We’ve all heard how important it is to eat a diet high in roughage. Likewise, “roughaging” (spending time outdoors) is essential to our mental health. Even if it’s a settee on the porch, we need it, gotta have it. I aim to be the reason you pulled your bedding out the back door last night.
Winnie Nielsen says: This scene is just lovely. You do live in a bit of paradise at your farm!
terry steinmetz says: Love your rolling hills! We live on flat & swamp lands:-(
Lisa Von Saunder says: Looks like autumn to me, thanks for this lovely evocative photo
Winnie Nielsen says: We had two Birch trees in our front yard growing up. I even remember helping to plant them and then watching them grow so much faster than me! This photo reminds me of my Virginia Home Sweet Home.
Happy Friday sweet MaryJane!! It is also a beautiful fall morning here in Florida. My thanks to the Jet Stream for making it big effort to finally pay us a visit this week and blow away all that forever Summer we just couldn’t get out from under. I celebrated our first cool day with making black bean/sweet potato chili and your Buttermilk Biscuits from the new Cast Iron Cookbook in my Mama’s skillet. Topped with the new jar of Apple Pie Jam I found, we had a dinner fit for a King! Warren gave them a definite thumbs up which means please make these again and often. LOL!! Next up will be the sweet potato rolls this weekend and the Buttermilk-Biscuit Apple Pie. Cool weather just inspires me to make old fashioned and beloved recipes with my cast iron. I also need to get my Milk cow Kitchen book out and make fresh butter and perhaps some compound butters for the sweet potato rolls. Wish I could just sit on the porch of the BunkHouse Kitchen with you to enjoy some hot morning biscuits and coffee! If you end up doing that yourself, just remember I am there in Farmgirl solidarity with you for preserving the best of our Grandmothers and Mothers kitchens.
I just started a book about a woman from southern Appalachia region of N.C., Aunt Arie, which is about a woman who became a focus of an English teacher and her students at a nearby local high school. They made hundreds of visits and Aunt Arie welcomed them to her very humble log cabin up a hill in the mountains. She cooked for them on her wood stove and they helped her and learned how to make the fires just perfect. Then after an abundant dinner of whatever was in season and available, they washed dished outside in two basins of hot water from drawn well water heated on the wood stove. It is just the first few chapters that I’ve read, but I am loving this story. She was a true Farmgirl at Heart just living her simple life with joy and good will.
MaryJane says: Your meals and yummies were described so vividly I could almost smell them. And a good book to enjoy them with. Aunt Arie knows how to teach a thing or two. What a wonderful experience every child deserves. Have you come across the concept of “schooling” in Finland?
Winnie Nielsen says: Schooling in Finland is unknown to me but I am going to look it up and read more. Thanks for the lead.
terry steinmetz says: How lovely!
Margi says: You did not put the amount of recipe for the cream cheese part on the pumpkin brownies!
Winnie Nielsen says: Amber waves of grain on the beautiful Palouse.
Happy Friday MaryJane~ Warren and I just discovered what the crashing sound was last night. The screen on my desk window was chewed out, two bathroom stops were made by our fireplace, and the remnants of what looks like a bag of granola was left behind a futon! Ah, Ha! Last night we looked around, found nothing and just went on with the evening. However, today when I came home…..Bump was outside and he was INSIDE when I left. So, following one discovery after another, we have now concluded that the door that was left open a crack last night when Bump was going in and out, also brought IN a clever friend from the neighborhood. Apparently, he brought his own snack from somewhere else and then decided when he was ready to go, to just chew a nice fat opening and head out the window. My guess is this morning, Bump must have gotten hold of the scent of his tracks and followed it to the opening in the window and just headed out himself. Normally he is not anywhere outside except the backyard because he has no front claws. It looks like he got back into the backyard by sweeping himself underneath the fence in the driveway. Of course, when we asked him what happened, we just got lots of meows and twirling for pets and food. LOL!! I guess some secrets just can’t be shared.
You definitely found a slice of Creator’s Heaven on Earth. And I am including that it is not by chance that this has happened, because, at my age, I’ve learned our minute-to-minute, day-to-day, week-to-week choices (thoughts, words, actions, feelings, …) add up to whether we move toward a heavenly or opposite place in life. milkaTheAppreciator
MaryJane says: So true. Right now I’m looking out over those same hills with intermittent sunshine and golden fields. Divine.
Winnie Nielsen says: What a cool porch light!!
Good Morning MaryJane from the airport in Atlanta. Making my way west to Tulsa OK for the weekend to help celebrate her 10 year anniversary of her folk art business! Wagons Ho for the next leg in a few more minutes. Some of us Farmgirls on the loose are beholden to things like airplanes since we don’t have Glampers . Delta does a good job of making it as easy as possible and they only serve fresh brewed Starbucks coffee. It tasted so wonderful when we left Gainesville at , ahem, 6 AM!
MaryJane says: Nothing like that first fresh cuppa. Have a great time flying happy trails.
Lorraine says: The lovely sight of fall!
Winnie Nielsen says: I think I mentioned before that I love Bumblebees the most. There is something about their large yellow and black fuzzy bodies and the loud buzzing they make that warms my heart. This photo is a beauty.
Beautiful! Bees are such amazing and beautiful creatures. We do not have our own hives, but a nearby neighbor does. We have a bee garden, complete with bee waterers. I love watching the visiting bees drink and collect pollen.
Winnie Nielsen says: What a darling pair of??
Storm has finally moved on and we are doing well save having no power. Last night about 2am was pretty scary but in the end our town has trees down, lots of branches and debris, and some bad local flooding. At our house we got 9 inches of rain in 24 hours. Things could have been so much worse and everyone is just grateful we were spared. Today we had powerful winds all day long and just light rain. Tonight all is calm again and it is a huge relief!! Bump even ventured out a few minutes ago for a sniff test . He was pretty frightened by he winds and noise of stuff hitting he roof. A good sign indeed!! Thank-you for all of your support !! Everyone around here is just so happy to be in the other side of this monster of a storm!!
MaryJane says: When this came in last night, it was such a relief. Not only was our dear Winnie on the upside of things but Carol’s 90-year-old mother lives alone in Ocala (near where you are) and we hadn’t heard from her yet. We finally did late last night. But your news in the interim helped immensely.
In the concrete jungle of Taipei, capitol city of Taiwan, I imagine residents often long for nature.
Like, deeply long.
Photo by Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons
Tapping into this profound longing, florist Alfie Lin accepted a commission from the Beautiful Touch Association to fancy up a Taipei city bus with the trappings of a real, live forest.
“I hope the public will feel that it’s a beautiful and interesting experience,” he told the Agence France-Presse. “They can smell the scent of summer on the bus and see the vibrant green plants to feel messages from nature.”
The forest bus is taking a trial run this month, but Lin hopes it will become a permanently rooted fixture of the city. Passengers like Celine Wei hope so, too. “I feel happy and relaxed on the bus smelling the flowers and plants,” she says. “I hope it can become a regular service on a double-decker. It would become something special to Taipei.”
If you can’t bathe in an actual forest (read my post on shinrin-yoku), a mobile forest might just soothe a city dweller’s wild side.
Ya think?
Take a quick virtual ride on the forest bus and share your thoughts:
Krista says: I think this is a great idea and it seems like many of the passengers would agree. It’s almost like a fresh breath of air in all the city life congestion. Hopefully the test run will become permanent and other buses will join in too.
Winnie Nielsen says: Pumpkin Pie will be coming soon? Or is that some sort of melon? Whatever it is, I bet it will be tasty.
Winnie Nielsen says: Look at those tiny little feet so perfectly gripping.
My Cast Iron cookbook arrived yesterday and I sat down and read it cover to cover. It is fantastic! I also love the little family stories and historical bits of information with photos. My Mom gave me her set of 3 skillets which I have been using for years. Plus I have two Le Creuset pots that are daily staples as well. Once you cook with cast iron, everything else just pales in comparison. Another feature about your new book that I loved are all the wonderful photos of the farm. Little snippets of places I know and love just make this book a must have. As you might imagine, I have my eye on a few of those apple recipes which I plan to try as soon as Warren returns. Last night I made the basic cornbread recipe cut in half and I enjoyed it very much. Using a recipe from your BakeOver magazine, I made the black bean mixture and then placed the cornbread on top and baked it in the oven. Yummy! With just me at home, there are lots of left overs,which is another great outcome. Thank-YOU for all the time it took to create this wonderful guide to cast iron cooking. I hope many, who have never tried cast iron, will give it a try and join the generations of devotees!
MaryJane says: Our first real review!!! Love you Winnie. Your words make it all worthwhile.
Winnie Nielsen says: No, THANK-YOU!! Now, I can’t wait to see the bread book when you have time to complete. You know how I love the story of the Joseph C. Barron flour mill in Oakdale, Washington. Oh to have a flour sack from those days or one of his calendars like the 1912 one you show in your Ideas book! To me, this mill is the story of American life at the turn of the century when hard work and honesty were values people shared and honored. In 1912, my Dad was 10 years old and one of four boys living on a dairy farm in Omaha, Nebraska. I wonder if his Mom got her flour from a mill similar to Joe Barron’s? I already know that this book will be worth the wait and will be another must have for me!
Happy Sunday!
Buy props used in MaryJane’s books and magazine!
5% of profits will benefit www.firstbook.org, a non-profit that provides new books to children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Here’s how:
MaryJane will post a photo and a description of a prop and its cost along with a few details as to its condition here: https://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/MaryJanesCurations. It’s a playful way to be the new owner of a little bit of farm herstory.
Oh how I love this Apple photo! Just look at that beauty all red and plump from Summer’s sunshine and rain. This makes me just want to grab it and take a big juicy bite.
Good Morning MaryJane and Happy November! Just thinking about you and hoping all is well. Give Tomkins a scritch behind his ears for me too.
Good morning Winnie! Jasper is snuggled up inside complaining about ole man winter. We got our first snowfall of the year in the night and it’s still coming down, 3 inches so far. The girls were outside at 9 last night sledding and again this morning at 5! It won’t stay because it’s supposed to warm up next week, so they’re taking advantage of it while they can. Give Mr. Bump a scritch for me? How’s he feeling these days?
Wow, snow! The first snow is always magical and special and I completely understand how the girls wanted to get the first sledding in as well.
Mr. Bump has some good days and others are just quiet ones. He doesn’t seem to be in any pain and he has been sleeping more the past few months. However, on his good days, he is playful and interactive like the old days. He is my sweetie and I am thankful to have him still here holding his own. What a wonderful kitty he has been.
Holding his own … and you holding him tight. What a sweet boy he is. Mr Bump. His name cracks me up every time I think of him.