Last we met, I was headed off on a journey.
I went to a gem of a place….and danced in the pastures. Guess where?
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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”.
Oh, now you know the charm of Ireland! Both my husband’s and mine were from Ireland where we were privileged to go in 1991. Your pictures brought back so many wonderful memories. We stayed at Bed and Breakfast places mostly in the middle of Ireland. The brogue comes to naturally to my tongue that I had to watch myself not to answer in that way. We didn’t visit large cities just small ones like Galway and Wicklow. People were so natural and friendly and real. No pretense there! We watched them cut peat, visited the Cliffs of Mohr, and sat in a farm house with a family who just invited us in for a visit. As you found in Northern Ireland so we found in that small village farm house there are still feelings of bitterness against the British and how they handled the Great Famine. But what a lovely. lovely people and country. SO glad you got to go and experience first hand the Emerald Isle!
Love this! The pictures are beautiful and I am so happy you got to travel with your family! Thank you for sharing!
Oh Rebekah … I love your post. My paternal grandfather came from Ireland in 1906. I talk with my cousins over there to this day and they want me to visit. I’m scared to death to fly. Your post makes me want to experience all that you have experienced. I hope I get the nerve! Thanks for all the great pictures! Carol
Rebekah, I have no words. You outdid yourself in capturing these treasures to share with us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I’m so happy you were able to go to Ireland it is on my bucket list of places to go. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for the visit. It was like I was there. Almost.
Rebekah, Thank you for this post. I feel like I was there with you. I have many ancestors from Ireland. It is such a beautiful country.
Marilyn
Thank you for sharing all these wonderful photos and your thoughts on Ireland. I had visited the Emerald Isle back in 1973. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay. It was rather chilly, though, and all I had to wear beside my one pair of jeans were miniskirts.
Thank you for sharing your journey. It looks lovely and I learned so much, like a history lesson. So happy that you were able to go there and see so many wonderful sights. Amazing photos. Thanks again.
Beautifully written and photographed, thank you for sharing!
Oh how I LOVE Ireland, my ancestors are from Ireland and we were blessed to go there years ago..I LOVED every bit of it..I love their sayings, we were fortunate and got to visit the Waterford Factory, The Belleek Factory, and Cliffs of Moher, Ring of Kerry, and so many more places…just Beautiful…and I too was afraid of flying but my husband made it easy, he told me these wise words….”either you will get to Ireland like you have always wanted, or if the plane blows up you will get to see Jesus face to face…” made it so much easier,,,you see we went 3 weeks after 911…
Loved, loved your tour!!!
Thank you for sharing!
Absolutely lovely! The feeling of peace permeates in each photo. Thank you for the visit.
Love all your pictures I as well as you have ties to Ireland both my parents were Irish I have wanted to go for more years then I can say. Hope to get there with in the next year. Your pictures are just needed to get motivated. Thank you. Judy