When you move from one place to another, you really have no idea how it is going to go. Good, bad, or ugly. Have you ever done it? It’s kinda scary and exciting and wonderful and sad and happy all rolled into one.
Cindy 
Sherry Holmes 
Joan 
Susan Abernethy 
diana henretty 
April 
Sandy 
Nancy 
Nan Roberts 
heather dembeck 
Vivian Monroe 
Rebekah Teal 
Margaret Rohn 
Bonnie ellis 
Pat 
Jodie 
donna 
Diane Van Horn 
colleen 
Robin 
Pat G (Shortcake) 
Denise Ross 
Doris Hall 
Cindi 
sharon 
WendyLynn 
Cathleen McCormick 
Lynn Torney 
Judy Mac 
Debbie Anderson 
Brenda 
Adrienne 
Leslie 
Victoria 
Jennifer 
Donna Turner 
Jan Sturgill 
Frances 
Janice Slater 
Mary Rauch 
pamm 
Teri Schneider 
Patti Dmytras 
Rachelle 
Marcie 
Alexandra Wilson 
Jill 
Sharon 
Dori Troutman 
Cathy 
Kristy 
Nancy Couden 
katie barbarossa 
Karen(old cowgirl) Montoya 
Pam deMarrais 
Marji McDonald 
Beverly 
Donna 
Sharon 
Linda 
Rebecca 
Christiane Berry 
Becky 
Elaine 
Colleen 
Kim denn 
Dianne 
Nancy Edwards 
Judy aka:herblady 
Marge Hofknecht 
Amanda -
Debbie Bosworth
is a certified farmgirl at heart. She’s happily married to her beach bum Yankee husband of 20 years. She went from career gal to being a creative homeschooling mom for two of her biggest blessings and hasn’t looked back since. Debbie left her lifelong home in the high desert of Northern Nevada 10 years ago and washed up on the shore of America’s hometown, Plymouth, MA, where she and her family are now firmly planted. They spend part of each summer in a tiny, off–grid beach cottage named “The Sea Horse.”
“I found a piece of my farmgirl heart when I discovered MaryJanesFarm. Suddenly, everything I loved just made more sense! I enjoy unwinding at the beach, writing, gardening, and turning yard-sale furniture into ‘Painted Ladies’ I’m passionate about living a creative life and encouraging others to ‘make each day their masterpiece.’”
Rebekah Teal
is a “MaryJane Farmgirl” who lives in a large metropolitan area. She is a lawyer who has worked in both criminal defense and prosecution. She has been a judge, a business woman and a stay-at-home mom. In addition to her law degree, she has a Masters of Theological Studies.
“Mustering up the courage to do the things you dream about,” she says, “is the essence of being a MaryJane Farmgirl.” Learning to live more organically and closer to nature is Rebekah’s current pursuit. She finds strength and encouragement through MaryJane’s writings, life, and products. And MaryJane’s Farmgirl Connection provides her a wealth of knowledge from true-blue farmgirls.
Cathi Belcher
an old-fashioned farmgirl with a pioneer spirit, lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As a “lifelong learner” in the “Live-Free-or-Die” state, she fiercely values self-reliance, independence, freedom, and fresh mountain air. Married to her childhood sweetheart of 40+ years (a few of them “uphill climbs”), she’s had plenty of time to reinvent herself. From museum curator, restaurant owner, homeschool mom/conference speaker, to post-and-beam house builder and entrepreneur, she’s also a multi-media artist, with an obsession for off-grid living and alternative housing. Cathi owns and operates a 32-room mountain lodge. Her specialty has evolved to include “hermit hospitality” at her rustic cabin in the mountains, where she offers weekend workshops of special interest to women.
“Mountains speak to my soul, and farming is an important part of my heritage. I want to pass on my love of these things to others through my writing. Living in the mountains has its own particular challenges, but I delight in turning them into opportunities from which we can all learn and grow.”
Dori Troutman
Dori Troutman is the daughter of second generation cattle ranchers in New Mexico. She grew up working and playing on the ranch that her grandparents homesteaded in 1928. That ranch, with the old adobe home, is still in the family today. Dori and her husband always yearned for a ranch of their own. That dream came true when they retired to the beautiful green rolling hills of Tennessee. Truly a cattleman’s paradise!
Dori loves all things farmgirl and actually has known no other life but that. She loves to cook, craft, garden, and help with any and all things on their cattle farm.
Mary Murray
describes herself as a goat charmer, chicken whisperer, bee maven, and farmers’ market baker renovating an 1864 farmhouse on an Ohio farm. With a degree in Design, Mary says small-town auctions and country road barn sales "always make my heart skip a beat thinking about what I could create or design out of what I’ve seen.”
Rooted in the countryside, she likes simple things and old ways … gardening, preserving the harvest, cooking, baking, and all things home. While you might find her selling baked goods from the farm’s milkhouse, teaching herself to play the fiddle, or sprucing up a vintage camper named Maizy, you will always find her in an apron!
Mary says, “I’m happiest with the simple country pleasures … an old farmhouse, too many animals, a crackling fire, books to read, and the sound of laughter … these make life just perfect.”
Alexandra Wilson
is a budding rural farmgirl living in Palmer, the agricultural seat of Alaska. Alex is a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University pursuing an M.S. in Outdoor and Environmental Education. She lives and works on the university’s 700 acre environmental education center, Spring Creek Farm. When Alex has time outside of school, she loves to rock climb, repurpose found objects, cross-country ski on the hay fields, travel, practice yoga, and cook with new-fangled ingredients.
Alex grew up near the Twin Cities and went to college in Madison, Wisconsin—both places where perfectly painted barns and rolling green farmland are just a short drive away. After college, she taught at a rural middle school in South Korea where she biked past verdant rice paddies and old women selling home-grown produce from sidewalk stoops. She was introduced to MaryJanesFarm after returning, and found in it what she’d been searching for—a group of incredible women living their lives in ways that benefit their families, their communities, and the greater environment. What an amazing group of farmgirls to be a part of!
Nicole Christensen
Suburban Farmgirl Nicole Christensen calls herself a “vintage enthusiast”. Born and raised in Texas, she has lived most of her life in the picturesque New England suburbs of Connecticut, just a stone’s throw from New York State. An Advanced Master Gardener, she has gardened since childhood, in several states and across numerous planting zones. In addition, she teaches knitting classes, loves to preserve, and raises backyard chickens.
Married over thirty years to her Danish-born sweetheart, Nicole has worked in various fields, been a world-traveler, an entrepreneur and a homemaker, but considers being mom to her now-adult daughter her greatest accomplishment. Loving all things creative, Nicole considers her life’s motto to be “Bloom where you are planted”.
I live in Surburbia. I have neighbors on EVERY side of me also my back yard! BOO for Surburbia! I can however at any moment go to the store and buy anything I need, all the stores you need are less then 10 min away in any direction from my house! Yay for the convince of Surburbia. I must say I LONG for a home like the secret garden that’s by the Ocean. Until then I will just make the best of what I have and love evey minute of it!
Hi Rebekah,
Awesome post! 🙂
The truth for me is that even though I grew up in the country, living the ranch life, I just didn’t have a clue to the work involved. When we retired 4 years ago from the SouthWest desert to the farm in Tennessee that we had purchased 6 years prior, all I thought about was the beautiful homesite at the top of the hill with a view of the whole valley, the green grass that is so incredibly beautiful, the ability to have a garden without watering it continually, the dreamy cows we bought, etc. THEN reality hit and the huge job of getting utilities to the top of that amazing hill for our home, the mowing (and mowing and mowing) that the green grass requires, the weeds that grow faster than the vegetables in the garden, and the stress and worry of calving season with those dreamy cows! 🙂 But, I’m happy to say that now, four years later, we’ve settled in to a very nice routine and even though we work like demons all summer, it is the best work ever and the only work we want to do!
So… Yay for the country! 🙂
– Dori, the Ranch Farmgirl –
You need a working cat. I have wood rats…I hate to kill them..but I do. Or should I say, my cat and terrier do. They spread disease and so do mice. That is the harshness of life in a rural setting…and I’m not even in a rural setting, I am in the suburbs and DREAM of the country. If you can’t kill them…then at least relocate them far from all people. 🙂 Deep deep in the woods… Oh…and chickens love to eat pinky mice. Sorry for the visual there….Love your posts..and oh so jealous.
I am so excited to be moving to Asheville next month. I won’t be out in the country like you are, but I love reading your posts and love all that you have observed and learned in the time you have transitioned from city girl to country girl! You inspire me to get back to my country roots–therefore I plan to get involved with Patchwork Urban Farms in Asheville and get connected to the land again by way of community gardening. Thank you for your wonderful stories!
re: above, if anyone in the area is interested:
http://www.patchworkurbanfarms.com/
1. We moved from the country to a neighborhood made up of people from the northeast, who moved to FL, then retired here to their second (or third) homes in WNC. They are much, much older and not exactly friendly. They seem pretty empty and purposeless. But the view’s great!
2. Yay for baking soda!
3. Uh, no words.
4. I love Craigslist farm and garden! And the arts and crafts section to see if there are any spinning wheels even though I have two and don’t need another one.
5. Facebook birthdays are the best!
6. Are you sure that wasn’t a copperhead? They like to stick their heads out of the water too…
7. Wait a minute. What happened to Six?
8. I have a mouse thing like you have a snake thing. Which is why I PROTECTED MY BLACK SNAKES!!! I would have gone berserk if a mouse landed on me! What if they are in you house and crawling on you at night??? Ok. I need air.
9. My husband is the weather nerd around here and called me yesterday while I was out picking strawberries to tell me that a storm would arrive at my location in “47 minutes” and that I should “pick fast.” uh, ok.
10. Mix of yay and boo. I’m getting to know my neighbors whether they like it or not, and I LOVE all the wild woodland plants I have on our two acre ‘burb lot. Plus, I love my kitchen and have plenty of counter space for all my ferments!
Thanks for the post. It made me think!
I too have “moved from one place to another” and another and another. In fact about 17 moves in 28 years. Big moves – California to Germany to Oklahoma to California to Virginia to Nebraska to Virginia to Oregon to Utah (and some smaller moves in-between). There’s been in town, in suburbia, in the county. There has been good in all places. We have met amazing people. My kids are comfortable with anyone and they way they live. I’m once again in suburbia, and because of many reasons, will likely stay here, but I love the country, I miss the country, and so I work to create a little haven on my suburban lot.
I live in suburbia too and have for quite a number of years. I’m 67 and an empty nester and a 24/7 caregiver for my 98 year old mother in my home. I would love to live in the country even with all the pitfalls but for me even that would be joyous! But I have had to CHOOSE to be thankful for where I am now and what I am doing! I also get my country fix by reading your blog – thank you for your transparency and your commitment to your readers! I have a small back yard and divided it up so the very back part is a “pretend acre of loveliness” even though it is probably 1/16th of that. There are raised garden beds, garden structures I have made, some chairs to relax in, and a barrel that collects water from our gutters. I can work off stress and frustration by tending to my piece of heaven while my mom takes her nap. Sometimes our dreams come true, and sometimes we have to accommodate them in other ways — but attitude is so very IMPORTANT! (I don’t think I could handle a mouse dropping on my neck though)
I look forward to moving to the country. Soon, I hope. I am surrounded by neighbors who speak nasty chemicals on their lawns and in their homes. 4 chickens is pushing it here. I NEED more. I want to here the birds chirp and the creek flow. Yay country. Boo suburbia.
While you are loving/tolerating your mice in the chicken coop, just remember their droppings carry the Hanta virus. Have a wonderful summer.
PS: I’m a farm raised kid/adult city dweller, lake cabin owner wanna be/will be!
Howdy Rebekah! I just love your posts. I don’t comment often because I read them, smile, give you a virtural farmgirl hug and move on with my day, but this time I just had to stop long enough to 1. Wish you a Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday to my farmgirl sister! You are doin the 50s’ right! 2. Share my Boo’s and Yay’s for my one, sacred and wild life. ( That should be your book title BTW). If you don’t claim it, I will. It’s grand, inspiring and intriguing!
I was raised in a rural/suburban area in Northern Nevada. Then we moved to suburbia, then as a young adult I moved to an apartment then a duplex ( while building my career as a hair stylist) then a cottage, then an apartment, then suburbia, then came marriage, two kids and more suburbia living. I’ve always made my dwellings my home cuz, I want to be happy wherever I am. Yay! However, I have also always dreamed of country living, spent many hours driving around in the country in search of the ” perfect” country home and location. It finally hit me one day after moving east, that the farm I longed for was already planted inside of me and I just needed to look at my circumstances differently. I never really knew what ” kind” of farm I wanted, I just knew I wanted horses and not cooped up in walled-off lots with concrete driveways. When we moved East, and into our home on half and acre I didn’t see a backyard flower farm. I saw plenty of space ( more than we had ever had ) for the kids to play and as small patch for growing some flowers and veggies. Well, the kids are grown, time is a tickin’ and I will have my flower farm be damned my suburban lifestyle. Yay!
The truth about where I live is that I must make it the truest place for me ( and my family). I still dream of a home surrounded by abundantly blooming fields of flowers ( I say YAY to your field of sunflower and pumpkins BTW) but in the meantime, I’m making the most of this life right here at Dandelion House. A life filled with the people and pets I love to the end of the earth, and just enough land for me to practice flower farming on a small scale. Yay! Now, the only BOO in my happy little tale is there is still no horse for me to see out my kitchen window… But, what kid of a farmgirl would I be if I gave up on that idea? Not gonna happen!
Love your posts and your spirit!
Farmgirl Hugs,
Deb the Beach Farmgirl
Wonderful post Rebekah! The truth for me is that I have lived both in the city and in the country and I definitely love the country most. It’s where my son learned to help birth a calf and my daughter spent many, many a day making countless mud pies in our garden as I weeded. These wonderful times helped form my children into people who respect the earth and all its simplicities and complexities. Something they will take with them wherever they go in life.
i simply, absolutely love the way you write! i think you would be a wonderful and interesting woman to meet and get to know.
debbi skinner
midland texas
Debbie Skinner!! Im FROM Midland too!! (We call it Midland/SLOWdeatha!! LOL Odessa IS a slow death but only incremintally moreso than Midland!). I left in 1999 before this big Boom-only 80,000 people at that time.. The weather and sand storms SUCK but the people are golden!! Its the country!! at least it was then!!
Tell that Hell Hole of dry dispair hello for me!!
Tamera
DFW
Hi Tamera,
Thanks for your email. No, Midland is not country any longer I am afraid. Lots of knuckleheads came to town for the boom and i would like to get Midland back to the way it was but that will probably never happen now. You see, i like it here. I came to town from Pennsylvania in 1981 and never looked back!
Hugs,
debbi
When our kids were 3 and 5, we sold everything we had, packed them up and moved from Phoenix Arizona to the mountains of western Montana. We had $1,300 to our name, I was full of dreams and hopes and thought we were rich (1983)
We got there without a job, a house to live in, and had never even seen the state of Montana before.
But we stayed for 12 yrs, learned how to fish, hunt, raise a garden, can, bake bread
and cook, bake and everything I always dreamed of doing.
It was the hardest years of our lives, and yet the very best.
Diana, Noel, Mo
We live up the Southfork of the Shoshone River in Cody, Wyoming. We have 40+/- acres of grass to mow and bale for our horses and cattle. The one truth about living here is the spectacular, palatial, ever changing views of nine mountain ranges, granted as a gift by our steadfast, never changing, creative Creator!! Priceless!
Whippoorwills!!! Yay for the country! At evening when sitting on the front porch and a neighbor calls to see if you hear the beautiful sound of one calling to the other!! Beautiful!!! Peaceful!!!
This is hilARIOUS! You are titally me.. I would be the total paraniod, waiting to set the mouse (KINDNESS!!) trap and putting back the little Pinkies to grow into teenager mice!! I cant kill anything so im sure id loose large amounts of weight.. If i know its name im NOT gonna kill it!!
Good luck and so happy you are thinking about something other than traffic and crap i am forced to think about … til the Ambien kicks in!!
Tamera
Dallas Tx
I was lucky enough to grow up knowing the truth!! I remember deer hanging in the trees during hunting season, early mornings fishing after milking, catching lighting bugs after chores at night, and picking raspberries in my “free time”. My neighbors were down the road. Now, my husband and I work on his family’s farms and we moved to a house, while it’s close to the farm, that has neighbors right next door. I live in both worlds now and I have to say that I LOVE the “true” country life better. At least one of my neighbors likes flowers and gardening! I only now really appreciate it now since I’ve experienced both sides. You have such wonderful stories to tell! I love to read them!
The farm is blooming! The garden is in! The coop is clean! The goat pen is clean! The pasture is growing waiting for my dream horse ! The weeds are growing by leaps and bounds ! The new 20 acre alfalfa crop is seeded and the baby sprouts are growing like crazy! The flowers are planted! whoooooooh ! My husband and I are exhausted! This is a Lot of work! This farm life! Yaaahoooo for the farm! Wouldn’t trade it for anything ! Husband and I left Reno are 2 ago setting out on this farm venture in Boise , Idaho area ! I was a realtor,he was ins agent ! Left behind friends! Grandson who’s now in college ! Family and everything familiar! We have met awesome people here! Made new friends and still have our old friends who are coming to visits! Only 6 hours away! Love our new lifestyle ! Got the adopted cat named Gypsy ! Wandered in as a kitten last August through the field! Have the dogs,goats,chickens are raised and now in there new coop! Lots of adjustments as you know! Well! I love my farmhouse we built! The barn is new too! Wished I had an old red barn ! But! You can’t have everything! New doctors are working out! I think it just takes TIME ! To adjust to it all! So Yaaaaaah for the country! Can’t imagine returning to the suburban life! Close neighbors! Barking dogs and annoyances EVERYWHERE!love the space now around us! Sooo peaceful ! Well,hope we both enjoy this beautiful and challenging adventure we both are embarking ! Cindy
I was born on a farm and I hated it when we moved to the city….my calm left me and I was anxious all the time. I miss the tall tree on our farm. Miss the cats that/chased the rats away from the barn. Miss the smell of hay. Miss my swing in the tree. And even those sticky garden snakes….we used to torment my mother with….putting them in her clothespin bag or basket of laundry. Lol miss the squeaky spring door on the house slamming in the wind….while we sit on our porch. Miss those little distractions that made country living so beautiful.never had a me jump on my shoulder but fell in the pig pen a lot when I took the scraps to them….and misse it when i used to ride on the back of those squeakers…. whod get me into hot water a
lot. Miss the sweet smell of clover in the air after a mowing and getting ready for plowing. Miss those things…the closest I get to that is mowing my lawn. MoST of all, I miss the ride into the the village with our horse to get stuff at the store….that was one thing I loved….riding and caring for the horses and getting to
ride them every day! 🙂 missing those fine things….hope there is horses in heaven because that’s the closest I will get to moving again! Miss everything country!
Hi Rebekah, I feel for you about the mouse problem; yes, capture them soon to get them out of the chicken coop; your girls don’t need to be around that.
About the garden – go in with a tiller and till the soil until it is all tilled together, then rake it flat (may need some help with that). When we first moved to our country location, the local folks let us know we were ‘outsiders’. A year after moving here, we wanted a garden and the soil was a red gummy clay and we asked a neighbor if he would bring his tractor and till a small portion for us. He said it would cost us 25.00 and we agreed and he brought a large tractor with a turning plow and dug down almost two feet and turned up large chunks of clay and dirt and we paid him and he left. For a second I thought he felt sorry for us. We bought a tiller and my husband tore into the turned up dirt and we added some compost tea that I made up from rain water, compost, and herbs and when the soil was raked flat, we planted our garden. The plants became a jungle and we had a great garden. This spring puts us here six years and the soil in our garden is a beautiful brown color since we compost all summer and each year we have a better organically grown garden than the year before.
We may have moved here from the city but this old country girl grew up in the deep farming delta south and knows how to grow things. If we have extra produce we share with the local food bank which makes lunches in the summer for children and senior citizens. The neighbors still wonder how can we grow a better garden than them? Because when it does not rain, we water our garden and are constantly composting.
What a pleasure to read your blog! Thanks again for your forthrightness and humor! I just love it. We are fortunate to live at the top of hill in rural Pennsylvania, where the fields unfold before us. There are no neighbors in sight. It is similar to where you are. We do savor the quiet, peace of our surroundings. Ahhhh… Although you are right, the realities of country life (especially with animals) can be very trying. Thanks again for sharing your experiences! Looking forward to reading more!
I do not know if you are throwing or otherwise feeding your Chickens corn but that will bring in the mice. They love corn. If not your chickens do you have corn around for any other animals? That will bring them in if it is laying around some where.
I come by this info. honestly because my Dad grew chickens and he always put his corn in a metal barrel. When he gave it to the chickens it was never left on the ground or in a dish. He would only give them so much and then stand over and watch so no mice ever got into it. They were trained to eat the corn within a half hour or none for them. They did. He said it took several weeks before they caught on but they did. No mice. He learned from his Mother. know that was 60 some years ago but I think it would still work today. As for live traps I also use them and one thing I learned, they come back. You do have to take them away, very far away as in any woods, unused land mountains what ever you can do to keep them from coming back. Just some advice from someone brought up in a small town out in the country. Still have a place out in the country. Hugs Kay
I was lucky enough not to have moved any until now, at this point in my life there are changes upon changes after so long of there being none. Always lived in the country and have loved it, and there are harsh realities that go along with it but I couldn’t imagine not having the joys that the country brings and lucky for me my husband and I are moving to a new area on a farm of our very own. We are building a new home and we are extremely excited, that said I am having a very hard time with leaving the area I’ve known all my life. I focus on the positive things and look forward to the future and on the building of something that we’ll create but I still have a hard time relating to the area. I loved being able to have a connection in our town and having people know my family who has lived in our town for over 5 generations. You were so right Rebekah with the emotions you mentioned that go along with moving! Thank you for reminding me that there’s people who feel those things too! Wish me luck on me making my new connection and finding my new truths!
I Recently found your blog and i must say how i LOVE it. I’m a suburban girl.. born and raised but i have had that “Smalltown-County-Farmgirl” blood running through my veins. Im only 20 years old but i am already so lost in life. You see, all my summers and some falls and winters, i would visit this very small town in Pennsylvania… located very far away. I love this town, love the people and know everybody there. I love the “small town feel” and the way of life up there. I don’t love though that its not by my family. Not close to really anything and its not my “home”. I would love to live here and have always pictured myself living in a place like this. The farm. the animals. the land. happiness. the summer breeze. the fields. the not so hectic life and everything else it has to offer. I dont know what to do. or where my life will take me. But i hope its somewhere happy like your life took you.
I am from Pennsylvania now in Texas. What small town are you describing please?
I moved to WNC, Debbi.
I grew up in a small town in the High Dessert area of Oregon. I loved living there. I went through all 12 school years there. I had friends that had farms and ranch’s. I spent most of my time with them and my own dog and puppies. It was such a wonderful place to grow up in. Then the wood mill shut down and most people lost money, homes, businesses. Now it is so different. As a retired Senior I will not move back there. It is nothing more than a tourist town now. Gone is all the businesses like the big Mom and Pop grocery stores, places to buy furniture, cloths, home accessories. It is just a small town with no identity. It brings tears just thinking about it. Memories of first dates in a wonderful restaurant. Setting with friends in the front of a restaurant watching out the window for the new or best guys coming by. Eating a huge plate of fries and cokes or 7-ups. Belonging to the Rainbows.
All of these things were there when I was growing up, a town that took pride in it’s self. Who celebrated every one of the birthdays of our presidents and of the person it was named after. All the organizations who had special days of celebration. Yes, there were people who knew everyone’s business but also who watched over you so no harm would come to you. People who cared. People how loved each other.
One who was there.