Can you believe it’s September already!? Kids recently headed back to school, and the “lazy-daisy” days of summer are flying by. At the Suburban Farmgirl’s neck o’ the woods, we’re as busy as the bees! Come rest a spell and let’s get caught up!
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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”.
Alas, the older we get, the faster times flies, it’s true! I can’t believe we’re in September already. Beautiful pics and good tip about the circuit breaker box – I’m going to go check mine now. Thanks for sharing the recipe!! XOXO
Hi Ali! You’re welcome! I always love the recipes you share, too! Hugs, Nicole
What a great article saluting the end of a season!!! And thank you for the "fried green tomato" recipe…it looks so easy and sounds so good, I am going to have to try it out!!!
Bev, thanks so much! Enjoy! – Nicole
Nicole,
I loved the pictures of the beach and always like seeing bales of hay along a highway. So pretty and calming to see. I cannot wait to make the fried green tomatoes!
The flower pictures are so nice and I never had heard of a spider plant. Our Audrey is really growing up and I cannot believe how tall the sunflower is! I love you, Mother
Audrey is really getting tall, but she looks so small next to that sunflower! It grew a bit more since that photo, and is just about to bloom! She is so proud of it! We really enjoy gardening together, and she has her own little flower bed she is planning out for next year now. Love you too, Nicole
Nicole,
I loved the pictures of the beach and always like seeing bales of hay along a highway. So pretty and calming to see. I cannot wait to make the fried green tomatoes!
The flower pictures are so nice and I never had heard of a spider plant. Our Audrey is really growing up and I cannot believe how tall the sunflower is! I love you, Mother
Audrey is really getting tall, but she looks so small next to that sunflower! It grew a bit more since that photo, and is just about to bloom! She is so proud of it! We really enjoy gardening together, and she has her own little flower bed she is planning out for next year now. Love you too, Nicole
Your flowers look SO pretty, mine have barely hung on due to the long HOT dry summer, even with me watering them. Your daughter is so cute and I have a niece who is so into her clothes and jewelry too!
Thank you so much, Denise! It’s been a good year for the garden with the amount of rain we have had, and I know it is a blessing as so many others have dealt with such drought. Hope things cool off for you soon! Have fun with your niece! Farmgirl hugs, Nicole
Thank you for sharing your farmgirl life with me. I live in Yellowpoint near Ladysmith, BC Canada on Vancouver Island. My husband and I retired early because we wanted to give country life a try. Consequently, we live on a tight budget, pension pay day to pension pay day on a small acreage. I have established a small scale market garden, read, walk, cook preserve, knit a bit and enjoy our country life. We are about to leave on a short road trip to pick up a new fox red Labrador puppy after being without a dog for two years just to give ourselves a bit of a break from pets. We are really excited to be getting a dog again; just did not seem like a home without one. I enjoyed reading your September entry. My tomatoes were very prolific this year and I do not think I will have many green ones. I usually make green tomato mincemeat for Christmas baking; good thing I have some mincemeat left from last years preserves. Thanks again for sharing your life stories.
Hi Marian! Your life sounds so wonderful and peaceful. You are lucky to have so many red tomatoes! I just spoke to my mother-in-law in Denmark, and her tomatoes have been a lot like mine, more green than red. Same with my dad down in Texas this year, although your green tomato mincemeat sounds delicious, too!
Congratulations on getting your new puppy…so exciting! A new furbaby in the house! I am like you, a home without a dog just isn’t the same. Enjoy, and thank you so much for reading and commenting…I really enjoyed reading your comment! Farmgirl hugs, Nicole
Talking about circuit breaker boxes! We awoke at about 6am on Dec. 7, 2010 to smoke throughout the house and in 5 mins. we were outside in our pajamas standing in the snow, barefooted and with our winter coats on. We had our front door open and I had called to our cats to get out, but one was trapped in the kitchen area and I knew not to go into the smoke or I wouldn’t turn around enough and be lost. I had forgotten I was also barefooted and would’ve burned my feet too, as my husband had done on one foot stepping on the den rug to get the fire-extinguisher! The house apparently had been burning for ~ 20 mins. in the basement and they felt it was a cable wire going into the box that sparked (it was always closed). Our bedroom of our 18 y/o house was on the top floor and we kept the door closed because of the cats. I wear an earplug because he snores and so I didn’t hear all the smoke alarms as fast as he did! We lost everything and the house went in the half hour. We lost the one cat and he is buried in the backyard now. Our other two cats ran out and hid under the pine tree till my girlfriend took them home. We are now in a new Arts and Craft ranch house on the same site going on one year and it is very well built, safe, and beautiful. We are triply blessed! Jewelry, handbags with ID’s, memories and pictures of our children, shoes, books and Mary Jane magazines, weaving looms, can be replaced or remembered (family treasures). Just run out with your family and say, "Thank you God for our lives and save the cats!". It was Pearl Harbor Day, quite appropriate.
Oh my goodness, Ellen! Thank God you are all okay, and got out safely! I’m so sorry to hear you lost your kitty. Thank you for sharing your story, and what a good reminder for us all of what is truly important, and that life can change on a dime. It’s sad that you lost your possessions, but you are right, family can not be replaced. Your story is another good reminder to check our batteries in our smoke detectors! Thank you again for sharing! Farmgirl hugs, Nicole
I’m jealous of your sunflowers! The grasshoppers are trying to eat them up! I herd my chickens down there daily but they are having a hard time getting them all!
Susan, my daughter’s the one with the green thumb with the sunflowers. I had some red ones, too, but every one of the ones I planted got eaten by the deer! The only ones left are the ones my daughter planted, from seed, in the front. She was so excited because yesterday it bloomed, and a new shoot has another head on it! The deer ate all the rest – down to the stalk! So, I feel your pain. 🙂
Farmgirl hugs, Nicole
Always like taking a little trip back East – I once got to take a trip into that area and wish I could still – but for now I will enjoy visiting with you.
Thank you, Joan! Farmgirl hugs! Nicole
Just a quick tomato story. Several years ago my husband planted a container garden of cherry tomatoes. He tended them over the summer with such care, but come early fall they were still green. The plants were covered in green cherry tomatoes, each morning we would check to see if any were ready for picking. This went one for quite awhile. One day we looked out the window and low and behold the plants were full of red, ripe cherry tomatoes. We looked at each other in wonder, how did they all ripen so quickly overnight. We rushed outside to harvest our crop…to find my Dad had played a big joke on us. He and Mom had snuck over in the night and with needle and thread had sewn a whole box of ripe cherry tomatoes to our plant. We all had a great laugh and I cherish this memory of my Dad’s sense of humor.
Judy! That is hilarious! I love your story. Thank you so very much for sharing it with us. -Nicole
When I read about your green tomatoes and I was going to tell you about the paper bag trick. I never put a banana in it and had no problems with the ripening. Also just pick them and sit them in a sunny spot. I love to grow sunflowers, but didn’t get any planted this year.
Hi Kimberly,
Well, the tomatoes have finally ripened, but it was the latest season I have ever seen here, which makes for a short tomato season, too. After the cold nights and the 3.5 inches of rain we got night before last, they are pretty much done and I am pulling in the last of the fruit. I get so spoiled having freshly-ripened tomatoes, they taste so much better than from a store, don’t ya think? As for the banana, the ethylene gas emitted from the banana just speeds up the ripening tomato in the bag. An apple can also be used. Putting the tomatoes in direct sunlight can ripen them, but also can cause the skin to split. Have a wonderful fall, and thanks for reading and commenting! -Nicole