Where in the World?

 

There are lots of online geography games and board games, too. See what you can find and challenge your family to a geographical dual. 

Our local library allowed us to check out The World Game.  Players hop from country to country around the map perimeter by drawing a country flashcard and wagering whether the country they have drawn has a higher stat in areas like population, elevation, neighboring countries.  Fallon won.  Mom liked that the individual difficulty of this game could be adjusted to accommodate a variety of ages.  Fallon liked that she recognized many of the countries drawn from following the World Cup a few weeks ago.  

Acquire a penpal in another country (be sure to have your parents supervise). Exchange letters and get to know one another. Make plans to visit each other, even if it’s only pretend for now. 

Mom's Polish penpal has two sons (Jans and Piotr) that bracket Fallon in age.  Fallon has sent a couple letters to them as well as a few to a family friend in Utah and her cousins in Arizona and New York.  They have compared notes on vacations, books, and schools.  We hope to scratch Poland (or their favorite vacation destination-Egypt) off the map some day and meet them in person.  

She has also sent postcards from our trip to Barcelona last spring to all of her adult friends in the Wildflowers henhouse.  Here she is, in a Barcelona cafe with her address book, stack of postcards, fueling herself for a big correspondence session with a stack of Nutella pancakes.  

 

Learn how to geocache. Once you’ve learned, teach someone else.

The Girl Scouts have a Letterboxer badge which is a sub-species of geocaching.  To letterbox, the seeker makes a personal signature stamp and a finds journal.  They can also hide letterboxes by putting a stamp and log book in a water-proof container and posting clues about where it is hidden.  From there, seekers go hunt.  When someone finds a letterbox, they stamp their finds journal with its stamp and stamp its log book with their personal signature stamp, then they hide it again stealthily.  Fallon designed some stamps using adhesive foam and cardboard.  She brought these materials to her August scouts meeting and taught 8 other scouts how to make stamps, make letter boxes, hide and seek them in the host scout's yard.  Their clues used morse code, number-alphabet decoders, and compasses.  At the end of the meeting, they found all the letterboxes and compared which ones had the fewest and most stamps.  It turns out the trickiest and most satisfying one to find was hidden with the hose.  The scouts then took the caches home to hide in a new public place with fresh location clues.        

Classy Glass Gardens: Terrariums

Beginner:  Research what it takes to make a terrarium.  What plants will do best?  How big do you want the terrarium to be?  Where will you put it?  

This seemed like a job for the 635.98 section of the library... 

My favorite was Terrarium: 33 Glass Gardens to Make on Your Own by Bauer and Levy.  The things I loved were (1) close up photos of the plant material with charts about their light and moisture needs (2) and attempt to make group geographically related plant guilds in their terrariums so you could see a microcosm of an entire bioregion.  

It turned out these books cast a wide net around what counts as a terrarium-- open containers, closed containers, no containers (kokedama), indoor decor, outdoor decor, bonsai, fish tanks, partial/completely artifical plants and moss.  Wow.  

I'm pretty inquisitive so here are the designs I found most intriguing: 

• Herbs in easy reach in the kitchen.  There as a cute kokedama ball of Italian herbs (oregano, thyme, marjoram).  I have a kokedama staghorn fern already and worry it dries out so fast in our house though...  
• Bathroom sprucing.  We have a bathroom we have covered in slate and rock climbing holds.  It feels like a cafe.  Kokedama balls might have enough humidity to work here, as could some cool real/preserved moss wall art.  It gets very little sunlight though.  
• Aquaria.  For years, we had a little fishtank with a hydroponic tray up top filled with basil, celery, and pitcher plants.  Down below, we had a little scene with a scuba diver and some bright orange "lobster" aka cherry shrimp.  This was so captivating to watch grow.  However I didn't love that the tray was white plastic and acrylic and even as a small aquarium it took up a lot of prime counter space by the sink.  
• Nautical decor.  Since the whole kitchen is supposed to look like a steampunk submarine, I think some artful vignettes with conch or urchin shells and air plants  or a little ship in a bottle with some coral reef looking succulents would not look out of place.  That said, I'm in a decluttering era so if these were not serving a clear utilitarian purpose, they probably won't get built.  Incidentally, some houseplants have been able to scrub some VOCs out of the air...  Though it seems like the consensus is you're better off opening a window than densely packing plants into every available area of floor space.  
• Historical interest.  I am so intrigued by the Victorian gentlemen explorers, out collecting ferns and orchids and shipping them back to Kew to be cultivated in Wardian cases .  I would love to build a couple terrariums in honor of Joseph Banks, Alexander von Humboldt, Joseph Hooker and the like.  Since we are already somewhat in the habit of looking for a seed/houseplant souvenir when we travel, maybe making little terrariums to capture the biome of the region we just "explored" might be fun too.  
• Gifts.  This one is the most plausible and what we ended up doing for our first batch.  It is tricky to know what to give people to be polite with the dietary restrictions on sugar, alcohol, meat, wheat, etc.  However, neither recipient seemed to mind a very low-maintenance piece of decor.  

We were intrigued to read in Mary Jane's Farm magazine that asparagus fern can do well in terrariums.  It is a weed in our yard, so maybe cultivating it is worth a shot in the "if you can't beat them, sell them," vein.  MJF neglected to mention that these ferns have some pretty sharp thorns!  The terrarium books from the library did occasionally mention them, but usually listed recipes that called for exotic varieties.    

I've also subscribed to a local gardener's mailing list after finding fairy garden inspiration in one of her published books.  

Intermediate:  Get gardening!  Create your own glass garden.  Share your creation on our Farmgirl Connection chatroom under Merit Badge Chit Chat.  

It is so easy to over-buy material for projects like this.  We scheduled a mom-daughter date at Dragonfly boutique (8/6/2026) to choose from their selection of supplies.  These terrariums feature 2" cacti which have low water requirements.  There are so many interesting rocks, gems, charms and fairy garden decor, we will definitely be back!  

Expert:  Create a terrarium and gift it.  

We gifted our Dragonfly terrariums to Daddy and Grandma!  

I chose blue gems and sand with shells so Granny's terrarium would be equally at home at her beach house and alongside the blue glass bottle collection in her kitchen.  I love how the echeveria flower spike is so hopefully stretching over the upper rim of the terrarium-- just like Granny, testing those boundaries!  

My young cultivator chose vibrant yellow sand and green rocks because these are some of dad's favorite colors.  Her plant could be a Mexican Fence Post cactus and was a bit trickier to work around with all the spines!   

Our shared "maker's mark" was an implausible fly agaric toadstool that is very out of place in these low-water mini landscapes.  

Mrs. Potatohead

 New for 2026!  

Beginner:  Explore potato-based recipes.  Pick two recipes and make them.  Research how to grow your own organic potatoes.  

Recipe 1:  Crispy Oven Roasted Potatoes 

Young cultivator happily sampled all 3 types of gem potato and a crispy chunk of parmesan.  Verdict: they all taste the same.  This made a hearty lunch for me as well.  1 lb vs. 1.5 lbs of potatoes is the right amount to fit on a quarter sheet.  I swapped the garlic powder for 2 garlic cloves and probably could have gotten away with 1 clove.  Next time, I'll add some rosemary.   

Kitchen Needs List

Make a kitchen needs list and add to it until you have everything you need for a complete working kitchen. Give extra un-needed items to a family in need or one just setting up a home for the first time.

This kitchen tool audit was the product of Master Class "Essential Cooking Tools;" Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat; and Cooking for Geeks.  

I'm happy to report that after doing some reflection on the type of cook I am, I have everything I need.  Using the Geeks archetypes, my priority is "healthy." I have a minor in "innovative" because I am much more comfortable making substitutions based on what I have on hand rather than someone who is "competitive" and perfectionistic or "methodical" and closely following the recipe.  This means kit for elaborate desserts and baked goods is out of scope.  It means precision tweezers, smoke guns, torches, squeeze bottles and ramekins for attractive plating are optional and unlikely to get used.  

That doesn't mean there aren't a few upgrades I wouldn't consider, though...

• Thermometers:  I have an infrared thermometer that works great.  A second "candy" thermometer could help with tempering chocolate since my first one is devoted to wax and beauty product diy.  A meat probe might help cross reference internal temperatures for safety better than the infrared gun.  An oven thermometer could be useful to check whether my convection oven runs hot/cold and what is going on with the preheating the dutch ovens.  However Geeks has a neat trick about using sugar's melting point to guestimate whether you and your oven are on the same page about 367*F. 
• Mortar and pestle/molcajete/metate:  I am reluctant to get more of these because we have several... in our yard.  They are so appealing to our young cultivator as a tool, they don't stay in the drawer and then once they've been grinding up cosmetics and grass seeds, I am skeptical I have returned their porous surfaces to "food grade."  
• Salad spinner:  We had an acrylic one, it took up a ton of space and we didn't use it, so I donated it.  If we get back into growing more of our own greens (see:  lettuce cyclospora outbreak in the summer of '26), a smaller, glass bowl spinner might come in handy.  
• Rasp grater:  young cultivator loves zesting things, so I feel bad she is box-grating citrus when she could be wielding a microplane.  However, the frequency with which we do this doesn't really justify the investment and storage space.  
• Diamond honing steel:  We sharpen our knives on a whetstone, but that invariably sits in a soupy casserole dish for a couple days before I get around to it.  Maybe if we get in a good rhythm of using the honing rod, we would switch it out for one that also has sharpening capacity.  
• "Better" utility and chef knives.  I like our stable of Victorinox ones and risk of "messing up" sharpening them isn't a barrier.  Perhaps swapping them form more heirloom-quality craftsmanship sometime down the road would make sense.  But I so dislike shopping and this is a really tactile item to purchase.  
• Pyrex storage dishes and wide mouth mason jars:  we have a huge stack of plastic meal prep containers that are lightweight and claim to be dishwasher/microwave safe.  But as we learn more about plastic breakdown and leaching, I'm not so sure.  As these deteriorate to the point of retirement, I am planning to backfill with glass containers.  I need to be using the 5 I have more consistently to buy more though.  We also have a whole cabinet full of mason jars but as we find more uses for them, we are constantly feeling like we could use a few more palettes of them.  
• Stand mixer?  Again, I am not a baker.  In a world where we were making more bread and pasta from scratch, this might have a place.  

After this exercise, I found we are getting good use out of almost all of our kitchen gear.  I gave the side-eye to the vegetable juicer and citrus juicer appliances, but we have donated earlier models of them and it made MacGyver uneasy, so we bought backups.  Likewise, I have a tortilla press that hasn't gotten much mileage, but I also have a bag of masa and a plan to try to make copycat tortillas.  

If, in my dotage I were to retreat to a tiny home or she-shed, what would I take with me?  What would I encourage my young cultivator to invest in when she heads out on her own?  

• Compost bin
• Instantpot
• Electric kettle
• Immersion blender
• Hotplate 
• Dutch oven with skillet top
• Sauce pan 
• Cutting board -- can double as a charcuterie board
• Chef knife
• Utility knife
• Honing rod
• Tongs
• Silicon spatula
• Wooden spoon
• Whisk
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons
• Scale
• Can opener
• Citrus juicer 
• Strainer/Colander
• Box grater
• bottle and wide mouth funnels
• Wide mouth pint+quart mason jars
• Pyrex glass food storage containers
• Silicon freezer bags
• Painter's tape
• Sharpie 
• Quarter sheet pan
• Nesting mixing bowls -- keep one stocked on the counter with tempting fruit and veg
• Kitchen towels
• Microfiber cloths (in lieu of sponges)

Gone Fishing

Beginner Level:  Learn how to tie the following knots commonly used in fishing: clinch, Palomar, turle, barrel knot, and double surgeons loop.

While I had the Ashley Book of Knots tome triggering the passenger seat airbag deployment logic, I cobbled this together mostly with some paracord, a paperclip, and some online tutorials... 

Clinch:  Securing fish hooks.  

Palomar: Really securing fish hooks, particularly with braided line, but wastes more line with doubling and if you are bottom fishing and want the snagged hook to break at the hook, this knot is too secure.  

Turle: Not particularly well illustrated with a paperclip, but this would pull from the hook's shank, not its eye.  Fly fisherman like this because the fly tracks straight and looks more natural in the water.  

Barrel:  So I am a climber and ended up putting the "stopper" type of barrel knot that keeps the end of the line from accidently feeding all the way through your rapeling device.  Fishermen are more likely to use this to splice two lines together.  It can also be used in crafts where you want to be able to slide your knot around (i.e. adjust a necklace length)

Double Surgeon's: Another way to splice line together!  

Extra Credit:  My fishing book and captain both suggest 

1.  the Grinner/Universal Knot is GOAT for securing most hooks to the line... 

2.  the FG knot is GOAT for securely attaching a leader to the line.  Mine doesn't have the suggested number of revolutions, but I got the gist that this would be a very unlikely failure point.  

Intermediate Level 

• Obtain a copy of the fishing regulations near you. Check out your state’s Department of Fish & Game website.   

Check.  It is 87 pages long, so it was helpful to go fishing with a much more knowledgeable mentor to help you ID and know what the rules are quickly so the fish spends the least time stressed out on the surface as possible... 

• Familiarize yourself with the types of fish in your area, and how each are caught. 

Halibut- It was Father's day and Father's bucket list included catching a "legal" size of these (22" if California halibut, no minimum size if Pacific halibut which looks more angular like a triangle truck).  We asked ChatGPT where and how to fish for them.  We ended up targeting sandy bottoms with depth around 20' since these flounder predators hide in the sand to attack their prey.  We were expecting them to be closer to the shoreline because we had just had a grunion run and evidently they chase these baitfish all the way in.  We drifted at 0.5-1mpg with a sinker line along the bottom and a paddle tail lure.  No takers.  Maybe they were in a food coma from the grunions?  Maybe AI doesn't actually know much about fish?    

Sand bass - 14" minimum, maximum of 4 taken.  Like sandy bottoms near structure.  

Calico bass - bag limit of 5 bass.  Like structure and kelp.  

Sculpin- bag limit of 5.  They hang out on hard rocky bottoms with depths of 40-150'.  Their dorsal spines are venomous so this is a 2 person project if they are hooked.  

Sand dab - daughter says she often catches these on sabiki with squid

Lizard fish - daughter says she often catches these on sabiki with squid

Tree fish  - daughter says she often catches these on sabiki with squid

• Research the different types of bait used to catch fish in your area
The marine gas station go-to is squid.  You can also use a multi-hook sabiki to catch bait fish.  

Expert Level 

• Buy a fishing license and gear up. 

$71.84 later, I am the proud holder of a CDFW 365 day sport fishing with ocean enhancement.  Just in time for a family father's day fishing trip!    

• Catch a fish! Or two! 

Two!  I caught two lizard fish on a sinking sabiki rig in 150' in the Newport flats using squid.  They would have worked as bait to catch bigger fish, but the waves were 4', the boat seemed intent to drift broadside into the swell and I hadn't taken enough bonine to continue.  So we shook them off the line and headed back to port.  My 7 year old daughter, when she wasn't driving the boat, managed to catch the first, most species, most total, and biggest fish, with her sabiki so she walked away with an extra $5 from the captain in her pocket.    

• If your area’s regulations permit you to keep it, clean and cook it.
Maybe next time!  

I Am A Survivor

Make your own survival pack to have ready when you and your friends want to take a hike. [beginner]

Your pack should consist of:

1) matches in waterproof containers - lighter.  We also practiced setting fires with my ferro rod necklace and lint in a safe space at home.  

2) a pocketknife - razor blade in protective case

3) unbreakable mirror for signaling rescuers - reflective side of space blanket.  We also practiced signaling with the mirror in a folding brush and my compass mirror.

4) whistle - check

5) high-energy bar or a few pieces of hard candy - beef jerky!

6) rainproof poncho - given our climate (desert) we opted to double down on sun protection and water.  If this were an extended hike in a non-urban environment, we have a set of ponchos we could deploy, but that would dramatically up the pack weight.

7) space blanket - check!

8) reflective nylon cord - on the whistle!

9) first-aid supplies - band-aids in several sizes, cleaning wipes

**10) hanky/bandana - collecting/storing foraging materials and more (think "the towel" in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as suggested by Professor Kent

Parts of this kit were cobbled together from a highly-recommended monthly box subscription (Think Outside).  We stashed it into a sturdy fanny pack Fallon had made herself at fashion camp.  It weighed in at 217 grams without the water bottle, which seemed manageable for an almost-60 pounder to carry.  Prior to the hike, we watched several episodes of Jessie Krebs's Masterclass on Wilderness Survival.  She reminds me so much of MaryJane with her pluckiness and positivity.  She has an excellent penultimate class that reviews how to use the items in your emergency pack [expert]  

With the help of your mentoring Sister, a school or home-school club, or local nature/outdoors group, take a hike.  Make sure everyone in the group is clear on what to do and where to go if you are accidentally separated. [intermediate]

We were blessed to be able to connect with the author of one of the references for the foraging book when I sent him a thank you note.  Not only was he willing to answer email, he was willing to meet us for a foraging hike in a local park!  

We stayed in a buddy/truddy formation for most of the foray but pointed out landmarks (the bathroom, the stairs, the bridge, the playground) to regroup at if we got separated.  

While on your hike, identify five native plants and their properties as food, medicine, or poison. [expert] *Fallon IDs*

*Fennel- edible. 

*Prickly pear - edible, but required more PPE 

*Prickly lettuce- edible ancestor of cultivated lettuce

*Oak- acorns edible with work

*Plantain- edible/poultice for mosquito bites, etc. (past prime to eat)

*California pepper - not edible, but harboring a bee hive.

Lemonade berry - Fallon wasn't a fan, but could be used to flavor water

Carob - yum, we took some seeds home to try to germinate

Castor beans - generally listed as toxic, but our guide says he has had success boiling the ricin off and using the oil for hair and scalp growth, mild laxative, etc.  Be careful, the beans will pop out of their seed pods with great force!   

California Sage - cowboy cologne - fools mosquitoes

Brazil pepper - tastes like a fruity peppercorn

Wild radish- edible.  We liked the flowers

Elderberry flowers- relaxing tea that knocked us out when we got home.  

Wild mustard- edible. 

Dock- edible (but mostly past prime harvest time)

Bladderpod- edible when pods are very small (past snacking prime)

Catalina cherry- edible but not ready yet

Arbutus/Strawberry- edible but not ready yet-- let them get super ripe like persimmons

Evening primrose- edible, tastes like tissue paper

Redbud- edible, no fruit set yet

Amaranth- edible (past prime season)

Buckwheat- edible

Black walnut- fantastic dye

Mugwort/Artemisia- fantastic dreams

Biden/Spanish needles- not edible but will hitch a ride on your clothes!

My Fair Farmgirl

Research the difference between cruelty-free and organic health and beauty products versus commercially made.

We don't need to dump chemicals in mega doses on animal's most sensitive tissues to determine if they are safe and effective for humans.  We can use in vitro testing of cells in culture (like our girl, Henrietta Lacks/HeLa).  We can do in silico testing, using computer simulations of our biochemistry to determine toxicity.  We can even recruit human volunteers to test products.  

Leaping bunny - internationally trusted certification that a manufacturer must seek out.  Once certified, licensing their logo to put on packaging costs $500-$4,500.  Not every cruelty-free company seeks this credential.  I am mildly annoyed this requires downloading an app since I do not purchase product at a frequency that justifies cluttering up my phone.      

Cruelty-free kitty - a third-party blog which contacts companies for comment about their animal testing policies.  I found their posts had more information on drugstore brands.

Organic cosmetic products, like organic foods, mean a lower chemical load for your body to detox.  Nothing was doused with pesticides prior to harvest.  Organic ingredients may also be more nutrient-rich than their conventionally grown peers.  They are less likely to have additives and fragrance that irritate skin or cause headaches and other side effects.  However, like food at the farmer's markets, I found small businesses with super-fresh stuff may not have the bandwidth to seek organic status, but are happy to go into detail about their ingredients and how they are sourced.    

Companies embracing organic and cruelty-free philosophies may also be more likely to choose formulations with more natural (generally regarded as safe) ingredients.  They may put more thought into the sustainability of their packaging and how their ingredients were sourced to reduce environmental impact.  

Over time, as you run out of each product, replace it with a healthy, preferably organic version. Examples: toothpaste, shampoo, body lotion.

I stumbled upon Lush Cosmetics in my hunt for sustainable shampoo packaging.  So much of it comes in plastic bottles!  Lush had some pretty solid solid shampoo bars.  I couldn't find a conditioner bar that was effective, but was comforted to know that their cream conditioners were cruelty-free and that they will give you a store credit for your empty containers.  Their solid massage/moisturizer bars and bath bombs are also household staples and have defied my efforts to copy-cat.  That said, they aren't licensing the Leaping Bunny logo, but Cruelty-Free Kitty was satisfied with their statements.  

Toothpaste - Fygg - their website says they are cruelty-free.  They did use in vitro bovine enamel to test their product performance against alternative toothpastes.  

Cleanser - Dove - CFC promoted to cruelty free 

!Moisturizer - Vanicream - tests on animals.  Restock with Ceramedx.  2.39x more expensive per ounce but it takes forever to use this stuff up.  

!Sunscreen - LRP Anthelios - tests on animals.  It took so long to find a sunscreen I loved enough to use daily!  Kosas DreamBeam looks similar and has been bunnied since 2018.  Adding that to the wishlist when I need to restock.  

!Deodorant - Mitchum - tests on animals...

Make one simple product like lip balm, deodorant, or scented bath salts. Stay away from synthetic ingredients, using only natural ingredients. 

Since Lush does not have an impressive deodorant product and all the aluminum-free alternatives I have tried have been unimpressive, I decided to find a DIY recipe with a lot of positive ratings.  While this recipe claims to fill 2 empties and I had but a twee travel-sized sunscreen stick cartridge and a candle mold, I halved the recipe.  Using the candle-making double boiler rig was pretty straight-forward.  Outside of the possibility of leaving zinc-streaks on clothes, I am happy with this so far.  I will sweat test it at the climbing gym tomorrow where zinc-streaks could be dismissed as rogue chalk.  I've asked MacGyver to save his deodorant empties so I can refill them with a larger batch for my personal use and not have to bother with so much clean up after each micro-batch.  Plus quite a few other recipes for diy sunscreen and moisturizer call for these ingredients!