This is not the article I intended to write. It’s funny how that happens. You sit down with one thing and wind up with another.
Here’s the way it happened this time.
-
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”.
I’m pretty good at lifting my own spirits. I just enjoy everything and everyone around me. Of course there is that occasional time when I try too hard to control things and that’s when I need someone else to reboot my spirits. However I’m dropping you a line to thank you for bringing this up. It seems that a lot of people out there are stressed and I think we should all make an effort to boost others along with ourselves. It is amazing how those younguns can get a smile on your face isn’t it.
I believe the best thing you can do for YOURSELF to lift your own spirits, to renew a positive attitude and learn better ways of loving life and people is to REACH OUT! Reach out to others to see how you can lift THEIR spirits, encourage them, help them meet their needs. What goes around comes around!!!
Hi Rebekah! Spend time with my grands, that will almost always fix my lows. Go shopping with my best friends to the quilt shops for new patterns and fabric. I have a happy stash. Maybe you should make your number 10, fire the garbage man and recycle more. Oh yeah, another happy, read your column in the newest MaryJane Mag. I just got the other day.
During the summer months, every Thursday evening, I join friends at the Idaho Botanical Gardens in Boise for their Great Garden Escape. We take a picnic or buy something to eat from a food vendor, take a bottle of wine, set up our folding chairs, blankets, etc., and sit back in a beautiful setting and enjoy live music (a different group each week). It certainly lifts my spirits. I take my granchildren also to other events at the gardens, e.g. Bug Day (kids love it!), to see the scarecrows in October and to vote on their favorites, Octoberfest, Christmas lights, etc. It’s a wonderful way to bond with them, and that certainly will lift your spirit!
There are several ways that my droopy spirits get a lift. Digging in the gardens is one, it is so theraputic to see the plants growing, setting their fruits….
Another way to lift drooping spirits is dog hugs, nothing like them! Kisses and snuggles from your favorite dog, what can beat that?
Color also is a great lifter of spirits! Sunny yellow, vibrant orange, serene blues…colors of yarn, fabric, paper then do something creative…..
Believe it or not it is going to be 107 tomorrow in Minneapolis, Minnesota tomorrow. That heat is all around the country. When I’m low, I get out my "humor file"(cartoons I have saved) and laugh. Laughing is a quick fix and you can’t be sour while you’re laughing. Have fun all………..Bonnie
I took that same trip about 12 years ago and loved it, including the night on the train. I showed my son your pictures today and now he wants to sleep on the train and visit the aquarium. Thanks for reminding me of a wonderful trip that I can take again, this time with my son!
It has been very hot here in the upper midwest, so yesterday my daughter, her best friend and I rented some tubes and floated down the Sugar River. Made sure we had sunscreen and plenty of drinking water. We just floated and laughed and talked. Lifted my spirits and cooled me off.
Absolute favorite summer fruit dish is the blueberries and fresh sliced peaches together, have to be fresh from the farmers market. Love it and missed it so much while living in South Florida, imported even across the state line is not the same.
Went 3 summers with no blueberries when we lived overseas, made for long summers. I was born, raised, and returned to live, in the blueberry and fruit orchard areas of western Michigan.
In some countries they are not cultivated in fields, they are only wild like huckleberries.
Music always helps. Blues which may bring on the tears or something upbeat. I love soul, reggae, folk, world and good old rock ‘n’ roll and listening and singing along always help me get out of a funk.
I loved your pictures from your trip… your daughter is adorable…. what a lovely blog! Thanks!
Ohhhh, you lived one of my "bucket list" dreams!! Staying in the train car made me 77 shades of green. How fun for you and your daughter will remember it all the days of her life.
I used to ice skate like a fish swims. Used to. Being from the south isn’t the only thing that hinders a person. At age 55, I no longer have Olympic visions. Oh wellllll :o)
Love your candor and wit. You always make me smile and today, you gave me a real & true endorphin rush……the train room pic. Sommmmmmeday. shery j
Hey Rebekah!
Looks like a wonderful time and I love love love the train room! What sweet memories made with your daughter!
Ler’s see, laughter always lifts my spirits. There’s nothing like a good healthy laugh! Time in my Garden, the beach and on the back of a horse… Number three is third one is long over due!
As always, love your posts!
Deb ( bfgblogger )
Rebekah, so very glad that you had a great time in Chattanooga, TN–my hometown! Even though I grew up there, I never went to Ruby Falls until after I got married–my mom didn’t like caves! And it wasn’t the Chattanooga Choo-Choo, but my parents took my sister and me on the last passenger train run from Chattanooga to Athens, TN. It was the close of an era. Oh, and if you’re down, just sing a few lines of "The Chattanooga Choo-Choo", it’ll lift your spirits! "Pardon me, boys, Is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo….."
When I feel stressed, I have about three things I can do to get me out of it. Ride my bike, clean my house, or go outside and pull some weeds. Especially the last one. you can hear the birds singing, watch the hummingbirds buzz by, take a break and watch the clouds. I love your blog. Also, loved that train car room.
I love this. The cave was beautiful, but — if you went *down* a thousand feet, that means you had to walk *up* a thousand feet. Erk. (I’m out of shape lately.)I’m trying to think of my fun things.Thank you.