Back on Father's Day, Dad asked me if I would like to go on a bus trip with him and Mom. The YWCA in Van Wert was taking a trip to the Sandusky, Ohio area, with stops at an herb farm, winery, city gardens, a carousel museum, and a garden center. Oh, and there was ice cream involved. Dad's treat. Count me in! Yesterday, we boarded an Executive Coach bus between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. and headed northeast. We stopped at a McDonald's in Findlay for breakfast, where I had an Egg McMuffin, which is one of only two things I'll eat there. This is one thing that McDonald's gets right besides their fries.
Our first visit of the day was to Mulberry Creek Herb Farm. What a lovely place out in the country near Huron, Ohio. The owner gave us a very informative tour of his gardens there (which are all organic) and imparted lots of information we can really use.
I was on a quest for 'Kent Beauty' oregano and was disappointed that yet another place I've looked didn't have it. Mark showed me a couple of other rotundifolia oreganos that he'd recommend but didn't have for sale either, but they're all very pretty and it's late in the season so I'm really not surprised there weren't any left.
Mark informed us that if we purchased one of any plant he had for sale, we could have a second one for free. Well, who can resist a deal like that? I tried to show restraint though, and purchased Large Yellow Foxglove (Digitalis grandiflora), which is a perennial foxglove (versus the traditional biennial variety). I wanted to buy some hard-neck garlic (Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon 'Music'), but didn't see any, so I asked about it. It was curing out, but I was able to purchase two of them for planting in October.
Mulberry Creek Farms features many, many miniatures and there were charming fairy gardens planted as well as a large train landscape that had scenes peppered with miniatures that were amazingly similar to their full-sized counterparts.
After being treated to black cherry ice cream with chocolate morsels and spiced with cardamom (Yum!), we got back on the bus and headed for Sandusky.
We stopped for lunch at The Angry Trout, which overlooks Sandusky Bay, where I had salad, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, a hard roll and carrot cake for dessert.Next stop was Firelands Winery, where we viewed a video presentation about the history and business of growing grapes and winemaking in the microclimate here around Lake Erie. The grapes are grown on Isle St. George, which has a unique growing situation:
Only a mile and a half wide and even less in length, Isle St. George is crisscrossed by a network of underground limestone caves. As the warm lake water circulates through these caves, ground frost is delayed until late fall. When the fall air becomes cooler, the warm lake water heats the surrounding air and land. Before winter sets in, the lake islands enjoy a 200-day frost-free growing season, remarkable and unusual for this climate. On North Bass Island, the grapes are harvested as much as six weeks after harvesting ends on the mainland. The United States Government has recognized the area's unique climate, soil, topographic and historic conditions that produce distinctive characteristics in the grapes grown here, and has established the area from the Bass Island and the southern shore of Lake Erie - stretching from Toledo into New York State - as the Lake Erie Appellation of Origin. When a Lake Erie designation is indicated on the label of a wine, it means that the grapes used in the wine came from this specific viticulture area.¹
After tasting five of the wines they offer at Firelands, we took a tour of the facilities and took time to shop their gift shop and make wine purchases. I didn't buy any bottles of wine, although the ice wine in the slender blue bottles tempted me ($29.95 stopped me).
There were some old-fashioned blown glass ornaments I'd seen in one of their display cases upstairs but I didn't see any for sale in the gift shop. I wanted one, because most of the ornaments on our Christmas tree are this type. I asked about them and was told they were out of stock. Would they consider selling one from the display case? The sales associate quietly said, "Sure, let's go pick one out." I always say that it doesn't hurt to ask, and I now have a blown glass cluster of grapes for our Christmas tree, and this will be a nice memento of our visit to the winery.
We traveled to downtown Sandusky, where we were supposed to leave the bus and take a walking tour of the city gardens, but the weather had other plans. Due to the rain, we stayed in the bus and an employee of the city parks department narrated our mobile tour of the beautiful gardens.Adjacent to the downtown gardens was the Carousel Museum, housed in the former Post Office. We were given an informative presentation about some of the history of carousel horses and got to see an artist painting a horse that would later be won by someone who had purchased a lottery ticket for it.
Then we took a ride! I can't remember the last time I rode on a carousel, and it's amazing how such a simple thing can be so much fun.
I picked up another blown glass ornament here, of a carousel horse.Corso's in Sandusky was our next stop and it was somewhat of a feeding frenzy. I mean, you know what happens when you dump a bunch of gardeners off in a large nursery having a sale and offering you a free plant, don't you? Here's what happened to me:
Coleus 'Fishnet Stockings', Viola cornuta 'Columbine', Sedum makinoi 'Ogon'
Time to head home, but not before stopping at Toft's Dairy for ice cream. For two dollars, I got a pint of Caramel Mountain Tracks which Toft's describes as "Caramel Turtles climbing mountains of toffee ice cream flowing with streams of Mackinac Fudge and praline pecans." Oh myyyyyyyy... I couldn't finish it all so Mom did me the favor.Though tiring, it was a wonderful day with a great group of people, not the least of which were two that mean more than the world to me. Love you, Mom and Dad!
¹"Our Process", Firelands Winery website.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Ice Cream, Herbs, Wine, Horses, Plants, and Ice Cream
Posted by Kylee Baumle 8 comments
Labels: garden tours, herbs, nurseries
Saturday, January 27, 2007
The Blizzard of '78
Romie and I just finished watching an account of the Blizzard of 1978 on our local PBS Station, Channel 27. Seeing that brought back memories...
Twenty-nine years ago this weekend, I was twenty years old, working full-time as a dental hygienist in New Haven, Indiana. Romie was 24 and worked second shift at Herbert E. Orr Company in Paulding. With just 2½ years of marriage under our belts, we were still trying to get on our feet financially and securely and were not yet ready to take on the challenges of parenthood. We had just purchased our house the previous summer.
I was alone in that house, following the biggest blizzard we would likely ever see in our lifetime. On Wednesday night, January 25th, I had gone to bed around 11:30 p.m., with light snow flurries falling outside, but the weather reports predicted a blizzard was on the way. When the phone rang at 1:30 a.m. and I awoke, noticed that Romie was not beside me in bed, and heard the wind howling outside, I knew something was wrong. What was wrong was that the weather reports were right.
He was calling from my parents' house, and said he wouldn't be home that night. They lived just 2½ miles east of us, on US 127, and I wondered why he was there. He'd left work to come home and only because he'd followed a snow plow out of Paulding had he even been able to make it to their house before getting stuck. I hung up and took comfort in the fact that he was safe and warm and so was I, snug in my bed and I probably wasn't going to have to go to work the next day.
Indeed.By the weekend, it was clear that no one was going anywhere, including some that had already been on their way to somewhere. Cars were buried. Entire houses were buried. We were lucky we didn't lose power, so I watched TV, baked cookies, read books, visited the next-door neighbors, and took lots of naps. Not until Sunday afternoon, when Bill Spitzer, our county school superintendant, got out and about with his snowmobile, was Romie able to make it home. Snow plows didn't get down our road to plow us out until Monday.
As soon as we were able, we drove into Haviland to Fisher's Market to get a few groceries and there was a party going on there! A neighbor that lived a mile away from us was there and she was so glad to see everyone that walked in the door, she was hugging each and every one. It seemed like we were having a family reunion of sorts.I don't remember when we finally were able to go back to work, but we did drive around and take pictures of the incredible drifts. Some were as tall as the power lines and the roofs of houses. I remember hearing that some living near us were trapped in their homes and snow had to be shoveled away before they could get out. It was an incredible time and we were lucky that we didn't suffer any hardship from it other than a few days of lost wages.
They just don't make snowstorms like they used to.
The worst winter storm in Ohio's history struck before dawn on January 26, 1978. The "Great Blizzard of '78" continued for two days and shut down transportation, schools, and business all across Ohio, for a week in some cases. According to weather historians Thomas and Jeanne Schmidlin, it was a storm that Ohioans will never forget, one that will be a legend through the 21st century.
Rain and fog the previous evening gave little indication of the impending blizzard but forecasters saw the signs. A deepening low pressure center was moving northward toward Ohio from the Gulf of Mexico. Moist tropical air flowed northward along the Atlantic coast and, most importantly, bitterly cold arctic air marched eastward from Iowa and Illinois. Forecasters at the National Weather Service saved many lives as they issued a "Blizzard Warning" for Ohio in the pre-dawn hours.
The storm that embraced Ohio was the most powerful ever known in the state. Records for low barometric pressure were set at most locations. In their book, "Thunder in the Heartland: A Chronicle of Outstanding Weather Events in Ohio," the Schmidlins report a barometer reading of 28.28 inches at Cleveland early on January 26, 1978, the lowest pressure ever recorded in Ohio and lower than observed in most hurricanes.
The "Great Blizzard of '78" swept across Ohio on winds over 70 mph and heavy snow. An ore carrier stranded in Lake Erie ice off Sandusky reported sustained winds of 86 mph and gusts to 111 mph. Winds blew down thousands of trees and miles of electric and telephone lines. Barns and signs toppled and windows were smashed by the winds. Two people died in collapsed buildings.
Hurricane-force winds drifted the powdery snow to the peaks of houses, totally covering some in drifts 20 feet high. Cars, semi-trucks, and farms buildings disappeared under the drifts. All air, rail, and highway transportation came to a halt. Ohio's major airports closed for two days. The entire length of the Ohio Turnpike was closed for the first time in history. Interstate 75 was closed for three days.
Temperatures fell to near zero with the arrival of the arctic air and remained near 10 degrees all day. The death toll rose as motorists were stranded and home heating failed. The Schmidlins report at least 22 people died outside while struggling through the blizzard. Another 13 people were found dead in stuck cars, and 13 died in unheated homes.
Governor Rhodes summoned the Ohio National Guard in the disaster. Over 5000 men and women of the Guard were pressed into long hours of operating heavy equipment to clear roads, assisting utility crews in getting to fallen wires, transporting doctors and nurses to hospitals, and rescuing stranded persons in emergencies.
Forty-five Ohio National Guard helicopters flew 2,700 missions across Ohio working around the clock for three days. They rescued thousands of stranded persons, many in dire medical emergencies. More assistance arrived after President Carter declared a federal disaster in Ohio and dispatch 300 troops from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Toledo with arctic gear, bulldozers, and fuel tankers to rescue persons in northwest Ohio.
Shortages of bread, milk, and eggs developed quickly. State police escorted food trucks from Michigan into Toledo stores. The Red Cross bought 80,000 loaves of bread in Springfield and Ohio National Guard helicopters delivered them to isolated area communities. U.S. Coast Guard cargo planes flew 30 tons of food into Cincinnati where it was distributed to low income families.
According to Jeanne Schmidlin, "Generosity of Ohioans poured out during the Blizzard, as it has in every weather disaster." Thousands of volunteers with snowmobiles and four-wheel drive vehicles risked their lives to deliver medicine to homes, take staff to hospitals, deliver Red Cross blood, and carry electric linemen to repair downed lines.
Radio stations abandoned regular programming for two days to issue storm information and serve as communication links where electricity and telephone failed and highways were blocked. Restaurants that had electricity stayed open packing food orders for electric utility workers, stranded factory workers, and police and military rescue teams.
Agricultural losses were staggering. Dead livestock, lost production, and property and equipment damage totaled $73 million. More than 12 million pounds of milk was dumped on farms the day after the blizzard when storage and transportation were not available.
Posted by Kylee Baumle 3 comments
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Deck the Tree With Halls of Bolly . . . WHAT??
We've had various themed ornaments on our Christmas tree over the years. The tree has been elegant in its gold and silver glass balls and beaded garlands. Other years saw it bedecked with mostly Hallmark Keepsake ornaments with more of a traditional red and green color scheme. I usually asked the girls which tree they wanted each year - the fancy one or the traditional one? Guess which they liked the best?
Since they've moved out on their own, I've given many of the ornaments to them for their own trees. The last few years have seen our tree dotted with old-fashioned blown glass ornaments that I've collected from places I've visited or if I happened to find one that represented something I enjoy. You know, like gardening. Carol of May Dreams Gardens inspired this post, which shows some of my garden-related ornaments, as well as others.Two years ago, Kara and Jenna gave me this Willow Tree "Angel of the Garden" ornament. They also got me the figurine, which I keep out all year round on my computer desk.
I really love the Willow Tree ornaments and figurines, especially the Nativity set. But we already have a Nativity set in Precious Moments that was given to me when the girls were very small.
The same year they gave me the Willow Tree garden angel, they also gave me another figurine, which was the angel holding a cat ("With Affection"). I've got one with an angel holding a book, too ("Angel of Wisdom"), which represents one of my other great loves - reading.
When one of the online stores had their Christmas ornaments marked down last year - before Christmas! - I bought this blown glass amaryllis -There are fruits and vegetables...
This past July, I went on a bus trip with my parents and we toured Firelands Winery in Sandusky. I managed to talk one of the sales associates into selling me an ornament of a bunch of grapes from one of their display windows. This spring, we're going to be planting some grape vines of our own.
Have you heard of The Legend of the Pickle? When we toured Swinney Homestead in Fort Wayne, Indiana many years ago, I learned about this and bought one of the glass pickle ornaments they had for sale in their gift shop. I've seen them in lots of places since.
In addition to these garden ornaments, there are several birds on our tree. A cardinal, of course, since it's our state bird and we see and hear them all the time...
And just as no garden is complete without a cat, my tree wouldn't be either, so there are several kitties hanging alongside the birds, such as this Hallmark one.
I'll be keeping my eyes open for other ornaments that may be marked down after Christmas. I can always use one or two (or three) more!
EDIT: Less than 20 minutes after publishing this post, I just "happened" to come across these. A tad bit pricey for me, but fun to dream about. *sigh*
Posted by Kylee Baumle 15 comments
Labels: just for fun
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
That Hurt You A Lot More Than It Hurt Me!
Back when our girls were in Junior High School, they were required to do leaf collections. When I was their age, it was a bug collection that our science teacher wanted and no one was more excited than I was when I found a Buffalo Treehopper (Stictocephala bisonia). What a cool bug! I found it in our neighbor's huge garden. In fact, I found most of my collection there.
I never had to do the leaf collection, so it was kind of fun, running the girls all over kingdom come, trying to find all the different ones on their list. A park in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, went a long way towards helping Jenna find hers. She had a tryout for a travel softball team at Harrison Smith Park, where they have many of their trees labeled.During the course of her leaf collection, I was the one who fell in love with various trees and their leaf shapes, and made a list of those that I wanted to acquire - Ginkgo, Tulip Poplar, and Sweet Gum. The Sweet Gum (Liquidambar sp.) was the first to put roots down here at Our Little Acre. It was about about four feet tall when we planted it and the next few years saw little growth. It appeared to be merely existing and finally, one summer the leaves just dried up and fell off, so due to its myriad of past problems, we figured the tree had died.
Romie tried to dig it up, but it had too many roots and it wasn't going to be easy, so he decided to just cut it off low on the trunk and get to the rest of it sometime later. Well, you know how that goes. I don't remember how much later it was - maybe even the next spring - but when he did get back to it, he called me over to have a look. That tree had started growing from below where he'd cut it!
We decided to let it go and see what it would do and what it has done over the last few years is grow into a nice tree. It's much nicer than it ever was before it was cut. The leaves aren't deformed, the bark looks normal, and it has grown several inches every year. It turns a beautiful red color in the fall.
As long as you don't look closely at its feet, you'd never know it had such a struggling start. If you do look closely, you'll see fall-blooming crocus coming up at its base. Maybe someday we'll have some spiny fruit from the Sweet Gum lying there.The fruit of the Sweet Gum, which I call gumballs, is one of the fascinating things about the tree, although I've heard many people grumble about them. They're round and spiny and turn brown when they're ready to fall off the tree. There is a species of Liquidambar that doesn't produce fruit, however, and we may have one of those. Since Sweet Gum trees don't produce fruit until they're 20-30 years old, it will be some time before we know what we have.
____________________
Photo of Buffalo Treehopper from Wikimedia Commons.
Photo of Sweet Gum fruit from Missouri State University.
Posted by Kylee Baumle 14 comments
Labels: trees
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Time To Plant the Garlic
When I went on the bus trip to Sandusky in July, I purchased two heads of Hard Neck Garlic at Mulberry Creek Herb Farm for planting this fall. Since I'd never grown garlic before, I had to look up how to plant it. After spending needed curing time in our basement, Friday was the day. Still enough warm weather left for it to get rooted in for winter, yet not take off and grow outright.
I had to break each head apart, which yielded a total of 15 individual cloves. It is recommended not to do this more than 48 hours prior to planting for best results. One of the cloves looked as though it had started to shrivel or rot or something, but I planted it anyway, just in case it was good to grow.
I dug a trench deep enough to plant each clove - roots down and tips up - so that the tip would be about two inches below the surface when I covered them up with soil. I placed them about 4-6 inches apart and folded the soil over them.
I watered them in, then marked the row so we wouldn't forget they were there next spring when we work up the soil for planting.
Hard neck garlic is especially suited for growing in colder climates like ours and when they put up their uniquely curly scapes next spring, I can cut them and make some of those yummy-looking recipes I saw other bloggers fixing this year.
Another new adventure in gardening has begun!
Posted by Kylee Baumle 1 comments