~Heaven’s a Little Closer in a Cottage by the Sea~
Sweet reader DeAnn left this comment during our last shoreline visit: Love your photos! Please, please do your beach cottage next. Some of us are living vicariously through you!
Well, DeAnn, you talked me into it! This blog is for you and anyone else who has ever dreamed of a getaway to a seaside cottage!
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”.
Your cottage is a castle! Reading your post made me remember "living" at the beach every summer. As many days as possible I was at the beach with my Uncle Tom. We were so lucky he was retired and a beach addict also! My favorite memory is the dinner picnics we would have would friends and family. Dad was a farmer so he only could go to the beach in the evening. It was wonderful growing up on eastern Long Island in the 50’s and 60’s! Thanks for bringing back great memories!
Love your cottage.. Couldn’t we all do with a lot less than we think we need. Once had a kitchen the same color and loved it, so bright and cheerful. Enjoy every minute you can spend there……
OOOOOO! I so need a few days in such a place! My soul longs for sun and surf! You have a gem of cottage!
Love your cottage! Reminds of the cottage (cabin) my family and I would go to every summer. Only this was on the lake as that was the biggest body of water nearest to us. This cabin had a pump at the sink and one outside to get water from the well. But, the memories of those days still linger in my thoughts. They were such a simpler time. The cabinet by your stove looks just like one my mother had in "the Old House" except Mom’s had an upper cabinet w/ two doors above the metal counter top. The bottom looks exactly like hers. Cool!
I can smell the salt air and feel breeze off the ocean! I grew up in NW Pennsylvania near Lake Erie and have always enjoyed being near large bodies of water. Between my junior and senior years of high school my mother treated me to a trip to relatives in Rhode Island. I spent a most wonderful week on the Narraganset Bay experiencing the rising and ebbing flow of the tide, digging for clams with my toes because I didn’t have a rake and getting that toe pinched by the clam! Thank you reviving those wonderful memories!
Thank you for sharing. The grandparents of my first husband had a cabin in the woods that we would go to quite often for the weekend. No running water in the cabin. There was a pump and we would heat the water on the stove to wash up and do the dishes just as you do. It was one room, kitchen area at one end a set of bunks and a fold out sofa at the other. Spent many evenings playing cards at the table and just enjoying everyone’s company. Only draw back was going out to the outhouse in the dark. The solar power you have sound like just enough energy to make things just a little more comfortable but still enjoy your solitude.
I grew up on the Northwest coast in WA and now I am land bound to Mn. Though we have plenty of lakes and a great big one up north I am still homesick for the ocean. My family would also summer in Oceanshores, WA. As a kid I got to learn about surfing and clamming.:) I also noticed the you use a percolater for your coffee. My husband and I discovered the use of a french press and I can actually make really good coffee. Please take care and have a beautiful summer.
Thank you for sharing you little bit of heaven with us. I so enjoyed just wondering through your cottage with you and feeling the peace and happiness within it’s walls.
Who says we can’t go back to a simpler more meaningful life. You have come so close to it hear in your little cottage by the sea. Simplicity is a heart attitude and I believe you’ve got it girl!!!
PattyCake
Oh this was a lovely post. I felt like I was right there and oh to walk on the beach.
Hello Deb & Everyone,
I am very blessed to live year round near the shore in the Southern most part of New Jersey, Cape May. Moved down from the City with my parents when I was 14. I love it here and can’t even think of living anywhere else. My house is not really a cotage, but it is smaller than alot of homes around me. It is beautiful anytime of the year. If you get a chance come visit our small towns. You won’t be disappointed. Thank you for sharing your memories…it refreshed mine too.. 🙂
The Beston excerpt reads like a psalm. Thank you for sharing your lovely cottage with us. The closest I’ve come to a cottage on the sea is visiting a friend’s camp in Maine, or staying at a funky hotel on the Gulf coast, or camping out in Ocean Shores, WA. My life is enhanced knowing that you and other good people actually are living one of my dreams. Maybe someday…but, I would need a pasture for my horses.
Your cottage is SO cute!! I would love to have seen ‘ALL" of it, inside and out…Where you sleep, etc. What a wonderful summer life!! 🙂
Oh, this is the cutest place~I can see spending several months a year there! I love the outdoor shower and your solar system. I also love the oar table and all!
Enjoy your Summer there!
Sherry from Western Mass.
A very belated Thank You to you for so quickly fulfilling my wish to see pictures of your beach cottage. I love it! You always have such awesome pictures to go with your blog.
Oh Debbie, you transported me! I loved every one of your photos! How I would love to walk in that charming back door and give you a hug. Your cottage is a dream, love everything you’ve done. How much you enjoy it, obvious in every way. The sailboat valances are too fun. I thought of you the other day, No Really, I was at an estate sale and there were a couple of vintage 50s water skiis. They would be such a fun decorative touch for cottage by the water. Good job on this blog entry. Thus far, this is my favorite! shery
Just LOVE it, thanks for sharing
This was a little mini-vacation for me. I work in education and though it’s summer vacation time, I am finishing the last week of summer school. I will be heading to the beach as soon as I can! Thank you for the reminder of how lovely life can be by the sea~
Vickie
Fabulous blog- so fun to visit here today!
I have a sign in my kitchen that reads: Heave is a little closer on the Eastern Shore.
Loved your cozy beach house. Brings me way back to when I was growing up outside of Boston and going to the Cape.
Thank-you for sharing. It has much Soul.
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