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Hello Farmgirl Friends!
The weather here in Tennessee is so beautiful with Spring having finally arrived! All I could think of this winter was that when Spring arrived I wanted to celebrate with a tea party!
Carol 
Dori Troutman 
Elisabeth Perkins 
Laura 
Treese Hellstrom 
Cyndie Gray 
donna herczeg 
Colleen Maki-Varney 
Diane Loehr 
Joy 
Carmen Anderson 
Eileen Prose 
Linda Marie Hilburger 
Marilyn 
Kristine Pope 
Valerie Sijan -
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”.
Hi Dory … What a great tea party you had! I love the idea of having the grandgirls serve your guests. Your menu was great … everything looked so yummy. And the table was beautiful. You have the LILYBELL Noritake dinnerware! I found it on the Replacements, LTD website: https://www.replacements.com/china-noritake-lilybell/c/67094. It is beautiful!
I’m so jealous of all the flowers … we are not quite that far along in central Pennsylvania. Happy Spring! Carol
Carol,
THANK YOU!!!! You were fast finding that china!!! Now I can do a little research on it!
~ Dori ~
Enjoy, Dory! That’s a beautiful pattern … and to have 12 place settings … WOW!
Lovely tea party!!! It makes me want to have one!! Those little BLT sandwiches were the cutest idea!
Looks like everyone enjoyed the tea party, even the stink bug, haha!
What a great idea! I love everything about it! The photos alone make my heart happy.
I enjoyed the pictures. It is definitely looking like spring there. We are still getting hit here in Colorado by snow storms. All our flowers are still hiding from the snow and cold.
Treese/Colorado Cowgirl.
What a lovely “celebrate spring” gathering! Hosting a tea party is one my most favorite things to do. Your china is beautiful & the table looked gorgeous! I can just picture your grand girls’ joy in serving you & your guests~they are such sweet girls♥️
BTW…I have continued posting handwritten notes to my four young adult grands per my sharing last month, once a month I send a handmade card to them with a handwritten note.
Loved your post about your tea party! Everything looked lovely!
I am going to a tea party today and we are going to look at our hostesses collection of tea cups and she will tell us their story of where they came from.
I used to do alot of tea parties with my girlfriend Anne about 25 years ago. We even wore pretty hats and dressed up. We both collected vintage China, so it was fun to get a chance to use them. Whichever one of us hosted the party invited most of their friends and family, and then the other would help with baking and serving. They were quite memorable events and I think of them with nostalgia. It was a sweet time in our memories.
What a wonderful gathering of ladies! Reminds me of how my Grandma Annie would set the table with all of her beautiful teacups and china, some from Finland (our ancestry). She served up a “feast” quite similar to yours. The granddaughters must feel very special.
Love a good Tea Party. I miss the one that we have in the Fall due to Covid. There are about 10 tables and every table is a different theme. People get really creative. I host one of the tables and love having the ladies join me. Everything looks really good to eat. Wish I could have been invited, less the stink bug! 🙂 Have a great day – Diane
I really enjoyed reading your post, because my grandmother had a set of that same china. My mother inherited it, and now my brother has it – but seeing it on your table brought back fond memories. Your tea party looks lovely, in spite of the stinkbug (oh, those engineers!). Thank you for sharing it.
Happy Spring to you…still awaiting for it to arrive in Eastern Idaho…lol…it might by October . Thank you for a lovely article
There is a very good site you might want to check out to locate if possible pieces for your china pattern I’ve used it for my retired Noritake pattern as well as other items over the years.
Here is the website:
http://www.replacements.com
Also look on ack of your pixels it might give you the name of pattern
Please excuse spelling and grammatical errors my phone changes words etc constantly
Look on back of china pieces for name of pattern
The table was beautiful and the menu scrumptious!
Beautiful Tea Party. Wonderful! Thank you for sharing.
Thank You for sharing this lovely tea party. Enjoy the Spring weather.
HAPPY SPRING
HAPPY EASTER
Joan,Marion and Marilyn
Everything looked delightful & yummy too! But that was hilarious about the stick bug!! I’m in Tennessee but I haven’t seen any stink bugs. Course now that I’ve said that I’ll probably see a lot! Enjoyed your post!!
I love doing Tea Parties! I am so inspired by this blog..I think I’m going to start planning a Tea Party myself; quite soon!
You set a beautiful table, lady! The food looks fabulous as well!
Thanks for sharing an inspirational tea party!