The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,130 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,150 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 Garden Gate/Grow Forth Beginner Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, I kidnapped borrowed Piper from next door and we sat down with a basket of applesauce muffins to make a list of five local eateries that make her life easier and more fun.
Turns out, ever since the Spaghetti in Her Hair Episode of 2011, Piper’s mom doesn’t frequent restaurants much these days.
Can’t imagine why …
Anyway, despite my reassurances that there is not a big poster of Piper’s face with a slash through it on every door in town, Mom decided not to come on our little Tour of Delight (as we called it).
An excuse to wander downtown and sample wares? Why, yes, please! The two of us set off with stars in our eyes and a rumbling in our tummies.
postcard, Boston Public Library via Wikimedia Commons
We ducked into a delicatessen, where Piper was shocked and awed to find she actually enjoyed a good sauerkraut; a cookie bakery that was giving out samples of mini snickerdoodles; an organic smoothie shop where we shared a mango and pineapple concoction that was quite delish; a diner that specialized in hand-cut French fries with a special and secret sauce; and a coffee bar that served up a spicy and thick hot chocolate that nearly made me swear off coffee, it was so good.
I confess, it had been a while for me as far as eating out goes. I had gotten so into growing and cooking my own grub, I’d forgotten the tiny luxury of a sandwich made by someone else, and the feeling of satisfaction I get when I know my money has gone to a local business.
I was fairly sick with remorse over my lack of attention to my town’s eateries, so I bought a dozen more snickerdoodles to calm my fretful heart. (Yup. Totally did the trick. But just in case the icky feeling came back, I purchased another basket of French fries.)
Then, our consciences abated, we made another list. This time it was for ideas for our own, imaginary food business. Well, imaginary as of right now anyway … but you never know.
Piper and Jane’s Business Ideas (Food Edition)
We eliminated a couple right off the bat (the grape rebellion will have to wait) and settled on Piper’s Pickles. Who wouldn’t want to buy a jar of homegrown pickles from a cute little stand, manned by a whippersnapper with a knack for pickling?
Now, we just wait patiently for summer …
I’m always up for celebrating any occasion with a pie. Since Farmgirl Apple Pie Sunday was on September 25th this year and I just so happened to be in the Big Apple …
… my two girlfriends and I decided to make it our mission to find an apple dessert, at the very least. With a good pair of walking shoes, we started the day with muffins from a nearby NYC bagel shop. Who buys a muffin at a NYC bagel shop!? But we started the day ready to satisfy a sweet tooth or two. Never mind they were berry muffins.
Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Ashley Edstrom!!!
Ashley Edstrom (#7053) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning an Intermediate Level Quilting Merit Badge!
“I took a class to learn the Hunter Star technique, which included using a ruler I had not tried before. I was able to use some animal fabric that had been hanging around my sewing room for years.
I worked on my project at a local quilting retreat, which included 30 other women. It was a great time, and I made enough progress on my project to come home and finish it!”
The winner of our Bright Blooms Quilt giveaway is Melly Wilson, who said:
My favorite summer, so far, was last summer, 2015. The hardest summer of my life, but the best! Hubby and I found our homestead, a 5-acre place with an old barn, a lean-to, and a shell of a small home built 50 years ago and never finished. We spent the entire summer working on getting the outside winterized … I should say hubby worked, as I was pregnant and always had my two toddler girls in tow. We struggled with how to finish the inside financially, but things came together after a month of prayer. I was so excited to get our homesteading life started, I picked up chickens from craigslist the first week we owned the place and put them in the old barn, letting them free-range during the day. Lo and behold, we had farm drama within that first month! A bobcat came through and continually wiped out my dwindling flock. Hubby finally caught sight of it during the middle of the day, jumping six feet in the air. No wonder they weren’t safe perched on top of 6-foot stalls! No matter what traps we set, we couldn’t catch the wild thing. I had to give my survivors away to friends. Only thing that kept our chickens safe the following spring was getting a set of pups. So the summer of 2015 was spent supporting my hard-working husband with food and our girly presence, drinking our well water, enjoying the weather at the base of the San Francisco peaks, having friends show up to help, and always having meals prepared at the “base camp” we called the back of our Jeep with a shelf table.
We picnicked outside all summer, spent a few nights under the stars as daddy worked away, and eventually brought the tent into the house for the girls to play in while I painted our finished walls and hubby worked tirelessly away at getting the inside of the house finished. We actually got our place finished in the nick of time, days before Christmas, and my 3rd baby girl showed up on January 14th. We got to christen our ranch home with a home birth, just as we had wanted to do when we daydreamed a year before about doing it at a new homestead, since our first two home-birth memories were now in a home we had sold. What a year 2015 was …what a summer! Hard, hard, hard, but full of precious memories!
Congratulations, Melly! Watch for an email from the farm. Thank you everyone for your lovely comments/memories. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them. Continue reading
The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,130 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,150 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 Each Other/Her-Story Beginner Level Merit Badge, I found myself stumped for a moment. Find an influential and/or powerful woman who is still alive to research.
Hmm. Seemed simple enough, but surprisingly difficult, to boot. Also, I got a little sad when random women jumped into my head, then when I Googled them, found that they had passed to their eternal reward. Sniffle. Audrey Hepburn, I’m talking to you.
Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer, while filming War and Peace. Milton H. Greene for LOOK Magazine via Wikimedia Commons.
I puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore. I racked my gray matter. I pondered and pontificated and mused. I ate some cookies. I thought some more. I drummed my fingers restlessly on my coffee table, where my latest stack of library books sat ready and waiting. I looked down.
Then, I had it!
Harry Potter’s cute, little, bespectacled face peered up at me endearingly.
J.K. Rowling!
photo by Daniel Ogren via Wikimedia Commons
Talk about influential and powerful. I mean, she singlehandedly got millions of school-aged youngsters to love books again. That’s influential. She changed the game for middle school novels. That’s powerful. And even more than that, I learned she’s pretty darn inspirational too.
Some facts about J.K. you might find as super-neato as I did:
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.
