Alpha Ridge Park Six New Pickleball Courts — 2026-07-10

Friday morning: partly sunny then chance showers and thunderstorms, high near 90 degrees. West wind 5 to 8 mph.

Good morning. Friday, July 10. Six new pickleball courts are open at Alpha Ridge Park. Howard County students are growing fresh produce inside their schools with hydroponic gardens. The county is waiving residential wood waste fees while everyone clears storm debris. And Glory Days Grill is closing two more Baltimore-area locations. This is your morning brief for Howard County.

County Executive Calvin Ball opened six new pickleball courts at Alpha Ridge Park in Marriottsville. The courts are open now. It's the county's latest dedicated pickleball capacity as demand for the sport keeps climbing — and a real addition for the west county, where Alpha Ridge is the anchor park. Court details and hours are in the county release at howardcountymd.gov.

Howard County students are growing fresh produce inside their schools using hydroponic gardening systems. The county health department highlighted the program this week — students raise greens in soil-free growing towers and harvest food they helped plant. Program details are on the county health page at howardcountymd.gov.

Glory Days Grill is closing two more Baltimore-area restaurants, the Baltimore Sun reports. Which locations — and whether any Howard County spots are affected — is in the Sun's story. The chain's regional footprint keeps shrinking.

Manor Hill Brewing runs its Pizza Trolley next Friday, July 17 — the restored trolley from Old Ellicott City serving Neapolitan-style pizzas from a custom brick oven. Cheese, pepperoni, and rotating creative pies. Details at manorhillbrewing.com.

Today at the library. Sewing Machine Basics for Absolute Beginners at East Columbia, ten to eleven thirty. Time For Us toddler play and learn at Elkridge at nine thirty. Picture Book Parade with a craft at Savage at ten. Play Partners for infants at Glenwood at ten. And Little Learners Storybook Friends at East Columbia at ten thirty.

Also today. Howard County is waiving residential wood waste fees after the storms — free drop-off for storm debris; details are in the Patch report. Conduit Street, the Maryland counties blog, covered Howard County's new twenty-four-seven overdose prevention vending machines — the rollout is drawing statewide attention. Thursday's severe thunderstorm watch capped another stormy week across Maryland, with heat and humidity feeding mid-afternoon storms. On the market in Columbia: a listing at 7263 Swan Point Way Unit 16-5 in zip two-one-oh-four-five, and another at 5449 High Tide Court in two-one-oh-four-four — both on Realtor.com. In Baltimore, four Charles Village buildings are targeted for demolition to make way for Johns Hopkins student housing. Baltimore's twenty-second annual short play festival, Variations on Silence, stages twelve new ten-minute plays from local playwrights. In Poplar Hill, an open house runs Saturday from noon to one thirty at 1110 Bryn Mawr Road — listed at eight hundred seventy-five thousand by Cindy Conklin and Sally Pfaeffle. Beetlejuice the Musical returns to The National in Washington. And with the World Cup mid-tournament, English speakers across the country are tuning into the Spanish-language broadcasts.

This weekend. Baltimore's Variations on Silence short play festival stages twelve new ten-minute plays from local playwrights. Saturday in Poplar Hill, an open house at 1110 Bryn Mawr Road runs noon to one thirty. And Beetlejuice the Musical is playing at The National in Washington.

Here's what I'm watching. Six pickleball courts at Alpha Ridge is the county reading demand correctly — that sport has outgrown every shared court it's borrowed. The hydroponic gardens are my favorite story of the week: kids eating lettuce they grew inside a school hallway. And the wood-waste fee waiver is the quiet, useful follow-through after a brutal storm stretch — if you've got limbs down, this weekend is the time to haul them. Storms come back after three today. Get the yard work done early. Back Monday.

That's today's brief. Full edition at hocobrief.com — newsletter, archive, send tips. I'm at the desk. Have a good weekend. See you Monday morning.