Raising a healthy Jane (or just being a healthy grown-up Jane) comes from good food and proper nutrition. Grab your aprons, I’m on kitchen duty with food to spare and recipes to share! When time allows, here’s where you’ll find one of my how-to-convert-to-an-organic-diet recipes.
Cindi says: I wonder if the inventors of mascara and eyeliner got the idea from looking at beautiful cow eyes.
Winnie Nielsen says: Is this Daisy’s new big boy? He is so handsome!
MaryJane says: It is! Good memory Winnie. In keeping with the flower theme, I named him Sweet William. He’s really is a very small sweet bull.
Ah, just love those jersey babies of yours! MaryJane, be on the lookout for a thank you note and more clippings.
The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 6,487 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—9,234 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ
Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …
In my pursuit of all things farmgirl, I set about helping my neighbor, Nora, earn herself a Young Cultivator’s Make It Fruity Merit Badge.
“It will be fun,” they said.
“It will be educational,” they said.
They forgot to mention that 12-year-olds have the attention spans of gnats on a sugar high, that the high temperature for this weekend was 104 degrees, and that I’m not as young as I used to be. I’m not saying that taking small children blackberry picking isn’t a delight, I’m just saying wear the right clothes and be prepared.
“Prepared for what?” you ask.
Well, bug sightings and freak-outs, blackberry stains that look alarmingly like blood (causing you to panic and start slapping bandages on your unsuspecting and confused child), ditches that try to eat grown women, and a sunburn that’s the opposite of a farmer’s tan. (Think gloves. Yeah. I now have lily-white hands, which is very ladylike of me. But they’re in stark contrast to my pink, pink arms.)
Let’s just say, I was ill prepared. But little Nora had a blast. And that’s what counts, right?
Right.
Nervous breakdowns aside.
Anyway, blackberries are delicious and grow like weeds (in fact, in Oregon, they call ‘em Oregon’s State Weed). They’re also well protected from predators and will stab you if you so much as look at them. Also, they really like growing next to ditches, as I mentioned before, and I have the twisted ankle and dirty knees to prove it. All that being said, I also have enough blackberries for pies and cobblers and to sprinkle on my morning granola, so all is not lost.
Photo by David R. Tribble via Wikimedia Commons
Nora, my sweet-pea neighbor, and I set out first thing in the morning. Well, it was supposed to be first thing, but evidently, preteens need more sleep than hibernating bears, so by the time I could roll her out of bed and get her moving, I had already had brunch, second breakfast, and pre-lunch. She, on the other hand, needed sustenance asap, as proven by her crazy eyes and extremely exciting hairdo. Her mother hastily fed her a stack of pancakes as high as a breadbox, and then also … the entire contents of her breadbox.
I was impressed with this girl already, and we hadn’t even started yet.
After that, Nora needed to “check her social media,” which took approximately 47 and one half years.
Photo by PictureYouth via Wikimedia Commons
What does a 12-year-old need with social media, I thought to myself? She obviously needed me. I too, used to be more interested in Twitter than I was in the tweets of real birds. I was more in love with shopping and the mall than I was with my kitchen and my garden. I used to use words like LOL and ROTGL in casual conversation. I knew Nora. She was my Mini Me, but before I became a farmgirl.
I could see more Merit Badges in my future with my little Jedi. I would be her Yoda! Instruct and nurture her, I would.
Even if it killed me.
It nearly did.
To be continued…
Winnie Nielsen says: Perhaps visions of days to come with your own grandchildren?? I have to admit, I find it annoying when checking Facebook supersedes anything I might have been talking about!
Cindi says: Bravo!!!! I was just reading about being creative ~ how it is not a hobby, but a way of life. I fear we all (yes, all) are beginning to think we are fulfilled by “being connected” when really we are robbing ourselves of opportunities to be creative and feel true fulfillment. I applaud your wisdom and patience! I might have taken the phone away and that would be counterproductive, to say the least. Now I hope that this delightful young girl will enjoy the fruits of her adventure ~ maybe learn how to make pie in the process. I know from my own youthful experiences that this will not only introduce her to a new love, but it will remain a fond memory. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy remembering when some adult fell in a ditch, got muddy, sunburned and had funny glove marks tattooed on them? Oh, and the freaking out over berry juice… that story will be retold many times, I’m sure!
Karlyne says: Can’t wait for Part Two!
Winnie Nielsen says: Your orchard is in full swing! What a beautiful sight with visions of delicious things to come.
Winnie Nielsen says: Delicious pears!!
Nancy Coughlin says: Wonderful seeing Mother Nature preparing her bounty for us all.
Winnie Nielsen says: Blueberries are a total delight. We have been enjoying the last of the season down here with big fat juicy berries. Totally Yum!!
Nancy Coughlin says: Love blueberries and they are in season now here in PA. Hope to ‘pick my own’ and get into the freezer for the cold winter months!
Chrissy says: We have a local blueberry u-pick farm, Lost Branch Blueberry Farm. I’ve been able to pick thirty pounds to eat and for the freezer. Also tried drying some, but the jury is still out on the method used. (Didn’t blanch them, the bigger ones look a little like full ticks, the little ones dried crispy.) Listening to the frogs and birds and kiddos while picking is pure joy. And the berries are wonderful!
Winnie Nielsen says: Ohh, I love me some raspberries all sweet and juicy!
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.
They’re HERE!!! What a pailful of beauties. Let the enjoying begin! Are these the apples you used for the photos of your canned apples recipe shown in the Ideas book? Don’t forget we have been considering making the last Sunday in September the official First Annual Farmgirl Apple Pie Sunday as part of the Jubilee Celebrations for 2015. This year it is on September 27. I’ve been crafting away recently for an apple themed giveaway for Sunday, one ROAK for my HenHouse, and an new Apple Swap idea on the Forum. While apples haven’t been growing in my yard ( BUT my little green oranges are soaking up all this rain and sunshine!!) my sewing machine, knitting needles, and craft supplies have been spread out everywhere putting little apple fun together. I still have one more idea yet to test and complete but more about that later.
On another note, a look through my apple book just now does not identify these apples for the region and time of year. My information does not show any of the late summer varieties in the Pacific Northwest region. I plan to later look on the internet to see if I can come up with some possibilities. Will let you know if I find some possible matches.
More about apples soon …