Dear Sisters,
Today my heart is bursting with gratitude and happiness for the amazing farmgirl community we are all a part of. I’ve only been a member of the MaryJanesFarm family a few short years but I’ve grown in farmgirl years beyond measure. I simply wouldn’t be the ” me ” I am today if it wasn’t for Mary Jane, Meg, Carol, Gabe, the round table of farmgirl bloggers and all of the friendly, FUN, supportive, uplifting, and inspiring, farmgirls I’ve met along the way.
Do you feel me sisters?
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Dear Sisters,
I hope this weeks post from the shorelines finds you all in good health and high spirits! Can you believe we are already midway through January? The month of January is a month to celebrate in our household because it’s the month our first child was born! And this year is EXTRA- ordinary because our son turned 18 yesterday! Join me as I honor and celebrate this special day in a Happy Birthday letter to our son Zachary, inspired by Alex’s (the Rural Farmgirl) welcome Baby Wilder post, which I blubbered all the way through…
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Dear Sisters,
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all had a warm and happy Christmas with your loved ones. We had a festive holiday season with our nearest and dearest here on the shorelines. Today, I’m writing to you from my cozy basement office with the fireplace going and a delicious cup of hot English Breakfast tea. YUM! We are in the middle of a STORM WATCH on the eastern seaboard. Keep your fingers crossed we don’t lose power while I finish this post! Tell me, how are you feeling about the new year? Optimistic? Hopeful? Worried? Fearful? Anxious? Excited? Over joyed? I think we’ve all had years that we were happy to leave in the dust. Illness, death of a loved one, ( human or 4 legged ) losing ones job, relationship challenges, moving…These kinds of life changing events can drag even the cheeriest of farmgirls under leaving her gasping for air, and rightly so.
If any of you had one of ” those “ years I pray 2014 goes easier on you. In fact, I’ve got 10 ways for ringing in a Brand Spank’n NEW YEAR with a focus on the positive no matter what the weather! Come what may! Let’s welcome in 2014 together!
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.
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!
calls herself a knitter, jam-maker, and vintage enthusiast who "never met an antique sewing machine she didn't like." Born and raised in the great state of Texas, she now resides in suburban New England in picturesque Connecticut, just a stone’s throw from New York state.
Married for over twenty years to her Danish-born sweetheart, Nicole has worked in various fields and has been a world-traveler, entrepreneur, and homemaker, but considers being a mom her greatest accomplishment of all. In addition to blogging, she also teaches knitting professionally and is a Certified Master Gardener. Loving all things creative and domestic, Nicole considers her life’s motto to be “bloom where you are planted.”
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