Archive March 2012

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Eggsperiments!

After my last post about feeling wanderlusty and yearning for a change of scenery, it appears that my wishes have been granted. The last few weeks have been full of growth, new faces at Farm School, almost an hour and a half increase in sunlight (!!), and new adventures in chicken egg incubation.


Our homemade candler. This egg is infertile.

Springtime is the Land Awakening!

Every once in a while, I get extremely wanderlusty. Wanderlusty is not a real word, but it is so fitting for what I feel as winter comes to an end ... it’s different than cabin fever. I don’t want to leave this amazing farm at all; yet I still dream about venturing to far-away places.


The Greenhouse longs for spring and wind-less days, too!

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.