Patrons of Husbandry – a website dedicated to the Granges located in Maine
-> Do your Holiday Shopping at a Grange Holiday Craft Fair. Here’s a list of the ones we’ve heard about!
If your Grange is distributing dictionaries to schools or may be interested in doing so, please see this post and fill out the form!
During the National Grange Convention, Grange Today! is being published daily.
Articles in this edition include:
Click the button below to read and/or subscribe to Grange Today!
Note that all recent issues are available on the National Grange Website. To save server space, we only post the table of contents on the MSG Website.
Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.
In my life, I’ve had a problem understanding wealth and success. The message I get from the culture around me is very different from the message I live.
As a farmer, wealth and success have different iterations, but they are all connected. The base of the issue is microbial. In order to accumulate wealth, I must make microbes happy. My first billion must fit easily on a spoon.
There are many ways to make microbes happy. It’s all in the recipe that you prepare and having proper ingredients. Aerobic microbes need oxygen; anaerobic do not–different recipes for the little buggers even though they eat the same foods. Feed them well, and they will make rich compost or living soil. Treat them poorly, and your soil suffers.
This base of wealth supports the soil, which then feeds everything. The invisible is made tangible.
Soil can then be used to grow food for humans directly or indirectly. One might pick a carrot and eat it for nutrition and pleasure, or one might pick a carrot and feed it to a hog that will later be eaten.
The community that grows around a small farm sits atop the pyramid of wealth and success. Soil creation and microbial de-light occur to tickle palates with flavor. They occur to further life.
Find yourself supporting microbes and soil, the wealth and success of local farms, and local ecosystems–the dividends are fantastic! Take your lessons from the deer in the pasture or the clearing, the fox in the hedgerow, and the hawk above the garden; they all know the food is better where the bases for wealth have been flourishing. We do, too.
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously permitted us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.
Articles in this edition include:
Click the button below to read and/or subscribe to Grange Today!
Note that all recent issues are available on the National Grange Website. To save server space, we only post the table of contents on the MSG Website.
Here are some ideas for celebrating our veterans on their special day that don’t require much planning.
These and some additional ideas are available at Veteran Life.
By Margaret Henderson, Director
Committee on Women’s Activities
207 948-2762
It was nice to see many of you at State Grange session.
Thankfully, the items that went to “Big E” got back to me a few days before State Grange, so I was able to return these entries to the ladies who entered them. Winners at “Big E” from Maine:
Congratulations, ladies, you make Maine proud!
Also, at the State Grange Session, certificates were presented to the Granges that made donations to House in the Woods, Home for Little Wanderers, and prize money. A check for $630.00 was presented to Richard Harriman, who will present this to House in the Woods. I went to Home for Little Wanderers and presented them with a check for $605.00. There were also donations of diapers, diaper wipes, hats, mittens, and toys for them. These organizations are very thankful for the contributions the Granges donate to them.
I hope that you all have a very enjoyable Thanksgiving with your families. Let us be thankful every day.
By Walter Boomsma, Valley Grange Program Director
The most recent issue has just been released! Articles include:
You can read the entire issue here!
A recent review of our subscriber list shows we’ve lost some folks due to automation. Our program automatically stops sending issues if your email address doesn’t work. (The most common reason for this seems to be full mailboxes. Check your email and keep it clean!) Once the program stops sending to your address, we cannot override and resubscribe you. But you should be able to re-subscribe!
Articles in this edition include:
Click the button below to read and/or subscribe to Grange Today!
Note that all recent issues are available on the National Grange Website. To save server space, we only post the table of contents on the MSG Website.
Grange Heirlooms are snippets from the lessons of the Grange as taught in the Rituals and Declaration of Purposes.
Use the icons below to share this Grange Heirloom on social media and help others understand what the Grange stands for! If this heirloom has a particular meaning for you, click the “leave a comment” link at the left and share your comment with us!
For additional information and resources regarding the Heirloom Program, visit the Heirloom Resource Page on the Maine State Grange Website.
Don Taylor, Historian with the Scarborough Historical Society recently posted a number of interesting Grange-related resources. I’ve also added the Society to our Historical Resources Page.
Here’s a list of the available resources.