Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Valdeane Odachi!!!
Valdeane Odachi (#4860) has received a certificate of achievement in Cleaning Up for earning a Beginner Level Recycling Merit Badge!
“In our home, I have established several receptacles to make recycling easy. I have three stacking bins to separate HI-5 glass, plastic, and aluminum cans. I have a special newspaper bin for the daily paper (we often use these to build fires, though) and a separate trash can (next to our kitchen trash can) that we use for miscellaneous recyclables that we can take to our transfer station for recycling. I also have an old one-gallon bottle that we use to store old batteries. We also have a small cardboard box lined with a plastic bag to hold the ink cartridges that I take to Office Max for recycling.
At our local rubbish transfer station, we can recycle the following: glass and “mixed bin” recycling where the following are accepted: newspaper, copy paper, corrugated cardboard, plastic shopping bags, aluminum, tin, non-HI-5 glass, boxboard and plastics numbered 1, 2 and 5. (I didn’t know about every single thing until I had to earn/apply for this badge!) I wasn’t aware of the shopping bag recycling!
HI-5 (5-cent redemption) glass and plastic can be redeemed at approved stations. Most of these are located approximately 20 miles from us.
Vehicle oil can be recycled approximately 20 miles from us at the Toyota dealership. (I didn’t know this either!)
Cooking oil can be disposed of (no more than 1 gallon) with regular household trash if disposed of fully absorbed by newspaper or other material. If more than that, several companies offer disposal locally. (I will be inquiring via phone of their services, though I looked up the info online.)
Our family has been recycling for a while now, but this activity made me more aware of the areas that I need improvement in and what areas are working well. Also, this badge helped me learn about more resources available in my area!
Redeeming the 5-cent refund for cans and bottles always poses a problem, as it takes so long to build up an adequate amount to redeem. We would hate to take trips just to redeem a few cans! But keeping the cans and bottles around creates such a mess.
Batteries face a similar problem, but they take up much less real estate in the house since it’s just one gallon bottle. At least we have a designated spot that everyone in the family knows about and uses.
Overall, I believe we’ve made (and continue to make) strides toward recycling. I actually hope to decrease the amount of plastic waste we BRING IN to our home… that will mean less to take out!”
Justin Skeesuck and Patrick Gray are lifelong friends who have “pushed” the boundaries of friendship.
Justin, who helps and inspires others with disabilities through his website, The-Disabled-Traveler.com, has a rare, progressive autoimmune disorder that’s left him wheelchair-bound. But it hasn’t stopped his passion for travel.
“I’ve found that traveling is THE BEST way to experience other cultures, forge new and exciting relationships, and gain a greater understanding of yourself,” says Justin. “Yes, there are many challenges that come with that but, in the end, the experiences and memories my family and I now share has made all of my efforts worth it!” In the last 20 years, Jason has visited Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Canada, as well as many states throughout the U.S., Hawaii, and Alaska. Justin, who lives in Meridian, Idaho, with his wife and three children, has dedicated his life to sharing practical “how-to” information with other disabled travelers.
Patrick is a registered nurse and Program Manager for St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise, Idaho. Patrick and Justin were born just one day apart and have been best friends for more than 38 years. “We travel together; we live life together through our ups and downs; and most importantly, will do anything for each other,” says Patrick.
photo, IllPushYou.com
When Justin saw a travel show about hiking the mountainous 500-mile El Camino de Santiago Trail in Spain, he approached Patrick with the idea. Patrick’s immediate response? “I’ll push you!” Watch a beautiful, inspiring, 6-minute video about the journey to the journey (warning: hankie alert!):
And because they believe “there’s more to life than just sitting around complaining about the challenges we all face,” they partnered with a documentary crew who came along on their journey, capturing “every joy, struggle, challenge, landscape, and the AMAZING people we met along the way!” They’re now raising funds to finish and distribute their film at IllPushYou.com with the goal of inspiring others to realize that nothing is impossible.
“Our journey showed that if you jump out in faith, then with the help of community and with love, amazing things happen.”
Collinsville, Illinois, is known for its catsup … bottle, that is.
photo, http://www.catsupbottle.com/
Since 1949, “The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle” has drawn visitors from across the U.S. to marvel at the kitschy, 170-foot-tall roadside attraction. The bottle itself is 70 feet tall, standing on a 100-foot-tall steel base. The bottom of the bottle is 25 feet in diameter and would hold 100,000 gallons of catsup, but has instead served over the years as a water tower. It was built to mark the adjacent catsup bottling plant for “Brooks Old Original Rich & Tangy Catsup.”
The tower was restored to its original appearance in 1995 with over $100,000 in donations and named to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
But it’s now for sale, along with the adjacent warehouse. How much does the world’s largest catsup bottle cost? A rich-and-tangy half-million!
Earlier this year, spurred by proposals to build new marine mammal parks in the country, India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests banned the use of dolphins as public entertainment, citing:
“Cetaceans [dolphins, whales, and porpoises] in general are highly intelligent and sensitive, and various scientists who have researched dolphin behavior have suggested that their unusually high intelligence as compared to other animals means that dolphins should be seen as “non-human persons” and as such, should have their own specific rights and it is morally unacceptable to keep them captive for entertainment purposes.”
– Ministry of Environment and Forests, India
India has a history of making legal commitments to the animal world. In 1976, it not only added an article to its constitution “to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country,” but the article also instructed the public to “have compassion for living creatures.” In one court case about the rights of circus animals, the High Court of Kerala said, “If humans are entitled to fundamental rights, why not animals?”
India is the fourth country to ban captive cetacean shows, joining Costa Rica, Hungary, and Chile.
Scientists have studied dolphins extensively and have concluded that they exhibit self-awareness, use tools, cooperate to solve tasks, recognize themselves in mirrors, and even possibly communicate to each other using individual names.
In 2011, the American Association for the Advancement of Science authored a “Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans”:
1. Every individual cetacean has the right to life.
2. No cetacean should be held in captivity or servitude; be subject to cruel treatment; or be removed from their natural environment.
3. All cetaceans have the right to freedom of movement and residence within their natural environment.
4. No cetacean is the property of any State, corporation, human group or individual.
5. Cetaceans have the right to the protection of their natural environment.
6. Cetaceans have the right not to be subject to the disruption of their cultures.
7. The rights, freedoms and norms set forth in this Declaration should be protected under international and domestic law.
“This is a huge win for dolphins,” says Ric O’Barry of the Earth Island Institute’s Dolphin Project. “Not only has the Indian government spoken out against cruelty, they have contributed to an emerging and vital dialogue about the ways we think about dolphins: as thinking, feeling beings rather than pieces of property to make money off of.”
Sign the declaration and join a global call to have rights formally declared for cetaceans at cetaceanrights.org.
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.
