Blue running in the snow
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”.
Sounds just like heaven to me! I hope you get to experience a blizzard and I am sorry that your pipes froze. It has been really cold and snowy here in Maryland since before Christmas and I am just so happy that I have not had to fix any frozen pipes…it is a worry. So happy for you.
I can see a summer task coming on for you and hubby: wrapping well all pipes above ground and making sure all pipes below ground are deep enough. I’m sure you must know that if you have electricity to the barn, you can get a heater to put in the water trough to keep it from freezing. Just be sure to secure the cord so the ponies can’t chew it.
Oh my kindred spirit. We even wear the same boots. We had 10 inches of very uncharacteristic snow here in Virginia last night so we were up early checking on critters and breaking ice in water buckets. We are building a farm where once there was nothing so the task is daunting but I love it to my soul and strangely enough I enjoy it even more with snow on the ground! I always enjoy your posts and always start reading my Mary Jane magazine from back to front so I can read you first. (I’ve got an old truck project, too!)
Blizzards are wonderful, just be prepared, I’m learning that day by day in these Ozarks.
I’ve learned to buy double all year long to stock up for these Ozark winters.
Just got thru some below zero nights here, sometimes temps only in the teens in the day time, but my sewing machine buzzes along on my kitchen table while making
baby size pillow cases for my newest grandsons.
Now the forecast says a “huge winter storm with snow and ice” is headed our way next week…..YAY
There’s nothing like a true blue winter, the cold snowy days, frosty mornings,
and then the little corner of your heart where hope waits for spring!
Happy Wishes, Diana, Noel, Mo
Yes it is romantic. Until the pipes freeze right? Save those stings of bailing twine to crochet into a lovely durable grocery bag, or a wonderful boot room rug! They are also treated with rodent repellent that does a wonderful job or repelling deer in your garden or from around your roses in the summer. IF. IF you can rescue enough from your children and ALL they manage to tie up with them. Including one another!
Enjoy and Happy Blizzards!!!
Thank you for sharing. Looks like you are doing pretty well for a newbie. Here is one thing I do with the twine. I braid my horses tail , bend it in half below the bone . Then lay a few long strands of twine in the loop and secure with vet wrap. Keeps a tail nice and clean for a while and the knots in the ends help with swating. I hope that makes sense . Keep up the good work ! Love your place. GW
Well, here is an idea to use the twine….learn to crochet it or knit it and make sturdy shopping bags from it. It would be stiff to work with but they sure would last a long time! Macrame for hanging flower pots like they used to (back in the day). My grandpa (a REAL farmer) used to bundle his newspapers and tie them with twine. Just a couple of thoughts…
BTW, if you do knit or crochet use really, really big hooks/needles. : )
Rebekah, I just purchased a poultry water heater from Tractor Supply and it works great. WHen the temp was 6 outside, there wasn’t an ice crystal anywhere on their water. I saw they had heated buckets for horses as well. They range about $50. But so worth not having to haul water everyday. Also I live in NC and I just found this place called Shopnational.com they are based in Lexington NC and I saw they have cuddly duds. They always have specials, check them out. I am glad you are fitting right into your farm life. oh and we woke up this morning to frozen pipes. I must’ve accidentally turned the water off, we always leave it dripping? Hubby is out now thawing out. Be BLessed. Neta
Rebekah,
Is the chicken house insulated? Come to think of it, the barn isn’t, is it. Seems like barns aren’t insulated. So what happens to the animals where it gets to way, way below zero? I live on the Central Oregon Coast, and grew up on the Northern California Coast in the redwoods, so though I have been in snowy weather, even below zero sometimes, a lot of this is foreign to me.
I was told in December when we had a freeze to disconnect the hoses from the house. They are full of water and when that freezes, it can drive ice back into the faucet, doing bad things.
Usually I just bring the hoses inside for the winter, because it usually rains all winter here. But this year is looking drought-like. I have to actually *water* the potted plants sometimes. In January! It’s unreal.
THanks for the details and the pics and the updates. I have a heavy Carharrt work jacket. I love it. Not fashionable, but it’s Carharrt. And warm.
You are so cool! I do not believe I’ve read through something like this before.
So good to discover somebody with a few original thoughts on this subject.
Seriously.. thank you for starting this up. This website
is one thing that is needed on the internet, someone with a little originality!