Tag Archives: howard county conservancy

It’s Twenty Minute Clean Up Day

Posted on April 18, 2013 by AnnieRie

Now that the sun has come out there is no excuse to miss the opportunity to pick up a little trash. Today is Twenty Minute Clean Up Day in Howard County.

I collected close to fifteen pounds of trash in the roadway along our property line on both sides of the street. Mostly cans, plastic bottles, at least 50-60 cigarette butts, but also quite a bit of cardboard, coffee cups, aluminum foil, and lots of blown recycling material. Plus, waterlogged newspapers (you know, those “free” annoying ones). And, the remains of our neighbor’s mailbox.

Mailboxes here have a half life of about a year. We are on our third in eight years. Our neighbor, at least five or six. His is first in the line and gets whacked the most, with debris strewn all over the hillside.

No one takes care of the roads in Adopt a Road out here, as it is dangerous to work with no shoulders, and in two or three days after any clean up it is back to being a mess.

This year again I used my handy pick up tool, that my husband bought me last year after my surgery. Works really well to grab even small pieces of trash.

After I finished on the property line, I did a perimeter sweep of our mulched beds and picked up whatever blew into them from the road. We get lots of debris on recycling days.

If you get a chance this afternoon, grab a bag and pick up some trash. Email Green Central Station and let them know what you did. Last year over 2300 people participated. If you can’t do anything today, how about coming out for Earth Day at one of the sites and help clean up or plant trees.

I will be at the Conservancy Saturday. There are other events at County Parks too.

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Connections @hcconservancy

Posted on April 17, 2013 by AnnieRie

Connections. All sorts. This time I am talking about art. At the Conservancy tomorrow night the 18th of April.

Starting at 6 pm, there will be a reception, silent auction and words about the juried art show, by artists and the judges. The art is amazing, and has been on display in the large hall on the Conservancy grounds. Tickets are $12 at the door. I find this a wonderful place to get art from local artists, already matted and framed.

If you love art with a nature theme, and want to support local artists and the Conservancy, please join us there. I will be volunteering at the event, and having a lovely evening “connecting” with friends, both new ones and long time friends.

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Posted in Howard County, Nature, People, Volunteering and tagged hoco loco, Howard County, howard county conservancy, nature, photography, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

Rediscovering #mdwine

Posted on April 14, 2013 by AnnieRie

After that amazing twitter taste off from the Drink Local Wine conference yesterday, where comments and pictures kept popping up on twitterific, I thought I need to pay more attention to what is happening in our own backyard here in Maryland. We had pretty much abandoned Maryland until Black Ankle came along and reignited our interest.

Today we went off on the first of many day trips to see what has popped up around the area. I love Chambourcin done right, and all comments told us to try Port of Leonardtown.

To make this a multi-leveled event, this week for my eat local challenge we had a theme “WAY OUT THERE”. So, why not a drink local post instead of eating locally. We paired local cheese from Brandywine MD with local chambourcin to have lunch outside the winery.

We now need another road trip to check out the farmstead where this cheese originated. It was excellent as were the dry chambourcin rose and the chambourcin. We brought home some of these lovely wines to enjoy this spring and summer.

And, yes, there will be a taste off between this late harvest vidal and one of our bottles from Linden VA. MD vs VA. Let the rivalry keep all our winemakers on their game to continue to produce beautiful wines.

Glad that the Drink Local Wine conference in Maryland showed us that MD is up and coming as a wine region. Being a locapour and a locavore is not a bad thing. Besides, Wine in the Woods and Wine in the Garden should keep us busy next month.

Been to any good local wineries lately? If not, you should!

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Posted in Day Trips, Food, Locavore, Sixty@Sixty, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged day trips, howard county conservancy, Locavore, weather, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

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.

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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.

Busy, Busy!

Posted on April 2, 2013 by AnnieRie

April is the first of three consecutive months where activities crowd the calendar. Can’t believe all the options for things to do, weekends, and weekdays.

This weekend the Baltimore Farmer’s Market opens for the season. Under the overpasses, down by the Jones Falls Expressway. A few of our favorite vendors are regulars there. South Mountain Creamery, Zahradka Farm, Knopps Farm, all farms that we buy from.

Sometime this month we will wander down to have our brunch, enjoy the festivities and wish we had something this awesome in Howard County. We have a month to wait before our markets open.

We have lots of opportunities to enjoy farm fresh goodies. Clark’s advertises that they have meat and eggs available now that they are open for the season. The farm is open Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Greenfest is the 13th this year, the same day as the housing fair. The 20th is Earth Day, with a bird walk and activities at the Howard County Conservancy.

Sharp’s Farm opens for those of us looking for heirloom seedlings, on the 19th. My tomatoes come from Denise, at the farm. And a few from the Howard County master gardeners who sell at Earth Day. Last year I found my favorite red fig heirloom tomatoes there.

The 18th is twenty minute clean up day. Last year I spent time cleaning up down by our road.

That same night is the art auction at the Conservancy. Some really nice items this year. I checked them out while doing training for my volunteer activities. This year’s theme is Connections.

There is also a wonder walk, an event featuring box turtles, on the 13th, at the Conservancy. And, a training session on the 9th to teach the volunteer naturalists about History during the Civil War, on the farm where the Conservancy now stands. We are going to pilot this program with the Howard County schools later this month.

There is so much going on, I need to pick and choose what to do. Don’t you just love spring?

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Posted in Community, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Volunteering and tagged farmer's markets, Food, Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, tomatoes, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

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.

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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.

We Interrupt Spring …

Posted on March 21, 2013 by AnnieRie

… for a last blast from winter. There were snow flurries last night. Temps in the 30s and low wind chill. Will it go away soon? Last year on the 22nd of March I took these pictures.

Yes, the tulips were up. This year they are barely above ground, even though they peeked out of the ground in late January. Totally different weather this winter. Never really snowy or extended cold, but never having those really warm days we had last year.

How about snowballs?

The Woodstock snowball stand was open last March. I drove by today on my way home from the Conservancy and no sign of snowballs yet. Looking at their facebook page and following on twitter. Waiting for the weather to make us ready for a stop there after a day as a volunteer.

My weeping cherry, a year ago.

There aren’t even blooms on it right now.

At least I can plan by drooling over the Sharp Farm plant list, readying my wish list for the April 19 opening of the greenhouses. I bought most of my tomatoes there last year, and many other plants.

And, we get to go hiking this weekend to learn how to do forest forensics. If you are looking for a truly enriching experience, sign up for one of the hikes, or the lecture tomorrow night at the Conservancy. Tom Wessels is simply amazing.

Waiting not so patiently for spring. What happened to global warming? Tired of cold blustery days and ready to transplant greens.

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Posted in Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Weather, West HoCo and tagged Food, gardening, Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, spring flowers, tomatoes, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Reading That Forested Landscape

Posted on March 15, 2013 by AnnieRie

And trying to find a sense of place. Our place. Our property. Our community. Our county. Next weekend, the 22nd through the 24th, at the Howard County Conservancy Tom Wessels is coming down to read the landscape at two different sites in Howard County. There will be a stand alone lecture Friday night, and two lecture/hikes, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Each day’s event is $20 to attend. A bundle of two, Friday and either Saturday or Sunday is available for $35.

Master gardeners, master naturalists, historians, science teachers, environmentalists, lifetime residents of Howard County, and more — all would find something interesting and educational in his talks, walks and teaching us to read our landscapes.

I downloaded his latest book, Forest Forensics. I already learned more about my property by toggling between the plates, the evidence and the key to reading our property here in west Howard County.

We were told our land was once a horse pasture. This barbed wire is evidence. The book explains how to read it. The wire is on our side of the fence, the common technique to string wire enclosing a pasture. It is barbed. If it was smooth twisted there would have been sheep in the pasture. It was constructed sometime after 1874 which was when wire first started showing up as fencing.

Tom will be leading hikes that will show us these types of details. Following him through the forests and grasslands, the Saturday and Sunday events will combine a 90 minute lecture to prepare for the hike, followed by a two hour hike looking for clues around Elkridge in the Patapsco State Park on Saturday, and all across the Conservancy properties, maybe even down to the river if he finds good evidence to share.

Anyone who wants to know more about this area, and wants to be able to use these tips while walking the trails in the parks, or even searching the development’s open spaces in the county to learn the history of our land would enjoy these events.

There is still some room on both hikes, and lots of room for the Friday night lecture for those who may not be able to hike. The Friday night lecture: The Myth of Progress is a totally different topic than the weekend lectures and hikes.

More on that topic is found here. It is another of Tom’s books.

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Improv

Posted on March 11, 2013 by AnnieRie

You know what they say about the best laid plans. Sometimes you find less than perfect execution after all your planning. Today is one of those days. Thankfully after all these years of reading recipes and learning to trust my taste (plus a little help from the internet) I recovered from what could have been a cooking failure.

I signed up to take pumpkin hummus to the volunteer pot luck luncheon at the Howard County Conservancy this week. Something new I learned to make using CSA veggies. I had a butternut squash from the market two weeks ago sitting on the counter, some garlic still in the coldest area where I store root veggies, half a jar of tahini and I had just stocked up on chickpeas, as I use them in couscous salad and lots of other recipes. The squash was from the Olney market.

Should have been easy. But no, the squash was pretty hollow down the middle. Skin still looked good. It was firm, not mushy, but was obviously dried out, or somewhat hollow down the center, at least the top half of it was. It smelled OK, so I did a little triage and salvaged the parts that weren’t drying out. It only gave me half what I needed.

Enter the internet and the CSA to the rescue. I got sweet potatoes last week from my Breezy Willow CSA.

I found a recipe that called for half “pumpkin pie filling” aka butternut squash for those of us who know that fact, and half sweet potato. Thank you, small bites blog. I did not use cumin and paprika, but used garam masala in their place.

My next problem came from my garlic. Yep, the last two heads of garlic in the storage area had gone moldy. I am now officially out of all that lovely organic garlic from Love Dove and the CSA. Thankfully, I had granulated garlic powder picked up at Costco. I had to do this by taste instead of measuring and I do like garlicky hummus.

The hummus came out really creamy, tasty and it is aging in the fridge now, ready to take Thursday to the luncheon. I am hoping to get an interesting bread this week from the CSA to use for dunking the hummus. Another improv, why go get pita for dipping when you can make your own toasty dippers from thinly sliced breads, toasted.

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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?

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