Yesterday, as I stood by the grave where my father and I had just buried my big, beautiful, gentle, and kind Cochin Rooster, I considered the chicken journey I have travelled for the last 7 years.
This friendly, engaging, and noisy Rooster was a large part of that experience. He was the epi-center. His name was Mr. Coshie.
Mr. Coshie was one of the ambassadors of my farm.
I started with 17 babies back in the springtime of 2013.
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”.
I agree 100% with your share! Enjoyed every bit of your story, and photos! From one chicken lover to another, thanks for sharing out passion with your followers ☺
I bought some chickens last year that I truly hope I can get baby chicks from this year.My egg production has gone down, but I also do not have a light on them for the winter. I am still getting a few a week.
Loved your story. You are so right about having everything ready before you order. I once, many years ago, had 300 chicks in a refrigerator box in my basement!!
Started with turkeys – hatched in An incubator- 2 different batches hatched only 1 chick so i had to purchase a chicken chick to grow up with
Wonderful wonderful
I have a blue barred rock for brown eggs
A americana for a green egg and they out lay my turkeys far and away.
I’d like to write an article one day –
I’d tell everyone do it !!
Love this!
I live in Suburbia, and have 6 in my coop, two of them are old ladies. I let them out to roam once a day, even though their coop is spacious. One thing I tell everyone: CHICKENS POOP. Everywhere.
🙂 I love them though. Good idea to get a first aid basket too. I am nursing one with with a foot infection right now. They can get things, just like any other pet, and we don’t have lots of chicken Vets in suburbia :).
I had chickens when we had our farm. They are absolutely entertaining! Sometimes when dinner and all chores were done I would drag a chair around and watch the chickens play. Much better than TV!!
I have to find out someday, “where/what is the source of your never-ending well of love?” … It never seems to go dry! How do you do it? What a blessing for you, and for all of us!
I enjoyed hearing you make reference to your Dad. I wondered if the parents were alive and well since I had not seen any reference to them for a long time. Thanks for another heartwarming story of another facet of your life. I really enjoyed this.
Any time you want to tell us about your current surroundings and changes made in your everyday routine, it will be interesting to hear. Your voice sounds “longing” when you speak of the deep snow. Thanks for sharing.
Dear Rebekah, Thank you for the wonderful “chicken tale”. My husband bought a few books about chicken raising for me for Christmas, and since we can’t have them in the city we now live in, I’m ready to roll when we find our retirement home in the countryside in the next two years. I like your comment that what starts out as yours remains yours – I have 4 out of 10 rescue cats left, one is 18 and on thyroid meds., but is still a love. Take care and God bless. (I turn to your article first when I receive Mary Jane magazine to check to see how your are doing – things sound great!) Julia
Like you, I love my chickens ! The Cochin rooster we once had (he was our first) was also very sweet – I wish I could say the same for my present Ancona rooster, Andy, who was previously known as Annie and who we thought was the sweetest little ‘hen’ that would sit on a bench with me and let me feed ‘her’ …so cute.. that is, until ‘she’ started crowing and attacking me every time I entered the coop area. Well, this has been going on for a couple of years now and every once in a while I tell him his days are numbered, but the rest of the family would never forgive me…so, he still stalks me but I have learned not to turn my back on him – and he is so sweet with his girls and he is beautiful !!
P.S.: I do have a lovely ‘rooster trainer’ tho – a nice little branch !
Oh wow!!! I LOVED your post. We got our first chickens in 2013 and we love all we have had. They are all so different. My first ones(Golden Comet) would come up to me and want to be petted. My husband always told people if I wanted to find my wife she would be sitting in the coup with the chickens petting them. They would line up to be petted. We will get new ones in a few weeks. Can’t wait to see what they are like.
Rebekah, I am so sorry for the loss of your beautiful black rooster. He was stunning! I loved the story of your first chickens and really look forward to hearing about the chickens in the camper moving trip! I hope all is well with you at the new (old) farm. I can send you some snow from Wisconsin if you would like.
My chickens are a constant source of conversation amongst my co-workers and even some of the Judges I appear in in front of. I was asked to provide “expert” opinion on whether having a chicken run loose in a house with a toddler was a bad idea. Remember your chicken truth about chicken pooping everywhere. I said of course it was a bad idea for the health of the child, take the chicken outside and let the child enjoy it where it belongs. They all have distinctive personalities and as I complete my 9th year of chickens, I have loved most of it, except when my chicken threw up on me. Yes, chickens can vomit, don’t push on a distended crop!
Well that just made me cry. It was beautiful. Thanks.
Loved the chicken post. I don’t have any chickens of my own, but plenty of my neighbors do and I love, love, love the fresh eggs. There is such a difference. Did I miss something? Have you moved from your tree farm? Where ever you are I hope you are happy.
I loved your story. I have had chickens a few times in my life. I have never ordered them online though, always bought from store or swap meet, (used chickens), some just starting to lay and others over a year old. Some days lots of eggs, other days just a few. Lost a few to disease but never to predators, buried in my flower garden. When I was a little girl I had a pet chicken. She had a crippled leg so I did everything for her, like digging holes to lay in the dirt. Other hens would always push her out after she tried so hard to make a hole for herself – they can be mean. A few years ago had some again, but now I don’t but I get fresh eggs from a friend who does have them. Nothing compares to fresh farm eggs. So glad you had a story about your chickens. :Loved the photos also.
Fantastic what is there not to love about chickens or chooks as we call them in Australia .
They make me happy and are the best thing for your garden
Love Charlene a suburban gardener