Category Archives: Nature

Signs of Spring in Woodstock

Posted on April 9, 2013 by AnnieRie

Actually, that would be “THE” sign of spring.

The OPEN flag at the Woodstock snowball stand. Trumpeting to one and all that warm weather is officially here. Peaches and cream, heavy on the syrup, marshmallow in the middle. How do you like your snowballs?

After a morning of training, hiking at the Conservancy, I had to stop to bring home a snowball for my husband who was cleaning out the debris from the property edge. OK, I confess. I ate the top inch or so of the snowball. Didn’t want it to spill in the car.

We had a lovely morning, planning for an eighth grade pilot trip to discuss history and the farm circa the Civil War era. The barn was on the tour.

The Montjoy barn, moved and reassembled on site. I believe we were told the old site of the barn is now the Chick-fil-a on Executive Park Drive off Route 100. I know the Montjoy farm was over there, as the Elms at Montjoy apartments now occupy part of the farm land. Since the barn was probably built in the 1800s, it fits in well with the lessons we will be teaching the eighth graders. We have hands on projects for them to do, in the barn, the smokehouse, the blacksmith shop and the farmhouse.

Eighteen of us were out training today and enjoying the blossoming of the shrubs and flowers on the Conservancy grounds.

Any more speculation about the holes in the fascia of the smokehouse. The most plausible is pigeon roosting cubbyholes, so the family could capture the eggs and use them in cooking. Maybe, maybe not. Still a subject of discussion.

In my farm series, it wouldn’t be complete without these references to Brown’s farm, or Mt. Pleasant, the site of the Howard County Conservancy, where I volunteer.

As for the last spring image, I give you the “pot people” decked out in spring gear and Orioles hat.

On one of these lovely days, you need to come out and walk the grounds, feed the goats some twigs or leaves, ogle the chickens and guess the flowering shrub none of us knew.

The answer is quince. Thanks to the staff for looking it up and posting it on facebook.

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in Farms, Howard County, Local Businesses, Nature, Volunteering, West HoCo and tagged Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, spring flowers, volunteering, weather, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Spring Plan(t)s

Posted on March 29, 2013 by AnnieRie

At the moment I made my header and background very springlike. The weather is finally coming around to those lovely days, but still a bit nippy at night. Those baby orchids were on the table at Linden Vineyards today. More on that visit in a post tomorrow, but today I am crowing about my garden planning.

I registered a major victory this week. Some of my heirloom squash seeds germinated, and are growing. Woo Hoo!

I planted 20 seeds from the Thelma Sanders squash. Five in each container. One container completely germinated. The other three. Nada! Weird. But still, I have five possible plants to put in the ground this spring. This is what the squash looks like.

We got it last fall in our CSA. First time I have dried and saved heirloom squash seeds. A 25% success rate is OK.

The other success is my heirloom garlic. I have to remember to keep watering the container ones. They could dry out more quickly. The dozen in the ground are all doing well. All told, 24 possible heads of garlic this year. With those lovely scapes, too. I will be curing garlic in the shed if they all come out fully mature in June. Let’s see how I do with curing garlic.

After the mulching I was worried, but I looked today and all twelve of them are doing fine, and growing. Plus, all three of my chives plants are sprouting new greenery. A great source for fresh herbs in cooking. Crossing my fingers that the rosemary and thyme will prosper. I thinned them a little today, and they do have small amounts of lovely green new growth.

The lower two pots contain mint. I will trim off the dead parts once they start taking off. Trust me. You can’t kill mint. The two upper containers contain garlic. I experimented here, and they are doing almost as well as those planted down in the beds. The pot on the deck had two chive plants, the third is in the window box on the left that also contains the lavender. Lavender, also a perennial, will come back, too. Not doing much yet, but I know they will generate fresh greenery.

I will be planting chard seeds this weekend, to transplant into the garden once the weather warms. Chard does well up near the house with just a few hours of sun. I cover it with bunny proof netting. Since spring seems to be coming finally, I am psyched for getting more things in the ground.

Planting anything interesting?

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Posted in Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Nature, Weather and tagged Food, gardening, hobbies, nature, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Water, Water, Everywhere!

Posted on March 25, 2013 by AnnieRie

Only this morning it was snow. RIMPO Dayton weather shows us having 0.43 inches of precipitation already today, but currently that is four inches of snow.

I finally did go out and put peanuts and mixed seeds under the table to keep the birds happy. By sometime tomorrow, it will probably all be melted again. At least the garlic and the herbs don’t need watering, and the rest of my greens are still indoors. Today over at hocoblogs I saw that JessieX had a post about all the salt dumped on the roads and the impact on our waterways as it heads down into our streams and rivers. We do use way too much salt around here but precip plus freezing temps at night mean black ice. Can’t seem to win.

This Wednesday night there will be another information session in Hickory Ridge, sponsored by four organizations in the county, to discuss stormwater management.

March27Flyer-final

This would be a good place to learn more about how to minimize the impact on the Bay and our local rivers, from all this runoff, at least it is beautiful out there for today.

hocoblogs@@@

Venison Chili with Virginia Wine

Posted on March 24, 2013 by AnnieRie

Wine with chili. Only a real win if the chili is subtle, smoky, with cinnamon undertones. Not the “In Your Face” heat. Sunday is the day the Eat Local All Winter group posts what we made using locally sourced items. After a wonderful day hiking and discovering new things at the Conservancy with Tom Wessels, it was nice to come home to a warming meal, chili.

Did you know we have young American chestnut trees surviving the blight, although they are fighting it, on the property in Woodstock? We found many interesting items today, and have the opportunity to learn more from the books about reading the forested landscape.

I will save more details about what we learned for a future post, and get back to the other topic, What was dinner? The vast majority of the chili came from our freezer. It included a large container of heirloom tomatoes from my garden, onions and peppers from the CSA, and a beef stew stock made last fall. All dumped in the crock pot with a pound of the ground venison. Additional tomato paste, black beans and tomato/lime/cilantro mix (courtesy of Rotel) came from the pantry and weren’t local. Also, a couple of onions from last week’s CSA delivery, chopped up. The spices were cinnamon, chili powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. A splash of Pennsylvania maple syrup, and a chopped up jalapeno out of the freezer, another CSA contribution. Slow cooked for ten hours in the crock pot. It looked like this when done.

Served on the side were Trickling Springs butter and that old fashioned white bread from Great Harvest.

Since it didn’t overwhelm with heat, and had lovely flavor, I decided to open a VA wine. An old one. Predominantly petit verdot. A grape used sparingly in France in Bordeaux, but one which does well in the long growing season in VA.

Yes, the year is 2001, a very good year for VA wines. This blend is vastly different than the other three blends Linden produced in 2001. With all of them in the cellar, we get to sample the differences. This wine has softened over the years, but is still lovely. Supposed to be past its prime, but we don’t think so. Cherry and tobacco in the taste. Very easy to drink. Not brown around the edges either. We do need to drink the rest of these though, as they won’t hold many more years.

Later tonight, a bit of maple flavored yogurt from Pequea Valley Farm in PA, mixed with some blueberries from Butler Orchards, out of the freezer. Lots of berries left, and the yogurt is one I have talked about many times, available at Breezy Willow or at England Acres.

I have to admit again, eating locally in the winter is not difficult around here.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Nature, Real Food, Volunteering, West HoCo, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, CSA, farmer's markets, Food, foodie, Howard County, howard county conservancy, Linden Vineyards, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Finishing the Spring Clean Up …

Posted on March 17, 2013 by AnnieRie

… before the snow comes tomorrow. Or the slush, or whatever it is.

Twenty five cubic yards of mulch. A whole truck load. But, the place looks great again.

From a stormwater management standpoint we added river rock to prevent erosion on the side of the shed.

And we buried the downspouts to direct the water towards my evergreens and the pin oak.

They even cleaned out my garden for me. In the next two weeks we will be tilling the soil and I can start transplanting greens.

The greens will be split between the garden and the planters. I was out there looking today. The chives are coming back. The mint is peeking through and the garlic is fine.

The flowers have started blooming. I believe these are hellebores. We have two plants, different colors that bloom early in the spring.

The daffodils aren’t far behind. Spring is definitely getting here. Just have to make it through these last few cold slushy days.

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Posted in Gardening, Nature, Weather, West HoCo and tagged gardening, nature, spring flowers, weather, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

A Perfect Spring Saturday

Posted on March 9, 2013 by AnnieRie

Hopefully the next two weekends have weather this great. Today’s geocaching event at the Conservancy attracted almost three dozen people who wanted to enjoy the scenery and learn to use the Etrex units.

Six caches were hidden on the property. Lots of fun learning to use the units, and to wander around the farm and the grasslands. The fun was watching all the adults learn to use them. The children pick it up quite quickly.

The Conservancy has a couple of dozen units used mostly in middle and senior high school programs, on and off site. Today was a chance for families to chase stickers and treats in the boxes hidden by the goats, near the bluebird boxes, in the garden and down in the soil pit.

Nothing like perfect weather to bring out all ages.

Next weekend there will be a family hike at 10 am. Age appropriate trails with leaders knowledgeable about the farm and what you can find there. Maybe the wood frogs will still be around to serenade everyone. There were certainly enough of them there today. You could hear them all over the geocache course even when you were hundreds of yards away from the pond in the garden.

I can find fifteen of them in this picture. Thanks to all the volunteers this was another great day. Come hike with us next Saturday the 16th, or maybe come do forest forensics the following weekend.

And, just so I don’t get bored, we have a training session with a potluck luncheon this coming Thursday, and the art exhibit will open for the Art of Stewardship. Then, the following Tuesday, we are learning about the new pilot training session on Civil War History on the Farm.

What’s not to love about being outside as spring arrives in Howard County?

hocoblogs@@@

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Posted in Family, Hobbies, Howard County, Nature, Retirement, Volunteering, Weather, West HoCo and tagged community, family, Howard County, howard county conservancy, nature, volunteering, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Spring Flings

Posted on March 5, 2013 by AnnieRie

March, April and May are always the busiest months in this area. You can’t turn around without seeing events every weekend. Sort of like September and October have become. People seem to want to cram everything in before it gets too hot or too cold.

Looking at potential things to put on the calendar. Suffering from sensory overload. Add Easter to this month and I could fill up every weekend, and most weekdays to things to do if I wish.

Events at the Conservancy are ramping up. We have events there three of the four weekends. Some weekends have more than one. Take this weekend for example. I can work with the family geocaching event on Saturday. There are already three dozen people signed up to do a search for hidden boxes of little gems for the successful hunters using the compass function and learning to navigate around obstacles. While all this is going on, the artists are coming to drop off their art for hanging and judging in the Art of Stewardship juried art show. The following five weeks there will be opportunities for people to come see the art in this year’s show, and buy something that strikes their fancy, before it hits the auction day next month. Last year I ended up with a lovely painting at the auction, even if I couldn’t afford the winning piece. Later next week I will get pictures of some of the best pieces entered this year.

Next weekend on the 16th, there are two events. One a family hike, and the other event, the third in a series of workshops for educators, called Project WET. Some of our naturalists will be taking the training as well as teachers looking to receive professional development credit in the green school application. Family hikes are very popular, with age appropriate groups going out with different volunteer naturalists.

The weekend of the 22-24th, Tom Wessels is coming in from New England to read the natural landscapes around the Conservancy and in Patapsco State Park. This event, with an attendance limit on the hikes, is being sponsored by the Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club. Bringing Tom in here is a real treat. I can’t wait to learn more about what was done on the land around the farmhouse at the Conservancy. Forest forensics. Pretty interesting topics. The Friday night lecture is about The Myth of Progress and sustainability.

If you head over to the Conservancy webpage, you will see the sign up forms.

If that doesn’t give us enough to do, there is volunteer training, and the opportunity to participate as a naturalist at the “weather event” for secondary schools, five of them coming next Wednesday the 13th. It will even be featured on WBAL news that morning, with their meteorologist Ava Marie coming out at 5 am, yes, 5 AM (daylight savings time), so really really early to do some reporting on the event.

Being a volunteer naturalist there can certainly keep you busy. Nice that we can do as much or as little as we can fit in our schedules.

Today in training we were using handheld recorders to register weather data. We will be leading activities in the spring field trips for secondary schools, having teams of students measuring wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, humidity and temperature, in all sorts of different locations on the property.

In two weeks, our final secondary training is a pilot program for History during the Civil War on the farm here in Howard County. I find this activity fascinating and have already signed up to lead one of the trips in April.

Lots of new faces at the training sessions this month for elementary and secondary training. Volunteering is just one way to make a difference here in the county. Time spent is just as important to the nonprofits as donations can be.

Nothing like a lovely spring day outside in the forest, enjoying the scenery and helping out. I even signed up to lead service learning, which is always fun. Particularly in making sure shovels, clippers, tree and brush cutters are used properly by high school students. They do really get into it.

trail clean up

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A Sunny Window

Posted on March 4, 2013 by AnnieRie

All that is needed to start seeds for spring greens. Thursday I blogged about planting arugula, kale and mesclun mix in a box in my kitchen. Nothing fancy just a shallow box picked up at Kendalls. Five days ago. Of course, I stupidly titled it Where Did Winter Go? just to make sure we get hit with snow this week. Winter hasn’t gone yet, but even the prospect of one messy day this Wednesday doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for the coming of spring. Why?

I already have sprouts from the seeds. The middle row, I believe is the Tuscan kale, a very fast growing leafy green. The reason I say “I believe” is because I forgot to mark the kale and arugula rows. The mesclun on the left was the first row I planted. Senior moments like these are the frustration of the retired who get phone calls while planting seeds.

Last year I put in a large amount of mesclun mix, which took quite a bit of thinning before I moved it outside. It did do well though in the planter boxes that I kept raised above bunny reach on the deck.

The other location where I will transplant greens is a small rectangle right off the mudroom door next to the patio. Very close to the house. Mostly shady, so the leaves don’t burn up from the sun. This area will get the cover over it to keep the bunnies and deer from nibbling my greens. I can harvest lots of salad right before dinner every evening by using these small planters.

I once used this area to plant spearmint thinking it wouldn’t spread beyond this enclosed concrete area. Wrong. It also comes back every year with a vengeance. The bees love it though and they buzz all around and pollinate the flowers in my garden as they visit.

Those first few sprouts always brighten my day, knowing warm weather is coming and I can start putting out herbs in the garden and flowers in the pots. Just have to make it through this snow/sleet/rain mess in the next couple of days.

Time to go prepare another planting box, and put in the beans I want to grow in the garden this summer.

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Social Butterflies

Posted on February 27, 2013 by AnnieRie

In more ways than one.

Last night the 50+ bloggers and readers gathered at Union Jack’s in Columbia to reconnect. We haven’t had a get together since last spring, so it was great to see everyone. It is amazing that we have a local group, close to 300 blogs written by county residents, that gets together and networks. I like Tales of Two Cities blog about the event.

Our hosts last night were from The 53 and ukdesperatehousewife, Bill from the former, and Claire, from the latter.

My husband came with me, and really enjoyed the conversations. Lots of fun, even on a really rainy evening. It looks like we will be doing more of these in the future.

As for the second way to be a social butterfly, I am about to do my refresher training for the spring field trips at the Conservancy. One of the spring topics, for second graders, is Wings, Stings and Leggy Things. I love the butterfly part of this activity. The Conservancy has huge amounts of milkweed, which attracts monarchs. We will even rescue, nurture and tag emerging butterflies to track their journeys. It was a highlight of my first fall there. Tagging butterflies and releasing them. In the spring we talk about how they return here for the summers, and how we have created a welcoming habitat for them to thrive.

I like our training sessions. A one hour refresher course, a hike to rehearse what we do with the school children, and then, of course, the social part of it, we have a potluck on the last Thursday of training. I blogged yesterday about the training. Come out and be a social butterfly with those of us who love the outdoors, enjoy teaching the little ones all about the earth science around them, and who want to make a difference in our own small way.

My third reference to social butterfly today, that of home gardener, getting ready for the 2013 season. We pruned the butterfly bushes. I am learning how to find and rescue monarchs from the milkweed in the meadow. I blogged last fall about finding it out there. I intend to rescue as many larvae as I can, in order to protect them from predators.

This is a tiger swallowtail. We have lots of those every year. I know my butterfly bush isn’t native, but it certainly attracts a large number of them.

Spring has sprung, at least for most of what I am doing. Tomorrow, I will be starting my spring greens planting and putting together a salad table. All that, after my social butterfly attendance at Conservancy training.

hocoblogs@@@

Volunteer Season

Posted on February 26, 2013 by AnnieRie

Spring is coming. Lots of opportunities to volunteer. And, lots of opportunities to learn about Howard County in depth, plus how and where you could make a difference.

Let’s start with the volunteer naturalist programs. At the Howard County Conservancy where I volunteer, they are always on the lookout for new faces to help. Not just leading children’s hikes, but also some behind the scenes work. I, for one, love the opportunity to get outside and lead the children’s hikes. If that isn’t your thing, they also need office help, and gardening help.

Training for elementary school programs starts this Thursday. The secondary program training started today. For some reason, I had my calendar wrong and missed it. Never fear. Two more sessions if you would like to try your hand at something really new. Like, what happened on the farm during the Civil War. The training for this new pilot and the other training details are here.

When I first started volunteering I shadowed current leaders to learn. It is an easy way to see how much fun the hikes are. I also signed up that first fall to take the Howard Legacy Leadership Institute for the Environment program training, and to give back hours to the Conservancy. The Conservancy is one of many county partners in this program.

The program has been revamped. There is no requirement to volunteer if you want to attend the training. The option to become a “HoLLIE” grad is still there, but if you are interested in continuous learning, there is a noncredit course being given that includes material we learned in HoLLIE. The visits to NASA to see the satellite data and hear world renowned scientists speak of their experience, tracking global climate events. Other lecturers on regional and local programs, like stormwater management. The training will be held on Thursdays in April and May. Info here.

last year’s class on a discovery hike

Greenfest is coming. April 13th at the community college. Earth Day activities including river clean up, twenty minute clean up, tree plantings are all being advertised. I hope to keep locals informed as I hear of new opportunities in the area.