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Hello farmgirl friends! I just returned from a week in Florida; we go every year with our kids and it’s always the best time. This year it was exceptional in so many ways. Not exactly sure the difference but everything was special. However, there is one thing that will stand out to me as one of the biggest treats and I’m sharing that with you here today. So here is my story (everything in my life has a story attached!!).
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Hi Farmgirls! It’s hard to believe it is already August. Soon we will be thinking all things fall, but for now, I am still thinking summer! It’s been a super summer here!
Summer started out later than normal with cool temperatures all the way to late May. Mother Nature sure made up for it, with super hot temperatures and high humidity, to boot, but I love seeing all the sun, because we miss it during the grey winter months!
We are a “stay-cation” family. We don’t want to leave our fur-babies (or our chickens) for very long, and we love to come home after a day trip and sleep in our own beds! There’s so much to do on the East Coast, and just when we think we have “seen it all”, we find something else fun!
For my daughter’s birthday this summer, my family and I had a blast for the day in Stanhope, New Jersey at Wild West City, a family-owned theme park that first opened in 1957.
Only a few hours from where we live in Connecticut, arriving at Wild West City, you feel like you have stepped back in time. We drank sarsaparilla at the saloon, took a stagecoach ride, rode an old-fashioned train (which was “held up” by “Billy the Kid”), and walked through museum-type buildings filled to the brim with interesting artifacts.
I loved seeing all of the displays, especially the clothing from the 1800’s. I loved seeing period bride and groom outfits. The bride must have been so dainty!
We liked going to the printing press and seeing how newspapers in the 1860’s were printed.
My favorite was the jail cell! Creepy-cool, it was made in 1890.
Family friendly, the theme park has something for everyone. We enjoyed seeing the “shows” in the town square, which occur often. We bought cowgirl hats, and ate old-fashioned snow-cones! I even bought a bubblegum cigar. My husband, daughter, and I had the BEST day!
It was such a beautiful day, and on the way home, we stopped at a farm stand for fresh veggies. New Jersey has such beautiful farms, no wonder it is called the “Garden State”.
Back in Connecticut, we spent another lovely summer day together at our local Beardsley Zoo. We had not been in many years, and enjoyed it as much as we did as when our daughter was little. My favorite animal this visit was the giant anteater.
While the animals are fun to see, our little Connecticut zoo also has an amazing greenhouse and garden to visit!
On another beautiful day, my husband and I drove to Kent, Connecticut, visiting Kent Falls, where the water falls 250 feet down to the Housatonic River. We climbed to the very top! It was so picturesque!
At the other end of the East Coast, we drove to Sturbridge, Massachusetts to visit the Old Sturbridge Village for the yearly event, “Recoats and Rebels”, featuring Revolutionary War reenactors. I have written about this “living museum” before, but we always enjoy this special weekend there. I still do not know how people wore all those layers of clothing back then. I would have died of heat exhaustion!
This visit at OSV was extra special, because the museum also has the “Cows on Parade”, something we have not seen since the late 90’s. They are on display through September.
We also just love summer in New England at home. June, July, and August bring birds, butterflies, flowers and veggies in the garden.
Keeping a garden is a lot of work, but there’s something so satisfying about making dinner from food you have sown and grown yourself – a farmgirl’s happiness!
We work hard so we can play a bit, too. We also saw the new Superman movie and LOVED it! What’s not to love when there is a fluffy, fun super-canine in the movie? Movies are a great way to escape the heat when it gets too oppressive.
The rest of the summer will bring days of picking veggies, canning, and the start of all the wonderful state fairs across New York and Connecticut. August is so nice because the heat is still here, but the humidity tends to wane a bit. Fall will be here soon enough.
Tell me, what are you doing during the last hot, dog days of summer? What are your favorite local destinations? C’mon, let me know you stopped by in the comments below!
The songs of cardinals, blue jays, and wrens at daybreak are the soundtrack of summer. They evoke images of towering sunflowers, county fairs, roadside stands, day trips, road trips, and kicking off our shoes to walk barefoot. Each evening the playlist changes to the gentle song of the mourning dove. It’s said they will “coo” before an approaching rain. Experts will tell us that’s not a scientifically proven way to predict the weather; however, more often than not, I’ve found there’s wisdom in that old farmer’s saying.
While we hold out hope that the August evenings will cool down a little, it just isn’t meant to be. They call these the “dog days of summer” for a reason…weeks so hot and humid that they dash all hopes of a pleasant evening spent porch sitting with family & friends.
Like so many of you, I begin the days early to try and beat the heat. There are gardens to till, flowerbeds to weed, a to-do list to tackle, and oh – did I mention non-stop weeding?
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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”.
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