Tag Archives: Howard County

Year Round Markets

Posted on November 9, 2015 by AnnieRie

The end is nigh. The local farmer’s markets are almost finished. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a committed group that creates a year round market in Howard County? You know, a downtown market?

I love the Silver Spring downtown market on Saturday mornings year round. They close a road to accommodate the vendors. Love Dove, one of our local farms heads down there to sell. According to the FreshFarm website, there are 36 vendors at the market.

I love the fact that local wineries show up on a regular basis. Multiple rotating vendors. I wish we could get a market started around here, maybe in Old Town EC, or down by the lake in Columbia, or Maple Lawn.

I have always been supportive of, and impressed by, the nonprofit group that started Olney. The group that continues to make it better. Luckily for us, they are only 10 miles down the road. This year, they are keeping the market by the hospital, and they are working to purchase tents to use in inclement weather. Their web site.

For a few years, they moved the market to the Sandy Spring Museum. It wasn’t quite big enough and some vendors were outside, others shoe horned into the building.

I like the Sunday morning market concept. Come have breakfast. Shop a little. Browse a little. Pick up some fresh food and a few staples from local purveyors.

The mother of all Sunday morning markets is DuPont Circle in DC. Honestly. 40-50 vendors. One of my favorites. Next step produce.

One of the reasons. They are a local farm growing grains. Many grains.

The other market in the mix. Takoma Park. Also Sunday mornings.

Really. We need to figure out how to do this. We have the local farms and vendors. We have some high density areas. It’s not bad to drive 10 miles to Olney but EC is closer.

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Posted in Community, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore and tagged community, farmer's markets, farms, Food, foodie, Howard County, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Planning Ahead?

Posted on November 8, 2015 by AnnieRie

Just a couple of really interesting programs are coming up next weekend over at the Howard County Conservancy Mt. Pleasant site. Followed by one of the very popular meteor shower watches on the following Tuesday. Here are the details for those planning their weekends in advance.

Spotting Wildlife in Winter – Saturday morning the 14th at 10am. For the hikers, photographers, and nature lovers who want to learn how to see more during the winter, Frank Marsden is leading a hike through the fields, woods and along the stream out at Mt. Pleasant. Frank has been taking amazing pictures out at Eden Mill Nature Center in Harford County. He is coming into our woods to show us what to look for, and how to increase our chances of seeing wildlife in their natural habitat.

Then, on Sunday, another very special program. Do you know where Patterson Park is? Have you ever heard of Miracle Pond? Middleton Evans had made over 600 trips to this pond in a wildly overgrown section of the park. His visits, and his amazing photographs, span 15 years. He is giving a presentation in the Gudelsky Center at 4pm on the 15th of November. It should be something special.

Planning to check out the Leonids? Want to do it with some of our talented astronomical experts, like Star Doc (Dr. Joel Goodman) and Dr. Alex Storrs from Towson University? They will be bringing high powered scopes, but on a dark night like the 17th, you should be able to sit back in a lawn chair, bundled up against the cool weather, sipping some hot chocolate while looking for meteors shooting across the skies. This is always a popular event, with many attendees. Sometimes we’ve had over a 100 people out there. They will be there from 10pm until the wee hours of the morning.

This trio of programs should give us a few good reasons to “Get Out There”. Details on the Conservancy web site, under upcoming events.

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Posted in Birds, Community, Day Trips, Howard County, Nature and tagged birds, community, day trips, Howard County, howard county conservancy, photography. Bookmark the permalink.

Missing HOWCHOW

Posted on November 5, 2015 by AnnieRie

Yes, I have to admit, I miss all the great local food scene trivia, and all the comments that we were used to getting from HOWCHOW’s blog. I know he is busy, with a toddler and yet, I still miss those informative posts that gave us so much information about our local restaurants, markets and stores.

When I started my blog, he helped me. He linked to a number of posts I wrote. I wrote a couple of guest columns for him. He was the “GO TO” place to read about bakeries, butchers, ethnic groceries and so much more.

Maybe if we all ask nice, we can get him to post a simple post, once a week, asking for comments and input about the latest in the Howard County food scene.

It would certainly help us feel like we have something that focuses on us out here in the boonies.

For me, he introduced me to Ananda, and I love it. H Mart. Larriland. Town Grill. And more.

Come back, HOWCHOW, if only for a quick word or so.

After all, you helped us greet Wegmans with that Facebook page.

There’s so much happening here in Howard County. We are missing a good source for insider information. Not asking for tons of reviews, just a quick “drive by” post that we can comment on. You know you are greatly appreciated out here.

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Posted in Commentary, Community, Food, Howard County, People and tagged commentary, Food, foodie, hoco loco, Howard County. Bookmark the permalink.

Nighttime Hiking

Posted on October 27, 2015 by AnnieRie

What are you doing this Friday night? How about hiking under an almost full moon, with flashlights?

Out at my favorite volunteer location, where I spend way too much time having fun (yes, tomorrow I get to chase first graders all over the property on a field trip about owls), this Friday at 7 PM, they are having a flashlight night hike for anyone interested in what is out there in the dark. As an aside, how is that for an epic run on sentence?

What can we see in the dark? What can we hear? If you really want to have a great beginning to your Halloween weekend, go to the web site and guarantee a place. Howard County Conservancy. Mt. Pleasant. Woodstock. If you haven’t been there, you are really missing something. Worth the time to check it out. Your family will love you for it.

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Posted in Howard County, Nature, Volunteering, Weather, West HoCo and tagged Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, nature, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

The CSA Model

Posted on October 25, 2015 by AnnieRie

Gorman farms style. How to grow a Community Supported Agriculture program from 28 families to almost 500. In six years.

We learned this yesterday at the Farm Academy. Over at Gorman Farms. Just southeast of Columbia, and northwest of Laurel. At a location chosen for its access to the market.

Dave Liker runs Gorman Farms. Currently on leased land, but soon to expand to their own farm slightly west of its current location, to Highland.

They had their big announcement earlier this month. It will be a great location and addition to a farm committed to organic growing and the production of quality vegetables and fruit for their loyal CSA members.

Those of us who loved their farm stand, miss it. We knew they dropped it because it took away from their attention to their immensely popular CSA.

We will also miss their Christmas tree operation this year, as they turn their attention to getting the new farm ready for production.

Here is more information about the new farm.

Dave’s presentation to the Farm Academy and his two hour tour of the farm were full of details that show his commitment to the land, the soil, the farm, and to providing us with fresh healthy organically grown food.

Information such as how successful his pick your own strawberries have been.

By the way, there are quite a few more rows of strawberries in the ground, to make sure there are enough for the very great demand every spring.

They provide medium and full CSA shares for a 20 week season. If you live in the east or south part of Howard County, or northern Montgomery or PG county, you should check them out.

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Posted in Farms, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses and tagged community, farms, Food, Howard County, local businesses. Bookmark the permalink.

Farms

Posted on October 19, 2015 by AnnieRie

What you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

The Farm Academy is answering all those questions. And more. I feel like I am living in an information overload scenario when I attend these three hour sessions. But, they are so worth the time to do them.

I am learning so much more than I expected, by attending the farm visits. These are serious lectures and tours, not a hayride through a farm.

I found all sorts of resources, and got quite an education on the status of much of the farmland in Howard County.

Exhibit A. The preservation map. Also available on the web site, as an interactive map, showing just how much land is in some sort of preservation status. If you click on the interactive map link, you can find all sorts of information.

Did you know that over 21000 acres of land in our county are in these programs? That’s almost 2/3 of the current agricultural land in the county. No wonder there won’t be much more development out here. The land is covered in preserved areas.

Planned service area maps tell the same story. There is no current plan to extend the water and sewer lines out here. In order to develop with other than rural residential or rural conservation limits in place, there would have to be a plan to run those utilities to the small towns. Not going to happen in this fiscally conservative time.

As for what happens on these farms, I found the Academy participants to be incredibly open about what they do. We have visited TLV Tree Farm.

And the UMD Research Farm.

Dairy and equine facilities at the UMD farm. I feel like I attended classes at UMD, we were given such an in depth tour. I hope to do another post about this facility.

Next weekend, we end up at Gorman Farm.

The county plans to offer these visits again in the spring. If you want to get a better idea of what is happening around you, down on these farms, you should look for them and sign up.

I know that I learned so much more about dairy operations than I ever expected.

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Posted in Farms, Food, Howard County, West HoCo and tagged community, farms, Food, Howard County, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Tidbit Tuesday Again

Posted on October 13, 2015 by AnnieRie

Doing a fly by. Quick information because there is too much going on, and I haven’t updated the blog in a few days.

Did you know that the Farm Academy is simply awesome?

The first session was at TLV Tree Farm. Two more. UMD farm, and Gorman. If there is still room, you should sign up. I learned quite a bit and I thought I knew much about our local agricultural business.

I did learn more about the Roving Radish. For $28 you can get two meals for four people, or four meals for two, like us, with all the major ingredients and the recipes. When it first started, they used about 10% local sourcing, now it is close to 70% local. Want to have better food, easy to make? Affordable? Check them out!

More later, when I get all the information about the local farms, but you really need to see how much the county is doing to promote local vendors and farms. I am seriously impressed.

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Posted in Community, Farms, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, West HoCo and tagged community, farms, Food, Howard County, local businesses, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Batten Down the Hatches

Posted on October 1, 2015 by AnnieRie

Do we or don’t we? The forecast from the hurricane center is typical at this time. No one knows how fast or what path the storm will take. Will it bypass us or will we get really bad weather?

This scenario has happened quite a few times in the past few years. It seems to be more the norm the past five years, than in the previous decades we have lived here.

We also get bombarded with social media. Data here. Data there. Data everywhere. Sometimes much more than we really need or want.

Already events have been canceled. The Highland Days. Rescheduled to Halloween. Football games changing times. We are victims of TMI. Not all of it based on facts. Just on speculation.

Let’s face it. Mother Nature can’t be tamed. We can’t predict what will happen. We can take precautions. Get ready. Download the new MD Emergency Management APP. Sign up for local alerts.

Whatever we do, it won’t change the weather. But being prepared is a good thing. Even when the predictions aren’t correct. At least we weren’t caught unaware.

Here’s hoping we don’t have floods. Or power outages. Or wind damages.

Maybe if we keep having these warnings, people will learn how to be prepared. And they will have what it takes to stay safe.

Me, I’ll just keep listening. And getting those basic supplies in place. Like water. Batteries. And non perishables.

I still haven’t figured out why people run out and buy toilet paper. Maybe because there aren’t any more Sears catalogs to use in an emergency?

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Posted in Commentary, Weather and tagged commentary, Howard County, hurricane, nature, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Our Daily Bread

Posted on September 27, 2015 by AnnieRie

In Baltimore, a Catholic Charity run hot meal program serving 700 meals daily. Plus an employment center. For the past ten years, the Lewis family of Clarksville has sponsored a fun polo match day to raise money for the center. To date, they had already raised over $450,000. This year’s event was the tenth and “final” match day, as they are retiring as hosts.

We were fortunate to win a tailgate pass at the silent auction last May, at the annual Wine in the Garden HC Conservancy fund raiser. The Lewis family had donated the pass.

I wish we had taken the opportunity to attend this amazing day in years past, as it was truly a special experience. One that almost transcends time.

It’s fun to watch the players on their mounts, but it’s also fun to watch the spectators.

We got to divot stomp. We met some really nice people. Got up close and personal with beautiful horses.

Thanks to the Doetsch family who provides their field for the event. They live just across Rte. 32 from the Lewis family, who live on Ten Oaks Rd. The original site of the matches, before they outgrew the fields just off the Ten Oaks/Brighton Dam circle.

We took friends with us to tailgate.

We wandered around to see the horses.

We stomped divots at the break between matches.

We brought local foods and wine to enjoy while watching.

I do hope they find some support to keep the traditional going. Thanks to Mary Agnes Lewis and her family for their long standing support of Our Daily Bread. As I understand, she has been volunteering in some form or another for more than 30 years.

She is truly a wonderful Howard Countian.

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Posted in Community, Food, Howard County, People, West HoCo and tagged community, Food, Howard County, howard county conservancy, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Never A Dull Moment

Posted on September 17, 2015 by AnnieRie

After all, where else can you find the Air Force Thunderbirds practicing in your back yard? Besides at their home base, that is.

This was the second pass over the house that I saw. The first one, I didn’t have the camera. They are performing this weekend at Andrews Air Force Base.

I gather they come up here to get out of the National and Dulles air space. We are a bit west of the BWI air space too. This is the second evening they have been here. I heard them last night but didn’t know until later when I checked Facebook that it was the Thunderbirds.

I also got a good shot of the final formation as they were heading back to the base.