Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Sherrilyn Askew!!!
Sherrilyn Askew (#1350) has received a certificate of achievement in Farm Kitchen for earning an Expert Level Unprocessed Kitchen Merit Badge!
“I hosted an “unprocessed” party and helped my sisters discover ways to make some of their favorite processed foods organically, specifically candy canes. Candy is as much art as science, hard candy especially. The key is in the temperature. We did one batch with beet juice and one with cranberry juice, and the color difference, as well as the flavor difference, was significant.
We had a bit of a learning curve about kitchen thermometers (meat thermometer vs. candy thermometer), and the importance of having an accurate one. One batch of candy turned out fine, but the other batch burned. Candy canes with cranberry juice tastes delicious, though.
We talked about divinity and caramels, and the problems encountered making each one (granularity) and how to prevent them.
Candy making is an art, and homemade candy with organic ingredients is the bees’ knees.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), of the 243 million turkeys raised in the U.S. this year, about 45 million of them ended up on our Thanksgiving tables.
The American Farm Bureau Federation reports that Americans paid approximately $49.87 on average for a Thanksgiving Day meal for 10 people. In 2015, the average retail price for turkey was $1.45/pound (up from $.99/pound in 1995). But in a survey about pricing this year, while 29 percent of Americans said that less than $1.50 per pound was a fair price for turkey, nearly the same percent of respondents said they would pay $5 or more per pound. Sounds like more folks are going organic for the holidays!
organicprairie.com
Find organic turkeys at OrganicPrairie.com.
Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Cyrie Wilson!!!
Cyrie Wilson (Pixiedustdevil, #6941) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning a Beginner Level Scrapbooking Merit Badge!
“Instead of making a scrapbook (too expensive!) I made a shadowbox collage. My father and I went to Universal Studios Hollywood and the WB studio tour. We had planned this trip for a year.
I papered over the backing of the frame with acid-free paper, and used acid-free glue and ink. I printed a few photos to wallet size, wrote a few funny stories on labels, and gathered trinkets from the trip.
After assembling the collage, I papered the back and stapled the backing to the frame with a staple gun.
It was difficult to fit so much into such a small collage. There wasn’t even a backboard on the frame, so I had to measure and cut one. Aside from that, it turned out well.”
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.
