Her husband looked at her like she had three heads and he asked, “What are you going to do with all that junk??”
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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 love your rust, especially the license plates and the white paint on the headboard! I hope my garden can look as beautiful someday 🙂
You are the Rust Queen if ever I knew one! This post brought back many memories of all the well worn and rusty things we used to find out in the hills of Northern Nevada … old bottles, wagon wheels, license plates, pieces of old wood stoves, bricks, horseshoes a plenty, old tin cans, cooking supplies, tea pots, (carried one all the way from Nevada for my garden in New England ) and the occasional abandoned water trough for roaming cows and horses out on the range.
I’m with ya on the lust for all things old … I feel like I WIN too whenever I’m able to fashion a born again creation out of something old I have found (or has found me) and I LOVE the sayings you used to go along with yours!
As always, your words go right to this farmgirl’s heart!
A Creative Life is well done!
Happy rusty lug nuts to you Shery!
Deb,
I am always in awe of people that can bring it all together. I keep trying to put things in places I think they work and only manage one out ten times to get it right. I love all your junk/treasures. I cannot wait to see the hen house!
Too cute. Love it!
This entry had me giggling (I was born in ’54 too, wasn’t it a ‘very good year’?)and OOOOOOHing and AWWWWing. My father had fashioned a trellis out of pipe and cedar slats for a struggling clematis. I used barbwire to attach old elk antlers at the top and I use the rest to hang my TREASURES, consisting of pots and hardware and anything else that I find attractive. One of my favorite things is a collection of shoe making stuff, shaped like feet. I think that they call them shoe ‘lasts’ or something like that. They are a reminder of where to go in my life! I also hang old windows about and when folks ask my how I got that idea, I just say ‘Everyone needs a window of opportunity’. Yes, they look at me like I grew three heads, too!!! Now I am working on a new patio area next to my tool shed in order to let the creative juices flow.
Shery,
You are Sister-in-Rust!!
I had just come in the cabin for a cool drink after piling up a stash of well-rusted treasures gleaned from the back roads in my rural town.
I deeply appreciate the fresh inspiration you’ve shared with your lovely photos and stories!! Now I am re-charged to go out and find places to arrange them in my various garden beds!
I always keep several small half-used cans of sampler paints on hand to perk up certain pieces with a welcome, plant name or special saying too!
For the cost of a little elbow grease, it is so worth rescuing rust to give it new life! Thanks for blogging this topic Farmgirl style!!
Nancy
I have been a rust collector for years. Lots of people look at it and say ‘what in the world’. I look at it and say ‘how beautiful’. I put old rusty tools in old wooden tool boxes. I play with them all the time. Changing positions and the way they are piled. I have piles all over my yard and rusty wagons, bikes,and wheel barrows used as planters. My motto is ‘in rust we trust’. Thank you for sharing. I love your pictures and can’t wait to see the coop. I live in the city and am planning to build a coop just to hold my rust. Since I can’t have real chickens, I collect all others. They will get to decorate the coop too.
na’r were truer words spoken’
sister hugz
>^..^<
oh & yes, ’54 was a good year! giggle giggle!
Finally, a girl after my own heart! The rustier the better. I sent your blog to my friends, my husband, my kids … you explained "me" perfectly. THANK YOU, I don’t feel so lonely when people look at me like I am crazy!! Love your ideas, you are gifted in many ways.
When I garden with my old tools I feel like I am connected to all of the people who loved gardening before me and all is good with the world and my heart is happy, I know that sounds funny to some but I know you understand.
I would send you some photos (how?)of the old wheel barrel I saved from the "garbage pickup", the neighbors that discarded this wonderful treasure bring their friends over to look at it and I just smile because they aren’t getting it back.
Recently I came across the plains returning to Georgia from Montana. I often saw old tractors, etc out for travelers to see. (Once I saw an old cook stove with the oven door hanging off of it and a saying, "open range" – it made me chuckle as I traveled.) I wondered at times where the Ranch Farmgirl lived or if I was close by your way as I traveled on I-90. I too love to collect old stuff and reuse or re-purpose. You have some neat ideas!! And as always, I enjoy the comments. Thanks for another great blog!
Loved this article. A dear friend of mine took a rusty grama-phone horn, up-side-down hung with three chains and rusty copper plate and made a bird feeder from it. The gals around here beg him for one and he takes pride in his creation. I’m still searching for just the right horn to make my own. Oh the things one can do with the "love of rust". :o)
You have to just love Wyoming!! I do, I live in Northern Wyoming too, with clay soil and hot summers. My sister, Mom, and myself are also "junkers" and have permission to dig through some great junk piles near by, The rattlers are out in full force right now, so I think we may wait until fall to find some treasure we can work on over the long winter months. I love your "welcome" sign. That gives me inspiration. I love your blog too. Have a peaceful 4th.
Julie
So inspiring, Shery! Thanks for sharing your colorful, creative ways!
Wow! What a kindred spirit I feel right now with you. I just today posted on my Facebook a picture of my "Rust" and commented, "I admit it, I LOVE RUST!!! It is low maintenance and I love low maintenance." Now, a little while later I open your blog and absorb your pics and words.
Thanks from a Rusty Kindred Spirit 🙂 Now, let’s save some more rust…lol
Raynita
I love your blog and especially your photos. I’ve inherited 10 acres in Wisconsin but live in Chicago – so there’s quite a contrast. I feel at home in the country and am always recycling something to give it a new life–there’s so much more room to make arrangements with all the "stuff". You’re an inspiration with your wisdom and creativity!
Amen to everything you said. I love the pictures and realize I am not the only who likes ‘the older the better’. Think of the "lives" these items have seen and lived and now those of us who love and appreciate them can help them on with another chapter in their lives. We only hope as we get older people will appreciate us and keep having us around for what we can contribute. God bless you.
Say, "Yes," to reusing. So often we emphasize recycling and skip reduce and reuse. Thanks for showing so many clever and beautiful creations. And for the subtle reminder that I really need to get myself back to church.
Shery—FABULOUS lessons for life and junk. The applications roll on and on. Thank you for sharing your rust and inspirations!
jw
Fun to read your blog. I found you through the magazine MaryJanesFarm…which was introduced to me by someone else. Funny how these things…connections….happen.
I have been recently transplanted from Salt Lake City to a quarter section ranch with new hubby in alberta, canada.
I am trying to learn to become a country girl, so I find myself very interested in reading about other country girls.
Love your rust. Brought back many wonderful memories – My mother was an artist. She and my dad we into "Junk Art" long before it was in fashion. We all became "dumpster divers", Town Dump rats" and farm junkies. There wasn’t a dump, garbage site or farm dump that was safe from our browsing. My aunt had a large ranch in Washington so that was a prim place to "pick" as were the farms around her. Everyone in the area knew us and would often call if they ran across something interesting that mom would like. We never came back from a vacation without the trunk over flowing with "finds". I remember many times siting in the back set on the suitcases etc because there was no room in the truck for them. We always asked permission before we foraged. We had some interesting adventures. Once we were chased out of field by bull that we disturbed. I don’t think I have run so fast again.
Hallelujiah!!! Someone like me…I’m not crazy, course my husband thinks otherwise!! I drive long distance for a company, so I hit all small towns with loads of great treasures which my husband calls junk. However, he has never complained how I decorate our yard. Recently, I fell upon some very old tung n groove wooden windows. The glass panes were pretty much gone, so I got smart and took them apart and I made American flags out of them!! Cool, Huh!! It’s so good to see someone else’s ideas, and know that I am not nutty with all these great possibilities!! Thank you for your outstanding pictures!!
Your pictures are pieces of treasure for me. I LOVE all things old and worn. Nice to know there are others out there as well!
happy day!
And I thought I was the only ranch woman who got razzed by her hubby for collecting ‘junk’.
I love to roam all over where we live here in SW ND looking into abandoned houses for ‘junk’.
My husband does think I’m crazy.
Glad to know I’m not the only crazy woman out there!
I can only say what good taste you have and that your choices you have in "rust" are great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!