Ahhh, traditions! Almost every family has them, and they are especially prevalent this time of year. A lot of families bake batches of cookies or create ornaments for distant relatives. Numerous others have little whimsical things that are particular to their families.
We can’t start them too young, can we? Look at those cute little hands. This is making Thanksgiving leftover pizza!
Ahhh, traditions! Almost every family has them, and they are especially prevalent this time of year. A lot of families bake batches of cookies or create ornaments for distant relatives. Numerous others have little whimsical things that are particular to their families.
We can’t start them too young, can we? Look at those cute little hands. This is making Thanksgiving leftover pizza!
Have you ever seen or heard the acronym FOMO? It stands for “Fear of Missing Out,” and I think it’s where this post stems from…
The key word in the title for this post is “learning” and what a steep learning curve it is! This has been a life long problem/process for me. After years decades of taking on too much it is a hard habit to break. I think the biggest problem is that I’ve often been successful at overextending myself…but we’re never too old for some much needed negative feedback.
Saying “no” can allow us to stop and take in the scenery. The scene is much snowier now, only a couple weeks after this photo was taken!
Okay Farmgirls, I’m getting into it: the groove of new surroundings and new digs. I also have a little disclaimer: I’m getting over the flu…so this might be a bit disjointed/uninspired. I’m sorry, but please send me some healing thoughts to chase this headache and these body aches back to where they came from (not a nice place).
One of our last working days on the farm this season! Preparing to take the plastic off of a high tunnel. Ava is a daredevil on the ladder.
After a fairly stressful late September/early October (a bit about that in my most recent post), I have enjoyed over a week of relative relaxation. Moving is hard and stressful, it is a universal truth. Tensions run high, we eat terrible food, our bodies get tired from lifting and our minds fatigue after too much organizing and decision making.
Adrenaline, it’s what allows us to accomplish great feats and achieve natural highs. It also encourages our bodies to fight or flight in the face of danger. It makes us feel alive! Some people are adrenaline junkies…I am not one of them. Sure, a little excitement is great. I like the challenge of a black diamond while skiing or the occasional surge of energy when scared by something silly. I’ve even sky-dived and cliff jumped just for the experience. However, I am not one to go out chasing that rush of hormones.
Me cliff jumping in Grand Teton National Park several years ago. Evan made the cool picture!
I had fun coming up with these YURT reverse acronyms: Young Urban-Rural Tourist. Yes, Unless Really Tired (this was a close second to the final title). Yucky Underwear Rides Tightly. You’re an Uber Radical Teacher. I chose “You Understand Rare Treats” because of how much I have come to appreciate what many people take for granted.
A photo of me on the trail to the yurt from about a month ago courtesy of my cousin Kirsten.
I noticed it almost two weeks ago–the day of my last post, actually! Fall. It was here. There were perfectly yellow birch leaves littering the walkway to the yurt. I felt like wearing a vest. It was sunny and crisp, and the hint of a breeze made the aspen quake. There was that unmistakable smell of autumn on the barely distinguishable wind. A fluff of fireweed seed lingered just out of reach.
Fireweed takes on some new fall hues.
Sometimes, a carefree morning of harvesting wild berries transforms into a challenge that must be defeated! This happened to me this week with several kids (and one soon-to-be-kid…)in tow. Without those determined kiddos, this Farmgirl would have turned around long before the rewarding finale.
Farmgirls in the making.
Dog days make us all sleepy enough to take some zzzz’s in the most unlikely of places, like in a backpack.
We are in the thick of the dog days of summer. This is different in Alaska than it was growing up in the Midwest. In Alaska, it is “hot” when it’s over seventy degrees. For some reason it feels WAY hotter! Maybe it’s because of the angle of the sun?
Hello lovely readers! I’m writing this on Wednesday evening, which means I’ve just gotten home from a big day on the farm. Wednesday is our CSA day–it’s the day the subscribers to our Community Supported Agriculture shares get to take home their weekly bins of freshly picked and cleaned veggies. The best day of the week!
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”.
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