence posts and barbed wire that delineated the horse pasture from other parts of the original farm. Our house is in the middle of what was the horse pasture. That is why our soil is so good, all that lovely horse manure churned into the soil, turning clay into something lovely.

It is interesting living here. We have fruit trees, hickory trees, berry bushes, mulberry trees, all sorts of ground covers and grasses. I love the meadow every season.

Our crab apples got many of their berries knocked off, but my neighbor’s did OK. Hopefully, that means we will have our resident cedar waxwings hanging around gorging on berries. Like they did last year. They love it here, even if it gets a little windy.

Just another fall week in West County.

hocoblogs@@@

A Snow Sky

Posted on November 7, 2012 by AnnieRie

After a lovely day yesterday, today we wake to a prediction of snow. Don’t know how much, but whatever we get, it won’t hang around long if the temperatures rise to the 50s and 60s like they are supposed to reach over the weekend.

I gave the ornamental grasses their fall pruning. I have one left to do. Otherwise, they blow all over the property. We also did a massive leaf cleanup during the lovely weather yesterday. The piles sit waiting for our rake and take compost partner to pick up in her truck sometime soon. She hauled away almost this much yesterday. At least our leaves are turning into compost for gardens. Some of it here. Some of it just down the road from us, at our partner’s home.

If you live out here in west county, and don’t get yard waste removal, like us, consider partnering with the county rake and take program to turn your leaves into compost. Our partner has lots of conifers, but not the deciduous trees needed for that brown component for compost. The yard is getting bare of leaves, with the exception of our maple, which is just turning now.

Besides the leaves and the sky, today I found new residents feasting on the suet. It has been a while since we have seen the red breasted nuthatches. Two of them have been here lately, and one was on the far side of the suet while I was taking leaf pictures. The other, in the tree above, was a little harder to photograph.

red breasted nuthatch

Did you know that the nuthatches are the only birds that can travel head first down the side of a tree? This picture is a little blurry, but you get the action.

Now that I have had a coffee break, and downloaded the morning pictures, it’s time to get back out there and cut back the last of the ornamental grasses. I left the largest one for last. But still, all in all, spending the day outdoors enjoying the fall foliage left on the property, is one of the simple pleasures of living out here.

Here’s to the weekend looking as lovely as yesterday. If you get the chance, head outside this weekend to an outdoor event, or to one of the markets. Here’s the Ellicott City calendar.

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in Birds, Community, Farmer's Markets, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Nature, Weather, West HoCo and tagged birds, community, fall foliage, farmer's markets, gardening, hoco loco, Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, nature, photography, weather, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

The Envelope Please

Posted on November 6, 2012 by AnnieRie

So, I have been nominated again for a blogger award. The last time floored me, and I didn’t know what to do about it. This time, I actually have a plan. I realized I shouldn’t go and get all analytical and worry about having to name other blogs. Since I was so scatterbrained last time, I didn’t do what the award “chain” wanted, and the sky didn’t fall.

This time, I am going to have fun with it. Thank you A Table in the Sun for nominating me for the Beautiful Blogger award.

Because of her chain back to The Great Dorset Vegetable Experiment, who nominated her, I found an interesting blog to read from one of my favorite places on earth. Dorset. And, I found other great blogs to read, to find inspiration and just to entertain me.

I love reading blogs. I found a new one the other day thanks to wordbones blog, Tales of Two Cities. UKDesperateHousewifeUSA

So, for this blog award, you need to tell seven things about yourself and nominate 15 bloggers. Oh, and then tell them you nominated them by linking to this post in a comment on their blogs.

The seven things:

I am ambidexterous becuase the nuns beat me when I put a pen in my left hand in second grade. First grade I learned to print with my left hand.

When I traveled all the time for work, we lived on Stouffer’s. How’s that for the past of a confirmed locavore and hardcore foodie?

The only fast food that still calls me back to being bad, Krispy Kreme hot donuts. Thankfully, they are pretty much out of business around here but there were times when that sign pulled me into Dobbin Road right after leaving my dentist.

I was born and raised in Baltimore City. Right across the street from Mt. St. Joe.

I have lived in Howard County 38 years come January 1st.

We have a brick bought eons ago just down from the People Tree. Friends send us pictures of it when they find it.

In my original job out of college, I taught high school mathematics.

There, that’s seven useless pieces of information that haven’t been discussed in my blog. Not earth shattering but fun. Oh, and a bonus, today included I have voted every Presidential election, never missing one, from 1972 until the present. Twice it was an absentee ballot as I was in Alaska in 1984 and Florida in 1988. Both times, work related. I take that privilege seriously.

As for the 15 blogs to nominate, obviously nine of them are my food challenge compatriots. I read these blogs all the time, not just for challenges, but because I love hearing what my fellow locavores are doing.

Backyard Grocery Northern VA
Bumble Lush Garden near DC
Eat. Drink. Nourish. South Carolina
Eating Appalachia Blue Ridge VA
Eating Floyd Southwest VA
Family Foodie Survival Guide Northern VA
Sincerely, Emily Texas
The Soffritto right up the road in Woodstock
Windy City Vegan North Carolina

Liz, at Family Foodie Survival Guide, nominated me for a blog award a while back and I got caught up in other things and never followed through. I wish I did, now.

Number ten is an awesome lady, who set up our CSA link party. Heather at In Her Chucks. She kept commenting and commenting to set up that link page, and I use it all the time to see how to use those strange veggies in my CSA box.

Number Eleven is one of the guys over at hocoblogs. I hope he takes the nomination in the spirit intended, as he is one beautiful person when it comes to helping others. Whether it was the fund raising for the security deposits for the group homes, or his recent “fill up the Subaru” for his wife to drive to Jersey and help hurricane victims, hocorising is something special.

The Foodie Farmer is number 12, and Soulsby Farm number 13. I read both these farm blogs. Foodie Farmer is on the Eastern shore of MD and Soulsby is a tiny farm in Ohio. I love reading what they are doing.

Number 14 would have been Tammy, at Agrigirl but I see A Table in the Sun nominated her along with me. Tammy comments all the time around here. I love her perspective. So, in her place I nominate another desert country blog I read regularly. Fresh Veggies in the Desert, from Nevada instead of Arizona. Another frequent commenter and co-poster at In Her Chucks.

And, last but not least, the newly discovered UKdesperatehousewifeUSA. I love reading her comments about Howard County. I love that she found my neighborhood only a few months after moving here. There are people in Columbia who couldn’t find the Crossroads Pub if their life depended on it. Nor would they willingly travel the back roads out here. And, I love her comments about life around here. A great new blog, adding fresh air to Howard County blogs.

My blogging compatriots. Know that I nominated you because I read you all the time. I find you entertaining, enlightening, kindred spirits. If you aren’t into doing the blog chain thing, I get it. It freaked me out a little the first time someone nominated my blog.

But, at the end of the day, if someone comes and reads your blog and subscribes, and I sent them there, it is all good. We just like to see others appreciate what we write.

Cheers! Now, off to tell all the bloggers I nominated them.

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Posted in Commentary, Community, People and tagged commentary, hocoblogging. Bookmark the permalink.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Posted on November 6, 2012 by AnnieRie

I have to admit, learning the new shorthand used in tweeting and in texting, as well as some of the acronyms around here has been interesting at best, and downright confusing at times.

It used to be that we, the govvies in the area, i.e., government employees, were the best at making entire conversations using acronyms designed to confound our non-govvy friends and family.

“I work at NHTSA on IVBSS and I will be at UMTRI next week”. “I work at NSWC on the MK 116 ASW FCS”. Our pasts. The DH and me.

What’s a DH, you say? Same as an OM. Dear Husband. Old man. One picked up on web forums years ago, the other an amateur radio standard. It is why my gmail account has xyl in the address. I am the wife, aka x-young lady, of a ham.

Now, my blogging friends here in the area are working to get uniform hashtags that we use when we tweet. Whenever I put up a post I sent it off to twitterland using #hoco. These days #hoco is overrun by colleges and homecoming, and we are getting lost in the noise about whose dress is best, and who can get more drunk. It seems to be time for us to find a new place to “hang out”, and we have graduated to using #hocomd more.

Jessie over at Jessie X, who also cofounded and administers hocoblogs where about 300 of us are more or less active about blogging in the County, or about the County, is working to get us to use more specific hashtags.

I feel like I am back at work, learning new acronyms after changing jobs. What used to be the geekiness of our govvy lives is now the new normal of social media. Like, learning a whole new language.

Add to that, in our world, where we have been active in amateur radio, a “shack on a belt”, or HT (handy talkie), once a sign of real nerdiness, with the hands free headphone really stood out. Now, you can lose yourself in the midst of the bluetooth crowd. What was once cause for comments, and a little ridicule, is now mainstream.

As I said, what goes around comes around. The entire world has become geeky. What the heck. If you can’t beat them, join them.

So, Jessie asked me to become the queen of #hocolocavore and #hoconature on the spreadsheet being assembled for county tweets. I promise to try and remember to use them. At least I do remember to use my hocoblog hashtags appropriately, like the one at the end of this post.

So, when I post about local foods and farmers, I will be using #hocolocavore.

And, about the Conservancy, or the birds, or the garden. #hoconature

And, since I am attempting to complete NaBloPoMo (look that one up!), there will be lots to read about Howard County.

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in Commentary, Community, Food, Hobbies, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, miscellaneous, Nature, People and tagged amateur radio, commentary, community, Food, foodie, hobbies, hoco loco, hocoblogging, Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, Locavore, nature. Bookmark the permalink.

November Events at the Conservancy

Posted on November 5, 2012 by AnnieRie

Two upcoming events take place in the next few weeks at the Howard County Conservancy. Both of them are popular topics and are worth checking out.

The first one is this Saturday, the 10th. With winter coming, our winged friends need a little help being fed. A “wonder walK” from 10-12 Saturday morning will focus on how to make simple items to keep your neighborhood birds, and probably also the squirrels, happy. There will be a short presentation outside if the weather cooperates, or inside, if not, focusing on the birds that generally stay in Howard County in the winter, and what they like to eat.

There will also be the opportunity for attendees to make at least one “menu item” to take home or to hang out on the conservancy grounds, for the birds to enjoy. Plus, learn some tips to keep birds coming to your house all winter, including attracting bluebirds. The wonder walks are always free.

Another amazing presentation by the popular nature photographer, George Grall. NOV 16 – Fri. 7 pm – Revisiting Spring Pools: The Amphibian Awakening and More. His programs have completely sold out in the past, as his photography is awesome. Featured often in National Geographic, he has been writing articles and providing photos to the Society since 1990. Newsweek, Smithsonian, Life, Nature Conservancy, Audubon, International Wildlife, National Wildlife, GEO, Le Figaro, and a host of other international publications have also honored his work.

The George Grall program is one of those “don’t miss” evenings. Put it on your calendar. The admission is $10 in advance and $12 at the door, if there is any space left. Children under 8 are free.

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in Birds, Community, Howard County, Nature and tagged community, Howard County, howard county conservancy, nature, photography. Bookmark the permalink.