THEME RELATED STUFF

Learn some traditional farm sayings:

Alice, Golden Empire Council

See how many of the boys and their parents know what these sayings mean.  You could even have a “Farming Trivia” contest between boys and parents, or make a list of sayings and meanings for people to match up. 

·         Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.  (Don’t count on something before it happens)

·         Don’t cast your pearls before swine (pigs). (This is a verse from the Bible and means don’t offer something of great value to someone who can’t or won’t appreciate it)

·         Make hay while the sun shines.  (Do something while you can, the chance may not come again – if the sun doesn’t shine, hay won’t dry enough to be baled or stored)

·         Barking dogs seldom bite.  (People who talk the most often do the least)

·         Don’t let the fox guard the henhouse.  (Don’t give a job to someone who will exploit it – the fox will surely eat the hens he is supposed to guard)

·         Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.  (Meaning: If someone gives you something, don’t examine it too closely for faults – comes from looking at a horse’s teeth to determine how old it is)

·         Don’t try to teach a pig to sing.  (Trying to do the impossible is a waste of time)

·         As scarce as hen’s teeth.  (Hen don’t have teeth, so it means something either very, very rare or nonexistent)

·         Separate the wheat from the chaff.  (Means to distinguish between the valuable and the worthless – wheat is valuable as food for man and beast, but the chaff is just thrown away)

·         Hold your horses.  (Means slow down or calm down – holding tight to the reins or “reining in” horses by pulling on the rein will slow or stop them)

·         As you sow, so shall you reap.  (Meaning you get what you deserve – if you want corn, you have to plant corn, not peas)

·         You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  (A sow is a female pig – means you can’t make something valuable when it has no value)

·         Black sheep of the family.  (Meaning the odd person in the family, or a family member who has done something wrong.  Most sheep are white or brown, so sometimes the black wool isn’t valued as highly)

·         In a pig’s eye.  (Don’t know where it came from, but it means something is not very likely)

·         A needle in a haystack.  (Meaning something as hard to find as it would be to find a needle in a stack of hay)

Did you know?

Baltimore Area Council

¨       Horses will often stand “tail to tail” and shelter each other from annoying flies by swishing their tails for each other!

¨       As well as using them for fly swatters, horses use their tails to send signals to each other about how they are feeling.

¨       Roosters are the only birds with a comb on their head.

¨       When a male pig weighs more than 120 pounds, it is called a hog.

¨       Good milk cows give about 10 to 11 gallons of milk each day. Cows at many farms are milked twice daily.

¨       During the summer months a dairy cow might drink up to 40 gallons of water each day.

¨       Pigs are very smart.

¨       Pigs roll in the mud to protect themselves from the sun and insects.

Fun Farm Facts: 
Did you know that…..

Alice, Golden Empire Council

Potatoes have more vitamin C than oranges? 

French Fries with skin have more vitamins than regular French Fries? 

Baked French Fries have less fat than mashed potatoes with butter?

Farmers and ranchers provide food and habitat for 75% of the wildlife in the United States.

It takes just 40 days for most Americans to earn enough money to pay for their food supply for the whole year, but 129 days for the average American to earn enough money their taxes for the year.  

About 2 out of every 3 people in the world are farmers. In the United States, only 1 out of every 120 people are farmers but at least 2 of every ten jobs in the United States are related to agriculture and food in some way.

George Washington Carver, the famous botanical scientist who invented more than 300 products made from the peanut, graduated from high school in Minneapolis, Kansas in 1885.

The Ogallala Formation is a water bearing rock formation underneath western Kansas and parts of  7 other states. The Ogallala Aquifer is up to 600 feet thick.

In 1790, 90% of Americans were employed in agriculture. 

In 1954, the number of tractors on farms exceeded the number of horses and mules for the first time. 

More foods are made with wheat than any other cereal grain.

Wheat is not native to the United States and was not even grown by the colonists. Wheat was first planted in the United States in 1777 as a hobby crop, but it is now grown in 42 states

In an average year, Kansas wheat farmers produce enough wheat to make over 36 billion loaves of bread, or enough to provide each person on earth with 6 loaves of bread.  

Rice feeds more people in the world than any other farm product, 1/3 of the world’s population.

Rice has been grown in the United States for more than 300 years.

The U.S. exports rice to more than 100 countries.

Rice farmers in California use lasers and a computer on board heavy earth movers to lay out their fields so they will be perfectly flat.  Computers also guide the machinery in deciding where to mound up the soil in the field that hold the water in each section. Seeding the fields is done by planes.

Americans consume 17 billion quarts of popped popcorn annually or 59 quarts per man, woman and child, more than people in any other country.

Popcorn could not pop without water – a small amount is stored in a circle of soft starch inside the hard outer casing. When heated, the water expands, creating pressure within, until eventually the casing gives way, and the kernels explode and pop, allowing the water to escape as steam, turning the kernels inside out.

Corn is found in corn flakes, ice cream, soda, peanut butter, ketchup, salad dressing, jelly, marshmallows, margarine, and taco chips – plus lots of non-food items.

Nearly every single sheet of printing paper uses cornstarch to improve printability. It is also used in the production of paper packaging materials such as corrugated cardboard. Each ton of paper produced uses 28 pounds of cornstarch.

Hydrosorb, a super absorbent cornstarch, was discovered in one of USDA's regional laboratories. It absorbs 300 times its weight and is used in some baby diapers and automobile fuel filters.

Cheese is made from milk – but not just from cows – sheep, goats and even reindeer provide milk for cheese.