September is when summer isn’t quite over and autumn hasn’t yet taken hold. We’re betwixt the two.
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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”.
Enjoyed your post this morning. Thank you! So true about September… and sorry about the camper. Have a blessed day!
Oh my, I even have tears over that Shasta!! Someone got very happy that day! I still have dreams of finding one. How cute are those hats. I think I need to make four for my darling granddaughters. Enjoy betwixt, it is beautiful out!
I really enjoyed your betwixt post this morning. I live in southern Colorado and your landscape reminds me of mine! We too are enjoying this in between time when the days are warm but the sun has finally lost the intensity that sends us looking for shade. We had a light frost two nights ago…it’s Autumn sending a shot across our bow! Enjoy these sweet days before the winter winds start to howl!
Hi Shery 🙂
I always enjoy your posts and photos. Just beautiful! Sorry about the Shasta, I guess that means that the Lord has something even better in mind for you! Michele’s hats (and model!) are adorable and what a blessing that birdhouse is 🙂
Here are a couple of Green Tomato recipes for you 🙂
Green Tomato Chutney
Four cups peeled and chopped tomatoes
Two-third cup chopped onion
One-quarter cup yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
One small garlic clove, minced
One cup packed light brown sugar
Two-third cup cider vinegar
Two Tablespoons peeled and minced fresh ginger
One teaspoon coarse Kosher salt
One Tablespoon mustard seed
One-quarter teaspoon ground turmeric
One and one-half teaspoons grated lemon zest
One cup golden raisins
Place all ingredients in a large, nonreactive pot, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the mixture is very thick, 1- ½ to 2 hours. Let cool slightly. Ladle into hot sterilized half-pint jars and seal. Yield: 1-½ pints.
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Green Tomato Marmalade
4 lbs green tomatoes
1/4 cup finely chopped ginger
6 cups sugar
5 lemons
1/2 cup water
Chop tomatoes, add grated rind and juice of lemons, ginger and water. Simmer 1 hour stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Add sugar. Simmer until sugar is dissolved and then boil rapidly until consistency of jam (about 25 min) pour into jars and seal. I’m afraid I don’t remember what the yield is, it has been a few years.
Have a blessed day!
~Sharon
Did you hear my ‘AAAARRRRGGGGHHH’! all the way to Wyoming? Yes that would be my dream of a lifetime, too. That along with a lovely robin’s egg blue 1954 Chevy pickup to tow it with…We can still have our dreams!!!
The metal roofing lids look wonderful, too. How lucky you are to live in an area that still has preserved some of it’s local history.
Have a wonderful fall…
Shery, LOVE THOSE HATS! So cute. Can’t wait to see the pattern. I love your pictures, too. Great post. Happy Fall, your blogging sister, Nicole (Suburban Farmgirl Blogger)
Yep this time of year is down right enchanting. It’s catch-your-breath at breath-taking scenery or scents. This Saturday our son David is raising his timber frame for his straw bale home! My thinking is that it’s a most perfect time of year to be doing it! Shery, have you thought about finding the buyer of the trailer and offering more money for it?
Shery: Now you have the "one that got away story" but I know how you feel. You were hoping for That one. Love your blog and all the fantastic pictures. Wish I was closer to visit in person. Hope you will find the perfect one soon, but won’t it have to be pulled by a horse? ho ho. Your farmgirl friend Bonnie.
I love this post and the accompanying photographs. All of them are wonderful but my absolutely favorite are the tin can lids all over … fabulous. I can just hear the rain pitter, pattering as it hits the lids! I love it! Thank you ….