Kylee Baumle's Blog, page 16

Maple Water: Drink to Your Health!

We've been collecting maple sap for about three weeks now and with only three maple trees large enough for tapping, I had no idea we'd get as much as we've gotten.  We've collected 35 gallons of sap so far and it's still flowing. I'm pretty sure that all three trees that we tapped are silver maples, which is fourth in line for sugar content. The usual ratio of sap to syrup is about 40:1, but ours is running more like 25:1, meaning it takes about 25 gallons of sap to make one gallon of sy...

Wordless Wednesday: First Spring Bloom...Snowdrops

The only brave souls in a northwestern Ohio garden that feels like spring forgot...

Double Snowdrops
Galanthus nivalis 'Flore Pleno'
Zone: 3-9Height: 4-6 inches Light: Light Shade to Full SunBloom:  Late Winter/Early SpringOther: Flowers are fragrant. Ephemeral. Naturalizes.

What Was Your First Tweet on Twitter?

While I'm not as active on Twitter as I was, I still show up there on occasion as @OurLittleAcre.  I've had a sort of on again, off again kind of love affair with it, but for some it's the social media tool of choice.  I'm a big fan of Facebook because it's so much easier to follow, but yes, I know...they aren't the same and each has its place in the social media world.

It's kind of like cats and dogs.  One really isn't better than another, just different. Both make wonderful pe...

The Tuileries in Toledo - Ooh La La! (And a Giveaway)

Don't they say that we never take advantage of the opportunities that are in our own backyard? I've been guilty of this, over and over. We might know that something exists, but it will always be there and there's always a better time to go see it or do it than now.  Right?

No, not always.

The Toledo Museum of Art
Stegosaurus by Alexander Calder
1972-73
Tuesday, my mom and I traveled an hour and a half northeast to visit the Toledo Museum of Art. It was only my second visit to the museum, the...

The Green Cycler: A Review

We've been recycling at our house for many years now. It just seems second nature when disposing of things to go to the garage and put them in the proper bin: glass, paper, aluminum, plastic. We never forget and if I'm upstairs and happen to finish a Diet Mountain Dew, I have feelings of guilt if I'm tempted to toss the can into the trash up there, so I carry it down with me and put it in its proper place.

Composting food items hasn't been ingrained in me for that long, however. It's only been...

Sap 'n' Tap - What's Next?

I shared my first experience of tapping maple trees two weeks ago, but that was only half of the story.  We are still collecting sap from two different maples (the third just wouldn't give us any, for whatever reason), and because we only have five jugs for storing the sap, I had to start processing it into something.

My initial intention was to make maple syrup. Though it's recommended that you boil your sap outside because of all the steam it produces, I wanted to do it via stove top. I...

Happy Pi(e) Day! (And a Scrumptious Pecan Pie Recipe)

I loved math in high school.  I'm not kidding, I really did.  And I got As in Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra II, which shouldn't be surprising, because anyone who loves math is probably going to be good at it

So it probably doesn't surprise you that I can remember pi (π) to five places after the decimal: 3.14159.  Or that the area of a circle is equal to πr².  Why I remember those things is beyond me, because in the 40 years since I've graduated from high school, I've never...

Join the "Farewell to Winter" Party on Facebook!

We're supposed to get hit with yet another big snowstorm tomorrow here in Northwest Ohio.  They're saying we could get 6-8 inches of new snow, which is on top of the snow we're trying to get rid of.  We've got drifts all over the yard that will be here for a while, simply because they were so high and it's been so cold for so long.

Yep.  This is what my garden looks like right now.
Today, we were well into the 50s and yesterday was pretty nice too.  The maple sap was running...

My First Experience at Tapping Maple Trees

Last year about this time, we drove past a nearby home and I noticed several silver buckets hanging from one of their large trees in their front yard. I recognized that they were collecting sap from their maple trees, most likely to make maple syrup. "That looks like an interesting thing to try," I thought to myself, but I knew it was getting late in the season to start collecting sap of my own, so I filed the activity away for something to do the next year.

Months passed, and I never gave the...

Wordless Wednesday: Aglaonema Red

 Chinese EvergreenAglaeonemaZones 10-12One of the easiest houseplants EVER

Featured on page 115 of Indoor Plant Decor: The Design Stylebook For Houseplants