At the Howard County Conservancy Thursday night, starting at 6 PM. $10/car. What a bargain for a lovely evening of music, crafts and the magic of the farm in the evening.
Bring a picnic. Watermelon, feta and mint sounds good.
There will be fiddlers to dance to, fireflies to chase and crafts for the children to make. The grounds below the farmhouse are the location for the event.
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After sleeping almost twelve hours, we sort of feel like human beings again. One of the most important aspects of planning and executing an event of the size of Field Day is this. You can always improve your performance with advance planning and, when operating almost non-stop for 50-60 hours, you need to pace yourself and not overheat, dehydrate or work when you are exhausted.
There were many new helpers and many more people at Field Day this year. Lots of younger people, thankfully, for us old folks 😉 to help us out. And many interested dedicated workers who help make this event a huge success.
I already posted once the team picture just before the start of the event. There were at least 10 people not there, who were out in the field making last minute set up adjustments.
These did not include a large number of people who came Friday to set up, and who returned Sunday to tear down. Set up and tear down teams help relieve the operators who were there almost round the clock starting Friday.
Advance prep like having the more than 2 miles of coax ready to go, already designated for where in the field each roll is placed. At tear down, they are rolled back up meticulously and marked so that the following year there is no delay to figure out where they are placed.
AB-577’s otherwise known as rocket launchers, are pre-loaded for quick slide off at marked sites. Everything is ready to bring into the site with no loss of time for sorting or handling. This year, the club had volunteer help in sorting, repairing, lubricating and repacking all twenty-two kit bags that contain the guy wires, couplers, rings, cranks, stakes and nails that were dropped behind the launchers, presorted and ready to install.
Before
In Process
Tower, gear and antenna arrive in sequence and are ready to assemble by roving tower teams.
We have an amazing member who brings all the generators and keeps us powered up for the 48 hours. Three generators. We even had the Chief of Howard County Emergency Management checking them out in detail Sunday while he was visiting the site. Sunday I ended up so busy cooking, I forgot to take enough pics of the event and tear down. But, without reliable power, this event could not take place.
IT support is also important. Networked computers. Coordination. Again, dedicated club members keep all this organized and use a system to track what gets down where and how.
And, all good armies march on their stomachs, right? My contribution to Field Day (surprised?) is assistance to the food tent, ably executed by the wife of one of the club members who organizes the event. I have been assisting now three years. Every year we get more efficient and make constant adjustments in keeping 50-75 people fed and hopefully, very happy. Enough of them say we do, so I think we succeed.
Friday Night Pizza while still setting up
Saturday Lunch
Saturday while last minute preparations go on, we set out a cold cut, sloppy joe, salad, veggies/chips and dip, luncheon bar for people to grab and go, or take a break before the two o’clock start. It is nice to have good generators to power the crock pot. And, to allow us to hook up a Keurig in the evening for all night long fresh brewed coffee.
Saturday during the most active ops time, we bring in Mexican food. Easy to grab and eat, soft tacos, beans and rice, brownies, grapes, strawberries, all minimally interfere with calling CQ. We even deliver to the operators at their stations if they are holding a frequency and don’t want to lose momentum by taking a break.
Sunday breakfast has become simpler, since I cook it at home and drive it up the road a mile to the site. The site is near the top of one of the higher points in Howard County. We live near there (so do lots of other club members since HAAT is important). It means many things can be transported to the site easily, and for me as cook, it means they get hot bacon and eggs on Sunday morning after operating all night. I cook four pounds of bacon Saturday night, and 4 1/2 dozen scrambled eggs Sunday morning.
Get it all there 10 minutes before the 8AM breakfast call. Coffee is perked. Toasters are ready. Love having enough generator power for fresh toast. We were so busy serving, I forgot again to take pics.
Lunch is grilled burgers, hot dogs, smoked chicken, salads, toppings, all the leftovers as well.
After 2PM, it’s off to tear it all down and put it away for next year. No pics of that either as we were all busy.
A few random pics of the fun times.
Jim, far left, happy after blowing the air horn for 1800 UTC start of Field Day
My OM taking a two hour nap before tear down. Behind him the trailer for the towers, and the camper that is parked right in the middle of it all on Friday night to provide security before everyone arrives Saturday morning to complete set up.
Some of the youngest GOTA operators enjoying themselves Sunday morning.
Another good year. Lots of memories. Tired but happy people from all around this area. Who says there’s nothing to do in Howard County? Anyone interested in joining the fun, check out the Columbia Amateur Radio Association for local club events, county event support, emergency service support and other interests. Potomac Valley Radio Club, more widespread than just Columbia but with lots of local members, does lots of contesting and has social events in the area.
73 de PVRC and CARA
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All my past posts about my asparagus growing under my crepe myrtle sparked interest in how to find asparagus, and what it looks like when it goes to seed.
This is a really good example. Caught Tuesday night while I was volunteering at the transit of Venus. This is cultivated asparagus. The wild asparagus in my yard came with the crepe myrtle. Now that you know what it looks like, you can look around your area and see if you find some. This is a climate they like and plants will produce for 20-30 years.
Ours has been producing for the eight years we have lived here. I harvested what seems to be the last three spears yesterday. Nothing else coming up. A total of 36 spears from the one plant this year. They are fun to watch as they push through the deep layer of mulch. Particularly when they come up white.
The size differences are interesting to observe, as well. The thin ones stay thin, and don’t fatten. The thicker spears push through at the same size as they grow. The thin ones just get taller, not thicker. Took me a while at first to realize that leaving them in the ground won’t change their diameter much. Just pick them and enjoy. The thinnest ones don’t even need cooking, they are so tender.
My final three spears will probably find their way into something like my steamed spring veggies with butter and mint, that I made the other day.
Check around your area now that asparagus would be visible like the pic above, and maybe you can find a source of foraged deliciousness. Or, with patience, put in your own asparagus beds. Either way, spring flavor unique and fleeting.
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At first last night it didn’t look promising to view the transit of Venus across the sun. As dozens of astronomers were setting up, the skies were cloudy.
Dozens of people started arriving, to wander among the scopes and binoculars. The clouds began to clear away and first views were registered.
Lots of excitement and people crowding around STARDOC’s sunspotter, where you would be able to capture a photograph of what you would see through the safely protected equipment that the Howard Astronomical League (HAL) members had set up across the Conservancy meadow.
I came in to take a picture of what I had viewed using a number of different scopes and binoculars around the field.
Then, as things progressed, the sun came out below a cloud cover and lit up the area.
Lots of viewing for quite a long time until the sun finally fell below a cloud cover on the western horizon, but it was certainly bright out there for long enough to capture some great views. The sheer numbers and sizes of all the scopes were incredible, and everyone got opportunities to view. The HAL members are such wonderful people, giving their time and sharing their equipment with the hundreds of people who attended.
Many people there had never heard of the Conservancy and they were interested in the trails, the events, the walks and the gardens, asking the three of us who volunteered that night countless questions about using the facilities, hiking the trails and coming to events. I had to refill the kiosk with trail maps and give out rental brochures to a couple of potential wedding rental queries.
It was a win-win event for HAL and the Conservancy, and I was happy to volunteer a few hours to park a few hundred cars. I recorded another picture of what I had seen.
Recorded the sunny finish of the event.
This event is the first of many in the month of June at the Conservancy, which also includes an event sponsored by the Columbia Festival of the Arts. Check out the upcoming events page and come out to a lovely site in Woodstock. This weekend is the monthly free wonder walk, Saturday at 10 am.
Don’t wait for the next solar event, but also keep in mind the August meteor showers, Night Sky/Dark Sky: The Perseid Meteor Showers on August 12th.
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So much to do this weekend, with the holiday and with all the other events going on. What will tempt you to spend time out and about? Are you a beach goer? Or do you stay local?
Our weekend kicks off early with Wine in the Garden at the Conservancy tomorrow night. Cross your fingers for good weather. If you haven’t pre-purchased tickets, they will be selling them at the entrance. Come sip and taste in the loveliness of the Honors Garden.
Saturday I may be off to PA for a picnic at one of the farmers who supplies our CSA. It may be me and a friend, as my OldMan (OM in amateur radio speak) will be contesting and a weekend of listening to him calling “CQ Contest, CQ contest”, is hard to take. Oh wait, this is the CQ WW WPX CW contest, so all I get to hear is key clicks. Translation of the above, means it is the Morse Code only contest, and one where hams try to work as many unique prefixes, like JY, which is Jordan, or 9WA which is Malaysia.
Complicated, and easy to do if you have a unique prefix and everyone wants to call you, harder if you are a W something, like my hubby is. No one looking for him once they have worked W3LPL. He has to work hard to find all the unique prefixes out there. And, we only have wires, not towers.
Sunday I will wander back to Olney to get some fresh berries, and hope that the VA farmers there have cherries. We got our tentative list of what will be in this week’s CSA basket so I only need fruit to supplement the greens this week. I don’t want to touch the berries I processed while fresh goodies are still in the local markets. I will know tomorrow what I will be grilling if it stops threatening storms every night.
Monday we will be chilling out and avoiding those traffic clogged roads. Memorial Day traffic on the highways around here is crazy, so a day of grilling, chilling and drinking local wine sounds like a perfect ending to the holiday weekend.
Then, as retirees with nothing pressing to do later in the week, we will take a day to visit my hubby’s hometown and check on the grave sites for his dad and mom.
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With all the talk about Wine in the Woods, don’t forget that next Thursday is one of the highlights of the Howard County Conservancy annual events, Wine in the Garden.
Reduced price for tickets ends on May 20th. $40 until then, $50 after that. It is well worth the price of admission to spend the evening wandering the paths of the Honors Garden, while sampling excellent food and tasting the wines provided by the event sponsors.
All proceeds from this event go to fund the preservation and education programs at the Conservancy. This is the big event of the year, where the Conservancy’s generous sponsors donate the food, drink, and silent auction items.
As you stroll around, you will see the descriptions or the items displayed. There are some really nice additions this year to what is being offered. I am looking at the BSO tickets, or maybe the weekend at the B&B in Shepherdstown WV. Last year we won a fold up reclining chair donated by REI. Every day new items are being added as they are delivered to the Conservancy.
The caterers and wine contributors include:
Absolutely Perfect Catering ~ Atlantic Caterers ~ Biddle Street Catering and Events ~ Catering by Uptown ~ Constellation Wines US ~ Far Eastern Shore Winery ~ Gourmet Express Catering ~ Hunt Valley Catering ~ My Thyme, Inc ~ Putting on the Ritz ~ Reliable Churchill ~ The Savory Spoon ~ Simply Elegant Catering ~ The Spice Rack ~Stanford Grill ~ Your Wine & Spirit Shoppe
I wanted to highlight this list of local and nearby companies who annually contribute incredibly beautiful foods and complimenting wines that allow the guests to wander and savor the experience at their leisure. With three acres of gardens, and numerous pathways, every time you turn a corner someone is offering you treats or pouring you a couple of ounces of interesting wines.
The fruit based wines from Far Eastern Winery are really interesting, and something I would not ordinarily drink, but they paired so well with some of the spicy offerings of a couple of the caterers. Dry wines can overpower or fight with those satays, or those tasty little bites that include Indian spices.
This is what is so much fun about Wine in the Garden. The variety. The thought process to find good wines to match what you are tasting. The relative peace and quiet and the view. Beautiful al fresco setting.
And, the water lilies may be blooming by then. Last year they bloomed the beginning of June, but this year they may be a week early and looking like this.
Come join us. We are setting up auction items earlier in the day, then returning to enjoy the event with friends. Cheers!
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Wow! Today was the first time I went to Miller Library. I went for the farmer’s market after having fun leading first graders around looking for nature, like strawberries and frogs. First graders learn “I Spy Nature” in places like the herb garden, honors garden, farm house front yard, and the apple orchard at the Howard County Conservancy, my favorite place to be on a lovely spring morning.
Wild berries to be found in the clover.
Can you find the two frogs in the picture? The children were looking for colors, shapes, sights, sounds, smells, textures but not tasting. We focus on the senses and use them to discover the natural world around them.
As for the Conservancy, we will be doing Wine in the Garden next Thursday the 24th, and the garden is really lovely right now. The peonies are blooming. I believe these are aurora sunrise. They line the paths down to the Honors Garden where caterers will be feeding us, while volunteers pour wines from local vendors and distributors. A great evening, one I look forward to attending.
After leaving the children behind, for them to enjoy lunch at the picnic tables, I headed off to grab a snowball at the Woodstock Snowball Stand. Today’s flavor of the day was Red Wine Cooler (non alcoholic of course).
It was time to drive down to hit the market and find strawberries to put in the wine cooler I will be making when we grill this weekend. I had never been to the new library. I like Glenwood, my local library, but now I have library envy. Miller is just stunning. I went in to check out the Historical Society, then came out for the start of the market.
The first thing I saw was the new pull behind display trailer that our favorite bakery bought to use at the markets. Stone House Bakery has been at Glenwood a long time, and at the other markets as well. Love the display case.
I picked up some dinner rolls to have with leftover black bean soup, and with the chicken I will be grilling to go with that wine cooler this weekend.
I got the chicken from TLV Tree Farm, they were doing a brisk business in strawberries and asparagus. I also got a dozen eggs from them, and half a chicken. The chicken is fresh, “processed” just yesterday. No frozen birds anymore, we can get fresh free range chickens and know that they don’t have all those antibiotics or hormones.
Talked to John Dove, from Love Dove Farms, to find out garlic scapes will be here next week. I wasn’t the first to ask either, so we may be competing for one of the coolest veggies to use to make pesto. We did pick up some spring onions and some turnips, since I won’t be getting turnips in the CSA box tomorrow.
In order to support more of the farmers there, I did pick up my strawberries from Lewis Orchards, as I had bought chicken, eggs and asparagus from TLV. We always buy fruit from Lewis in the summer at Glenwood. I love getting her bruised peach specials and bringing them home to slice and freeze. Ugly fruit tastes better!
I was pleased to see all the people there at 2 pm. It was a bustling site in the middle of the afternoon.
Great Harvest and the Breadery are both there as well as The Cosmic Bean, and Penn Farm. It was not the week for Bowling Green Farms to bring cheese. They come every other week.
Check out the local markets. They are reasonable in price for the quality you receive, and you can’t get much fresher.
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The Saturday morning wonder walk at the Howard County Conservancy at 10 AM is a crafty fun day for families. Just in time for Mom’s Big Day, take a short walk to collect fresh flowers to make bouquets, and be crafty making homemade cards with pressed, dried flowers the volunteers collected in advance of the walk. The fields and trails are full of wildflowers right now.
Master Gardener Lisa Baum will be leading this event. Volunteer naturalists will be on hand to assist the little ones in putting dried flowers on cards, and in arranging their bouquets. After setting up their “vases” and putting pebbles in them for stability, they will go off to gather flowers. The little ones may catch a glimpse of the Conservancy animals like Lily and Holly, the goats while gathering flowers.
Or, if they go down the hill to the creek, they will pass by Ranger the owl, and may find Hodge Podge Lodge.
All materials are being provided by the volunteers and the Conservancy. There is no cost to do the wonder walks at the Conservancy. Take a hike and enjoy a lovely day with the family, or leave mom some quiet time as a special present by bringing the little ones so they can surprise her.
They may spy something special enjoying the flowers with them. Maybe a butterfly.
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Tomorrow is Earth Day, but today the Conservancy was hosting dozens of volunteers and visitors for service projects, a plant sale by the Master Gardeners, a birding hike, and crafts projects for the little ones.
The wheel barrows were loaded and ready to go out for tree planting.
The parking lot was full of cars, on a lovely morning that cleared up to make it easy to work. Thankfully, it didn’t rain on the projects.
WR Grace brought out a group of volunteers to put in plants and mulch the entrance area, right on Old Frederick Rd. Everybody was hard at work. The Conservancy greatly appreciates their dedicated volunteers that come out to help.
I bought a few more tomato plants from the Master Gardeners. I couldn’t resist. I got two red fig and two pineapple plants. Yes, these are tomatoes. Interesting rare varieties. The red fig dates back to the 1700s, and is a pear shaped tomato. The pineapple tomato is one of my favorites. In talking to the gardeners, they said many of their heirloom seeds come from Baker Creek, which is the source for this picture.
After I left there, I ran over to TLV Tree Farms to pick up herbs for my garden. At Greenfest last week, I told them I would come out during their Saturday hours (10am – 2PM) and pick up what I needed to fill in my herb garden with new annuals and a few perennials that are getting ragged.
While there, I did pick up a couple of New York Strip Steaks to grill if the weather holds. MD steaks marinating in MD wine. What could be better?
I put the three varieties of thyme in the ground this afternoon, and left the lavender sitting in the pots until I position the basil, tarragon and marjoram that isn’t hearty enough to plant yet.
English, creeping and silver queen thyme
Lavender waiting to be planted, keeping the mint company
I also wandered around to document the blooming of my bank of azaleas along the north side of the house. They are almost the last to bloom. One more area in the northeast corner still isn’t ready. These that bloomed today are brilliant red, and some of my favorites.
What a beautiful spring day in the county. One more pic of the azaleas, because they are so brilliant. Go out and plant something!
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Around the hocosphere these past few days has floated a discussion about the lack of activities out here in the hinterlands, far from the big cities.
I have to agree with Barbara Kellner in her comments to Matt, at Lost in Columbia.
I moved here in 1975, when there really wasn’t much to do. I was 22, fresh out of college, with a low paying job, and two roommates. We did lots of free things, mostly picnicing or hiking in the parks, like Patapsco State Park. Ellicott City is where we went for a treat. Or, Laurel. Until we got Roy’s Place Too and JK’s to hang at.
The reason I bring up Laurel was triggered the other night as I flipped the TV on early to catch the news. This did it. Lionel Richie singing a song from my youth.
Why? The Adult Catholic Singles. A club started at the Interfaith Center, where my roomie dragged me to a brunch in 1979. The club went the following Friday for an evening out at Randy’s California Inn (now this really dates me here). At the Sunday brunch I first met a young man who was the host. He was also at Randy’s. He got enough courage to ask me to dance to Three Times A Lady that evening. A year later, we danced to that same song at our wedding.
We did lots of local things that dating year, and during the 1980’s as a young married couple. Lots of inexpensive things, too, while living in Columbia. Racquetball, tennis, swimming pool Sundays. Jogged Lake Elkhorn almost every day. Discovered Centennial Park.
Lots of outdoor things. We eventually found Les Amis du Vin, and learned about wine, although we could only afford the occasional tasting on our budget back then. We did discover more in Ellicott City those days, where tastings were held.
We bought our first place together in 1982, during the 14-16% interest days. Yep, we did get lucky and sold our Howard Homes camp out home (who remembers those days?) for a decent profit to get us the down payment for our new town home.
Yes, we could have bought in Montgomery County where we worked, for lots more money, less space and more traffic. More to do, close to DC, it was a tradeoff.
We had great fun in our town home. Lots of young couples just starting out. We did pot luck dinners, including an annual crab feast, New Year’s Eve Party (great idea, all you had to do was weave your way across the cul de sac), and various other themes. The town houses held a spring and fall clean up day. And, a picnic.
We got into the Howard County Rec and Park hiking programs and walked the length of the Appalachian Trail in Maryland. All 42 miles of it, from High Rock to Harper’s Ferry. We did parts of the C&O Canal, too. And, various other hikes. We started these in 1989. They still do many of the same events.
Now, we spend just as much time outdoors, doing the bird walks, volunteering, gardening, walking, star gazing, and visiting the numerous wineries in the area. Friday nights at Black Ankle, for example, are a great evening out, to picnic, listen to music, as is Wine in the Woods and Wine in the Garden. I’ll be at both this year.
What could be better? Lovely locations. Good wine. Friendly people.
What other things can you think of, locally, that you do or did, in and around Howard County?
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AnnieRie Unplugged 