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.
Fantastic rehabbed old truck with another gorgeous barn landscape. What a beautiful place Idaho is!
That’s my truck parked up by the old homestead chicken coop. I’ve never named her. Any ideas?
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?
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.
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.
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’ “
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.
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?)
Yes, Idaho Palouse works. The Palouse is a geographic region, not a county. Destiny always has its say, right?