The Suburban Farmgirl’s talkin’ trash… recycling trash, that is! (Got ya!)
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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 also recycle a lot! I teach an Environmental Science class and I try to get the students to see the importance of recycling regularly. I even made a student fish her empty soda can out of the hallway trashcan when I noticed what she had done. I don’t think I’m at the fanatic stage yet, but I often check the trash can in my classroom to see if something recycled (especially the soda cans!) has been thrown away. I don’t do curbside recycling because my home is only 3-4 blocks from our town’s cycling center and I can save money by taking my recyclables there myself.
Good for you, Colleen, teaching students the importance of recycling! My daughter and I often go for walks; we bring plastic gloves if we see a lot of cans and bottles thrown on the side of the road. It adds up! -Nicole
San Francisco has a great recycling program. In my building, there are three large bins: a green one for compost, blue one for recycled materials and a black one for landfill. Each apartment has a small covered plastic container with a handle to keep compost in until ready to add to the downstairs bin. Three separate companies pick up the trash depending on what kind it is. We also have Freecycle for items you no longer need or want so they can be made available for someone else who needs them (like outgrown children’s clothing, crutches, bicycles, etc). As of October 1, all stores have a plastic bag ban so you bring your own tote bags or pay 10 cents for a paper sack with handles or recyclable plastic bag with handles. It’s a good system and it works.
Wow! What great ideas! I’m sure that the everyone in your building doesn’t think twice about recycling; it becomes second nature after a while. I love the "Freecycle" idea, too. Thanks for commenting! -Nicole
Oh yes, I have been a GREEN-E for most of my life. Unfortunately, since moving to this new area, there are no easily accessible ways for keeping GREEN – but I still do it. By IT I mean everything – I even put items at my driveway with a sign FREE and it takes only a few minutes before they are gone on to someone else who can use them and the containers of all kinds go to the re-cycler, food scraps go to the horses and chickens and then in a round about way it comes back to me as fertilizer and or compost. I can not figure out why everyone doesn’t do re-cycling – not only for the environment but it makes one feel good about earth/life/self. Good article, Nicole, to get us thinking.
Thank you, Joan! And kudos to you for doing your part, even after you have moved where it isn’t as accessible. Keep up the great work, and thanks for commenting! -Nicole
Oh, I’ve been recycling since it was not so cool to be doing so – being a "child of the 60’s" and a "back-to-the-lander" of the 70’s-80’s. Where we live now, a very small town on the Palouse Prarie of Washington State, there is a small place that one can take a few recycles, but we have WAY more than that – we have bins for all recycles of any kind in our garage. So, each week when I go shopping, I haul some with me to the "city" where I shop and deposit the "stuff" at the recycling center there.
We, are, too, great proponents of re-use, so we have only one "garbage pick-up" a month & it is nearly always less than 1 can full, but never more than that! Pretty good, I’d say, in our own proud defense ;~).
Molly, good for you! You should be proud! -Nicole
Here in Long Beach, California we recycle everything also.. We have a large trash bin that is picked up once a week. I have a compost bin that I put all our household scraps in and helps with the garden… We recycle at least 80% of everything that comes thru our home.. It feels really good to be conscious of the need to clean it up…
Deborah, 80% is awesome. Good for you. I am a big fan of composting, too, and it’s such a garden bonus. Keep up the good work, and thanks for sharing! -Nicole
Nicole, I did not realize how involved you are in recycling! We may have it here in Georgia, because my neighbor puts out 2 recycling bins on the curbside. I have not asked her yet about it. I like the idea of the compost bin. Keeps down odors and flies I would think.
Great article, very informative.
Thank you! You should call your town and see if you can do it, too. It’s so easy! -Nicole
Nicole: My husband and I have been "recycling" since we were married 50 years ago. It wasn’t called that then but we taught classes then and have been green ever since. But we separate glass, cans, and paper. I am glad so many are catching on. Thanks for your blog.
Hi Bonnie! I learned a lot about recycling as a child from my dad and my mom’s mom from watching them re-purpose or reuse things instead of throwing them away. I also remember my mom always taking the wooden crate of glass drink soda bottles back to the store. We always stopped and dropped them off at the courtesy desk before we did our shopping. You’re so right – it was something that was done, and I am glad that it is coming back. How cool that you and your husband taught classes – and it’s awesome you’ve been married fifty years! Thank you for sharing, Nicole
Great that people do, and continue to spread the word.
My son runs the local waste station. There are, unfortunately, many things that cannot be recycled because there is no after market. For example, Number 6 plastic could be recycled, but recovery costs are high and re-purposed products too expensive to make it feasible. Florescent bulbs are made of materials that could be reused, but the glass shatters and the tubes are dangerous to work with. Regrettably we are going to have to become much more knowledgeable consumers.
Some things that are recycled can only be used once. Egg cartons can be made from recycled newspapers, but that is a one time use. The egg cartons can not be used again.
Kristy,
What great info! Thanks so much for the comment. I did not know that about egg cartons. Thank you so much for sharing!
Nicole
I’ve found a good way to reuse the cardboard type egg cartons. They make good fire starters for campfires or fireplaces. Stuff them full of dryer lint, coat them with melted parafin (or old candle wax). This also makes them waterproof. You can then break off a small chunk to start your fire. I store them in an old popcorn tin and they’re always ready to go.
Rebecca, thank you for the great tip! -Nicole
Nicole I read your blog and really like what your town has done with recycled products. I’m not sure if you remember, but at the farm all of the frame and I would venture to say 75% (or more) is recycled wood. To look at the house you would never guess its 2200sq feet. You’re like your old man,… I guess you were watching and listening when I tried to teach you when you were young. Love Dad
Thank you, Daddy! You are my first inspiration! Love, Nicole
Interesting blog. We have a recycling system in my city but it’s so inconvenient to use that most of us don’t use it…My city should take notes.