I love farms and farming. Even when it is cold and rainy, or extremely hot and mosquito-ey, I am reminded of some words MaryJane shared with me once: It is so much better to be stuck working outside during less-than-desirable weather than to be stuck working inside on a beautiful day.

Sometimes I REALLY have to remind myself of this great insight, but I usually come around, even in the thickest of mosquitos.

Visiting farms around my community, state, country and world is one of my favorite things to do. I have dreams of one day visiting South America, Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, Australia, India, Africa (the whole world, really) and trekking from farm to farm, getting to see the different farming methods. It would be especially fun to see how similar or diferent the ubiquitous potato is planted, grown and stored the world over…

Anyhow, I’ve been back in Alaska for two weeks now after my visit to North Dakota and Minnesota, and I’ve been reflecting on farm visits.

Evan, My future brothers-in-law and I on the hills outside of their family’s cropland (former pastureland in their dairying days!)

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Hey Farmgirls! A few weeks ago (well, maybe more like two months ago…) I teased you all by saying that I would share some fun news with you in my next post. Welllllll, a few posts have gone by without any news of this news. However, I’m ready, now.

Are you ready?

Drum Roll, please!

Evan and I are moving into the round. That is, we are moving into our very own…

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Jiggity, Jig! For this post, The Rural Farmgirl is returning to her roots as a Suburban Farmgirl, but we’ll see that I can’t stay away from rural places for too long.  I have been spending the last week in my home state of Minnesotaa–for the first time in over a year! Speaking of not being able to stay away from rural areas, I’m actually writing this from the grocery store, using their free wi-fi, because I am “up north” (as we say in the midwest) with my mom and nieces, spending some time at my mom’s internetless farm. Before my arrival, Minnesota had been experiencing weeks of rain. Fortunately, it has ceased and has left everything so green and beautiful! It’s good to be home, and my schedule has been (and will continue to be) jam-packed with big milestones and fun celebrations.

My mom and nieces getting ready for a nature hike at my mom’s farm near Crosby, Minnesota. Notice their outfits? These are true Farmgirls–want to stay stylish but keep out the wood ticks at the same time!

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Once upon a time there was a late twenty something Farmgirl living in Alaska. You see, in Alaska, time changes in a way that is foreign to much of the world. It seems to be the only thing people can talk about sometimes, especially farmers and those who spend a majority of their time out of doors (many Alaskans fit this bill). This changing time comes from the tilt of the Earth and how the sun plays across its surface throughout the seasons. Growing up in the Midwest, the winter nights were long and the summer days seemed endless, but she had never been to Alaska.

This Farmgirl writes about the length of days and nights often, and how quickly she and other Alaskans lose or gain daylight hours. It seemed that she was just an observer her first year in Alaska, but she became entrenched in these changes her second year…this tilt of the Earth directly influencing her Circadian rhythms.

Maybe seems unphased by Ava and Ronan (A couple of my Farm School Students)–perhaps he would like to take over one of my jobs?

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Whew! What a day, Farmgirls. I’m finally home and sitting after a day full of: new jobs, new homes, escaped critters, dog walking in the mud in formal clothing, a wonderful evening with some friends, and late night wading through vernal pools…

It may just be the lingering vibe from a “glam rock” themed party I attended last weekend, but David Bowie said it best “Ch-Ch-Changes/Turn and face the stranger.”

Come see some of the strangers this farmgirl has had to face recently…

My bees

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Hello all you fine, friendly farmgirls! It’s finals week here at Alaska Pacific University, and because of that…I’m sleep deprived. It happens to the best procrastinators among us year after year, generation after generation. When some people say they are sleep deprived, they are probably surviving off of just a few hours of sleep here and a few hours of sleep there. Since I’m fairly child like, sleep deprivation for me means that I’m getting less than eight hours of sleep per night for several nights in a row. The least amount I’ve slept has been five hours, and I kind of feel like a zombie. I know, it’s rough. How can I hope to be a farmer some day if five hours of sleep leaves me feeling less-than-human? I don’t know, that’s a question for another day.

Anyway, I digress. One reason for this sleep deprivation is some forced civic dutiness I was assigned to complete for a graduate level environmental law class. We had to write and submit an official public comment to a governmental agency regarding our stance on some bill, act or other decision that is recently being decided upon. Of course, this had to be regarding something related to the environment.

Evan and I enjoying a spring ski. It should be a civic duty to enjoy state and national recreational areas on a regular basis.

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It’s the winter that keeps on giving. Maybe it’s just the winter that needs the last word, when everyone is too caught up in the impending spring and summer to retaliate against the shoveling and plowing anymore. We just give in. We put on our boots and cram our heads into our hats and head out into the white abyss without a dismissive word about the darn winter or cursing the yet-again snow-covered porch. We’ve become complacent with the winter world around us.

The only animals that seem to be protesting are the chickens. They have left their coop exactly once per day for the last five days to eat and drink. Egg laying has all but ceased.

The spring tease a few weeks ago had me excited about sitting on the GREEN grass, hiking in the GREEN wilds and strolling through the farmers market, checking out the GREENS. Im supposed to start a new farming gig in a few weeks, and it seems like the season may be off to an extended indoor start.

To compensate for this lack of natural green, this Farm Girl has been taking in some green news. Some of it has been great, some of it has been not-so-great; but the most interesting of it has been GREEN.

Does a green filter make this shot (from April 6) seem any less wintery?…No. The answer is no.

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“We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility of our future.” George Berrnard Shaw

Our pasts, however much we want to think of them as static things, are ever changing. Think of the word ‘recollection.’ Every time we look at the past we are re-collecting, or collecting again, thoughts and memories of times past. There is no doubt in my mind that this act of re-collecting continually results in changed versions of memories and the uncovering of thoughts long unthunk. How have I come to this point in my life of dreaming of being a farmer? As a kid, farming wasn’t even a consideration. What happened between then and now to influence these present dreams of farming?

I’ll have to take a trip down memory lane…

How in the heck have I found myself immersed in Alaskan agriculture?

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Spring was here! for a few days, it was here, I swear. The skies were clearing up in the afternoons, the icicles broke from our house, and that distinct smell of snow melting and gravel roads thawing tinged the air. It seems to have all been a tease–but what was I expecting? It’s March in Alaska after all. Last year at this time we still had thigh deep snow on the farm, and growing up in Minnesota I would be expecting at least one more big snow fall.

However, the daylight hours are increasing, daylight savings time means that the afternoons seem even longer, and spring really is just right around the corner. With this increased vitamin D comes a jumpstart in our farmer-wannabe attitudes and motivations. Sigh…what a wonderful time of year!

It’s Spring Break for teachers and students alike! I headed south with a friend and spent a few days in Homer, enjoying the spring tease.

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Hey Farmgirls, Guess what? I have now been lucky enough to have shared a year’s worth of some exciting and not-so-exciting stories with you all. That’s right, it is my one year Rural Farmgirl-iversary. The year has been full of ups and downs, wrongs and rights, and straight down the middles; and I can’t THANK YOU enough for joining me biweekly for a whole year. I love writing for Maryjane and you, her audience of amazing women (and some men, too!). Thanks for sharing your own anecdotes and providing some great advice for all situations.

I wanted to make this post an extra special one. However, I was having trouble getting past the stage of blabbing about what has happened over the past year–if you really want to read that, there is a list of my writings over there—–> somewhere on the side of the screen. Be my guest! Otherwise, I have composed some poems as a sort of lighthearted thank you to you all.

So, come on in for some various high school level poems inspired by 366 days (2012 was a leap year!) in Rural Alaska as Mary Jane’s Rural Farmgirl.

I’ve learned that skiing (and other winter sports) is a wonderful complement to farming! Plus, back country skiing is free!

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