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.”
Column contents © Mary Murray. All rights reserved.
Farmgirl
is a condition
of the heart.
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!
Column contents © Alexandra Wilson. All rights reserved.
Libbie Zenger
Previous Rural Farmgirl,
June 2010 – Jan 2012
Libbie’s a small town farmgirl who lives in the high-desert Sevier Valley of Central Utah on a 140-year-old farm with her husband and two darling little farmboys—as well as 30 ewes; 60 new little lambs; a handful of rams; a lovely milk cow, Evelynn; an old horse, Doc; two dogs; a bunch o’ chickens; and two kitties.
René Groom
Previous Rural Farmgirl,
April 2009 – May 2010
René lives in Washington state’s wine country. She grew up in the dry-land wheat fields of E. Washington, where learning to drive the family truck and tractors, and “snipe hunting,” were rites of passage. She has dirt under her nails and in her veins. In true farmgirl fashion, there is no place on Earth she would rather be than on the farm.
Looks so fun! Can’t wait to get to our lake place when the snow is gone and the frost comes out of the ground. Be careful with that heater! Don’t want to put that fire truck to work. Also about your windows, on Rehab Addict on HGTV they showed how to replace the rope and get the window working again, maybe you could find a tutorial.
AHHHH what a restful, pleasant day I just had, tripping along with you. All my favorite things at the beach. Look forward to many more. God Bless.
What a wonderful place you have! I had a Mr. Buddy Heater in my RV and attached a line with a 5-gallon propane tank to it. It was much thriftier than replacing the small green canisters. Just a suggestion. Also, the damage to your house was minimum and that’s a blessing for spring. The shed looks yar and with minimum work, will be as shipshape as your cottage. Yay Spring!
Thanks for sharing. It looks wonderful. I wish you had our 90 degree temps.
Oh so glad the beach cottage made it though the winter! It is the part of your property and stories that I like best!
Wish we could move our town cottage to a beach, but it is just about sold so we will keep our main country place and move on to visiting new places.
We visited Park City, Utah last week. Beautiful country!!
My I envy you the seashore. I’m a west coast girl, but live on the east side of WA state – quite near where MaryJane is :~) – but love our Pacific seashore & visit as often as we can.
And yes I knew about the morning doves – we have them here, too & we love to listen to their gentle calls.
I am glad you didn’t suffer much damage to your quaint & beautiful cabin. Enjoy!
Loved your post, the scenes brought back precious memories for me of growing up in San Diego, Calif, in the 50’s, taking the city bus to the beach to just sit on the shore all day long. I can still smell the bonfires burning there in the sand at night.
Our home in the Ozarks is now finally feeling spring, it was a long, long winter, with cold days and nights, but its almost time to plant now, we can hardly wait!
Joyfully, Diana, Noel, Mo.
Thanks for the tour. Your place is beautiful.
Deb…just thought I’d let you know you don’t have the oldest unfinished projects. We’ve been married 52 years and some of ours are from before we got married.maybe some day they really will get done. Your place by the sea looks pretty good considering the horrible winter we’ve had. Minnesota has hard winters too. But at least you have sand. Roads cost a lot more to repair. But, spring is finally coming and we farm girls will git’er done!
Your little heater is cute, but I don’t know if I would use propane indoors. Our little cottage was built as a vacation cottage in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Los Gatos, Ca. It too is older, probably from the 1920’s. It does freeze here in the winter and we have no central heat. We had propane tank when we moved in 2 years ago, but the heating system it was hooked up to was so scary, that we had everything removed. Now, we have a new very small (looks like a heater vent) wall heater upstairs with ceramic wall heater panels downstairs. Space heaters are used in the bath. We use our wood stove for heat when it is very cold and it can be quite toasty in the winter.
Your cottage sounds so cute and I envy you being near the ocean. How wonderful and lots of good memories for your family.
Hello Deb, Good to see you’re at the beginning of your cottage season! Here on the Cape we have the same signs of ‘finally’ Spring. Our little cottage on wheels raring and ready to take off at the end of next week for a little ‘southern spring’. Isn’t it nice to begin again!