My daughter jumped in the car at the carpool line after school.
“You know how they tell you to never ever change your answer?” she asked me.
“Yeah….”
“Well, I did on my test today. And I’m glad I did. I changed a wrong answer to the right answer.”
Mmmm. So you CAN change your answer? And maybe SHOULD change it?
Well, that’s excellent news, isn’t it!
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”.
Hi there girly! Always enjoy your blog!spring has sprung on our farm in Boise ,Idaho area! Getting excited! Lots of projects! The barn is getting underway! I have always wanted a red wood barn but today I saw a barn that was metal ! I have never liked the look but this one jumped at me! It was white with a dark green roof and green doors with big white XS! Mmmm, stunning! A great green and white cupola! Sooooo now what ? Our farmhouse is new! It is white with a green roof and green trim with cupolas and green XS on the garage doors! We have a huge amount of white vinyl fencing up and down the country lane and all around the property! Out front sits a 20acre alfalfa farm! The horse paddocks will be green panels and gates that will open to the pasture! Ummm! The white and green barn will definitely fit in perfect but my heart is heavy! I have always melted over a red wood barn! HELP Rebecca! Thanks .Cindy
Oh my, so perfect for my morning! Thank you for sharing what you did, as my mom used to say “it just hit the spot”.
I have found by taking a jar and every day sticking little notes of what is a blessing for that day, it fills so quickly and at the end of the year, sit down and read them out loud to your family! You can peek thru the year, it will put a spark in your life!
Hugs from the Ozarks, Diana, Noel, MO
This blog hit home with me. My husband will retire in 2 – 3 years and we want to move back closer to our family. But where? It’s a big question looming in front of us and has been scary. This year though, I have decided to embrace it and think of the move as a new adventure. There probably is no right or wrong answer but we need to go with our gut feelings. So I’m starting a list of “wants” for our new place. And down sizing is at the top of the list.
What a beautiful, awesome post. I’m an introvert, and I need, must have alone time. For years I’ve been hearing how it isn’t normal for a person to be alone so much. So I’m not normal. I’m glad the goose found their flock, we all need a flock – but alone is good too. I too an on a journey to recreate my life and step into scary stuff, sometimes I’m good with it and sometimes I get scared. Thank for the encouragement. Best, Kim
What a beautiful post…I really needed to hear it. And I LOVE that you have added to your word for the year. AND…can I tell you what occurred to me as I read your sentence, “There is no hospitality in solitude, being alone. But I believe there is value in solitude.” I thought….just maybe…There is no hospitality WITHOUT solitude….because there IS value in solitude. I feel that way…I love being around my friends…I love the time I spend with them and all that I pour into them and they into me, but I find if I don’t spend time alone, thinking, praying…resting, renewing…I have nothing to give and I can’t receive either. So, maybe hospitality and solitude are not so much opposites as companions who make each other complete. blessings to you, from NE Kansas, Sherry
Oh my, alone time. It is hard for me to find in the last nine months. One of our daughters and four grandsons are living with us until they can go out on their own. I try and get up earlier just to do devotions but there are a couple of talkative early risers that even work against that. So….I am not so patiently waiting for the snow to melt so I can do as we all did with you last spring, walk. Not a one of them will be interested in walking in circles around our 10 acres over and over. I will get back in shape along with some daily solitude. It calls my name. PS we cannot let on we are seeing anything special out our windows or the Bug does the same thing, raises a ruckus and scares them off. Blessings from our home in the woods!
My mentor had several good sayings I can still hear though he has left the earthly domain: if you keep doing what you’ve always been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always been getting. Look for the opportunity in the risk, not the risk in the opportunity. You can’t live on the fence: eventually, you’ll have to pick a side and get off. A rut is a grave with both ends kicked out.
As you can see, I have much to keep me motivated and I see you’ve found some daily wisdom in your choices. Congratulations!
Thanks Rebecca. It’s a privelege to share in your life. Where did all the snow go? I thought you all were in the depths of winter. It’s been spring here for several weeks. We’re very short on rain, and if it doesn’t start raining soon and for three more months, Oregon is in trouble. It was a warm winter, so we also don’t have snow pack for the summer. A lot like California. I’ll have to ponder water-saving ways to water things from now on. But the sun’s been out most of the time, and that is so wonderful.
Hogs and quiches to Blue.
I am so glad you told us the lonely goose found a flock. I agree, animals should not be alone. I have chickens and my girls for some reason isolated one of the hens. They would not let her eat or get back into the coop. Until this freezing winter. I kept them locked up in the coop for 5 days and voila!! All is well in my Red Roof Chicken Inn. I love your blog, thank you and enjoy spring!
Another great visit back on the farm!! I don’t live on a farm but in an open enough area that we get wildlife – I know that the darling rabbit that has lived in my backyard all winter will probably do some damage to the Spring growth but — well maybe he will move on and the geese – we have a pond about a block away along with a golf course so yupper we do get to enjoy the geese. The deer and fox haven’t been plentiful this year – sure missed them. Thanks again for the visit. God bless.
I so loved this message today! It came to me in a time of change…old GF, greatly missed, who seems to be dropping our group of 8 for 25 yrs for who knows what because she won’t talk to us. Old man friend who I have decided that we don’t meld properly for a together lifetime. My well loved mother who is aging past an area my siblings and I are uncomfortable with. As I am first born, I have decided to be with her as much as I can be because she was there for me and my siblings for that most special time…she is now in good health so praise heaven for this extra time. Changing direction and answers are good things.
Hospitality and Solitude…what a juxtaposition, even a little oxymoron. Sorry, I just like those two words. I think that with the right amount of hospitality and the right amount of solitude all will be balanced. Beautiful post. I am glad that goose found his V.
I LOVE solitude and being alone….sometimes I think too much. Most times I have to push myself to be social and felt perhaps there was something wrong with me. But gee…we can’t all be the same. That would be boring. You are so fortunate and blessed to be able to be alone and travel through your own woods. I live in SoCal, in a busy subdivision. Maybe that is why I NEED solitude?
Loved this post Rebecca. I also have two words, both of which are helping me this year. Open was the first one I found, here actually, a little while back. The other is adventure. My mantra for this year is ” everyday is an adventure”. It’s helping me stay open and even though change and challenge are scary if I think of them in the context of open and adventure it makes it easier to embrace and enjoy the day. I love solitude. I used to escape to the bathroom and lock the door. A four bedroom home with 4 siblings and two parents – I had to carve out the space I needed. I run also and have quiet time with painting and devotional time. I need time alone from everyone. It makes me a better person, better able to give to others. Have a blessed week
Denise R
Australia
Geese by in a v shae fir several reasons, one being as you sad, to see where they are going, but there’s only he leader and usually its slightly bigger than the rest. And they honk, all of them, its a natural response , but the v shape is so the ones behind have a better wind air stream do they follow that/air stream. And they dont have to work as hard as the leader bird. And because of this air stream, they can fly together, faster. 🙂 Just like the jet/stream of an air plane….being light creates more lift for the birds and gives them more speed. Its dues to the air stream made by the leader bird! These geese even know when to return! One good built in innate thermometer….I always know when spring is here, for the birds and other animals know when spring or fall is here!
Lovely blog! Lovely photos. I look forward to spring! Our best thermometer for spring here, in my area, is the muskrats.,,,when we smell their musk -which is a very husky heavy smell,and we know within 30 to 40 days, spring will be here. The muskrat will only come up to mate, and only if they know it will be warm in 30 days because they won’t allow their young out in the cold! Sensitive to weather makes them a good thermometer. Looking forward yo their smell!
I am changing my answers right now, too. There are so many facets to a person and a girl needs different things at different times.