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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
”
~ Mark TwainDebbie Bosworth
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.’”
Column contents © Deb Bosworth. All rights reserved.
Being a farmgirl is not
about where you live,
but how you live.Rebekah Teal
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.
Column contents © Rebekah Teal. All rights reserved.
“
Keep close to Nature’s heart … and break clear away once in awhile to climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods, to wash your spirit clean.
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~ John MuirCathi Belcher
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.”
Column contents © Cathi Belcher. All rights reserved.
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Wherever you go, no matter the weather, always bring your own sunshine.
”
~ Anthony J. D’AngeloDori Troutman
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.
Column contents © Dori Troutman. All rights reserved.
Shery Jespersen
Previous Ranch Farmgirl,
Oct 2009 – Nov 2013Wyoming cattle rancher and outpost writer (rider), shares the “view from her saddle.” Shery is a leather and lace cowgirl-farmgirl who’s been horse-crazy all of her life. Her other interests include “junktiques,” arts and crafts, glamping, collecting antique china, and cultivating mirth.
Mary Murray
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.”
Column contents © Mary Murray. All rights reserved.
Farmgirl
is a condition
of the heart.Alexandra Wilson
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!
Column contents © Alexandra Wilson. All rights reserved.
Libbie Zenger
Previous Rural Farmgirl,
June 2010 – Jan 2012Libbie’s a small town farmgirl who lives in the high-desert Sevier Valley of Central Utah on a 140-year-old farm with her husband and two darling little farmboys—as well as 30 ewes; 60 new little lambs; a handful of rams; a lovely milk cow, Evelynn; an old horse, Doc; two dogs; a bunch o’ chickens; and two kitties.
René Groom
Previous Rural Farmgirl,
April 2009 – May 2010René lives in Washington state’s wine country. She grew up in the dry-land wheat fields of E. Washington, where learning to drive the family truck and tractors, and “snipe hunting,” were rites of passage. She has dirt under her nails and in her veins. In true farmgirl fashion, there is no place on Earth she would rather be than on the farm.
Farmgirl spirit can take root anywhere—dirt or no dirt.
Nicole Christensen
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”.
Column contents © Nicole Christensen. All rights reserved.
Paula Spencer
Previous Suburban Farmgirl,
October 2009 – October 2010Paula is a mom of four and a journalist who’s partial to writing about common sense and women’s interests. She’s lived in five great farm states (Michigan, Iowa, New York, Tennessee, and now North Carolina), though never on a farm. She’s nevertheless inordinately fond of heirloom tomatoes, fine stitching, early mornings, and making pies. And sock monkeys.
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Archives
Life Scapes I
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Life Scapes II
Here’s Life Scapes II. Life Scapes I is in a separate post, either before or after this one.
Life Scapes II is altogether different. Light, breezey, airy. No choking up. Maybe they’ll be a Life Scapes III too. Who knows?
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Hmmm…not sure what website means in the requests to submit?? Hope this works. Anyway I really enjoy reading your blogs Rebekah and I think the titles "Lifescapes" puts everything in perspective- the big world, Lifescapes I -almost too overwhelming for words and Lifescapes II – earthy and just doing what we should all be doing to enjoy what is given to us. Thanks so much for taking your precious time to share with a world of unknowns, such as myself! I had a good Memorial Day and it appears you did too!
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Thank You Rebekah…!
I did not know the garlic scapes are tasty, and we always nipped them off before they could flower, and drain the garlic’s nutrients. That Recipe sounds yummy, and I am eager to try it.
Oh… btw… the little community of Cosby used to Crown a "Ramps Queen" each year… you should enter next year, if they still do that.
Thanks again, and…
GodSpeed…
Gary
in Tampa -
HAHA! So glad you discovered your food processor! I love mine and use it often, but don’t let anyone tell you it’s for pie crust because it’s NOT! Then again, I’m really pie crust picky…
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Love the article on scapes! I always let my garlic bloom. They are in full bloom now! I wish I had known this a few weeks ago!
Good Bloggie Rebekah…!
I just returned from the VA Hospital, and while there, it was truely sad to see the very young take their place beside me in the room. It is good to see that today’s Soldiers are treated with respect by the public, as it was not so in my day, and that was difficult to deal with. We do indeed live in a Hostile world, and someone must guard our Freedom with Loyalty and Honor.
Thank You for reading, and…
GodSpeed…!
Gary
in Tampa
City Farmgirl,
Yes, it was a very touching week-end. My dad served in WWII,
he will turn 90 in October. He still can’t talk of the war without a tear in his eyes. My niece once commented, that if Grandpa hadn’t made it home; all of us wouldn’t have been given life. He has always been my hero and to many more.
God’s blessings to our Service men, and please come home for your family.
lyn
Dear Rebekah, what a lovely posting. I went to the graveside Memorial Day services in my little village, and sobbed through out the entire time. At the graveyard, an officer read a listing of every service person who died since the founding of our country. I realized that in another ceremtary, someone was reading my Father’s name,and sometime, in the very distant future, someone will read my son’s name, who just returned from the war in Iraq.I am so blessed to have him home, but I cry for all the parents who who are not as lucky as I am. Blessings to you.
Good comments, Rebekah. We are so blessed to have the privileges that we have. My brother (a Marine) spent three tours in Viet Nam some in captivity, and my husband is an Air Force veteran (he was called up for the draft). Their choices were taken in that war so that we could have choices now. I try to remember to thank them as much possible. I can only imagine what ran through that small boy’s mind. Many thanks to you for reminded us.
Hi Rebekah!
I have a special soft spot for Marines, as my father served in WWII. He was injured in an explosion and lost his eyesight in his early twenties. My father taught me to respect our country and to proud of it. This weekend I flew my father’s flag on his special flag pole placed outside of our home (He passed away 6/25/99). I learned many lessons from my father and I will always continue to support our troops in their difficult job.
Repectfully,
Janice K.
My cousin spent three tours in Viet Nam (Army) I wasn’t even born when he went the first time. It is hard to get him to talk about it even after all these years. I have two brothers who were in the Army during the 1980’s, even though it was peace time it didn’t stop our Mom from worrying about them. A friend of mine’s husband in the Army went to Dessert Storm in the 1990’s than went again for this war. He didn’t make it home, leaving behind a wife and two children. We are from a small farming village in Michigan, the whole town showed up and the next town also. For his funneral. When he wasn’t in the Army he drove truck for a farmer, they had his truck in the funneral prosecession. The wife had to go to the closest city to fine a church big enough to hold everyone for his funeral, and it wasn’t big enough. The longest prosecession I have ever seen. He died from a roadside bomb, he was 40, just weeks away from being 41 this was in 2003. Being a small town I knew him and his brother, and cousins growing up with them. Get teary eyed typing this.
I also have a cousin in the Army, he been to Iraq got hurt, not bad thank the Lord. But he soon leaves for Afganastan. He has a wife and a young daughter. And a cousin in the Navy been to Iraq also.
War don’t seem so far away when someone you know dies. I will always be thankful for our troops.
Thank you, Rebekah, for sharing this. It so represents Him, the Marine, and his family!……..Cate Tuten
Thanks so much for your great magazine! I ordered a subscription for both my daughter in Alaska, and myself after purchasing two of your magazines at my local quilt shop. My daughter moved to Alaska last summer, lives on a farm there and lived on a farm here in Upper Michigan. She also thinks your magazine is tremendous and awaits the arrival of her first issues (I sent her the ones I had purchased). I ordered several books from you and they are marvelous! Now if I just had one of your "Tear Drop Trailers" I would motor off to Alaska!! I think my foal should be to purchase a Tear Drop and then my sister and I could drive the Alkan Highway in 2010 to celebrate my 75th birthday—sound good!! You bet! Have a great day and thanks again for youquality magazine and products! Bonnie Joyal
Beautifully written. I look forward to your posts.