Is your life a busy mosaic of activities in the summer? I’m betting so. It is always a challenge for our Farmgirl chapter (High Plains Sage Hens) to organize a time when all of us can be present, but we did it and held our monthly get-together this past week. The hostess hen, Jenny, taught us the “how to” and provided most of the materials for creating mosaic goodies. Wanna see?
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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”.
Boy Howdy do I understand this blog! I have been thinking of you girls and been so busy my thoughts have been on the fly. It sounds like you had such great fun! Congrats on another great blog!
Top of the morning to you Shery and visiting farmgirls!
Summer time sure is full of this that and the other thing isn’t it? I thought it was just us " New Englanders" that act like chickens with our heads cut off during the month of June in particular and half way through July too! Maybe it’s cuz we know our time outdoors is short-lived and we feel we have to squeeze in so many things we have waited all the long days of winter to do in the garden, with family and friends, and in solitude…
As always I am mesmerized by your photos of ranch life… and I really enjoyed your monthly project with the Sage Hens! I’ve done a little mosaic work on some of my ‘trash to treasure’ finds and found it to be fun and easy… I like forgiving kinds of art mediums… The kind where PLAYING rules and technique takes a back seat long enough to get you through your first few projects! I have a set of dishes that match the large oval platter you show peaking out of the back of your box of supplies… Reminds me of many homemade breakfasts round’ our little table enjoying hubbies home cooked waffles! Speaking of breakfast, I better get the coffee going…My beloved is waiting…
One of the things we just HAD to do this summer was to put up a screen house on our west facing deck… It’ the new favorite place to hang out at home ( when we aren’t at the cottage )… OH! One more thing… your garden certainly flourished and your chickens are just adorable!
Our growing season takes a while to get under way here near the cape as well, we are just now able to eat peas right off the vine and the most exciting thing to watch these days are the pumpkin vines creeping out of the garden and stretching across the grass!
Grab a cup of coffee and come see my SUMMER GARDEN at it’s peak on my blog. I think you’ll all get a kick out of the Sink Garden! It’s right up your alley Shery!
Love and Dandelion Wishes,
Deb
it’s so lovely "spending a day" with you! what a wonderful experience to share – i wish i was there. and thanks for sharing your beautiful photos. you are a great photographer! someday i will visit "mary jane country."
thanks shery!
Shery,
Thanx for letting us spend time with you and your gal-pals. It’s so true, trying to find time to get together (in Summer) is tuffer than uncooked beans! lol!
But when we manage to steal time away for a "play date" it is soooo theraputic. After all an afternoon with friends, food & giggles is good for the soul.
farmgirl hugz
>^..^<
Shery,
Your photography is wonderful. I am always looking for a new post from you not only for the words but also for the beautiful pictures. Your new plantings are wonderful. Put mine to shame. I have been saving some broken tea cups and saucers that got knocked off the top of the china cabinet years ago for some sort of mosaic. I need to try that. My Barred hen is also a lap chicken. She was the first to jump up on my lap and now I have 3 or 4 other out of the 12 that also visit in this way and she gets her beak all out of line. She does not like to sit on one knee while another is on the other. She pitches a fit and pecks at my back-end, my ring and today she was pulling at my shirt tail. Her name is Florence but I love how you named yours. I would never have expected to fall in love with my chickens, but I have and am glad they have a run. But the grass is all scratched up and gone and I think I need to let them out to graze the yard a little. We also have hawks and I am just a scaredy cat.
Shery, Thank you for taking time out of your busy life to write this blog. I always enjoy your pictures–so colorful. At 51 1/2 I am yearning more and more for the company of girlfriends. Isn’t it great to share time with those we hold dear? I always feel refreshed just to focus on a joint project that takes me out of the bustle and into plain old fun. Take a deep breath.
Blessings,
Carol J
Shery, Again and again, thank you for such poetic beauty in word and picture. I was looking at an old country magazine yesterday (may take me years to finish with one)and found pictures of the Big Horn Mt. area where I raised my kids. Nearly cried…but, God is good and I sit on my screen porch facing the "back" toward the Androscoggin River flowing by me here in NH and I know beauty is all around us…wherever that is. My now cancer-free John is hiking the Appalachian Trail which gives me free rein with the lawn…I need to hire help! But, my cukess are nearly ready and beans are coming on and I’ll have a fried green tomato this week! Thanks for keeping us "farmgirls" afloat with your blog. cora jo