At last count, we have nine newborn calves. We’re just entering calving season and pretty soon, there will be baby beefs snuggled under every sagebrush at the ranch. When we ride to check on the mother cows and their babies, the latter can be hard to find. Just yesterday, I had a heck of a time finding a new calf here at home where we keep the first-calf heifers. But, while I was looking for the little dickens, I did find something else … a treasure!
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Curse not the month of bluster and tumbling bonnets, for it takes a blast of many trumpets to loosen winter’s claws of ice. Ancient Jews held a festival in March in which trumpets owned the air. A jubilant chorus of brass marked the end of a season and the beginning of a new one. Indeed, there is something victorious sounding in the blowing of a horn!
Greetings farmgirls! Spring hasn’t sprung in our part of the country yet and I have a raging case of spring fever (an annual occurrence). I have pansies on the brain … among other things. This time of year, I always wonder if perhaps the greenhouses have any in stock yet. I should know better by now, but that doesn’t stop feverish visions. I’m afflicted with both spring fever and cabin fever, so, I’ve been trying to maintain a good mindset by doing a variety of indoor things. If you’re a feverish farmgirl too, c’mon in, have a spot of tea & sit a spell.
My husband and I began our own ‘flip this house’ project over a year ago. Needless to say, the flip hasn’t hasn’t happened yet. “Flip” is a cute, quick word. We need a different word for what we’re doing to transform our house. A slower word. But, it is going to happen. When you’ve lived in a place for awhile, there comes a time when not just one thing needs attention, but nearly everything you look at either needs to be freshened in some manner, replaced or repaired. We Are There. So, over the past year, I’ve been idea idea hunting and planning. C’mon in and let me bounce some ideas off of you. I’d sure appreciate it.
“A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.” ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton
I really did try to write about something other than “lovey-dovey” (what with Valentine’s Day right around the corner), but the 1965 hit song by Jackie DeShannon was right. It was right back then and acutely true today … “What the world needs now is love … lovesweet love.”
I fear that one of America’s oldest forms of social recreation may be fading into the mist of history. I hope I’m wrong. In winter, fresh air is just as important to the body & mind as it is at any other time of the year. And, in this farmgirl’s opinion, we need to get out and breathe it in deeply … skates or no skates.
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“If I ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to paying attention, than to any other talent.” ~ Isaac Newton
Some words are little and don’t have much personality. Other words may be of medium character and they too need the assist of words with more dimension if they hope to amount to anything. Then, there are words that need a lot of room. They are the giants. Words that can change the landscape, change lives, change borders, medicine, books, culture, the way we look at things and even at ourselves. “Discover” is such a word.
I hope that my next statement is as true for you as it has been for our family: Blessings in 2011 far outnumbered the trials. We also have two new family members. In fact, when I was looking around at our growing clan while at my sister’s home on Christmas day, I marveled at that fact. We were all there, no one missing and with two new additions (and rumor has it, another on the horizon). My sister told me that Dad got a little misty over it; that and the fact that all of his loved ones are happy. Years in the past haven’t always read that way and I know the future won’t either … but … as for Christmas 2011, it was one of the very best. 2011 was indeed a good one in many ways. I can’t help but look back over my shoulder before moving on toward 2012. Care to join me for a farmgirl year in review? At the end, please offer up the highlights of your year in the comments section.
Put on your mittens & cloak because we’re going to go for a lengthy farmgirl sleighride … of sorts. There’s a party to go to and many stops to make along the way. Eventually, we’ll wind it up with an old-time Christmas story. Hop in, snuggle up together under the sleigh blanket and ‘kiss’ Dolly into a nice road-trot…Jing Jing Jing. “Can you see the road before us and sing a chorus or two?”
‘Clan Plaids & Plaid Cans’. Try saying that fast three times. I can barely get it out once. However, a pattern (literally) has been more prominent in and around my life of late. Plaids. Firstly, my ‘new’ 1958 farmgirl Glamping trailer has become my playhouse. She has a name now: EmmyLou (after my fave country songbird). Anyway, EmmyLou loves vintage plaid goodies and I’ve managed to collect some 50s plaid accessories for her. And, now that Christmas is nigh, plaids are back on the scene – wrap, ribbons, table clothes etc. Ever wonder why tartan plaids play a signifigant role in holiday decor? Me neither, but my curiosity woke up.
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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