For a chance to win these robin cutout painted wood shutters from Shuttercraft Quality Wood Shutters, tell me about your favorite bird in the comments below. I’ll toss your name into a hat and draw a lucky winner sometime mid-July.
Stay tuned for more magazine-related giveaways. If you’re not yet a subscriber to my magazine, MaryJanesFarm, subscribe here for $19.95/year.
We’re told time and again that supermarket eggs won’t hatch.
Photo by Karen Arnold via PublicDomainPictures.net
For a chance to win 20 FREE beautiful, handmade clothespins from All American Clothespins, tell me how hanging laundry on the line makes you feel in the comments below. I’ll toss your name into a hat and draw a lucky winner sometime mid-July.
Albert Crooks and his 15-year-old son, Al, craft beautiful, sturdy clothespins from ash (the perfect hardwood for clothespins) and heavy-duty, stainless-steel springs manufactured in the U.S. “No more using four or five cheap clothespins to hang a wet towel to line dry. Our clothespins are tumble sanded and are finished with tung oil, which will not leach out and stain your laundry.” For beautiful clothespins that will last a lifetime, visit AllAmericanClothespins.com.
Stay tuned for more magazine-related giveaways. If you’re not yet a subscriber to my magazine, MaryJanesFarm, subscribe here for $19.95/year.
This story simply couldn’t bee any sweeter …
Photo by Bob Peterson from North Palm Beach, Florida, Planet Earth! Via Wikimedia Commons
“When I was just 4, my family encouraged me to make a product for a children’s business competition and Austin Lemonade Day. So, I put on my thinking cap,” begins Texas pollination activist and ecopreneur Mikaela Ulmer (who is now a ripe ol’ 11 years old). “I thought about some ideas. While I was thinking, two big events happened: I got stung by a bee. Twice. Then my Great Granny Helen … sent my family a 1940s cookbook, which included her special recipe for Flaxseed Lemonade. I didn’t enjoy the bee stings at all. They scared me. But then something strange happened. I became fascinated with bees. I learned all about what they do for me and our ecosystem. So then I thought, what if I make something that helps honeybees and uses my Great Granny Helen’s recipe?”
It was a golden idea that blossomed into Bee Sweet Lemonade, a burgeoning business that not only sells a lot of lemonade but also donates money from sales to local and international organizations that strive to preserve pollinator populations.
Mikaela’s motto is, “Buy a Bottle … Save a Bee.”
This sharp-as-a-bee-stinger little darlin’ is on a roll.
Last year, Mikaela hooked a Shark Tank investor Daymon John. Last month, she struck a deal with Whole Foods that included the distribution of Bee Sweet Lemonade in 55 stores.
Watch her in action and you’ll understand the secret to Mikaela’s success:
For a chance to win this new book, “Simply Stitched” (featuring 20 beautiful, original embroidery motifs, plus projects and instructions), tell me about one of your favorite needlework projects in the comments below. I’ll toss your name into a hat and draw a lucky winner sometime mid-July.
Read about Simply Stitched in the June-July issue of MaryJanesFarm, “Fresh Egg Overture.” Stay tuned for more magazine-related giveaways. If you’re not yet a subscriber to my magazine, MaryJanesFarm, subscribe here for $19.95/year.
The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 6,861 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—9,721 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/Let’s Go To Town Beginner Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, I was still in the library …
… where I had misplaced one small child, two Young Adults, and a couple of elementary-aged bookworms. Not to worry, dear readers, my local librarians are amateur sleuths in their spare time (evidently, detective skills are required in order to become a Children’s Librarian), and the little ankle biters turned up posthaste. One had snuck into Story Time and was sitting on the lap of a mom (who had several children and didn’t seem to notice the extra thumb-sucker), one was gleefully scanning books at the Self Checkout machine, and the teens had found the coffee shop.
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.
