Tag Archives: community

Don’t Miss

Posted on August 6, 2015 by AnnieRie

At the Howard County Fair starting Saturday. Some new things. Old things. Every year it keeps getting bigger and better, yet the favorites still remain.

Like the Critter Barn.

Or the daily pig races. Every day. Check out the events highlights here.

We like wandering around the barns looking at the animals.

This year there’s a new addition to the fair. A beer garden. Thanks to Howard County’s home grown brewery. Manor Hill. They will be located at the rear of the main exhibition hall.

There’s a few more special events this year too. And old favorites that must be done. Like getting fresh squeezed lemonade. Or a soft serve cone.

For us we also love wandering the home arts building looking at the photographs. The farm and garden building, including buying our supply of honey from the beekeepers.

On our way out, we will get peaches from the farm stand, and Bowling Green cheese.

Our future farmers spend the week there. It’s a labor of love. Come support them.

This sums it up quite well.

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Posted in Community, Farms, Food, Hobbies, Howard County and tagged community, farms, Food, hoco loco, Howard County. Bookmark the permalink.

Today let’s talk about the weather. The weather that impacts gardeners and farmers. The weather that influences what we harvest. And whether, for me, it’s good enough to give me flavorful heirloom tomatoes.

Growing these tomatoes was on my bucket list. My 50 things I wanted to do before I die. Back 12 years ago when I turned 50 I wrote that list. Before we bought this house in the country. Before I ever tilled and weeded and suffered through our awful summers.

This year our county fair is a week later than the past. Giving me more time to get those heirlooms ripe. Except all that rain has made them a mess.

They are cracked. They aren’t as full of flavor. Still, I try and pick the best ones to submit.

Submissions are due by Saturday morning, although I try to get mine in on Friday night. Today, I harvested all my leeks. I picked one of my unusual vegetables, hoping I may get a better one Thursday. I still haven’t chosen my herbs.

If you have never made it to the county fair, you really ought to come out.

Come see what our traffic jams look like. Ride a few rides. Have some unhealthy foods. The fair runs from Saturday to Saturday. We like heading over there early before the crowds. And we buy a season pass.

See you at the fair?

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Posted in Community, Farms, Food, Gardening, Howard County and tagged community, farms, Food, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, Howard County, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

HALO

Posted on July 26, 2015 by AnnieRie

The Howard Astronomical League Observatory. Officially opened last night at Alpha Ridge.

The long awaited observatory that Joel Goodman has been talking about at every opportunity we see him, finally is done and open. It was a lovely night. Many, many people of all ages came out for the ribbon cutting followed by tours followed by a star party.

I love going out there for any reason. I also enjoy every event that “HAL” puts on. Like the transit of Venus a few years back, at the Conservancy. Where hundreds (we think 500-600 based just on the cars) came out to watch the last transit for 104 years.

The sheer volume of people interested in watching the heavens is to me a sign that we in this area really do love science and nature and discovery. Yes, I know, a run on sentence. But, it does feel like we seek opportunities to learn more, and see more.

There were many speeches last night. Lots of people who made this happen. Still, I love to see the children get into it.

My vantage point didn’t let you see the children doing the ribbon cutting. Not the adults. Not the politicians. The children.

Thanks, Star Doc, for your vision. For your leadership. For helping us out at the Conservancy in setting up our “star parties”, like the upcoming Perseids meteor event on August 12th. For all us night owls.

For those looking for the HAL star parties in the new observatory, the next one is August 22nd. Check out the HAL web page for details.

Come on in. The viewing is awesome.

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Posted in Community, Hobbies, Howard County, West HoCo and tagged astronomy, community, hobbies, hoco loco, Howard County, photography, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Building Fairy Houses

Posted on July 8, 2015 by AnnieRie

It’s that time of year again. The annual program at the Howard County Conservancy to build fairy houses in the woods.

It’s an adventure in imagination, and creativity, and in celebrating the outdoors. It is immensely popular.

This is last year’s crowd. There are many volunteers to help and there is a large amount of material available to use. Part of the fun, though, for many of the families is the pre-event collection of materials from your own area. Bringing leaves and flowers and acorns along to use in the construction.

The event is 10 am this Saturday at Mt. Pleasant in Woodstock. Details here.

Last year they built the houses down by Hodge Podge Lodge. This year, who knows where they will go. After getting a bit of instruction, the families go down into the woods to build their houses.

You can go off into the woods to make that very special, very private house.

I will be wandering around taking pictures. We always make a scrapbook of the pictures to keep.

Come do something truly special and fun. Saturday morning. FREE. They do ask you to email and let them know how many are coming. The more advance notice we have of the potential attendance, the better we can gather volunteers to assist.

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Posted in Adventures, Community, Nature, Volunteering and tagged community, fairy houses, howard county conservancy, nature, photography, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

Field Day Part Two W3AO

Posted on June 29, 2015 by AnnieRie

Wind and rain can not stop us from broadcasting. Even a “little” rain, like close to four inches on Saturday. Our annual weekend emergency ops practice, aka Field Day, went on as planned. Well, not quite as planned. There were quite a few adjustments being made just as we were ready to start.

This was Saturday before the second deluge arrived, and after the first. Everything battened down.

As usual the club members managed to think ahead and make things work.

A quick trip to Home Depot for 4’X8′ plywood and 2″X4″ boards to make platforms for under all the tables.

Not the most comfortable conditions to cut wood, but you do what you have to do.

They did keep the tables and chairs from sinking into the ground. Emergency preparedness is one goal of this weekend exercise. We certainly seemed to test that goal this weekend.

We had many people watching our operation. We had our contacts over at the County Emergency Operations Center prepared to let us know if high winds or thunderstorms were heading our direction. If they did, we would have to lower the antennas, disconnect the cables and hunker down in our cars and trucks. Thankfully, no thunder or lightning, and the winds weren’t severe. We had more wind on Sunday, but the towers did OK.

This year we used more of the heavier, more secure screw in anchors for the guy wires to the towers. Anyplace we thought the ground could saturate, and where we had the largest heaviest antennas mounted, we used those anchors.

Above is what I am talking about. This picture is from our tower in our yard. We use these stronger, longer anchors.

This anchor is what we usually put in for the 24 hour Field Day event. It can be installed in less time. The screw in anchors take more time and are definitely what you want in soft earth when you are putting up one of these.

The twenty meter beams, two of them, are the heaviest antennas out in the field. All the work done by the set up crews in advance lowers the probability of failures during bad weather.

We had visitors on Saturday during some of the bad weather. Some Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) MD Joint Operations Center (MJOC) crew. How’s that for acronyms? Many county Emergency Ops Center employees, who all know the club members who volunteer supporting them.

A few special ones, too. Like our county executive, Allan Kittleman.

He’s talking here to Dave Prestel, who leads our RACES efforts. They were talking about the ways our volunteers can get even more involved in supporting the emergency ops center and the fire department.

We even got him on our Get On The Air station.

Since this event is somewhat competitive, as well as a public service event, we get bonus points for things such as attendance by elected officials, and attendance by those MEMA MJOC employees.

This picture is a favorite of mine because it shows how Rich KE3Q is instructing the county executive in how to make contacts with other stations, while we have an OEM employee looking on.

Sometime soon I will get the email that was sent out with the final tally of how many stations we contacted. Even in some really awful weather conditions, the club hangs in there and searches for stations all across the country and north into the Canadian provinces.

We may be “amateur” in name but our volunteers are professional in their dedication to excellence in what they do. Plus, we have a good time doing that.

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Posted in Commentary, Community, Hobbies, Howard County, Volunteering, Weather and tagged amateur radio, community, Howard County, volunteering, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Field Day Part One W3AO

Posted on June 28, 2015 by AnnieRie

Set up time. At least the weather cooperated and it didn’t rain at all on us Friday as we put together another yearly effort in emergency management communications. The two local amateur radio clubs here in Howard County pair up. A first class public service and emergency support club, and an elite group of “contesters”, i.e. radio operators who try to make the most contacts in a fixed amount of time.

The two skill sets can be important when we encounter real life emergencies that require additional communication support.

These are our real unsung “heroes”. They come out in all sorts of weather to erect portable communications towers and antennas, unroll miles (two to be exact) of coaxial cables, install computers, three generators, sleeping, eating and operating tents, and so much more.

I think this sums it up quite well. If we didn’t have awesome volunteers to do this work on their own time, we couldn’t operate a successful “Field Day”.

We always know we are ready to go when the flags go up. Which they did Saturday morning just before the deluge.

I will be writing a second part about how this talented, quick thinking group of “hams” managed to continue operating in what could be considered emergency conditions. Like three inches of rain in a few hours.

Until then, after I go help make the grilled burgers and dogs, and we tear down our support tents while the volunteers take down the towers, here’s my interim “Thank You” again from all of us who appreciate the help.

Thirty four people from Columbia Amateur Radio Club and Potomac Valley Radio Club worked on Friday to make this weekend happen.

The operation ends at 2 PM today. We hope the weather stays nice while we disassemble all this stuff and put it away again until next year, or until we need some of it, and the skilled operators, to support the county Office of Emergency Management, the fire department, and various bike races, foot races and other community activities.

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

Don’t Forget to Relax

Posted on June 25, 2015 by AnnieRie

I need to keep repeating that mantra this week. There were (and are) so many events and activities in my life this week, I needed today to relax and get ready for Round Two, so to speak.

It’s the beginning of my harvest season. It’s the annual Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) emergency preparedness activity, otherwise known as Field Day this weekend. There were blogger parties, which I missed. A crab feast on Kent Island, that I did get to attend. CSA pick up. Friends and Farms pick up.

Making pickles. Making salads and sides for Field Day. Ordering ten pizzas for set up day tomorrow. Getting to Costco for my part of the provisions (oh, and add to that the fact the car broke down in their parking lot).

I also missed a Conservancy event, Fiddlers and Fireflies. Just too tired to get there.

I can’t believe how many things there are to do around here. This is such an active area. Lots of outdoor things to do. Today we got a note for volunteers to help with a Columbia Families in Nature event this Sunday out at Mt. Pleasant. I will still be tearing down our makeshift kitchen at our Field Day site.

Plus. Squeezing in a visit to Lisa, a fellow volunteer and blogger, who is embarking on a trip around the world with her family, for a year. Bon Voyage to Lisa. Can’t wait to follow your web page with your journal.

By the way, we love visitors to our Field Day site. Have you ever wanted to contact someone from Canada, or Hawaii, or Alaska or any of the other states? We put up a fun station for those not licensed to try out their communication skills. Children love to come talk to people on the other side of the USA.

The Field Day event runs from Saturday 2 PM until Sunday 2 PM. We are at Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School. Our GOTA (get on the air) station is always a big hit with local families. Come see us. Maybe you will also see our satellite capability operators contact the International Space Station. They have done it almost every year.

All in all, even though it is exhausting, I wouldn’t trade living here for anything. So many great things to do. Not enough hours in the day.

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Posted in Adventures, Community, Hobbies, Volunteering and tagged amateur radio, community, hoco loco, Howard County, howard county conservancy, volunteering, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

An Evening at Secolari

Posted on June 4, 2015 by AnnieRie

One of the few places I frequent in Columbia Mall these days. Family owned. Right there on “Main Street”.

I like this somewhat new addition to the Mall. Secolari was one of the first stores that opened there.

Mary and Bart de Rosa, who live in Clarksville, opened this second store near the end of the year 2013 into early 2014. My husband discovered it in January, bringing home some of the wonderful Pappardelle’s pasta that they sell.

I loved it and blogged about it.

I will always be buying pasta from them. There is no real description that I can make that shows you just how silky and flavorful this pasta is. Last night, at our blogger event, I had to stock up.

I am trying a new one this time. A pasta luce, or “pasta light”. No durum. Less carbs and more protein. They also carry a gluten free assortment.

This visit though, I found a new item to try.

Actually two of them. I love the flavored vinegars and wanted to try the peach in some vinaigrettes. But, it’s that olive oil.

BUTTER. FLAVORED. OLIVE. OIL.

You heard it. This oil is absolutely awesome. Go there and just smell it. I can guarantee you will go home with it. They served it over popcorn. With their black truffle sea salt. Adult popcorn. Perfect for date night.

It is supposedly great for baking. I am currently searching for some recipes to try with it.

Thanks to the hocoblogger community for coming out to support Bart and Mary in this successful store. Bart tells me they are opening two more stores in Maryland. One in Towson. The other? I just had a senior moment and forgot where. I’ll have to check about that one.

I love this place for buying gift packs.

If you need a housewarming gift, or a thank you, or just want to treat yourself, buying a set of oil and vinegar, or some honey, or sea salts, or pastas, or jams and jellies, this is the place to do it.

And no, they don’t pay me to say this. They do have blogger parties, with food to show off their products. I wouldn’t keep going back if they didn’t have a great product. Besides, they are the sweetest people who just love what they do.

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

Beer In The Barn

Posted on May 27, 2015 by AnnieRie

Last year’s new addition to Wine in the Garden. Jailbreak Brewery is doing the beer this year.

The happening annual event out at Mt. Pleasant Howard County Conservancy. A private nonprofit that holds one major fund raiser to raise money for all the educational events for local residents. My favorite place to hang out in Howard County.

Tomorrow? You will probably find me hanging out in front of these fine caterers.

Hunt Valley is bringing “Blood Orange Vodka Chili Meatballs”. They should go great with Jailbreak Brewery’s beers.

Highland Inn is doing “Shrimp and Grits”.

The Spice Rack is making “Carrot Coconut Chilled Soup” and “Bourbon Shrimp Skewers”.

Elkridge Furnace Inn – Cous Cous Salad with house cured lamb and house made harissa sauce.

As for the fund raising, that silent auction always has great items. I’m not going to reveal my favorite suppliers. Let’s just say I go home with a number of great treasures. Well used and the company support is appreciated by me, and by all the other staff, board members and volunteers who give to this amazing place.

Twenty five years old this year. A treasure in Howard County. Come raise a wine glass or beer mug with hundreds of other people who enjoy what HCC does.

Besides, the gardens are lovely this time of year. You can pay at the door.

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Posted in Community, Food, Howard County, Restaurants and tagged community, foodie, Howard County, howard county conservancy, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

Last Child in the Meadow

Posted on May 21, 2015 by AnnieRie

I think not. To take a page from the famous Richard Louv book, Last Child in the Woods, helping children connect with nature brings immense satisfaction.

Like this week. Bioblitz Belmont. Four days with seventh graders from Ellicott Mills and Thomas Viaduct middle schools. You know, those middle schoolers who aren’t impressed with things adults do or like. WRONG!!!

What a fun time we had.

Today wasn’t as nice out as yesterday, but we still had a great, albeit wet time, wading through meadows in deep grass looking for insects, plants, animal tracks, trees and grasses. We use iNaturalist to catalogue what we found. Yes, it rained today but who cared.

We also had visits with our local nature center residents like our owl.

And, Maize, our corn snake. I didn’t get a pic of Maize, but the students loved being able to see and touch him.

It doesn’t get much better than this.

Uploading and editing their citizen scientist observations. Any resident nature experts are welcome to set up an account, log into the Belmont Bioblitz project and help them identify what they observed.

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Posted in Adventures, Community, Howard County, Nature, Volunteering and tagged community, Howard County, howard county conservancy, nature, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.