Autumn pulls me in.
In fall, my trips to town that should take 30 minutes become 45. Or more.
I roll down the windows, turn on the heater, and crank up the music. My old friends, James Taylor and Johnny Cash, and my new friends, The Avett Brothers, ride with me as I take back roads and side roads and dirt roads and curvy roads through the mountain countryside.
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”.
What a wonderful post! Could NOT stop reading until the very end. This took me back to autumn in West Virginia when applebutter making in a huge copper kettle took all day and involved a large group of friends and family….ahhhh, memories.
Thank you Rebekah! Your one-lane pictures make the hair on my arms stand up.
I knew you would turn around and go back! The old skills are almost lost. We need to pass them on to the next generation. We take so many every day things for granted that used to have to be made by hand. I believe that it is causing the “Disease of Ease” in our society. The whole process from planting to boiling that sorghum cane is a study in patience and appreciation. Thank you for letting me “lollygag” along with you. By the way, you are the first person besides myself that I have come across, that uses that word! Which got me to thinking about it and I looked it up. I always use it in the context of taking my time or enjoying the moment but was shocked by what it used to mean! https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lollygag
Interesting, maybe I will start using Meander or Saunter instead!
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This process closely resembles what they go through up here when we make maple syrup except instead of squeezing canes we’re collecting sap. The cooking at high heat is the same, though. Reading this reminded me that I just bought a jar of molasses for a cookie recipe I want to try. Now you’ve made me hungry … I’ll have to get out my pans and start baking! Thanks as always for taking us along as you travel about your sweet little world. Love it!
Hi Rebekah,
I just needed to say that I look forward to your posts. You are living a dream of mine. You made it happen through hard work perseverance. Thank you for sharing your stories and thoughts.
Please think about writing a book…
A dedicated reader of The City Farmgirl in the Country,
Denise
Loved your article :)!. Last weekend we went to the Sorghum Festival in Blairsville, GA. They make it there just like you were talking about, only they used a big, handsome Mule to get the syrup from the cane. You would have loved him. He was whitish and huge :)!
I’m really not a fan of Sorghum, but love our Sourwood Honey, and New England Maple Syrup. Non of the artificial stuff from the stores for us :(!
Beautiful! Fun! You should know that I live vicariously through you.
I have never had sorghum. This was really informative and you are the teacher today. We get to learn along with you! You are also brave to just stop and join in. I would want to, but would not. I know I miss a lot that way. I only like the real maple syrup also. My grands like the other, the stuff I actually fed my kids because of budgeting. The scenes you have shared are beautiful. I hope someday to visit your area along with so many other spots in the US I have never seen. Thanks for sharing! Enjoy your fall!
Beautiful words. I feel it too… Thanks for the lollygag through your world xo
Deb
We make our own syrup as well. Of course it’s nothing like their process. My husband hates store bought syrup. I don’t mind it because I grew up using it but I can agree his homemade syrup does taste better. I love your beautiful pictures of your autumn. They definitely are inviting. Good luck with your ice cream and butter. Let us know how they turn out.
Rebekah – wonderful account of your fall experience! Here in the Ouchita Mountains, we have the same thing going on with those one-lane bridges and narrow, dirt roads…always a bit of a thrill to get by unscathed! To add to your listening pleasure as you drive those roads, I would like to suggest Gillian Welch’s “The Harrow and The Harvest”. On that cd, you’ll find stories that relate to the kind of country living we’ve chosen – a farmer and his mule (Hard Times); missing home (Down Along the Dixie Line); and lot’s of longing, which (to me) always seems appropriate for Autumn. Oh, and thanks for passing on the notion of catching a falling leaf to make your wish come true…I’ll add that to my little stash of fun things!!
oh, I love discovering new music! I’m going to listen to that today! thank you!
My mom (98) is from Rabun County and there was a sorghum mill in their community, so the syrup was part of my life growing up in Metro Atl. We generally used it for baking and for “sopping sogum”…..as in dredging home-made biscuits through a puddle of syrup on the plate. The old ways are quickly disappearing and it is such a shame. I have had good sorghum in many years now.
I love Autumn. Unfortunately, my neighborhood’s trees are not turning color.
Marilyn
Thank you for a great day of visiting! Love’n the farm life. “Sog-rum” is an acquired taste but one that is worth it. Happy Fall y’all! Go bless.
You were blessed that day!! We make sorghum Syrup and it is a family tradition that my husband and I turned into family business. It is a special time of the year for us and all the people that help us and stop by. Glad you had the opportunity to experience it!! I love to cook with it, and anything you would use brown sugar in you can use sorghum. Enjoy!
Love the one lane roads, we have a few around here. Here is up north, in the mitten, the west side of Michigan. The town just north of us has a one lane under the old train tracks which is now a bike trail.
Your story of the friends pressing out sorghum for molasses reminds me of apple cider making. Apple cider fresh from the press is wonderful, makes apple juice that is bottles and sold in stores seem like yellow colored water.
We lived in southern Georgia for a few years and there were a few farms around that still used the mules in a circle to make those presses go.
Love to learn how things were done in the past. Always makes me appreciate what I have today even more.
Im so satisfied with buying juice and syrup at my nearest farmers market. Enjoy not having to do this..,glad someone else does enjoy making their own syrup and juice. Thanks for sharing
Rebekah, thanks for sharing. We have become so busy we have stopped taking the time to take to the back roads unexplored. Thank you for making me see how important it is to take the time to enjoy all of God’s beautiful creation. So interesting too the molasse cooking procedure. Cant wait to jump in the car now and go exploring our back roads of NC. Be Blessed.
Rebekah, that is a fascinating story and process! Folks here tell me that they used to make it, but I don’t know anyone who does now. I guess that we are too “citified”. We do make apple butter in the big kettles over a wood fire though.
I love reading about how you are soaking in everything about life I. The country and especially on a farm.
Thanks for making us a part of it!
loved this post it made me think back to when I got to see this in action when I was a kid. they did use horses for the power then though! I do remember quite a few people there helping or watching the process. I was in awe of the horses hooked up and going around in that big circle to make it all work. Now my Grandad would put some sorghum on his plate then put a big pat of butter and just mix it all up then put all that on his biscuits. I have to say I have done that too and it is good!! thanks for the memories with your story!
Loved! This story.reading it @ 1:50 a.m.. I had to read until the end. I was like why would you not turn in to see what was going on? And you did! But then I thought how many signs like this have I passed without giving it another thought? Probably a lot. From now on maybe I will turn in as well.