Finally.
Autumn, Sweet Autumn.
Where have you been hiding, My Friend?
Oh, how I’ve been longing for you on these hot summer-like days.
And now you’re here.
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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”.
Hickory nuts ARE good to eat! My MIL used to make a ‘hickory nut pie’, just like pecan. But we always had to be careful, because she couldn’t see really well and we’d get the shell pieces in our pie! Great memories.
We have pecan trees on our property. They don’t produce every year, we’ve heard they have a bumper crop every 7 years! Talk about faith! I haven’t seen any but it’s early here, in NE Oklahoma. Love your descriptions and pictures oh and the new kitty is beautiful! Have a blessed day!
My favorites are cashews. I keep some in a jar ready to pop a few in my mouth when I’m hungry for a snack so I don’t reach for the cookies instead (well, most of the time). P.S. As a cat lover, all cats are beautiful to me!
I wish I had your hickory nuts. My sisters and I when we were little would sit and crack these for our older sister to make fudge with. They are very good. You should try them in some fudge and you will see. I love your blog and will continue to read. I love cats even though I don’t have one at present but the one in the picture reminds me of a cat I had and I called him Prince. He thought he was a prince. lol
I have a question, you mentioned that you buy nuts in shell from produce department and you roast those. Can you tell me about that? Thank you!
I love all nuts especially cashews but like you, I avoid the Brazil nuts. That black cat is gorgeous and arrived just in time for Halloween!
My favorite….Walnuts, Brazil nuts, then almonds… 🙂 I think the long skinny pecans, I say Pa Cons too, are considered Native Pecans…I think…thanks for sharing the recipes…I’m gonna try some. Be Blessed. Neta
Hickory nuts are so good in homemade fudge. When I was little ( in the ’40’s) Dad would crack the nuts and I would use an embroidery needle to pick out the nut meat then mom would make the candy.YUM YUM!! I always love your post and look so forward to them.
Pecans are my favorite, since forever. I’ve never had hickory nuts. Everything else can line up in whatever order, just behind the pecans. I love nuts. ALL of them, even walnuts, which it turns out I’m allergic to. So I can’t eat those anymore or I’ll get blisters all over my mouth and throat. Is that an allergy or a “reaction?” Dunno, but the result is the same – I can’t eat ’em.
That’s okay though, because pecans are the perfect substitute! BTW, I say pa-cans, too. And while they are my favorite, there is no doubt that I eat more peanuts (as in peanut butter) than any other nut or legume. I buy the bulk nuts at Whole Foods and grind them in the store. No salt, sugar, or extra oil that way, which is essential for a husband with kidney disease. Not that I need any of that stuff either.
I’m so glad it’s autumn! Time for pa-can pie!
Rebekah, where I live now the trees surrounding the house are Hickory and Acorn so we have both kinds on the ground. Our neighbors come and pick up the Hickory nuts and they are huge. I hate getting hit by them when they start falling. They hurt. Our squirrels love them and you can watch them scurrying around burying them for future eating as well as digging some up to eat at different times of the year. They have dug up some of my flower bulbs in the process, but the young ones that are born are so much fun to watch because they play a lot too. We have never eaten Hickory nuts and probably never will. My favorites are a can of mixed nuts; my son loves all nuts, but pistachios are his favorite. I love cats and have 6 now; 5 indoors and one outside. We had 3 adults when I rescued two young kittens from a cat killing dog and they are males and beautiful. They go to the vet on Nov 1st. Our backyard has the acorns on the ground and I picked up a lot of them one time, searched the Internet about them and found they had to be baked in the oven before eating for a certain length of time; I didn’t, and threw them back on the ground. I would rather trust the store bought ones more than what I would do to them if I had to process them. Black cats and Halloween are a given and wonderful. They also are great for keeping the mice population down. Our outdoor cat catches moles, voles, mice, and some birds and one time a squirrel. Must have been an old squirrel as I know they are quicker than a cat. Well until next time have a great Fall and Winter. I too look forward to a colder and snowier winter this year.
I’m a nut for nuts! My all time favorite are cashews, salted of course. We have a local peanut shop downtown. And they sell broken cashews at a discounted price. If we’re buying for ourselves we go for the broken ones. They all taste the same,right? And your new kitty is beautiful! We have a black cat that looks just like yours whose name is Binx.
Oh how I love it! We had a small 14 acre pecan orchard we sold back 4 years ago. I’ve TOTALLY missed the harvesting AND eating of our pecans!! We even had our dog trained to help sniff out those we missed on the ground! His reward was a wee taste of the devine meat! I still buy PA-cans during the fall months and toast them as well as make sugared pecans for the family! Enjoy extra for those of us who love them as well! They, along with hazelnuts are my fsv’s!! Oh yes, Mr or Mrs “It” looks just like my Cassanova! Happy Fall y’all!!
I love love nuts especially cashews, peanuts – honey roasted with salt ..mmm, walnuts. Almonds don’t sit so well with me unfortunately tho they are very good fir you, as are Brazil nuts tho I always go fur my favourite nuts over them each time.
I find it difficult to find the bags of nuts at the store over here these days, but do buy them and love them when I do find them. Your receipes Sound awesome and I’m going to make them with store bought raw nuts, I’ll let you know how they turn out.
Black cats and Halloween … purrfect timing .
Thank you, your post brings back a lot of memories from growing up in the south. PA-CONS are my favorite, but like eating all nuts, especially the whole ones in a bowl to crack at Christmas! My mother made a delicious hickory nut cake and lucky for us our Dad enjoyed collecting and cracking them. The cats are in heaven when they show up at your farm! Blessings for a delightful fall and winter!
Any nut sitting in front of me ready to eat.
Oh I love all nuts, I think Almonds are my favorite. I love Hazelnuts in desserts. I didn’t used to like Brazil nuts but lately I think they are a good alternative to Macadamia nuts which are very expensive.
When I was young we had an English walnut and a Black walnut tree in our yard. I agree the Black walnuts are a pain to shell but how I love the maple syrup flavor they impart. I remember eating tons of the English walnuts and the dread of having to help shell them for holiday cooking projects as well as homey gifts to give. My mom would “put up” jars of jam and apple butter to go along with the nuts.
I enjoy your blog very much. Thanks for the memories.
I’m not a big nut fan overall but I love making things with nuts. If I’m eating them plain cashews are the way to go. I love candied pecans.