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To my very dearest, sweetest readers of this blog!!!
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Oh my word. You all jumped into the “Lift Someone Up Challenge” with eyes wide open and full of excitement. And I cannot express to you how much it inspired me to keep on going.
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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”.
Since my husband past a month ago, I’ve received a lot of letters and cards.
I’ve written so many letters back to them in thanking them for their kind words.
He will be greatly missed by all
I’ve been sending cards and letters to friends and loved ones my entire life….people simply don’t send mail anymore. The comments I get are: how you keep in touch is amazing; it is so thoughtful that you remember ( I send birthday cards and Christmas cards out all the time -mark the dates on my calendar); you made my day; Thank you.
Love the challenge, but it has never been a challenge for me, it’s simply what I do. Folks think I’m crazy – mailed out 70 Christmas cards this past December- but it’s my way of saying hello and thinking of you.
Several years ago I joined a pen pal group and, for a while, I consistently wrote letters, receiving a few responses, writing in response to these letters, just building up friendships “along the inky trail”. Then my life got busy and then busier and my letter-writing fell to the wayside. I’m quite disorganized and I felt very badly when I came across letters from pen pals that were awaiting responses from me, like, from last year. Over a full year, in fact. Many of us in our group would fit in the category of senior “Queen-agers” and I was afraid that many have passed on. I organized the pile and got to work on responding (and apologizing). Happy to report that a majority (so far) responded. Don’t know if I’ll ever meet these ladies but I’ll be more careful in attending to letter-writing. Some ladies have written that their pen pals are their best friends. I just hope that in my writing letters I’ll
be able to give them a hand of friendship and encouragement. Marge, Farmgirl #7915
I love your “lift someone up” challenge. I have note card that are stamped and ready to go in my “Bible basket”. It is a basket that includes my Bible, a small candle and lighter, a devotional book, a notebook and a couple of pens & pencils, and a packet of note cards with stamped envelopes and a small address book. When I first started using my basket I would take it somewhere quiet and made sure I wrote a note each time but I got out of the habit when life got crazy. Your challenge prompted me to refresh my basket and get going again. I always pray for those I’m writing notes to. Sometimes I get a response back, sometimes not. Last month I got a lovely handwritten letter from an old classmate saying she’d really appreciated the prayers and that the timing couldn’t have been more perfect as she had lost her husband the month before and was feeling very isolated. She said, “you helped me remember that even though we don’t live close geographically, we can always “visit” and send love to each other.” Such a small effort can truly affect another person’s life! ❤️ Thank you for getting me started again. 🙂
My sister was having a really rough time and I didn’t know, we live 100 miles apart. I wrote her a quick note and enclosed a little card to let her know I loved her and cared about her life. She called me that evening and we talked for a couple hours.