Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Joan Hendrix!!!

Joan Hendrix (#6465) has received a certificate of achievement in Garden Gate for earning a Beginner Level Backyard Farmer Merit Badge!

“My husband and I built a chicken coop this past spring. We attended city council meetings to change the ordinance so we would not violate the “one chicken rule.” In June, I became “mom” to 4-month-old chicks. I’ve read four books and planted herbs with the idea of fortifying the chickens’ diet with them. No chemical fertilizers or pesticides anywhere, although I have not been able to buy organic grower feed locally. I have spotted organic layer feed, so will be moving to that.

Well, the jury is still out on how this has worked since they haven’t started laying yet, but so far none of them are crowing!

The day the guy delivered them, he called me to say one of his died. One of mine died later that day. Cocci! He didn’t realize any were sick. The next day, he brought me medicine to put in their water. Another one died and one more was sick. I spent all day with that one (Pansy), making sure she drank a lot of the medicated water, plus some of my homemade yogurt, minced oregano, garlic powder, and a few of the grower crumbles. That evening, she seemed stable, so I let her sleep with her one remaining sister in the coop. She survived and is my sweetest lap chicken! All has been good since!”

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 6,571 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—9,327 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ 

For this week’s Farm Kitchen/Know Your Food Intermediate Level Merit Badge, I cultivated a few of my favorite recipes, revamped them so they’d be completely organic, and then packed all the ingredients up in my charming (if I do say so myself) reusable and homemade shopping bags. Why, you may ask? To take to my friend’s home and to make them dinner with, of course.

We farmgirls are a gregarious and generous bunch.

I was a bit nervous, to tell the truth. These particular friends were dyed-in-the-wool processed-food eaters. In fact, I am loath to call what they eat food. It’s more like … well, more like a deadly concoction of preservatives, MSG, food colorings, additives, and high-fructose corn syrup.

Speaking of HFCS, my little chickadees, part of earning my Intermediate Level Merit Badge was to completely and utterly eliminate that particular substance. I thought it’d be simple. Easy peasy, lemon squeasy.

Water tower in Rochester, Minnesota. Photo by Jonathunder via Wikimedia Commons.

I was wrong.

Talk about insidious. That ingredient creeps and crawls its way into our foods in areas you’d never imagine. If HFCS was a spy, we’d be in trouble. It can slip into your house undetected. It can wriggle its way into your coffee-stand mocha, slip into your salad dressing, find new life in a bag of snack-time potato chips, and even be in the children’s neighborhood lemonade stand. Seriously, this stuff is the Jason Bourne of syrups. (Although Matt Damon is much more attractive).

Anyway, once I started paying uber-attention, I was shocked and alarmed. I realized my days of buying nearly anything pre-made had come to a sudden halt.

Unless my cookie craving could be satiated with something homemade, I was concerned I would never be able to enter a bakery again. I mourned.

Unless my local and favorite lunch buffet could revamp their menu, I was going to have to fulfill my cravings for enchiladas and lobster bake all by myself. I weeped.

Unless I could figure out the magical list of ingredients for my weekly Hazelnut White Chocolate Pecan Caramel Mocha with Whip and Sprinkles, I was gonna have to quit cold turkey. I gnashed my teeth.

But enough about me. Back to my friends and my bags o’ groceries.

I had to bring every single ingredient: we’re talking salt and pepper and olive oil and everything. I just couldn’t trust their pantry with my beloved and high-quality food items, and besides, I wanted to show them just how good organic and local and homemade could be without the slightest bit of cheating.

First, I had to remove about five billion dishes out of their oven. Turns out, they don’t use their oven.

Like, ever.

It’s for storage.

I found this odd, strange, and somewhat distressing, but I soldiered on. Next, I had them taste-test my homegrown tomatoes, which they were somewhat loathe to do. I didn’t blame them: I used to hate tomatoes. Those pink, mealy, gross things I found on my hamburgers or thrown haphazardly into my salad? Nasty. But my bright red (or sometimes purple or orange) ‘maters from my garden? A treat that would transform any skeptic.

All my friends agreed they had never tasted anything like my heirloom variety, and in moments, I had none left for my garnish. No matter, it was mission accomplished already!

Stay tuned for how the rest of my experiment and badge earning went next time …

Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Shannon Hudson!!!

Shannon Hudson (hudsonsinaf, #5349) has received a certificate of achievement in Garden Gate for earning a Beginner, Intermediate & Expert Level Putting Away for Winter Merit Badge!

““For the Beginner badge, my oldest daughter and I froze strawberries, tomatoes, and most recently, blueberries. The strawberries and blueberries we freeze on trays individually first, and then place in freezer bags. The tomatoes we wash off, and then just put them in the freezer in a container. I also shared this information on my Henhouse.

We enjoy frozen produce, especially fruit. With the summers being so excruciatingly hot, pulling frozen fruit out to eat, or for smoothies, is extremely refreshing.

For my Intermediate badge, I dehydrated tomatoes, peppers (both sweet and hot) and multiple types of herbs. I also investigated different methods for drying produce. We generally use a dehydrator, though some of my herbs, I air dried. You can also sun dry, oven dry, or microwave dry. For my family, I made spaghetti, using frozen tomatoes, with dehydrated peppers and herbs.

Making spaghetti sauce is one of our favorite ways of using frozen tomatoes. When I pull them out of the freezer, I place them in a colander. As they thaw, a lot of the excess fluid drains out, this reduces the cooking time for the sauce.

For the Expert badge, I investigated the different methods for canning food – there is oven canning (I haven’t tried this one yet!), water bath canning, and pressure canning. We have canned tomatoes, fruit products (sauces, preserves, jams, syrups, pie filling, and just sliced fruits), dried beans, green beans, and broths. I also made some beef jerky in my dehydrator using grass fed brisket, as well as sharing about canning with the Henhouse.

For the dish using foods I had preserved, we made chili. I used both frozen and canned tomatoes, canned kidney beans, dehydrated peppers, and dehydrated herbs. It turned out scrumptious. I really want to try my hand at oven canning… I would like to learn to make gluten free pasta, that I dehydrate, and then oven can. Still working on this one though.”

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 6,571 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—9,327 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ 

For this week’s Farm Kitchen/Get it Together Expert Level Merit Badge, I was a little wary. A little concerned. Perturbed, if you will.

Sharpen all my kitchen knives, and keep them razor sharp at all times?

Sounds terrifying.

Photo by Nóż użytkowo via Wikimedia Commons

I mean, wasn’t I the epitome of safety, the guru of precaution, the wizard of cautiousness, by keeping my knives at the blunt end of the spectrum?

Turns out … not so much.

Actually, a little note from me to you, chickadees, a sharp knife is much less dangerous than a dull one.

Guess I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

Haha!

When I first discovered that little fact (the one about the knife, not the one about what’s between my ears), I was startled. It just didn’t make sense. But here’s the deal, peeps:

If your knife is so blunt and dull that it can’t even slice a tomato without making Grammy’s famous marinara sauce, then you’re probably going to use a lot of excess force. And excess force, however good for your forearms and biceps, is not so peachy keen when you’re chopping and dicing and slicing and peeling and julienning and etc, etc.

Photo by Knightia13 via Wikimedia Commons

Also, dull knives slip around quite a bit more (probably because they’re gleefully somersaulting away in their fiendish attempts to never mince the garlic) and that’s never a good thing either.

So, color me late to the party, but I’m here now. And guess what I brought? To our imaginary party, I mean?

Sharp knives.

I feel like a ninja.

Photo by Stéphane Gallay via Wikimedia Commons

My tomatoes are sliced to a paper-thin degree, my garlic is finely minced, my apples are quartered and peeled and diced (did somebody say pie?), my bread hasn’t been hacked to death, my roast chicken looks like it was butchered by Julia Child herself, and I am one happy camper.

I’ll never go back to those dull-as-dishwater knives again. I’m a changed woman!

If you’re interested in sharpening up your cutlery, here are a few ideas and methods to get you started on your way to culinary delight:

• A whetstone
• A knife steel (sometimes called a honing steel)
• A high-quality knife sharpener

And hey, don’t be slow in deciding …

Chop, chop!

Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Judith Lickteig!!!

Judith Lickteig (#3926) has received a certificate of achievement in Garden Gate for earning an Expert Level Herbs Merit Badge!

“This year, I am growing all my herbs in pots, which I hope to move to raised beds next year. Three new herbs I am growing are borage, catnip, and peppermint.

The borage flowers are beautiful! I’ve used the fresh flowers and new leaves in salads. Also, the flowers are a pretty blue and star-shaped. I like to freeze the flowers in ice cubes and add the cubes to lemonade or ice water. I’ve harvested some of the catmint for tea and for adding to cat toys. I’ll try to add a picture of one I made. I plan to send a photo of a cat toy and the pattern to the Wildflower Henhouse sisters. I have also included teabags of dried catmint for use as tea or to put in the toys. My son’s family uses a supply of catmint regularly as a digestive and a calming mint tea. I laughed when he told me that once, he drank so much of it that his nose became numb. Ha! I will also send the Wildflowers teabags of my dried peppermint. This is really a great tea for calming stress and insomnia. My entire family drinks it for colds or just calming.”

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 6,571 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—9,327 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ 

To help my sweetie-pie neighbor, Piper, earn her Beginner Level Garden Gate/Get Buggy Merit Badge, I devised a sneaky plan.

Well, maybe it wasn’t sneaky, but it sure was clever (if I do say so myself … and I do).

You see, like a lot of little ones—especially the female ones—Piper wasn’t overly fond of insects. Maybe it was their spindly little legs; maybe it was their ability to appear when they’re least wanted; maybe it’s because her brother, Joey, likes to toss them on her head … well, whatever the reason, I was bound and determined to change Piper’s outlook on all things buggy.

photo by Dominik Stodulski via Wikimedia Commons

We started with a scavenger hunt (the ones we can’t find in our area, we simply looked up online). That’s right, a scavenger hunt of the bug variety! No little kiddo can resist a scavenger hunt. Golly, I can’t resist one either, actually … which explains why I was up in an oak tree chasing a fuzzy caterpillar earlier this afternoon.

MBA Jane’s Buggy Hunt

A. Ladybug

B. Bumblebee

C. Dung beetle

D. Silkworm

E. Cochineal

F. Blowflies

G. Honeybee

H. Fruit flies

Next, we matched the bugs to their helpful qualities:

1. Let’s hear it for pollinators!

2. Eats … um, poop. Well, somebody’s gotta do it, right?!

3. This guy helps scientists in the laboratory with genetics and biology, though they don’t make white lab coats small enough for him.

4. Can you say ‘honey,’ and ‘beeswax?’

5. We appreciate these bugaboos for producing red dye for clothing, lipstick, and food. Although we really only appreciate the cloth part … ugh for the other two!

6. Eats aphids. Better them than us!

7. Makes silk for cloth. Gotta love a set of decadent silk pillowcases on a hot summer’s night. Thanks, buggies.

8. Doctors use these handy bugs—that are members of the maggot family—to help stop infections. Wow!

At the end of our little hunt and educational bonding time, Piper and I felt like real entomologists. We had a brand-new love and gratitude for the tiniest members of the animal kingdom (although we couldn’t find a good reason for the existence of cockroaches or mosquitoes, no matter how hard we tried).

And we barely jumped at all when Joey flicked a few Daddy Long Legs at us.

photo by James Petts via Wikimedia Commons

*Answers to Jane and Piper’s Entomology Hunt

A/6

B/1

C/2

D/7

E/5

F/8

G/4

H/3

Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Marcia Neigebauer!!!

Marcia Neigebauer (marcian12, #5947) has received a certificate of achievement in Each Other for earning a Beginner, Intermediate & Expert Level Entrepreneurial Spirit Merit Badge!

“I dreamed of owning a Bed and Breakfast. My dream came to being in 2013. I worked on marketing the Inn and have so many guests looking for rooms, that I than dreamed of buying the house next door to add rooms. I have found some financing in place for the short term. I am working on my expenses and marketing our Inn.

On Tuesday, July 14, we will be able to purchase the home next door and will need to work very fast to have rooms ready at the end of the month. I am very excited about the rooms we are already booking into the new addition. Our website is DelanoInn.com. We are also adding an apartment over the garage on the property next door.”