Life is like a patch-work quilt made of bits & pieces of the past, the present and plans for the future. A masterpiece “scrap” quilt only looks as if random chaos miraculously morphed into balance, beauty and order. However, an experienced quilter knows that looks can be deceiving.
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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”.
Great photos! I have really enjoyed my maiden visit to your blog & look forward to many more future visits here…
Oh my dear Shery,
Where do I begin? How about with a good long sigh for starters and a few tears of joy for good measure…Joy abounds in your words and photos! As always I wish I could jump right in! I can smell the sage, feel the roughness of the rust covered jagged rocks buried in the landscape, hear the rustling of the leaves on the familiar cottonwood trees of my girlhood in Northern Nevada, and I long to pat a good horse on the neck from the seat of a saddle. (Once this darned kitchen remodel is done that’s where you’ll find me)!
I can hear the laughter at your farm-girl chapter meeting and I’m soaking up all that creativity too!
Your talents are many! So happy you can share them here with us!
Love and happy fall,
Deb
I love all the animals – Thank you for introducing us to them. I also love the Pumpkins that you were making with a bunch of your friends. Can you tell us who you made them and what did you fill them with?
I can’t wait to sit down later at lunch and read through this whole article. I just loved all the Fall touches! What a great time of year!
Thanks- Diane
Yes! There is a reason that you always have a HUGE smile on your pretty face! I should say many reasons, since you enjoy so many wonderful activities in your gorgeous section of the country. You always make me have a flurry of activity in the creative department as you are truly inspirational!
Here’s to having a wonderful fall and having more FUN…
Same for me. Such a special little visit into your beautiful, real world. Thank you so much. It’s like a mini vacation.
I live in a beautiful world as well, damp ocean, rugged North coast of California. Beautiful large redwoods, crashing waves.We’re building a farm here, have an acre of veggies, 50 new fruit trees, brick oven, huge outdoor kitchen for processing veggies, meat and bread also – canning is almost done.
We cleared all the land, milled the wood to build all our buildings.This years goal was trying to build pasture. Clearing out all the roots and brush, moving redwood trees (roots invade gardens).Then seeding. Maybe we too can get to pasture our horses and maybe a cow in the future.
Sure love getting you blog! Katie
Want. Those. Pumpkin. Cookies. NOW! (:
Hi Sherry, We are equally having a wonderful fall here in Missouri.My friends and I made the same pumpkins for me to decorate the tables at my one room school reunion.Yes I have chickens and I also have the same metal rooster that you have. We have a lot in common, yes I love fall too, it is so pretty out today here.This weekend is our Folk Art Festival here in town, so I am excited about that, and I have several invitations to Halloween parties and fall get togethers with special artsy friends I am looking forward to. Enjoying every minute of it, carol branum
Shery, Once again I was totally absorbed in your latest blog. You sure have a wonderful gift with words and pictures! Fall is my favorite time of year, so I was anxious to read your fall blog, and I wasn’t disappointed! The pumpkins that you all made are so cute, will have to try makin one of those. I always enjoy seeing pics of your beautiful horses.
Happy Fall to you and your family.
Blessings,
Jan
Hi Diane, We (all of us farmgirls at the hen party) made the pumpkins shown above. We filled them with rice. The complete directions will be in the upcoming edition of the "Cluck" – the online magazine for MJF sisterhood member/subscribers. Thank you everyone for the kind words aka soul food. You make my day, week, month. :o)
Wow! Our life revolves around grass too – amazing how it keeps us and our animals fed. My husband farms (hay, corn, Herefords) and is a hay broker as well, selling hay all over the east coast. Who would think (besides a fellow rancher/farmer) that your life would be run by grass! Love your post- Meredith
Shery, Your prose and photography leave me breathless with wonder!!!!!!!! A feast for my eyes and soul. What a treasure.
JW
I love your website Shery. I look forward to your beautiful pictures each month. You have such an eye for color and for things of nature. Your pictures always inspire me to put together some of those colors in my home. I too love red!! We’re having an awesome fall in Western NC. The leaves are as beautiful as any I’ve seen. Keep writing and taking pictures. You are so inspiring.
What a beautiful life you have. It would be a life I would love to experience. I have
horses and bunnies and labs so I do surround myself with critters and nature.
Your pictures and writing truly take us all there and we can linger longer as we
sit and look with a good cup of something hot. The season of Fall is my favorite and you captured it in such a lovely way!!
Thank you
Gwen
Thanks for sharing your wonderful fall experiences. What a talented group of women you have gathered around you. Look forward to hearing more.
What lovely photos and a great story you tell. A day in your life is truly an event. Thank you for sharing yourself with us; I know I benefited greatly from taking the time to read your post. I am under a deadline for an exam, two kids in two different age brackets with their various obligations, and a husband who works way too hard but still takes the time to entertain the children so I can get some study time in on the weekends. What a different place Wyoming must be from Virginia. You said you are over 4000 feet above sea level; where we live on the bay we are seven feet above sea level! Thank you again for your wonderful post. Can’t wait to read the next one.
What is the breed name for the white chicken with a few black spots that is shown in your "Fall Work" blog? Thanks!
Hi Angie, The black and white hen is a French breed called Cuckoo or Barred Marans – referring to the feather pattern which goes by the name of both of those words. For example, there are Barred Rocks also – in addition to Rocks of other colors etc. If you were referring to the white hen – the dark "spots" are clumps of garden dirt since she was taking a dust bath in my garden tank. She is a common white Leghorn. Shery
Give your hubby an "Atta Boy!" for his great hay-stacking abilities!! VERY nice!! I’m hopelessly addicted to haystacks, my "previous life" having been running a boarding/training horse stable in central Texas where ALLLLLLLL the hay is trucked in from somewhere (even from just further out in TX). My eyes are green for a reason when I see a luxurious, abundant PLETHORA of beautifully cured, tightly stacked HAY!!!!!!!!!!
My own DH and kids and I were elk hunting this weekend here in southern Montana, and my heart/mental camera took lots of photos that look so similar to yours down in northern Wyoming… round bales, square bales, huge single-bale high patches and towering 3-high stacks…
Autumn. Haystacks. Harvest finishing. Good working horses and cattle work and pumpkins and the smell of pine and sage in a hunting campfire… I’m filling my lungs and mind with gorgeous air and images, and smiling from ear to ear!!
Thanks for sharing, I always enjoy reading your posts and admiring your pictures they are always so full of life and completely awe inspiring!
What a fabulous blog! My first visit and I am completely overwhelmed! I too have a Morgan horse, she’s 21 now and still full of P ‘n’ v! I don’t ride her nearly as much as I’d like to, but just love being with her. She’s starting to get her shaggy "woolly mammoth" winter coat now. Thanks again Shery for the great prose and photos!
I know I am late sending this, but just had time to pour over, read, and savor all of the photos/writing. You are a wonderful writer and photographer. The fact that you had the Owl on here was amazing, and I had to send this, even late.
We live in the Southeast in the City, with streetlights (ugh). And as my hubby got up to go to work before dawn, he looked out onto our patio and turned the light on. A beautiful owl was sitting on the bird bath!! He and I both have had an awesome wonder that the owl even came so close to our home and feel blessed that there is peace here so that she feels welcome. Unfortunately, hubby barely had his eyes open, much less have his camera. But she really opened them for him!! He was in awe that she would sit long enough to get a good description of her, to tell anyone that would listen. She was sitting for sometime for him to admire. My only wish is that I had seen her, but he didn’t move away until she did, but was so excited and came to wake me up. Nature is so amazing. Even where we live we have had raccoons, possums, snakes, and other wildlife that visit, I guess, following the large creek in our subdivision. Thank you for your time in writing and sharing and bringing out the sharing in us.
Reba
Shery, awesome job as usual. can’t wait for next time. your nh friend,cjc
Your fall looks lovely from here. Ours seems to be winding down. We had the wind storm that has blown most of the pretty leaves away and hubs has finished dumping out my flower pots of pretty much dead flowers. I am not a winter person and have started hole-ing up with my Christmas gift making. Love the pumpkins, very cute. Just collected the largest egg yesterday we have gotten so far. I would call it a jumbo and think it must be from our giant black hen, or it has to have at least 2 yolks or 3 if possible? Wanted to crack it last night when I brought it in but I did not need it for anything. I could not even put it in the egg carton because it would not close. Posted a picture on my blog I was so proud of my hen.
Hi Shery:
WOW! What a wonderful life you have! I love all the pictures especially the ones of the animals. They all look so healthy and loved. I especially like….uh-oh….i like them all! The owl is amazing and doesn’t look as if he likes having his picture taken. The cats, dogs, chickens, cows, horses…wow, you do spread your love around. Then the human animals look well-loved and well-fed also. You certainly shared your little slice of Wyoming well. I’d bet you some people call it heaven!
I am sooooo jealous. You are living the life I wish I could just visit. I have always said that I would love to go on a round up and be in the saddle because it was my job. You make me close my eyes and dream about what you wrote about. I was always a cowgirl at heart.
Thanks for the joy from reading your story.
Shery, Mary Jane, they would make a neat-o purse but its always best to re-sole a great pair of boots. If you haven’t worn the tops and shanks out than they can be regifted. Those are real knock-out stomping boots. Looking good! What a super gift!