Author Archives: maryjane

Hear Ye!

Posted on January 2, 2015 by maryjane

Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Nancy Boyd!!!

Nancy Boyd (#2508) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning a Beginner Level Spinning Merit Badge!

“Ever since I was little and was in a couple 4-H groups growing up and spending time around the animal barns and fairgrounds, I remember seeing ladies spinning on their wheels in the sheep barns. My aunt and uncle had sheep when I was growing up, and that added to my fascination for wanting to learn to spin. Within the last three years, I joined the local Weaver’s Guild in the Columbus, Ohio, area. In the last year, I have purchased around 8 sheep fleeces so I could learn to scour and card the fiber.

Then I used the fiber to work on learning to use both the drop spindle and wheel to spin up some yarn for me to use. I now have these 8 fleeces in plastic containers, and on one of them, I have been practicing doing my carding both by hand and drum. The fleece that I have carded has turned out gorgeous. Even my cousin who raised and showed sheep said it felt soft.

GEDC0006

This past August (2014), I participated in the Sheep to Shawl demonstration at the Ohio State Fair, where I worked on carding fleece while other ladies worked on spinning and weaving items while there was a sheep shearing contest going on at the same time in the same ring. It was a lot of fun. One of the guild members helped me out to fine tune my approach to carding. This past week, I sat down and watched a DVD on Carding Wool that had four different individuals on it and how they carded wool. While watching the DVD, I carded some fiber, trying each of these individual methods to see which way I preferred to card.

The whole process turned out great. I did settle on one way to card some fiber. Watching the DVD and the help from one of our guild members has helped me improve on carding fibers. Now I just need to keep practicing and carding all this fine fiber that I purchased and scoured. I will save and use some for my dyeing badge, and spin some to use for my other spinning badges. I am so excited to finally learn a new craft that has been on my bucket list before it was called a bucket list.”

photo-of-the-day

Posted on January 1, 2015 by maryjane

farm-romance_Snowball_Fight

photo-of-the-day

Posted on December 31, 2014 by maryjane

Farm_Romance-7316

photo-of-the-day

Posted on December 30, 2014 by maryjane

farm_romance-4077

Mad Honey

Posted on December 30, 2014 by maryjane

Are you mad for honey?

Photo courtesy National Honey Board, Honey.com

Did you love our tour of worldwide beehives earlier this year? Well then, you’ll want to hop aboard the Jane train as we venture off to the Black Sea region of Turkey in search of a mysterious variety of mountain honey that may be as treacherous as it is tantalizing …

Photo by Dr. Zeynel Cebeci via Wikimedia Commons

As we arrive in the beautiful port of Gulburnu, a small seaside village in Turkey’s Giresun province, the scenery looks peaceful and picturesque. Not a trace of … madness. Let’s have a look around. Hmmm … all is quiet as we ascend the slopes above town.

Photo of mountains on Turkey’s Black Sea coast by Gardenlantern via Wikimedia Commons

Who might we ask about the honey known locally as deli bal … Hello? Excuse me, can you tell us where we might find deli bal? HELLO!?

Photo by Ziegler175 via Wikimedia Commons

Can you imagine? They never even stopped to look at us! Perhaps that’s the reaction we should expect when asking about a type of honey that has, at least once in history, been used as a weapon of war.

It’s true.

“In 67BC, King Mithridates’ army left chunks of ‘mad honeycomb’ in the path of the Roman enemy, who gobbled it up, lost their minds, and were promptly slain,” reports The Guardian.

Photo by Skrissh2013 via Wikimedia Commons

Deli bal, or orman komar bali (rose of the forest honey), is rare regional honey produced by the pollination of certain rhododendron varieties that contain a natural poison called grayanotoxin.

Photo of toxic Turkish Rhododendron luteum by Karduelis via Wikimedia Commons

According to Emma Bryce of Modern Farmer, “In Turkey, not only do the poisonous rhododendrons abound, but the humid, mountainous slopes around the Black Sea provide the perfect habitat for these flowers to grow in monocrop-like swaths. When bees make honey in these fields, no other nectars get mixed in—and the result is deli bal, potent and pure.”

Photo of toxic Turkish Rhododendron ponticum by Karduelis via Wikimedia Commons

While “mad honey” is rarely fatal, consuming more than minute amounts can cause low blood pressure, heartbeat irregularity, nausea, numbness, blurred vision, fainting, potent hallucinations, and seizures.

No wonder no one wants to tell us where to find it! Mum’s the word …

Photo by Seattle Globalist via Wikimedia Commons

“People believe that this honey is a kind of medicine,” Süleyman Turedi, a doctor at Turkey’s Karadeniz Technical University School of Medicine, told Bryce. “They use it to treat hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some different stomach diseases.” He went on to say that deli bal is taken in small amounts, sometimes boiled in milk, and consumed typically just before breakfast.

That is, if you dare.

“If you do find yourself in the area and want a taste, you’ll have to dig a bit deeper than supermarket shelves,” Bryce advises. “Ask nicely, and chances are most local shopkeepers will hand over a jar from a stash tucked behind the counter, adding to the old-world mystery of it all.”

So, tell me … would you dare?

photo-of-the-day

Posted on December 29, 2014 by maryjane

Farm_Romance-7077

And …

Posted on December 29, 2014 by maryjane

Recently, I noticed a new store in Moscow called Ampersand. According to their website, it’s an “Oil & Vinegar Tap House.” They offer infused oils and vinegar from around the world on tap, along with other specialty grocery items. But the name seems to stump some passersby. I overheard two people trying to pronounce it and wondering aloud what it could mean.

Ampersand is a fancy word for a common symbol … the “and” sign.

photo, http://blog.dictionary.com/ampersand/

And, seems like it’s been everywhere lately … it popped up on Dictionary.com the other day when I was checking the spelling of some obscure word under a heading titled “What Character Was Removed from the Alphabet?”. Dictionary.com goes on to tell us that the symbol “&” was first used by Roman scribes in the 1st century, when they linked the two letters of “and” in Latin, “et,” in a kind of early shorthand. And the symbol was actually part of the alphabet in early English, coming after the Z at the end of the alphabet (X, Y, Z, &). But when reciting the alphabet, it was confusing to have the word “and” at the end … and … what?

So students reciting the alphabet used the words “per se” (by itself) to clarify: “X, Y, Z, and per se &.”

and-per-se-and … ampersand!

photo-of-the-day

Posted on December 28, 2014 by maryjane

Farm_Romance-6736

photo-of-the-day

Posted on December 27, 2014 by maryjane

farm_romance-7088-2

Story Prompts

Posted on December 27, 2014 by maryjane

Do you know Frederick? He has big ears, sleepy eyes, and a rather prominent tail.

Oh—maybe I forgot to mention—Frederick is a mouse. He’s the unlikely hero of a lovely little book by Leo Lionni called … you guessed it:

It’s a children’s book, but I really don’t like making such a rigid distinction because, hey, we’re all kids at heart, right? And this tiny gem speaks volumes to literature lovers, no matter what age.

Frederick, you see, is considered among his mischief (i.e. mouse tribe) to be a layabout loafer. In the eyes of his hardworking companions, he appears to shirk his pre-winter duties—stockpiling grain and the like—in favor of daydreaming.

“Frederick, why don’t you work?” they ask. “Are you dreaming?”

Image courtesy of Story Philosophy blog

But in fact, Frederick is working, in his own way. Instead of corn and nuts, he’s gathering words.

Words? How can words possibly be as important to winter survival as food?

That’s for Frederick, in all his marvelously mousy wisdom, to tell …

Winter may be upon us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start collecting sunbeams and colors and words right now. This season of togetherness is the perfect time to share the intangible treasures of poetry, songs, and stories. But if you don’t have a friendly Frederick around to gather goodies, the next best thing is a good story prompt. A prompt is a preliminary nugget of an idea that sparks the telling of a tale, and thanks to the Internet, prompts are easy to come by. Take a look at the sites below, collect some tidbits that tantalize the imagination, and jot them on separate scraps of paper. Then gather your loved ones (big and small) for an old-fashioned storytelling session that will brighten even the darkest of winter’s nights.

Author Archives: maryjane

Archive of Posts