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.
Tag Archives: MaryJane’s Farmgirl Sisterhood
MBA Jane: Entrepreneurial Spirit
Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …
Well, the first thing I had to do to earn my Entrepreneurial Spirit Badge was figure out how to spell the dang thing. I like to write down my adventures in badges, you know, and I’ve been trying to better myself by not abusing spell check. (I like to think of spell check as an over-worked, under-paid serf, residing in my laptop). So, anyway, about 10 years later, I got the spelling of entrepreneurial right. And I’ll never forget it.
On to the actual badge. (Would a badge about starting a gardening business be a entremanure badge?)
Rocking Out
Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …
My first thought: now this is an unusual badge.
My second thought: this is a badge I can rock!
My third thought: I got rhythm … I got music … who could ask for anything more? Well, a girl could ask for Gene Kelly, but I’m realistic.
A whole merit badge on music; I am sooo ready for this.
I was sooo over confident.
Turns out I’m not as melodiously gifted as I once thought. I mean, yeah, I can peg the winner of American Idol three weeks in, sure, and I can nail a few childhood campfire songs. And you can bet I’m a good go-to karaoke partner, but REALLY knowing the ins and outs of crooning? Well, surprisingly enough, there’s more to it than I originally thought.
Horse Dreams
Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …
I already told you about my love affair with horses (well, okay, more a love affair OF horses. The other isn’t quite right if you stop to think about it) so when I saw a way to earn a Merit Badge equestrian style, you better believe my boots were on before you could say “giddy up!”
And I’m not kidding around about the boots. Cowgirl boots are one of the best fashion statements EVAH. And they never go out of style! Boots with shorts, boots with fluffy skirts, boots with jeans; is there anything they don’t complement? I think not.
All dressed up, I headed out on a little Pony Scavenger Hunt, so to speak. I brought along a few horse books from the library, my binoculars, camera, and my cowgirl spirit. I figured driving along the back country roads, top down, wind in my hair, spying for my favorite animal in the entire world, was a pretty good way to spend my afternoon! I decided each time I saw a horse, I would look up its breed and jot it down in my journal. And who knows, maybe I’d get lucky and get to meet an owner who liked to share his livestock … you know? Just a turn or two around the corral?
Thumbing through my book, I realized I hadn’t known as much about the animal as I had originally thought. Turns out, owning every My Little Pony ever made doesn’t give you a real foundation for knowledge of the breeds.
My first lightbulb moment was learning that a pony isn’t a pony. I mean, a PONY is a pony, but a baby horse is a foal! Wha?? I know. I was just as confused as you are now. You aren’t confused? Well, humor me. Anyway, turns out a pony is an actual breed, not just a miniature horse. A Miniature Horse is a miniature horse. Are you with me? Hang on; the ride’s about to get even bumpier. Stallions don’t have to be black. Who knew, right? You knew? Fine. Now I know, too.
At the end of my drive, I had a journal list of the horses I’d seen and identified, a yearning for a Palomino all my own (or maybe an Appaloosa), and a database of new words like
Dressage
Withers
Lunging
Gait
Gelding
Hand (for measuring how tall a horse is; one hand=4 inches)
Hackamore
My list of horse friends was growing, too. On it, I had
American Paint Horse
American Quarter Horse
Pinto
Arabian
Appaloosa (swoon!)
Thoroughbred
American Saddlebred
Peruvian Paso
Tennessee Walking Horse
Morgan
Clydesdale (made me want to be pulled on a sleigh while singing Christmas carols, but maybe that’s just me)
Belgian
Percheron
Palomino (squeal!)
I even got lucky and set up a riding lesson with the owner of an adorable Quarter Horse named Spunky. Spunky and I are going to be good friends; I can feel it. She even matches my boots.
Farm Kitchen: Dad’s Baked Beans
Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …
The other day, I got to thinking. I know. It happens sometimes, usually when I least expect it. I was thinking, pondering, marinating if you will, on food. Yup. Food. That glorious stuff I’m really learning to enjoy mightily now that I’ve taken the plunge to really notice what I’m putting in my body. And you know what they say: You are what you eat. For too many years, I was a Big Mac with fries and a Diet Coke. Now I’m more of a veggie pita with iced sun tea!
So, anyway, I was thinking about food from my past. Like, for example, that red velvet cake I had for my seventh birthday, Uncle Bill’s chocolate chip cookies, Midge’s waldorf salad, Gramma Barbie’s pot roast, Mom’s eggnog, and Dad’s baked beans. You know, food that has a specific time and date and memory attached to them? Yeah, those kinds. Eggnog from 1994, that’s what I’m looking for … figuratively speaking, of course.
