Each and every one of my farmgirl pals is a “homebody”. We enjoy gadding about, but home is our nest and the place we love best.
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Catherine 
Sandy 
Brenda 
Lisa 
Julie 
Ruth 
Judith 
Raynita 
melissa 
Cora Jo Ciampi 
Rhonda -
Debbie 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.’”
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.
Cathi 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.”
Dori 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.
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.”
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!
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”.
The poem is so lovely. The sentiment was just right. Home IS such an important part of my life, that this entry really touched my heart! Thanks for sharing. Pam
Oh so wonderful to know how special it is to have a home ~ and to know that IS where your heart is..and most likely the things you love most !!!!! I also have a horse love affair ~ 4 at my home with me, my baby being a Belgian Morgan who is 28~oh,talk about love??? Well then I’d also be talking about my husband of 34 yrs. who took a job in North Dakota[our home is in MN.] in November after an early lay-off in construction. Looks like the future may be uncertain, but for now, we are grateful for what we have : our home, our children and our animals !!! Thanks for sharing about your life !!! Marie
Shery: "Yer darn tootin’ home is where they love you" even when you share it with thousands of folks on line. You are blessed with many gifts – writing, photographing, decorating, crafting and caring for horses and people. Bless you for you. Bonnie
Lovely…the pictures are heartwarming…simple beauty…Spring is right around the corner and I can’t wait to see which flower sticks its’ head out first on my own High Plains home.
Dear Shery – Your poems, stories and pictures just speak to my heart! I soooo enjoy your blog! Thank you for taking the time to uplift us all. I’m in awe of your beautiful horses and miss that part of my life. Anyway, thank you so much for your inspiration.
God Bless!
Shannon
Oh Shery,
So true! Home truly is where and what you make of it.
We are so very Blessed.
oh & by-the-by,,,the 18th picture down (from the top)…I spotted a sweet lil blue & white vintage trailer….yours by chance?
Having a wee old trailer to glam-up and farmgirl cutsiefy is the Best!
Wagons HO & happy trails to you too!
Hi Sheri,
I so love your writing and way of sharing, I look forward to your blog all the time. We are currently living out of doors mostly, we sleep in a yurt and have an outdoor kitchen and bath house, saving money for building a home on our 21 acre farm where we grow food for our restaurants. Some days I think I may never have a home, and others I think I don’t want to move inside … I so loved your sentiments about what makes a home a home. Thank you once again. Terces
Amen, Amen! I love the poem and the beautiful pictures.
Dear Shery…the sheer beauty in this poem is priceless! You are truly blessed! Your poem makes me yearn even more for the big sky country. THANKS AGAIN Happy Trails and lots of WAGS
I loved your poem about home. Home has always been very important to me, so I really identified with your words, even if I don’t get to live in the country which is my hearts desire. I’m not getting any younger, but I am still hoping and praying for my little peace of heaven. 🙂
Your poem says it all. Makes us appreciate what we have for sure. When I was young I was restless and probably didn’t appreciate what home was all about and now that I’m 63 I love what its all about. Peace, security, a haven from the world. Sitting on my front porch in my rocker looking out over the river below me and just losing myself in the beauty.
Shery J!
This entire entry today has beauty and blessings galore!So many of your lines hit home with me, but the one for me was,
"The best home site isn’t necessarily where you came from. It is the place you commit your heart to".
We simply must do our best to make each house a home…and I agree…Farmgirls ARE HOMEGIRLS!
The longer I’m home(13 years now)the more blessed and grateful I feel for everything!
Thank you for you special way of sharing your world and blessings.
Beach Blessings to you!
Deb~
Shery,
Your blogs always give me joy; the photography and the sentiment are truly shared by me. Thanks for letting me know how many others feel like this. So many of us in our 50’s remember the joy of home and the good life of our moms as homemakers. I was blessed to be a homemaker for the whole of my daughter’s young life and school career. She is out of the house now, married and making a life of her own. But I would never trade those days for what would have been considered a "richer" life. Life has taken unexpected turns and now I work full time outside my home but coming home every day to the house and husband I love, is the true joy in my life. Thanks for sharing that love with me.
bobbie calgaro
Lovely. I could relate to it all….But what are those wild flowers after the poem? I learn something new every time I read/look at your blog, but this wasn’t identified, and I feel today’s knowledge is incomplete.
I have been trying to decide whether to stay home or go out and get a job…thanks for reminding me that staying home is a legitimate option…and a blessed place to be.
MY HOME IS the place to be…Where ever I go, nothing and no one can keep me away for very long from my "nest of love!" HERE is the place my sister and I rescued abandoned little ones…HERE is a place where all kind of animals can rest in peace…HERE we all live together in the respect of life…We are vegetarians and we prefer our little ones sitting on us, singing their love to us, than in our plates…HERE is the place I want to be…Thank you for this sweet poem…In our modern world, too many people seem to have lost the true values of life and family…Brigitte
Shery, but, of course, home is best. Having been a Foster kid, I spent so many years not daring to unpack, so to speak. Even after I was on my own. The good thing about this is that I have lived in so many beautiful places over the years…I can call up so much beauty to call "home". right now the White Mountains of New Hampshire is home to me. One of my favorite places so far, though, has been Dayton, Wyoming. Love that place. Love this place too… you can see my problem! Oh, boy. Home IS where we hang our hearts, for sure. Thanks for such a great blog.
Cora jo
Thank you for making me take a break for awhile and really read your poem. Lovely way to drink a cup of tea. Thank you!
We moved quite a bit growing up also. But we always had each other and our traditions. Mom always brought along sheets and blankets so she could make our beds as soon as they were off the moving van. This made it home sooner. We then found all the favorite things in new places, ice cream, parks etc. Our final family move brought us home to my parent’s hometown. And I got to bring my horse along. I had him for 18 years. Now my horses are in my backyard. Gotta love that. Being a quilter, scrap-booker,baker and well you name it- there are lots of pieces of your poem that ring true to me.
Thanks
Oh, your pictures are beautiful! I am a home-girl to the core. I’m constantly realizing, "Oh, I haven’t been to town in 3 days", or "…a week!" 🙂 Home is very sweet. Thanks for posting such a sweet poem. What a talent to have! Blessings on your home~ Breanna
Shery,
Just read your poem with my 8 year old farmgirl. We loved it! She hasn’t been feeling her best the last couple of days. Thanks for making her smile:) Love the statement about home being where you commit your heart. I am seeing my family’s future changing, possibly moving from the only home we have known. I needed to hear that it may not be about where we came from or a site, it’s where you commit to with hearts and souls together. Again, Thanks!…….Raynita & Kamryn