warning: this post contains only words, no photos. You see, I didn’t take my phone; I took my eyes and head. I’m such a radical. E-radical. Eradical. And it was dark, so…
“Happiness is a form of courage”
Holbrook Jackson
My dog, Blue, woke me up at 3:48 this morning.
He wanted to go out.
So I went with him outside into the dark night.
FARM night is much different from CITY night.
FARM night is much different from SUBURBAN night.
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 live out in the country, too, and I love the quiet even though it’s a different kind of quiet. With the frogs in the pond, making their own kind of music, the horses munching in the pasture, the coyotes yelping in the forest. The train’s whistle from 8 miles away. Love your posts!
OK, now you are showing off! What I mean is, you just outdid yourself by writing from your heart and head at the same time!
I don’t know how to do that. I think I always hold back for fear of being exposed by revealing my “inside person” to the world? I bet it really feels good to write a piece like you just did here and then go back and read it aloud to yourself?
Please keep writing to us. It’s a real joy to visit you “on the inside”.
Rebekah, Your writing is so descriptive I can see, feel and smell your 3:48 am jaunt. I have taken my dog out in the middle of the night and have been in just as much awe as you are. Sometimes I just sit on my porch and stare at the moon. There is something so peaceful and haunting in the dark night. Thank you for sharing your sleep deprived night with us.
When we first moved to our farm, the corn in the fields surrounding us was drying…tall, waving in the breeze, making that noise the drying corn does when it brushes against corn in other rows. When night came, I was sure a “children of the corn” scenario was about to unfold. Well, that was years ago…now one of my favorite times is the alternate years between plantings of soybeans, winter wheat, and corn…when the corn surrounds us on all sides. Now I wouldn’t hesitate to sit outside and listen to the sounds of owls, tree frogs, and even the coyotes in the distance (okay, make that far distance!) Always enjoy reading your posts…thanks for taking the time to share them with us.
I found being outside in the middle of the night very calming, quiet and peaceful. I live in the country. I just loved the quiet. Looking up at the sky. Seeing the beautiful stars.
When I looked up I spoke to both of my passing family members. Saying hello and a quick prayer as I talked to them. I think everyone should experience this time of night. One experience that you won’t forget. Just a delight to do. Why not with kids as well. If someone goes camping they could do this experiment with the folks you are with. Perhaps not quite as quiet if there are party people around. You want a place that is less traveled.
Try this you will not be sorry. Winnie Jackson
Thank You for this interesting post. You sure have a lovely place to live.
Marilyn
Just thank you.
Yours is one of the few blogs I read asap when it pops into my box! Mary Frances said it well-you are able to write from your head and heart in such a lovely way.
4:15am.
Magical and welcoming. No traffic. Just the lonesome sound of a locomotive making it’s way up the Cajon Pass. Myself and the dogs were the only ones awake, still to early for birdsong. Loved it!
There really is something calming about being out in the middle of the night – my cat, Puddy, and I walk around the garden and have meaningful conversations …and stop when we hear the coyotes howl and a Barred Owl hoot. We look at each other knowing we are safe in our yard . Your blog was the most beautiful … thank you
I love purple lilacs, too! They were my mother’s favorite. We had two bushes growing in our backyard in Queens (we actually had a yard which I understand was eventually paved over for more parking a few years ago, alas). Here in upstate New York they burst out in multitudes after the seemingly never-ending winter finally did end and spring exploded into summer-like weather. There is nothing I like more than to be outside at night with the moon and listen to the night creatures going about their business.
Thank you for taking me out and about on your farm in the deep, dark of night. I could feel the quiet, I could hear and smell it, too. My memory was jogged of late nights in the desert southwest where I grew courage and happiness my first 40 years of life. Out “there” the sky is sprinkled with tiny twinkling lights that on a clear night you can almost see an outline of each one. Depending on where one is star gazing, you might get a whiff of sage or pine while you count the stars. You might even howl at the moon. I always did.
xo
Deb
Love, love this post. I could feel myself visibly relaxing as I pictured your night time adventure. What a blessing it is to live in a quiet place and feel the peace that nature can bring in this hurry-up, noisy world. I have been a country girl all my life and I am so thankful for that gift. Keep on writing from your heart!
AMEN !!!
Thank you for sharing your super talent! I am sure I was right there beside you. It so reminded me of ‘the farm life’ I once lived. My how you have grown. God bless.
Thank you, Rebecca, that was beautiful, no pictures needed to see the night you spent. Sometimes the minds eye is best.
Rebekah, this post reminds me of my younger days when I also lived on a farm (sort of). I love fireflies aka lightning bugs here of which they are few and far between and stars, so many stars in the night sky it is awesome but not so much if there are lights all around. I love the night sounds, and at my friend’s house we sit on the porch at night and hear the frogs, pond and tree, and the full moon peeking through dark drifting clouds and it is so lovely I stare at it for so long my friend asks me how I can do that. I say, “because I love it” and I sigh because I would love to live where I had a porch and frogs, and lightning bugs, at least more than the few I see now, and as for being awake at 3:48 in the morning, well, it happens often at my age, and I take the time to say a few prayers, because I think God is listening more at that time of the morning. But the peace that floods your soul if you have the luxury of a porch, a pond and trees with frogs and a breeze that whispers through the leaves, there is just nothing to compare it to. And I miss one more thing of the night and that is the sound of the whippoorwill I used to hear when I lived on the farm in New York State. Thanks so much for this post and keep on posting as so many of us love to read them.
Love this post! I felt just like I was outside. You are a great writer. Thanks for making my morning. (Yes, I got up early this morning, but I went back to bed. Ahhh)
Beautiful post. I am contemplating buying a little piece of land in the country. I am not going to lie, I am scare of all of the things you mentioned.
I am working on finding my courage.
Thank you for your post.
Aww reading this post makes me long for country life. I’m currently in suburbia, but my dream is to own a little land where I can see the stars at night, hear the country life sounds and grow both my garden and myself. This is one memory you’ll keep treasured in your heart for years to come. Precious. I’ll hold onto this with hope and courage until my own dream comes true, happy farm days (and nights).
This is a very nice journal entry. Thank you so much for sharing. Life is so wonderful! Everyone should slow down and contemplate and be thankful. Thank you so much. I hope you were able to take a nap the next afternoon.
This is a great journal entry. We should all slow down to contemplate. Life is so wonderful! Thank you for sharing. I hope you were able to take a nap the next afternoon. I am looking forward to moving to a more remote area myself…soon I hope.
I love going out at night. It’s a different world, peaceful and alive at the same time. There are hundreds of lightning bugs in the back yard. Some nights they alight on my very large tulip tree and it looks like they decorated it for early Christmas. Its one of the many things I love about summer. Sometimes there is an owl out there letting me know he or she is there hunting.
Love all the uplifting stories.
Puts me in a different mind set.
Happy and calm.
Thank you