Archive July 2009

All of the articles archived for the month that you have specified are displayed below.

Step Into My Time Machine...

Have you ever wondered if you were born during the “right time” in history? Certainly I know that I was, but there are moments when I can’t help but to think I would have loved the Wild West.
 

Read all of Step Into My Time Machine...

Hey Babe What's YOUR sign?

Recently my friend Sarah Sumerlin and I were driving down the back roads between Washington and Oregon snapping pictures. Sarah’s a brilliant photographer and I love to take pictures to remind myself of stories I want to share. It was a perfect time of the day, and we were finding all kinds of things that “spoke” to us. Then out of nowhere, there it was…a sign!
 

Read all of Hey Babe What's YOUR sign?

Rural and Raw

I have looked into “the raw diet” for awhile now. Well, actually since 1994, when I was recovering after being diagnosed with lupus. Back then, a friend had introduced me to “blue-green” algae and its health benefits. She also introduced me to some really amazing people in the world of holistic health, which up to that point I had never even heard of. I was a very typical American who ate the Standard American Diet (known in the holistic world as SAD), never considering that what I ate and becoming ill had any link whatsoever.

Read all of Rural and Raw

I love summer...

I just do! I love driving with the radio blaring, windows rolled down, feeling like there isn’t a care in the world. I am the “best me” in the summer. Although I don’t particularly like the heat, I love the rhythm of summer…the backyard barbecues with friends, the farmer’s market, and spending time

Read all of I love summer...

Everything Old is New Again.

 

Whether it is vintage clothing, trailers, or albums, it seems that “everything old is new again.” Recently my oldest son, who is currently serving in Afghanistan, sent my husband a push mower. Not the motored kind, but a rotating-blade push mower. It was the perfect Father’s Day gift, one that showed both the practical side of my Marine and the comedic side. You see, my hubby has never had much success with lawn mowers, and it has become a sort of joke in our family. I am convinced that every mower that my husband has purchased in our 25-year marriage must have been built on a Friday.

Read all of Everything Old is New Again.

Snapshots of summer

There is something magical about summer. It seems that there is a mystical rhythm to it that presents itself in the slight breeze, reminding me of those carefree days of childhood. I never desire to go back in time until these moments. But the gentle wind makes me miss the innocence of looking into the garden without knowing how much work they actually are.
 

Read all of Snapshots of summer

Dance like no one is watching~

I love that little mantra, although I wasted much of my life up to this point not living it. Some of my favorite people and personalities are those who seem to do just that: Dance like no one is watching. I find that I am drawn to those people the most, although oftentimes I don’t jump into the dance, but sit on the sidelines and admire them dancing.
 

Read all of Dance like no one is watching~

I am so grateful

Have you ever had the experience of awakening and just for a moment lying there and thinking of all the reasons you are grateful?
A while back, maybe a year or more now, I decided I was done focusing on all the things that were “wrong” in my life, and that I would greet each day by giving thanks for all the things that were “right.”

Read all of I am so grateful

So.What are we really trying to say?

“Sayings” almost always distract me. They make me question where they came from and how they originated. Some of them make me laugh. Others make me roll my eyes. And others just annoy me.

Read all of So.What are we really trying to say?

Alexandra Wilson out and about

Alexandra Wilson,
Our New Rural Farmgirl,
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 copyright © Alexandra Wilson. All rights reserved.

Little Farmer Girl

Farmgirl
is a condition
of the heart.

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.