As one of the premier providers of environmental education in the Palouse area of eastern Washington and northern Idaho, The Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute (PCEI) that I founded way back in 1986 is always looking for new and creative ways to get people of all ages out and exploring the natural world.
That’s why this year, PCEI is offering STREAM Team—a week-long summer experience for girls entering their 7th-10th grade years that focuses on the STREAM fields: Science, Technology, Restoration, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics.
Coordinated and led by a team of female PCEI instructors, this program will feature outdoor application experiences with female community mentors who are professionals in the STREAM fields. They will share their journeys through STREAM—how they overcame the gender disparity in these fields, how their work helps the environment, and how we can do similar things with our lives.
When: Monday, June 27 to Friday, July 1, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: The PCEI Nature Center, 1040 Rodeo Drive, Moscow, Idaho (downtown pick-up and drop off available)
Cost: $50 (payment plans and scholarships are available; inquire at learning@pcei.org)
APPLICATIONS DUE APRIL 22, 2016
Find more information and application forms at http://www.pcei.org/stream-team.
The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 6,861 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—9,721 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane
Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …
For this week’s Out There Kids/Park Place Beginner Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, I channeled my inner child (and also Nora and Andy) and we went to the park.
Not having had kiddos myself, I was totally immersed and enjoying the whole “playdate” experience. I mean, I’ve scheduled playdates for my doggies and maybe one or two for the chickens (Chickens are social creatures, too, you know!), but I hadn’t seen any human ones in action. There were mommies sipping on lattes while their offspring climbed trees and daddies taking business calls while their little ones went down the slides. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting.
If Norman had had Andy and Nora with him, though, his paintings might have been a little less perfect. More like they were painted by a totally distracted adult being run ragged by two adorable urchins. Did Norman have children? Must Google that.
photo by David R. Tribble via Wikimedia Commons
Anyway …
Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Wendie George!!!
Wendie George (#6918) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning a Beginner Level UFOs Merit Badge!
“This is a great badge to earn. It’s a real feel-gooder. It feels great to finish a project that has been nagging at you.
The first part was a bit intimidating. Organizing and putting all my UFOs each into their own container or bag was a bit of work. It has started the whole process of cleaning and reorganizing my entire craft room. This is also a good thing. I purchased a bunch of clear plastic totes and placed one project into a tote/box. I then made the list of any supplies still needed to finish it and put the list inside the box on top of the supplies. I had a bunch of chalkboard stickers, so I put one on the front of each box and labeled the box with the project inside. While cleaning, I also made a box labeled “donation” for projects I no longer had interest in doing.
The second part was to finish one of the UFOs. I chose to finish a baby quilt for a coworker that I started about a month ago. The quilt top was pieced together, but that’s as far as I had gotten.
I feel I have succeeded in bagging and tagging all my UFOs. I also made a quick list of them all so I could start to cross it off. I am not going to admit the total number of UFOs on the list. I will just steadily work at finishing them while not creating more. Today I mailed the box of donation items to my Aunt. She is heavily involved with the church and many other quilters and aspiring quilters. I will let her spread out the projects to others who are willing to complete them (most were never started).
I started to finish the quilt by sandwiching the top to the cotton batting with a teal minky backing. I chose a quick method of quilting the layers together, “stitch in the ditch.” I used my machine for this. I added the pieced binding onto the front by machine, and hand-quilted it to the back. The final step to complete the quilt was to embroider a tag for the back. I have a Viking machine that kindly embroiders the words for me. I then hand-sewed the tag onto the back. One UFO down, a “few” to go!”
If you’re passionate about pollinators, then you probably know that butterflies love milkweed.
Photo by Barnes Dr Thomas G, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, via Wikimedia Commons
But here’s a trickier bit of trivia:
Why are butterflies called butter flies?
(As a Butters, I simply had to know.)
Butterflies, it is said, earned their name back when they would flutter around the milk pails and butter churns on farms.
milkmaid, G. Morland via Wikimedia Commons
Makes sense, but also makes you wonder why these aren’t called milklappers (buckettippers?) …
Photo by David Maitland via Wikimedia Commons
Anymoooo …
Here’s a cute 1935 classic called “Molly Moo-Cow and the Butterflies,” just for fun:
Buy props used in MaryJane’s books and magazine!
5% of profits will benefit www.firstbook.org, a non-profit that provides new books to children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Here’s how:
MaryJane will post a photo and a description of a prop and its cost along with a few details as to its condition here: https://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/MaryJanesCurations. It’s a playful way to be the new owner of a little bit of farm herstory.
