October is absolutely, positively, without question, my very favorite month of the year! Each morning I open the door to cool, crisp temperatures and bright blue skies. The days are fresh and new, just waiting to be filled!
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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 love all of your sceneries, Displays, Just EVERYTHING!
I would love to have your recipe for that cherry pie, it looks Delicious!
Thank you for sharing.
Hi Jeretta, thanks for all the kind words! I’m happy to share the pie crust recipe…I’ll add it to next month’s post (the filling isn’t homemade though; I buy it at a little Amish market – shhh!)
Mary-
I look forward to your blog posts….you live a spectacular Farmgirl life!
Thank you for sharing!
Gae
Farmgirl 7534
Gae, thank you. Keeping it real though…that farmgirl life means dirt under my nails and farmgirl hair (don’t care!) There’s still much that needs doing to this old farm, and the days pass too quickly, but it’s where I want to be. Thank you for stopping to read up on my little corner of the world.
Your magazine is so refreshing always.Thanks for bringing me back to my little ‘farm girl’ growing up years, as I’m 91 now. The true use of ‘waste not, want not’ & ‘make do’ as I remember. Blessings to You!
You sound like me when I first discovered MaryJane’s Farm! Someone shared a magazine with me ages ago, and I was hooked. Finally, other wanna-be farmgirls like me…it didn’t matter where we lived, it was truly a sisterhood. And Happy 91…yay! Thank you so much for stopping by to say “hi!”
You captured the autumn season beautifully !!
Oh thank you Donna…I just love this season, and it goes by way too quickly for me. They say it will be a cold and snowy winter…I have to say, I do hope I get snowed in!
Autumn is looking beautiful in your part of the world. It’s a lovely time of year. Xx
Hi across the miles, Jules! Yes, let’s take it all in and not miss it.
This post checked absolutely every one of the boxes of my October heart. I do miss the days of bonfires, s’mores, pumpkin carving and such….but it’s life as I know it now. Hermitage has its price. 😉 I have, however, brought out much of my beloved Halloween decor…probably more than I have in several years. It may take me to Christmas and then some to get it all put away again, but it makes my heart happy if I don’t think of that part. How I’d love to have a soup supper with you in Maizy!! We definitely must me her SOON!
Robin, I had a feeling you were an October girl…not too hot, not too cold – practically perfect in every way, as the saying goes. Don’t ever think you need a crowd for that bonfire or pumpkin carving…do what makes your heart happy. Make it a small fire and enjoy that ooey-gooey s’more. There have been times I’m the only one home by the fire or pulling the squishy insides out of a pumpkin…I do it for me. If others are home to join in; great! If not, I do it anyway. I remember hearing someone say; “This is life, don’t miss it.” Let’s both have a small-ish bonfire Halloween night – across the miles!
Mary,
October is my absolute favorite month of the year too! You and I live in the same state of the Midwest and I’ve often wondered just how far apart we are. I love to see when they harvest the cornfields and then all the birds that come for the pickin’s.
Love your quilts and pumpkins and look forward to seeing Maizy sometime.
Until next time,
Denise
FG #43
Yay, another October fan! The corn is just being taken out now, and you’re so right…the fields are filled with crows and starlings enjoying a feast. The pumpkins are so easy to make, give one a try, and Maizy will be in a future post, I promise!
What a beautiful scene you’ve created for the onset of autumn. It sounds like my kind of dream! I enjoy scratch pumpkin soup made velvety smooth. Hot cocoa that warms me after a day of raking and shredding leaves to add to the garden. Hay rides, harvest festivals and quiet mornings listening to the birds sing are seasonal favorites. Enjoy these gorgeous fall days, with all of their magic and wonder.