Kylee Baumle's Blog, page 4
August 16, 2016
Want To Go See the Monarchs in Mexico? Let's GO!
As if it wasn’t exciting enough yesterday, when I announced my upcoming new book, The Monarch: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly , I’ve got more exciting news today.
I’ve mentioned that the number one thing on my bucket list is to visit the monarchs at their overwintering location in central Mexico. Each fall, they travel up to 3000 miles one way to the oyamel fir forests high in the Sierra Madre mountains. The habitat there is perfect for them to spend the winter until it’s time for them to make...
August 15, 2016
Announcing My New Book About Monarchs!
It will come as no surprise to many of you when I tell you I’m writing another book and that the subject of the book is monarch butterflies. It is now listed on Amazon and is available for pre-sale!
In my newspaper column, on Facebook, and in this blog, I’ve talked about the situation with monarchs: their decline in population, the reasons for that decline, and what we can do about it. It’s a subject about which volumes could be written, but I’m limiting my take on it to just one.
The Monarch:...
July 31, 2016
Rose Report: At Last™ Rose from Proven Winners®
Let's just get this out of the way right now: I am not a big fan of roses. But it hasn't always been that way. I've grown lots of them over the years and in the past, have staunchly defended them. I've grown hybrid teas, climbers, floribundas, miniatures, David Austins, Knock Outs, and other types that I can't remember.
My pink mini.My first roses were miniatures. I'd won one at a dinner I attended and that little pink blooming machine performed beautifully for lots and lots of years. No disea...
July 25, 2016
In a Vase on Monday: Love in a Jar
I was walking through my garden last night and saw something blooming that I knew would make a great "In a Vase on Monday" candidate. This something was something I don't grow much of, in fact, there are only two stalks of blooms of this something in my garden at present and that may likely be all I get for this year. This something is also something that I think really does look better in a vase than in a garden and I can't think of much of any other somethings that I can say something like...
July 10, 2016
New Chicks and Uh-oh . . .
Last fall, after giving our hens another year to start laying more, when they didn't, we decided to give them up to a local family, who's raising them on their farm. We're told that one of the Buff Orpingtons has turned out to be a good little mother hen, sitting on eggs that later hatched. That makes me happy.
On Easter Sunday this year, we got new chicks, eight of them again. Two Black Australorps, two Americaunas, one Buff Orpington, one Leghorn, one Rhode Island Red, and one ISA Brown. I j...
July 8, 2016
Tart Cherry Crumble Recipe - Yum!
This year, we had our first cherry harvest from the two 'Carmine Jewel' dwarf cherry shrubs we have. I'd gotten two seedlings from Gurney's at a regional GWA (Garden Writers Association) meeting in 2011, and after being gnawed to the ground one winter by rabbits, they came back like gangbusters.
I had my first experience at pitting cherries and I can tell you it was more fun than shelling peas. I don't enjoy shelling peas, which is why I no longer grow them, but pitting the cherries was anothe...
July 5, 2016
June 28, 2016
It Was an Actual Cherry HARVEST!
Back in 2011, while attending a regional GWA (Garden Writers Association) meeting in Chicago, I received a couple of small seedlings of a dwarf sour cherry shrub - 'Carmine Jewel'. Gurney's supplied them to us as part of the swag that we usually get when we attend such meetings.
I brought them home and planted them back near our apple trees. They didn't grow much the first couple of years and then those pesky wabbits chewed them off at the ground one winter. (Grrr... That's what I get for boas...
June 23, 2016
Celebrating National Pollinator Week: Food For Thought
It's no secret the pollinators are in trouble. Oh sure, you see plenty of butterflies, bees, flies, and other insects out there and even bats (yes, they're pollinators), so really, what's the big deal, right?
Consider this:
One out of every three bites of food we eat relies on pollinators.
Still not convinced?
To carry that point further, some plants require specific pollinators in order to get good production of their fruit. (And I use "fruit" in the general definition of whatever edible the pla...
May 16, 2016
In a Vase on Monday: The Tree Peonies
What a wackadoodle spring it's been. First, spring comes early, then winter returns, then it's summer, and now I'm sitting here wrapped up in a blanket in my flannel jammies, wearing my Uggs fringed moccasins to keep warm. I don't know what month it is behaving like, but it is not May.
But it is May. I know, because the peonies are blooming. I've got three types here at Our Little Acre: tree peonies (Paeonia suffruticosa), herbaceous peonies (Paeonia lactiflora), and intersectional (Itoh) peon...
