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Hello Farmgirl Friends!
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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 tried unsuccessfully to teach myself latch hook and I think that this is the year I need to take a lesson and really give it a go. I am knitting a throw for my chair right now and when it’s done I think I will find a teacher.
Teaching myself to crochet this winter ( kind of reteaching as it went by the wayside for a bit when we sold our home/built our new house). Also want to relearn embroidery & learn Sashiko! (Your article in MJF magazine started that idea)!
I look so forward to your blogs. I feel like I could sit down with you and a cup of tea and discuss quilting and grands and sewing and flowers. I love teaching my grands to sew. I have a cousins camp each year and the girls 6-13 stay all week with me. We sew, bake, do crafts, they all love it and count down the days till the next year.( the cousins live farther away but my grands live close). My grandson, Sawyer, wanted to make a Braves( baseball team) pillow. He was so proud of it, the big grin on his face was priceless. This last year he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer on my 60th birthday. He passed away into the arms of Jesus in Oct. I have that special memory of sewing with him. I don’t take for granted 1 min with my grandkids. I’ve learned the sad way, don’t put off and say we will do it later. Grab the moment.
Oh Gail. I read your comment and cried. I cannot even imagine the pain of losing a grand-child. My heart is with you. And I know you cherish the precious memories.
Tighest of hugs to you.
~ Dori ~
Gail, The beauty and sadness of your post broke my heart. I have no grands, but I agree that we need to live every moment in awareness and gratitude. May your memories sustain and inspire you.
Gail, I too have an overwhelming feeling of sadness for you at this time. I have to remember that God is so good to help us get through times like these, and He knows just what we need and what we can take.
Bless you!
I love that look of intense concentration! My oldest grand-girl is 9 and she very much wants to learn to sew — we have generations of amazing quilters in our family — I’m not one of them! . Maybe a potholder?
I started to learn how to watercolor awhile back and haven’t taken the time to continue practicing. I have lots of things that I want to try and paint and I am going to do it this year!
It’s a treat to read you. Your pictures are just as good as your writing, and hearing about your beautiful life encourages me to press for more, though I’ve transformed mine in these last six months and I’ve never been happier.
This is the first time that I have had a chance to look at the blog and I’m really impressed. I hope to be watching more you have some really good ideas and things to do myself. I have been doing some needle tatting and love it. Take care and be safe
Dearest Dori, You are my inspiration! Since the death of our sweet Daddy on January 3, I have begun to plow through some of the accumulations in his house. Must admit, they are mine, not his. My brother wants to get rid of the piano that Momma received when she was 5 (in 1936) because nobody plays it. I told him that no one but me wants that huge piano, and that one day I shall play it. Thank you, Dori! Maybe I am not too old to relearn.
I receive an infusion every three weeks that requires my medicine to be carried around in this ghastly black bag for 7 hours a day, 4 days a week. I am tired of it’s ugliness. This blog has inspired me to have the courage to remake the bag using what fabric I have around the house. I do not have a pattern so that is what terrifies me. It will have to be durable so i think i will use some old jeans for the base but I want it to also be pretty. Your granddaughter inspired me to quilt part of it and I am not going to try to “match” the fabric but use pieces I love that will bring a smile on the long infusion days…
I’ve been learning to use watercolor to make greeting cards…and I have much to learn! Also I want to get back into knitting more than just washcloths!
Dori, hopefully you will share this pattern with us; looks like fun!
I would love to see pictures of your sewing room.
One of my goals for 2021 is to make greeting cards to mail to members of my church. I am not able to attend due to COVID restrictions and miss the weekly gathering. Therefore I came up with the idea to send a monthly greeting to say that I am thinking of them and miss them. I call my greeting cards “Scrap Happy” as I cut pictures from magazines, catalogs, junk mail, etc. Then I use the various scraps from scrapbooking paper and become one with the glue stick. I have February cards ready to go. My other goal is to refrain from unnecessary shopping – pushing the frugal mentality. I may not sew but I do play with color in my paper crafting. It is so easy to become isolated when we have to maintain a quarantine framework but the gift of creativity can help avoid feeling so alone. Blessings to all. Lauri
I loved reading your article about your granddaughter, I only which someone had done that for me. This year is going to filled with a lot of new adventures for me. Not to dwell on a bad subject, that is getting better. My husband has been in ICU for a month today with Covid 19. He is progressing, but I will have my best day when they get him off of the Ventilator and move him to a Acute Long term rehab hospital. I have a quilt that I started a while ago, so my thing to finish this year is that quilt for him. I just have the binding.
I am going to pull it out right now and get started. Thanks for giving me that push.
As usual your latest blog is interesting and inspiring. I am determined to learn to sew this year. I want to get back to my knitting and dance lessons on my videos. I also want to use Marie Osmond’s body gym to do some exercises. Rosetta is a beautiful young lady and talented,too. Gail, sorry for your loss. Hope you can take comfort in your memories of Sawyer. God Bless.
Marilyn
Watercolors. Have all the supplies, lots of books, a beautiful place to live with lots of inspiration. I need to take the plunge and just do it!!!!!
I love this post so much!!! I am finally going to finish 2 quilts for my sons birthdays in June. They are tshirt 10 inch squares of their baseball jerseys and some misc tees in there. I’m going to transfer their ball pics to a few squares ( I hope ❤️). It seems overwhelming to me but I’m going to do it !!! I love how you asked what courageous thing are you going to do this year. I try to stretch myself. And I have really done it this past year. At 62 in the middle of a pandemic I opened a hair salon ( just me ) and I haven’t been in a salon for awhile. Although much hair at home family and friends. So I’m off on my new adventure and so thankful
Dori, it is nice to read your post again. I think your grand girl is courageous and wonderful. I love the colorful quilt she is making for herself. As for me and what I would like to have courage to do, I have no idea. I am trying to make sure I send out birthday and anniversary and caring cards this year to all my family and friends. With almost everyone on FB, no one writes to each other anymore – or emails either, I find. I like to write letters and I do and send them in the cards I send out. I have always liked receiving letters and cards through the mail and I know many older people enjoy receiving them. I have a grand niece that has joined me in writing back and forth. I also have another niece that did write to me after receiving a letter in her Christmas card from me. I wish more people would begin to write again to family and friends who live far away from them. I always feel a letter you can hold onto and read is so much more friendly and personable than digital letters. Take care and God Bless everyone.
I’ m working up the courage to finish quilting that batik quilt. You see, I’ve started quilting it twice now. I’ve had so much issues with tension that I’ve ripped the quilting out twice now. I keep researching and learning and trying new tips and tricks. It’s now time to start quilting again and I really need some courage.
I did it!! I completed the longarm quilting of the batik quilt!! 3rd times a charm!! I didn’t have any issues at all this time!! Woo Hoo!!