Cattle pant in the leafy shade of trees. Horses perspire at work and later stand in the pond fighting flies with the wet brush of their tails. July … steamy afternoons, sticky necks, salty sweat. July … picnics, straw hats, iced tea and sugar snap peas.
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”.
Hello Shery!
Oh how I wish I was laying in that tall green grass, gazing up at the sky! Well, your photos take me " there " every time!
I guess I’ll have to be happy with that. Your July looks full of wonder and life to the fullest! I too was delighted to see your Collection’s in the magazine. I loved the piece and your can do attitude that came with it.
July is the month for my Garden… I have been sticking close to home, watching it unfold daily. It’s also the time of year we look forward to our extended stay at the cottage… It’ll be here before we know it!
As for the small simple pleasures of July…fresh cool watermelon, crisp salads, smoothies and iced coffee, fresh blueberry pie, peach cobbler, and watching our children grow taller and wiser…What’s not to love about July? I can only think of one thing…HUMIDITY… Thank goodness for Air Conditioning…
Thank you for the trip through your busy July! I loved it!
Deb
Is it possible? You have such a way with words. You say it all so articulately, but with so little effort. I can smell the thunder clouds rolling in, and the fresh green fern under the trees. Bless you.
Your photos are beautiful…you are very talented with a camera. You should offer some of your photos as cards or
something…I would buy some! Also, love your jewelry.
Shery~~You should consider entering a photo contest~~Absolutely stunning!!!!
Dear Shery,
As I read your article this go-around…my tears fell. I have always wanted to live in the country on a farm. I, too, have a love of horses. But it is much more than that. The way you express and describe your life and the way you live it is just beautiful. Though I may never have that lifestyle as my own…I pledge to work toward a more simplistic way of life and one that has more meaning to it.
Thank You,
ClaireSky
MJF #399
Your blogs are my favorite! I get so excited when I open the mail and there is a new blog from you! Just like receiving a letter from an old friend and catching up on what is new!
Because of your wonderful blog – I am typing through joyous tears of remembering the Sunday drives and the comforting feeling of your writing. I can always feel myself right there with you, smell the new mown grass, hear the sounds of the machinery and MY LIFE comes flooding back over me. Yes I had that life as a child into early 20’s but then – well a new life began – now I am in between the two lives, near enough to a town that it doesn’t take but all day to do things and close enough to the sweet smell of God’s earth. And I love your jewelry, collecting – I too am eclectic, started when I was a small child finding treasures that no one wanted any more. Shery you are a blessing in my life and by the way I have the latest issue of MJF – as I call it and I bathe in it each evening. Well I had best get going – my home/yard is on the local Garden Club tour tomorrow and there are a few tweeks to be done. Again THANK YOU!!!
It’s almost as good as driving over for a visit, Shery. Love you artful photos, as always—dripping with honeyed color, succulent and fresh. Refreshed. Thanks for the virtual visit.
Julie W
Hello again my farmgirl friend…someday we will have to meet. I always so enjoy reading your blog and wishin I was riding through that spectacular country with you… (when was the last time I was on a horse????) I ooh’d and ahh’d over your article in MJ’s magazine…. being a collector since I was young I appreciate that in you and loved how you said "I prefer items that once worked for a living"! I know what you mean. Where DO you find all that stuff. Loved your jewelry too… I think my daughter would probably buy you out if she saw it. Looks just like her. Anyway… take care and hope your farmgirl arts & crafts show goes good. You girls sure are talented back there!
What a great post!
Your photos are absolutely gorgeous!
I live by the ocean, so we don’t get to see such lovely clouds most of the time. We do get to make hay though, but it’s earlier in the season.
I love your jewelry, especially the color combinations. Is that carnelian and turquoise? Beautiful!
I’m looking forward to my first cucumber!! It hasn’t gotten warm enough here for tomatoes in the summer for the last two years. (a mile away from the ocean makes for a mean marine layer, but the 68 to 75 degree weather is nice) September and October are a whole different story though!
Oh Shery,
Thanx for letting me mentally slip in the back kitchen door & sit a spell…
As alway, it was delightful to hear your musings….so much of what you have said has (as it always does) touched my heart…..for that I Thank you…
Enjoy the remainder of your Summer as I will do so to…. in fcat, I just might grab my Maryjanes Farm magazine, my 2 kitties and go out to my vintage trailer to relax and read my magazine.
Happy trails….
>^..^<
I love your pictures, I can close my eyes and imagine being there in the cool grass and open plains. I loved your piece in the latest Mary Jane on all your collectibles. It was wonderful. Keep it all coming!!
Jena
Shery, I used to be a Jespersen from the Henry Neil side of the family. Maybe we were related!
I am happy to see that there are women out there who are doing what they love to do and share it with those of us who would love to be having such a wonderful life. I am on seventeen acres of land by the Mojave River in Victorville, California. This place has been an enigma to me. I do not own the place, my elderly Mother in law does, my husband and I take care of her. We are artists, well I keep the heartbeat going at least. You could look up Earl Bascom and see that he was a true cowboy and sculptor. We are a mess around here, life is interesting though. Maybe one day I will be able to paint a nice picture of what it is through photos like you are doing and be able to write about it. We have had some real problems with lawyers, siblings and such. We pray that we will hold onto it and make something more of it one day. I am very imaginative and can see what can be instead of what is. I do like creating and sharing a good cooked meal with family and friends. We are musicians and jam often. We used to have horses, now we have five grown dogs, two pups we have to sell, a rabbit, beta fish and a crab. My garden is out the front door of Mother Bascoms house, it was the only way I would get it done. Oh, I know that I’ve gone on too long for this to be a comment, anyway, keep up the good work!
Hi Shery! It has been a busy summer and the end of July brings a wedding in our back yard. Our youngest daughter is getting married on July 30th. I have been planting, painting and trying to keep everything alive. The Japanese Beetles found my roses up front without me knowing it. Now I am keeping watch on my back arbor, just one more week…..I just read your article a couple of days ago. Got my new issue last week but it got set aside until I had some time. I love the cottage look also and like you it is sometimes hard to bring it to life in a more modern home. We live in a modular home that was brought in and set upon the basement in 3 pieces and then the insides finished off. I would have picked an old farmhouse any day but slowly we are changing what was left by the previous owners and making it ours. Love your collections. Enjoy the rest of July!
Dear Shery,
I love your pics (what an eye!), your blog (you make me cry!) and your horse (nothing feels better). I would be your neighbor in a heatbeat! Then we could trade piles of collected " stuff"
I’m looking for information on the picture that I saw on page 80 of the Aug/Sept 11 issue of your living room. The picture of the cabin on the lake sitting above a large, wooded framed mirror is identical to one I remember in my Granmothers house. Can you tell me who the artist is or the title of the picture. I’ve seached every antique/resale/junk store I can find to no avail yet. However, if I had something more concrete information maybe I could seach on-line.
Thanks for all you do. Please don’t stop writing! ~ Laura
Your blog is the best!!!! I love to read your poetic words and live vicariously through your beautiful pictures. Thanks so much for sharing!