Festivals, Donuts, and Real Estate

 

I may have mentioned before that I do not transition well from REM sleep to blogging. Today is one of those days.

I put out a call for bits and pieces about Owen Brown yesterday. Two kind folks obliged me:

There are two "inns" in OB now! They are on Snowden behind the AAA and Grotto's. The only thing I heard about schools was that there was supposed to be an ES built on the land next to Hopewell Pool. But I learned that this parcel of land was later deemed to small to build a school. 

(But why was all the commercial development shifted from Broken Land to Snowden? I want to know.)

And:

The high school was supposed to go where the library is, but of course we ended up not giving every village a high school. I’ve there was talk of putting a swim center at the dock area near the lake, across from McDonalds. 

I stopped by the Owen Brown 50th Birthday celebration, mostly to meet chair of the OBCA Board, Michael Golibersuch. It was the perfect day for the largely outdoor event, the kind of day that Oakland Mills would have ordered for their Fall festival if that were possible. Ah well. I will not begrudge other villages their good-weather days.

The Owen Brown Community Center is set into a large, grassy area which works incredibly well for the kind of carnival-esque events like yesterday’s. The array of inflatable play structures was impressive. (There were also activities going on inside the Community Center building as well.) I love how the Oakland Mills Community Center at the Other Barn is an integral part of the Village Center, but, let’s face it - - we have no grassy area suitable for bouncy castles. 

My other adventure yesterday was a trip to Frank’s produce in Elkridge. I had been tipped off in an online group that I would find Apple Cider Donuts there. I have a weakness for apple cider donuts, having been introduced to the seasonal treat when I was a student at Mount Holyoke College. The donuts from 

Atkins Farms in Amherst are legendary.

I’m a bit embarrassed that I bypassed all the gorgeous produce at Frank’s and headed straight for the display of apple cider donuts from Baugher’s in Westminster. But I was on a mission. 

A humorous postscript: I can’t remember if I have written about this here already. Humor me. 

Our realtor has started sending me weekly emails with suggestions of houses that fit my requirements. This would be fine except for one little thing.

We aren’t looking for a house. 

And then I figured it out. I like to look at Columbia/HoCo houses online. For fun. And my searches on this realtor’s website have triggered something-or-other. You know: cookies.

So far almost none of the houses are in our preferred location and most are well beyond our means. We’re pretty clear we would never leave Oakland Mills. Yesterday I looked through this week’s suggestions and for the first time one of the offerings set off all my internal “house love” sensors. Guess what? It was in Owen Brown.

We are still not looking for a house. We are still not considering leaving Oakland Mills. But, on the way home from buying those apple cider donuts, I popped in the Royal Farms and bought a lottery ticket. You never know. If I were to win 454 million I could afford to have the house moved to Oakland Mills.