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My husband and I just celebrated a milestone: our twentieth wedding anniversary. Twenty years! When did that happen!? How DID a Dane and a Texan end up hitched in New York City and settled in Connecticut? Do you believe in destiny?
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We see Autumn as a different kind of beginning, a prelude, an introduction to what comes next. We also see it as an ending. We gather and harvest the last of what summer produced. Autumn stirs us like the leaves that swirl in it’s latter phase. This place in time that find ourselves in … the softening of light, the cooling of night … produces in many of us a quickening. I feel rejuvenated. Faded and ragged tomato plants long for their final sleep. I, on the other hand, wake up!
As I bid farewell to the season that us northerners wait soooo long for, I greet the next one with childlike delight. Hello Autumn, my favorite season! Warning … this posting is photo-rich — it is a long way to the bottom of the page.
I got an email from my husband the other day.
It had five words in it. Just five. And a picture.
“City Farmgirl be real farmgirl. oxo” (five words)
(We use that “be” thing a lot with each other, just so you know. Like, “I be in love with you.” Or “I be so happy.” Don’t ask me why; it’s just something we’ve always done.)
Here’s the picture he sent.
What is it?
As with so many said things, it is how you say ‘it’. ((*Notice emphasis on the word ‘with’)) When we speak, we add audible emphasis where it is needed … and, probably, fitting facial expressions and hand movement. There is a new book out now, Glamping With MaryJane. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? When you see the title, you think-say in your head, rather plainly, Glamping with MaryJane. Right? No inner emphasis or bolding or caps lock. Ok, so to make my point, perceptions are based on how a thing is said. This blog post wears the same title as MaryJane’s new book, but, one little word made a huge difference for some glamping inclined farmgirls a couple of weeks ago. ‘With’ is the magic word. How so, you might ask? Here’z the big difference:
Glamping With MaryJane. No really, I mean WITH.
***disclaimer: My camera is having technical difficulties! Sorry for the lack of pictures…I will continue to try to upload!***
Summer is over in Alaska and the winter is quickly approaching. We have seen frosts four of the last five nights–even row cover isn’t saving some of the very “precious” (as Farmer Amanda calls them) plants! The termination dust is creeping down the mountains. Termination dust is the first glimpse of snow on a mountain, signifying the termination of summer. Alas, summer in Alaska is fast and furious and now we’re heading, prematurely, into the long haul of winter. I see my friends and family in the lower 48 are still out enjoying boat rides and morning tea on the porch.
Even if winter is coming on fast–I LOVE the fall! The air is crisp, the too thick foliage (in some places) is dying back and cleaning itself out, and our brains are ready to learn. What is it about the fall that encourages us to learn, discuss and debate? Perhaps it has been conditioned in us from years of going back to school every fall. Perhaps this is some research to be explored in those forementioned long months of winter!
Well, school is back in session, harvest season is winding down, and the internet has been abuzz with debates about the costs and benefits of organic food consumption and production. What is all the fuss about?
It can’t all be Peaches and Cream. Right?
It’s autumn, a magical season for New England…falling leaves, pumpkins, and apple cider…oh my! Take a “Farmgirl road trip” with me, the Suburban Farmgirl, and head to a special local farm for some fresh apple pickin’!
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.’”
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.
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 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.
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.”
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!
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”.
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