Monday, April 16, 2012

Scene This Week In…

We went tree shopping this weekend. One of the Leland Cypress trees we planted six years ago never quite took. Despite valiant efforts by Mama Wordbones to nurture the tree back to health, it continued to decline so we finally decided to take it off life support. We needed a new tree.

One of the first places we visited was Williamson’s Nursery on Frederick Road, just outside the historic district in Ellicott City. As we pulled into the nursery I noticed a building that wasn’t there last time we visited. I soon found out that this was the Williamson Snow Shack, a new snow cone stand operated by Nicole (Williamson) Tiede. Nicole told me that she opened the stand last summer “in the middle of the season.”

That's probably why I missed it. I'm early season snowball guy.
It’s a nice setting for a snowball stand, sitting out amongst the nursery stock but that also puts it a bit off the road. It would be easy to miss unless you knew it was there. Now you know.

Nicole opens for the season this Wednesday. Her hours are noon to 8 PM Monday through Saturday but she says she might stay open longer as spring turns into summer.

One of my favorite spots in Columbia is Wilde Lake Park and the path around the lake is one of HoCo’s best kept secrets.

If you haven’t discovered this spot yet, you might want to wait awhile before checking it out. The Columbia Association has now begun a long awaited dredging operation on the Wilde Lake.  It’s going to be a mess for awhile. 
I just hope the Wilde Lake dredging goes better than the Lake Elkhorn dredging did.

As a side note, Wilde Lake is one of wildlife photographer Michael Obermans favorite haunts and the subject of a new exhibit. According to this story by Michael Giuliano in Explore Howard, when looking at Obermans photos “you can't be blamed for thinking you're out in the wilderness rather than in the center of Columbia.”

The exhibit, called “The Nature of Wilde Lake…The Final Chapter,” is in the Bernice Kish Gallery at Slayton House in the Wilde Lake Village Center. It runs through April 28th

Now you know that too.
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