We need to find meaning. We need to be useful. We need to know that who we are matters. I give, you give, we all give.
Winnie Nielsen says: Such a beautiful and ornate food grinder. Is is american or european? I also have never seen grey enamelware. Love it!
MaryJane says: Not sure where it originated. I picked everything up in the photo in 2nd hand stores over the years. Love the gray speckled enamelware.
wow, what a nice collection of what is called in the Antique trade, graniteware because of the color and durability.
Debbie says: Oh Mary Jane ….You and I share the love for graniteware. I have the Old wood cook stove in blue and grey speckled graniteware .with the bread warmers and we fire it up every Christmas eve and use all my collected pieces to cook dinner .Once you start collecting you’ll be bitten by the bug !Your pitchers made my day I just ordered the grinder off e bay a couple days ago . I hope you know that grinder is so hard to find yours and mine are the only ones I’ve seen in the 25 years I’ve been collecting ….Enjoy your beauties and keep sharing them with all of us . Thank you so much !
MaryJane says: Wow, I had no idea how rare mine was. Thank you for telling me. I will cherish it even more and you yours. How cool that you have a graniteware Christmas. We should try that some year.
Winnie Nielsen says: Love this vintage print of making an apple pie. Speaking of which, mine is ready for National Farmgirl Pie for Breakfast Day tomorrow! Sharp Cheddar cheese is in the fridge too.
MaryJane says: Pumpkin, Apple, and Berry Pies for me. Can I start the festivities at one minute past midnight?
Winnie Nielsen says: You betcha !!!! We are driving home from our day with friends and catching up with comments here . I am stuffed!! Whew! Hope your dinner was wonderful in every way.
Cindi Johnson says: Good Thanksgiving morning ~ the day of PIE. This picture brings back memories of my grandmother’s kitchen all abuzz with multiple generations of ladies and girls participating in an unchoreographed, yet precise, dance to avoid bumping each other as they whirl between table, sink and stove; a wonderful day of preparing pies and many other goodies for the day’s festivities. I’ve always loved pie for breakfast, Winnie! Didn’t know there was a National Farmgirl day for it! That one is being added to my calendar. Such wonderful things to learn here. I, too, will be munching at one minute past midnight!
What a talented crew we have in our graphic design department. I’ve been treating you to some of Carol’s upcycled creations, now, here’s Karina’s latest knitting project. Her first project was a scarf and now this. So sweet and cuddle-y! Any name ideas? Girl or boy?
Winnie Nielsen says: What an adorable scarf transformation. With the pink scarf, I am thinking her name could be Annie or perhaps Bethany?
Nan Roberts says: You mean her very first knitting project was a scarf, and now she’s made this as her second thing? Wow. It’s adorable and is she talented.
MaryJane says: That’s right! We were impressed also.
Karlyne says: Talent indeed! Since it’s rather cold (7′ frozen fog here), I’m thinking her name should be “Winter”.
Rebecca Taylor says: I say girl. She is soooo cute! Maybe Flopsy because of her ears…….? 🙂
Marge Hofknecht says: I’m jealous since I’ve been knitting a long time. But I’m jealous in a good way and I tip my hat and salute with my knitting needles to Karina. To go from a simple scarf to this adorable rabbit — and I’m with Karlyne on this; I also think her name should be “Winter” — what’s her next knitting project going to be? Hmmm?
Winnie Nielsen says: O Beautiful for spacious Skies….
I have my gifted issue of Grit besides me and what a delight. I have never heard of this magazine before but what a winner. Of course, I first read the story on the apples but I will be reading this cover to cover just like I do when our MJF magazine arrives! I am thinking it is a must have subscription going forward for this Farmgirl. Thank-you so much for sharing this with me!
oh good Winnie, I told you about the grit mag issue on apples and cider in a recent post but guess you didn’t see it. glad you got it now. I just KNEW you’d like it. enjoy
Karlyne says: You need a “like” or “love” button on these photos. I’m running out of adjectives, like gorgeous, stupendous, etc..
MaryJane says: How sweet of you. Just a smiley face I suppose. Happy to make you smile!!!!
Nancy Coughlin says: Mother Nature scores again! Winnie, The Grit magazine used to come in a newspaper style: I read it as a young girl and will not be saying just how long ago that was!!! There were serialized stories that ran in the issues; sewing column; recipes; so many wonderful things. It is now a glossy magazine and just as enjoyable. And, to top it all off, after settling down here in Picture Rocks, PA remembered that it used to be published in WIlliamsport, PA just about 20 minutes up the road!!! One of the taller buildings still standing in the skyline has GRIT across the top of the building!
Winnie Nielsen says: Aspen leaf? or Birch?
MaryJane says: Birch from a tree I planted seven years ago. Love birch trees but have only the one.
Nancy Coughlin says: Tenacity!! That’s the thought that came to mind as I gazed at the lovely, yellow leaf!
Winnie Nielsen says: Fantastic rehabbed old truck with another gorgeous barn landscape. What a beautiful place Idaho is!
MaryJane says: That’s my truck parked up by the old homestead chicken coop. I’ve never named her. Any ideas?
Winnie Nielsen says: Actually, I have never named a car so my mind kinda goes blank trying to come up with one. But that chicken coop is really cool. Talk about spacious digs! It sounds like it might be vacant now. So what is the repurposing future for this site? I love that it is all rustic and has a fantastic view. I watch a bunch of HGTV at the gym and it strikes me as place for a summer studio of sorts? I mean who wouldn’t be inspired by the peaceful and beautiful surroundings?
MaryJane says: Right now the old coop is used for storage of a few things. A month ago we straightened one of the walls that was going crooked on us and replaced the siding on that side with funky old wood. The floor inside is terribly buckled, but I did think we could put some windows back in it next summer to resurrect it so the outside looked the way the old bachelor brothers who were born and died here had it.
Winnie Nielsen says: I knew this barn had a story behind it! How many years ago were the bachelor brothers there? What did they do for a living? We must be talking old here for the wood to be needing replacement and all.
MaryJane says: Let’s see. I bought this place in 1986 but an adjacent farming neighbor had owned the property for a few years before me. The original house, built in 1905 by the parents of the bachelor brothers, was my home until 1996 when I lost it in a fire. The bachelor brothers were farmers, as were their parents. The house when I bought it didn’t have indoor plumbing, wasn’t insulated, and was heated with wood only. So that’s how it was for me until it burned down. My two children used an outhouse, etc. I was a single mother for 7 years while living in the house until I married my neighbor, Nick, who remembers the bachelor brothers because they served him milk and cookies (in addition to chickens, they kept milk cows). They were truly lost in time and the place was like a museum when I bought it. I still have their barn and use one of the brother’s secret barn loft space (full of tobacco cans when I moved here) that I put a proper staircase to (rather than a ladder) and lived in while writing my first book (without kitchen or indoor plumbing).
Love, love ,love the stories behind the photo ! thanks for sharing that with us MaryJane. What an inspiration those old buildings were to you indeed.
Love that green truck, I’m in truck envy. I love to name my vehicles, my first big ole Bonneville was oxidized purple blue, called it the ” bluesmobile” the second old Bonneville was white and called ” the great white whale”, and my latest car , a red Grand Am is the ” Tomato Auto”.
for your green pick-em-up truck I suggest ” the Green Hornet” , ” Goin’ Green Machine ” , ” Streamin’ Greenin’ “
MaryJane says: Well, those are fun. But I have to send you pickin’. Sounds like on your computer, it’s looking more green than teal. It’s a sea-green, almost teal/turquoise color… not so much green in person.
Winnie Nielsen says: Wow, MaryJane, what a great story and what a piece of local history you purchased in 1986! How incredible Nick knew them as well while growing up. Now, you have added another layer of history with your story. I love that your first book was written in the original tobacco barn of the farm. That book has so many stories of people who have done amazing things, including yourself. No wonder it was so inspirational. Look at where it was crafted! You know, the parents of the boys need dreamed that a young woman with a family would take over their farm and create a multi-layered business from their homestead. And write a book that had the nation saying, move over Martha Stewart, MaryJane Butters has a new gig for women!!! Your truck properly belongs outside today’s old coop because it belonged to the era when two bachelor men were lost in time in the Idaho Palouse( am I using Palouse correctly, I hope?)
MaryJane says: Yes, Idaho Palouse works. The Palouse is a geographic region, not a county. Destiny always has its say, right?
Terry Steinmetz says: This reminds me of the barn at my grandparents home, that I spent hours playing in as a child!
Winnie Nielsen says: I am so in love with all of the old barn photos you have been sharing!!
MaryJane says: Red Barn Girl????????
Winnie Nielsen says: I like that name!! Sitting on plane loading up and Boston bound. Apple orchard tomorrow afternoon with John Bunker!! Think he will let me try out the standard apple pickers bag and climb up his hand made apple ladder? If so, I’ll send a photo!!
MaryJane says: Photos PLEASE!!!! Have a fun trip my friend. You’re awesome.
Nancy Coughlin says: Looks a bit like my grandparents’ old barn. Loved playing in it when I was young!
absoutely fabulous photo. We never have fields of sunflowers here in Lancaster County PA, like you do out west.
Winnie Nielsen says: We used to live where the people who owned the farmland planted acres of sunflowers one year for commercial production. It was a glorious site when then all bloomed!
Cindi Johnson says: Gorgeous 🙂 My sunflowers just might look like that next summer once those cute little birds finish sowing. Twice a day since the seeds came ripe, flocks of delightful tiny birds have visited. This year’s crop quadrupled over last year because of these helpful little farmers. Such a joy to watch!
A simple, little Buddha statue seems to be spreading a big message of peace in an Oakland, California, neighborhood.
Photo by Hartwig HKD via Flickr
One resident, who’s not a Buddhist or even affiliated with any other religion, placed a small, stone Buddha at an Ace Hardware store in an Oakland residential area that was plagued by crime, drug-dealing, prostitution, and littering. He was merely hoping that the calm, benevolent presence of the statue would somehow bring a glimmer of peace to the neighborhood. Before long, offerings of flowers, food, and candles appeared at the site. Then, Vietnamese women from the neighborhood began to meet there for morning prayers. “And the neighborhood changed. People stopped dumping garbage. They stopped vandalizing walls with graffiti. And the drug dealers stopped using that area to deal. The prostitutes went away,” says the San Francisco Chronicle. Police crime statistics for the area actually show an 82 percent drop in crime since the women began their morning prayers.
Whether you call it the power of prayer, the power of positive thinking, or the power of peace, this one little statue and this one little gesture has made a big difference in one little neighborhood.
Read the whole story here.
Winnie Nielsen says: This is an incredible story. It makes sense that as soon as people began to “own” this tiny space, it would flourish under their care. As I understand it, Buddhism is not considered a religion in the typical sense of the word, but more of a philosophy of living. Filled with respect, non-violence, simplicity, honoring the earth and others, it must have filled a deep yearning of the neighborhood. People don’t want to live in fear of violence but sometimes their economics prevent moving anywhere better. Once someone had the presence to bring about one small change, the floodgates opened encouraging others to participate. Peace built more peace. This happening, juxtaposed against what is going on in the Middle East, makes it seem like a miracle. I doubt, however, that the radical religious Islamists would settle for anything as open and simple as what happened here. It does speak to the reality that despite our fragmented politics, somethings like what happened are still possible in America. For that, I feel a big sigh of relief and hope we still “get it” here.
What a wonderful uplifting story, thanks MaryJane for sharing this. It’s not the religion -it’s the peace that the Buddha statue exudes. It has brought a whole neighborhood together and made it a better place indeed.
Ron and Elaine Silverman says: 🙂
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.
Such a cute idea. This is definitely Farmgirl Romance!
The influence of these beautiful daily photos are sure keeping me busy. Now I want to go antique browsing 🙂