Tag Archives: community

Behind the Scene

Posted on October 7, 2014 by AnnieRie

This week I think I am spending almost as many days at the Howard County Conservancy as I did on my job before I retired. Sunday. Tuesday. Thursday. Saturday.

The Fall Festival was an immense success. As usual. Lots of my Facebook friends went. Loved the hayrides. Pony rides. And all the other things offered. I was there early to set up.

Putting up the apple peeling, and apple cider tasting table. Thanks to MOM’s for their contribution, and to Harbin Farms for their collection (labeled) of all the varieties available here in the MidAtlantic.

Then, helping with the tent (which we took down because it turned the welcome area into a wind tunnel)

then checking out the “bee people”.

The honey is awesome, by the way.

After about an hour helping set up, I went off to tend to my garden. Today, I returned to spend time harvesting food bank vegetables.

Thursday I am there for the new kindergarten program, for Northfield Elementary School.

Saturday, I can’t wait to hear about bats. A free program presented at 10 am.

Such an asset to the area. The Conservancy really does have universal appeal.

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Posted in Birds, Day Trips, Gardening, Hobbies, Howard County, Nature, Volunteering, West HoCo and tagged birds, community, gardening, hoco loco, Howard County, howard county conservancy, nature, volunteering, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

My Favorite Pizza

Posted on October 2, 2014 by AnnieRie

Inspired by a visit to Napa and Sonoma. Made even better using the arugula from my garden.

My prosciutto, goat cheese, fig, scallion and arugula pizza.

Made last night after a very lovely blogger happy hour at Seasons 52, on the new “Main St-like” outdoor area at the Columbia Mall.

Outdoor dining there has absolutely fun views. No storm water management ponds or cars parked three feet from your table.

Their flatbreads reminded me that I had the ingredients to make an awesome rectangular pizza. I had an “under the weather” husband at home. Dinner out wasn’t an option. I enjoyed the company of my fellow bloggers. And, will return to have some of their seasonal foods.

I came home, and very easily stretched out some fresh pizza dough from Harris Teeter. Added figs, goat cheese, scallions, prosciutto, olive oil, salt and pepper. Baked at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. After removing from the oven, I dropped some of my newly grown arugula on top.

Simple, quick, tasty dinner.

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Posted in Community, Food, Gardening, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Restaurants and tagged community, cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, local businesses, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Fall Festivals

Posted on September 29, 2014 by AnnieRie

It’s festival season. The changing of the seasons and the leaves brings out the best of this area. The best weather and views in Howard County.

The leaves are already starting to turn color. The month of October is full of festivals, and mazes, and pumpkin picking, and more.

My favorite, of course. The fall festival at the Howard County Conservancy.

Hay rides. Pony rides. Crafts. Animals. Story telling. Basket weaving. And so much more.

Definitely something to do this coming Sunday.

As for other festivals. There are certainly many of them out there. Highland Days. The corn maze at Sharp’s Farm. Pumpkin picking and more at Larriland.

I am certainly looking forward to many fun days out and about. Enjoying the weather and the colorful leaves.

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Posted in Community, Day Trips, Farms, Howard County, Nature, Weather, West HoCo and tagged community, day trips, fall foliage, farms, Howard County, howard county conservancy, nature, weather, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

So Far This Week

Posted on September 9, 2014 by AnnieRie

Not even halfway through, and already we’ve had our share of exciting times. Right here in the heart of Howard County.

Tonight, it was a blog party at Nottingham’s. When we lived in Columbia we used to enjoy going there and relaxing at their Tiki Bar.

Even though they are located in an office complex, they hid the bar quite well so you don’t get the parking lot/storm water management pond views.

I like their pool tables, their Wii system, the laid back, kick you shoes off and enjoy yourself atmosphere. We were in the Event Room tonight. About 40-50 of us, talking, enjoying the Happy Hour and doing our networking thing that the local bloggers do.

Thanks to Nottingham’s for the hospitality. It was a good “Hump Day-eve” event.

Earlier this week also saw me doing major time in the gardens, for the Conservancy auction basket collection, and the Food Bank harvesting. Still I had time to check out the bee interest in my garden.

It does remind me however that I need to whack back the basil and get the pesto done for the winter. I spent time harvesting, cleaning and doing a little bit of planting. I put in arugula and lettuce. And pulled out the last of the peppers.

Next on my agenda is the removal of the spent tomato vines.

As for my other wanderings this week, I did food delivery to my better half who was ground crew for tower maintenance. He spent Monday at W3LPL’s helping him on one of the towers.

For the record, he says he can see Dulles Airport from up there. We’ll take his word on it.

It’s only Tuesday and we’ve just scratched the surface of things going on around here. I still have naturalist training later this week at the Conservancy, and my husband has more antenna support work plus some tower procurement and a radio contest weekend.

Oh yeah, I’m helping my mom move in my “spare” time.

I need to go back to work. I could use the rest.

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Posted in Adventures, Community, Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Howard County, Local Businesses, Restaurants, Retirement, Volunteering and tagged amateur radio, community, cooking, Food, gardening, hobbies, hoco loco, hocoblogging, Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, retirement, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

Blue Ribbon Herbs

Posted on August 3, 2014 by AnnieRie

My second blue ribbon ever.

Again for my herbs.

I have lots more from the fair, but this year again my herbs were the star of my entries. Again, my heirlooms fell short, but I did get three more fourth place ribbons and a fifth place ribbon.

My favorite:

Fifth place for my ornamental vegetable display. This is the first time I did an ornamental display. I am learning from the other participants how to arrange what I submit. I was pleased to get the ribbon though.

As for the fourth places, they included:

My yellow plum tomatoes.

My yellow onions.

And for most unusual vegetable. My cardoons.

I’m happy. I did twelve entries and won five ribbons. Not a bad return on investment, so to speak.

I love participating in the county fair. It’s small enough to not be intimidating, but large enough to have some serious competition. The people are really nice and help us newer entrants.

If I could only get my heirloom tomatoes to ripen in time, I would be ecstatic.

We will be at the fair at least four days, maybe five. We love to watch the 4-H’ers show their animals.

We visited our friends in the barn, and checked out some of their daughter’s animals. Like her lambs.

All decked out to keep nice and clean before they are shown.

And, some of their goats.

Tomorrow we will go and visit, seeing how their pigs are doing. They weren’t there yet, yesterday. I am so impressed with the dedication of the 4-H’ers to their animals.

To us. the fair isn’t about the midway and the rides, it’s about the community.

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Posted in Commentary, Community, Farms, Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Howard County, West HoCo and tagged commentary, community, farms, Food, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hobbies, Howard County, tomatoes, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Olive Oil and Pasta …

Posted on July 24, 2014 by AnnieRie

… and so much more.

I have written about Secolari before. And, used their products in many of my favorite meals. Products like their oil and balsamic, their flavored salts. Plus, that lovely pasta from Pappardelle that they carry.

Now, I can add chocolate mint honey to my latest finds. I am thinking about the suggested use in iced lattes.

Last night we had a bloggers’ get together at the Columbia Mall location with the owners highlighting some of their products. A “perk” so to speak of being a blogger around here.

Goodies like popcorn with Black Truffle salt and Lime Olive Oil.

There was a good crowd there. Tasting the oils, the vinegars, the honey, and enjoying small bites from Zoe’s Kitchen, located across the promenade from Secolari.

You don’t have to be a blogger to taste their products. Whenever you visit, you can sample before choosing your favorites. Barth and Mary deRosa have a wonderful shop here.

If you aren’t into oil and vinegar, but love pasta, they have a product for you. Pappardelle.

Another favorite of mine.

This orzo, with the lemon infused oil, will be paired with these little gems.

A baking sheet covered with my tomatoes and shallots. Slow cooked in a 200 degree oven. Tomorrow they will be mixed with the orzo and drizzled with oil. A very tasty salad.

Check out Secolari. Buy some pasta and olive oil. Indulge. Much better and so much cheaper than dinner in a restaurant.

Thanks Barth and Mary for hosting us last night.

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Posted in Community, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Real Food and tagged community, cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

Tidbit Tuesday

Posted on July 15, 2014 by AnnieRie

Where I run off in all directions and have no single thing to say in a post.

There were 75 pounds of vegetables collected today for the food bank. A lighter day for squash, and the tomatoes aren’t ready yet.

I was up at the Conservancy gardens this morning, “basking” in the 70something degree temperatures with about the same amount of humidity. I hadn’t been there since Saturday, which was fairy house building day.

This is what 118 people look like before they headed off into the woods.

Creativity, a great time, and lots of pictures for this year’s album.

Now, on to the next events, and the continuous harvest of my garden.

The bulk of the five dozen little tomatoes I harvested. Fifty supersweet 100s and 10 sungold. Mixed with olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, basil, chopped onion and banana pepper, and a touch of sugar. Roasted at 250 degrees for a couple of hours. Destined to be frozen and used as one of my recipes in my presentation next month on preserving food.

Then, there were the onions.

I had to harvest a number of them today, as they were getting mushy at the top. We had 1.5 inches of rain in the rain gauge at the garden (in a 36 hour period). It is driving us nuts, splitting tomatoes and washing away my mounded soil over the onions, leeks and shallots.

Some of those onions, along with new red potatoes and bacon from England Acres, roasted along with the tomatoes. There will be a very nice salad made from this.

As for zucchini, I did make that lemon blueberry zucchini bread. Thanks to the Lean Green Bean.

I did substitute, as usual. Used all AP flour. Upped the sugar to about 4/10ths of a cup. It tastes wonderful.

There is more shredded zucchini sitting in the fridge so that tomorrow I can make zucchini fritters and freeze them. Another project for that preserving food program scheduled in late August.

I have been a busy bee today. Time to head off and watch the All Star Game.

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Posted in Community, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Real Food, Volunteering and tagged community, cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, Howard County, howard county conservancy, Locavore, real food, tomatoes, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

260 Pounds

Posted on July 9, 2014 by AnnieRie

That’s how much food from the Food Bank garden plot we donated the past two weeks. July is my month to “manage” the collection of food from the food bank plot and other garden plots designated by their “owners” for delivery to the Howard County Food Bank.

At our Conservancy community garden site, we have roughly 800 square feet designated for food bank growing. As well as a 250 square foot annex. And, many gardeners ask us to harvest and share their bounty when they are away on vacation. Or, they drop off bags of veggies the morning we collect.

We fill wheelbarrows full of fresh vegetables every week.

And sometimes that squash thing gets out of control.

This was July 1st’s harvest of squash. That day they counted 117 pounds of food. Mostly greens, cabbage, squash, beets and carrots. Tuesday this week I drove over in my Jeep piled full of vegetables, totaling 143 pounds. This week we had our first tomatoes, Plus, being a holiday week for many, we had donations from a large number of community garden members.

We harvested garlic Tuesday. But, it needs to cure before we donate. A couple dozen heads of garlic went home with a fellow gardener to be cured in their garage.

Gardens are like that. Some years you can be overrun with something you planted, and others you lose plants to pests or the weather.

It is nice to see that we provide fresh ripe vegetables to the place we call home.

#hocofood

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Posted in Community, Food, Gardening, Howard County and tagged community, Food, gardening, Howard County, howard county conservancy. Bookmark the permalink.

Field Day Wrap Up

Posted on July 1, 2014 by AnnieRie

2014 is history. W1AW/3 aka W3AO is finishing their week as the Maryland holder of the national license, for the centennial celebration.

Maybe my husband will be home for a few days. He is off for the final day at one of the club member’s homes, operating those last hours.

As for Field Day, it was another one of those amazing weekends. I did miss a few things with my earlier posts. Like forgetting we had wires strung for more than two bands. And, that one of our operators was on RTTY with more than one transmitter and computer in front of him. Talk about multi-tasking.

There’s even a diagram out there that shows how the set up achieves the necessary number of antennas for their operations within the 1000 ft. radius circle.

We had over 800 contacts on the GOTA station. Including some made by Courtney Watson, a county council member who is running for the position of county executive. Courtney can add to her resume that she was “W3AO” for a short time on Saturday.

The head of the Country Office of Emergency Management, Ryan Miller, came to visit, as well. The office really appreciates the assistance of the Columbia Amateur Radio Association (CARA) for emergency support, and always comes out to see our operations.

The CARA welcome team was leading people around the site all weekend. This weekend we had three times the number of visitors, and at one point, had a line waiting to operate the GOTA station. Actually, maybe more than one point, but one time I was in the tent and there were four people watching Rich, KE3Q, who was explaining what we do and how we do it.

I always come away from this weekend exhausted but exhilarated. We were there Sunday until about 6PM, doing the tear down and clean up.

Now, back to my garden and my canning and my cooking. Until next year when we get together for another one.

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Posted in Hobbies, Howard County and tagged amateur radio, community, hobbies, Howard County. Bookmark the permalink.

Yes, OM, that’s Two Eight Alpha

Posted on June 29, 2014 by AnnieRie

Only fellow hams will get the significance of the title. Fellow Field Day participants know it means twenty eight transmitters using auxiliary power. W3AO has done this a number of years and this year, operating “portable” as W1AW, continued the tradition of putting as many people on the air as there are ways to transmit.

There were fourteen HF stations in the main tent, and the GetOnTheAir(GOTA) station, too. Two of the fourteen were RTTY. The rest, CW and phone on 10,15,20,40,80 and 160 meters.

The antennas.

For HF, a mix of yagis and beams in two roughly parallel lines spanning the fields. Layout was made to eliminate interference. There were wire antennas for 80 and 160 meters.

VHF had their towers set up around their operating tent.

As for those satellite guys.

They contacted the Space Station early the first day. Rarer these days, since the current residents aren’t as active on the air as the former Canadian astronaut was.

We had lots of visitors both days, and lots of interest, including a remake for the ten year anniversary of the LAST BIG FIELD DAY, by ARVN.

We also get quite a bit of interest in how well we feed our operators. After all, we enjoy spoiling them.

One of the Saturday lunch platters.

The sloppy joes.

The fruit, cookies and brownies.

Many, many people contribute. Here’s a partial list.

Yes, W3LPL brings two miles of coax. And, quite a few of his “spare” antennas.

KE3Q brings one dozen “rocket launchers” on a trailer. We have computers at every station. These guys are simply amazing. If you have a disaster in your area, you just need to call on them to help with communications. These two clubs can set up towers, crank up the generators, set up comm stations and be ready to assist.

And, we have lots of fun during field day. Even if they are all a bit competitive. Hi Hi.

More tomorrow. When KD4D gets enough sleep to give us the total contacts.

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Posted in Adventures, Community, Hobbies, Howard County and tagged amateur radio, community, hoco loco, Howard County. Bookmark the permalink.