Archive November 2009

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Pull up a bench and sit a spell

Maybe it is the time of year, or maybe it is just me needing a rest, but I have been noticing chairs and benches lately, each of them coaxing me to come on over and sit a spell. I cannot even say that I am thinking while enjoy their respite; at least I cannot recall anything that I was thinking about while there. It is rather magical to be able to plant yourself in the middle of a scene and contemplate, well, nothing.
 

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The Gift That Keeps On Giving

I have been haunted the last few days by an email I received from one of the farmgirls. Not haunted in a way that compels you to flee, but rather in a way that begs you to stay and sit with it a while, facing those things that we all too often would rather not face.

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Hello. Anyone there?

Do you remember when children would make a phone by taking two tin cans and tying them to the opposite ends of some string? I recall doing this in elementary science class. We took two large paper cups or tin cans, punched a hole in the bottom center of each can or cup, then cut about 100 feet of kite string, pulled the string through both cups and tied it down. The key, of course, was to keep the string pulled tight, allowing the sound waves to travel across the string and into the other cup.

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Who could ask for more?

In today’s world it may not be politically correct, but I grew up playing that childhood game of cowgirls and Indians, knowing full well that if you were to mix in a little gypsy girl with the cowgirl and the Indian, shake it, then bake it, you would have me: a rural farmgirl. I, like many of my farmgirl friends, do not really “fit” into any one mold. I am as eclectic in my thinking and in my interests as I am in the blood that runs through me.
 

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Libbie Zenger in fields of iris

Libbie Zenger,
Our Current Rural Farmgirl,
is a small town Farmgirl who lives in the high-desert Sevier Valley of Central Utah with her husband and two darling (“if I do say so myself...”) 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 new little kittens. She lives on a 140-year-old farm, in a farmhouse built by her great-great-grandfather, and tries to channel her grandmothers, HD Thoreau and Auntie Mame (and not necessarily in that order!).

“When I found MaryJanesFarm, I found a new sort of sisterhood — one in which hard work, ‘heart’ work and handwork are truly valued, appreciated and shared... not to mention all the great times that farmgirls have!”

Column contents copyright © 2010 Libbie Zenger. All rights reserved.

Little Farmer Girl

Farmgirl
is a condition
of the heart.

Portrait of René Groom

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.