Dear Sisters,
Today my heart is bursting with gratitude and happiness for the amazing farmgirl community we are all a part of. I’ve only been a member of the MaryJanesFarm family a few short years but I’ve grown in farmgirl years beyond measure. I simply wouldn’t be the ” me ” I am today if it wasn’t for Mary Jane, Meg, Carol, Gabe, the round table of farmgirl bloggers and all of the friendly, FUN, supportive, uplifting, and inspiring, farmgirls I’ve met along the way.
Do you feel me sisters?
Blue running in the snow
I don’t often watch a lot of television. Not content to sit still too long, I’ve recently joined the ranks of those simply smitten with the drama, Downton Abbey! The show not only has me glued to the television for each entertaining episode, it’s inspired me…
I don’t often watch a lot of television. Not content to sit still too long, I’ve recently joined the ranks of those simply smitten with the drama, Downton Abbey! The show not only has me glued to the television for each entertaining episode, it’s inspired me…
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Dear Sisters,
I hope this weeks post from the shorelines finds you all in good health and high spirits! Can you believe we are already midway through January? The month of January is a month to celebrate in our household because it’s the month our first child was born! And this year is EXTRA- ordinary because our son turned 18 yesterday! Join me as I honor and celebrate this special day in a Happy Birthday letter to our son Zachary, inspired by Alex’s (the Rural Farmgirl) welcome Baby Wilder post, which I blubbered all the way through…
Hello Farmgirls! The baby hasn’t come yet. I am writing this on Tuesday as I have predicted that the baby will be arriving on Wednesday the 15th (or at least making an uncomfortable fuss). It is a full moon, and just two days from the due date. But who knows?
Nesting instincts took over for part of last week, leaving me with a freezer full of delicious home cooked food, clean baby clothes, clean car, contact list for baby’s arrival, and a packed bag for the birth center. Recently, I’ve shifted to feeling more contemplative. A result of this is a letter to our future little nugget. It seemed like a necessary thing for me to do, and I’d like to share it with you all!
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2013 was my first calendar year living on a farm. Whew!
I ended the year feeling rather overwhelmed. Both my husband and I lost friends at the end of the year and it put us in a contemplative mood. (another way to say “in a funk”)
Man, we’ve got so far to go…
And then I started looking back at the photographs I took this past year.
And that made me realize that
Man, we’ve come so far…
December 14th, 2014 marked the one-year anniversary of the tragic event that occurred in my hometown. Residents of Newtown will never forget that day, and I have found myself thinking often throughout the entire year of the families who lost loved ones. There have been tributes to Sandy Hook School all over the world, but one of the most beautiful tributes I’ve ever seen was created by a local group of Girl Scout Cadettes.
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Dear Sisters,
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all had a warm and happy Christmas with your loved ones. We had a festive holiday season with our nearest and dearest here on the shorelines. Today, I’m writing to you from my cozy basement office with the fireplace going and a delicious cup of hot English Breakfast tea. YUM! We are in the middle of a STORM WATCH on the eastern seaboard. Keep your fingers crossed we don’t lose power while I finish this post! Tell me, how are you feeling about the new year? Optimistic? Hopeful? Worried? Fearful? Anxious? Excited? Over joyed? I think we’ve all had years that we were happy to leave in the dust. Illness, death of a loved one, ( human or 4 legged ) losing ones job, relationship challenges, moving…These kinds of life changing events can drag even the cheeriest of farmgirls under leaving her gasping for air, and rightly so.
If any of you had one of ” those “ years I pray 2014 goes easier on you. In fact, I’ve got 10 ways for ringing in a Brand Spank’n NEW YEAR with a focus on the positive no matter what the weather! Come what may! Let’s welcome in 2014 together!
Dear Sisters,
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all had a warm and happy Christmas with your loved ones. We had a festive holiday season with our nearest and dearest here on the shorelines. Today, I’m writing to you from my cozy basement office with the fireplace going and a delicious cup of hot English Breakfast tea. YUM! We are in the middle of a STORM WATCH on the eastern seaboard. Keep your fingers crossed we don’t lose power while I finish this post! Tell me, how are you feeling about the new year? Optimistic? Hopeful? Worried? Fearful? Anxious? Excited? Over joyed? I think we’ve all had years that we were happy to leave in the dust. Illness, death of a loved one, ( human or 4 legged ) losing ones job, relationship challenges, moving…These kinds of life changing events can drag even the cheeriest of farmgirls under leaving her gasping for air, and rightly so.
If any of you had one of ” those “ years I pray 2014 goes easier on you. In fact, I’ve got 10 ways for ringing in a Brand Spank’n NEW YEAR with a focus on the positive no matter what the weather! Come what may! Let’s welcome in 2014 together!
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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