The Joyful Colors of Winter

Just outside my front door, in my little garden space, this lovely variegated Euonymous gives me joy all seasons of the year - but just look at its pink tinged beauty in the snow!

In the front room of our little house I'm lucky to have three huge windows.  Really, these are BIG windows, especially for such an old and small house!  The space once served as a dining room and living room, with an archway in the middle, the fireplace at the far end and a door to the front yard on one side.  We always eat at the kitchen table, so in the time that I've lived here it has never been a dining room.  My desk and computer sit between two of these windows and from my seat there I can watch the sun rise and the moon set....

I'm usually there early morning or late night, and sometimes that rosy glow draws me outdoors for a better view of God's glory ~

The picket fence has seen better days!

A celery plant that I missed picking is poking its way through the snow. 

And a variegated sage plant has some leaves holding on...

If I venture farther away from the house, I think the red berries on the ornamental crabapple tree are very pretty.  So is the bright blue January sky....

That blob in the background is actually a beautiful rock, brought up from the field

Beautiful blue January sky and puffy white clouds

Moon setting in the west...

And of course, what could be more joyful than a snapping good fire to warm our hands and our hearts?   

What colors are bringing you joy this winter?

Chocolate for Birthdays

Chocolate colored sheep that is!

This is "Godiva", one of our young ewes named for her rich chocolate color.  I'm sharing her picture in honor of my friend Joanne's birthday.  We  both had birthdays last week and she got to have Godiva Chocolate cheesecake for hers, so of course I had to mention Godiva the sheep to her...So here you go, my friend!

Godiva is not a Corriedale.  She is a registered CVM sheep from my friend Bonnie at Sheepy Thyme Farm.  She'll be two years old in March and should be expecting her first lamb - I can't wait!  She's bred to Derek, a grey, who always gives us interesting colors and fine fleeces on his lambs.  Godiva's father was moorit (red) and her mother was white so with all those colorful factors combined I'm hoping for something really special.  Actually, I'm hoping for a moorit type color!

So there you go, chocolate and sheep...a very fine thing for a birthday post I think.  Oh and speaking of lambs, we have one girl "making bag" (her udder is starting to fill with milk as her time for lambing gets close).  According to my notes, she should be due around the 5th of February.  It's our little "Bree" - one of the prettiest sheep on the farm.  Here's a picture of her and one of her lambs from a few years ago ~

She nearly always passes on that white stripe on the face of her lambs.

Spinning, Sparkles and Snow

I was going to write a blog post about some things we're working on around the farm, but then I was distracted by some spinning and knitting and the lovely snow.

How many inches fell where you are?  We only have about 2.5 inches but its very pretty.  It seems to have stopped for the day, but the wind is blowing things around out there.

Spinning....spinning batts....spinning challenges.  I was poking around in the fiber stash the other day and came across some pretty batts I'd carded last year at a friends house.  There wasn't alot, just a few ounces, but it was so pretty and so soft.  Corriedale, of course, both natural and dyed along with angora and just a bit of "twinkle". 

Then it just so happened that the lovely group at Ennea Collective mentioned a spinning challenge for 2012, and the first of those was spinning batts.  Well, it was just meant to be that I finish spinning these up, don't you think?  That's exactly what I did, and I loved every single minute of it.  Clean, soft, well prepared fiber, watching the colors glow and change as they slid through my hands and onto the wheel.  Sigh...delightful!  Let me show you a little bit of what I did to spin ~

In the picture above, you are actually seeing two batts but each has been divided in half giving me four lengths of fiber to spin.  In other words, sections one and three are from one batt and sections two and four are from another.  I did this for two reasons.  First to give me a more manageable amount of fiber to draft and spin and second so that I could blend the colors a bit more on the wheel.  I think you can see pretty clearly in the photo that I had more of the dyed wool in one batt than I did the other!   I spun one bobbin full in the sequence above - sections 1,2, 3 then 4.  I spun a second bobbin in the order of 2, 3, 4 then 1.  And then I plied them together.  Is that clear as mud?  LOL...do you even care ((grin))  Was I overthinking the process?  Maybe, but I like the end results, pictured below ~

About 364 yards, 2-ply, both spun and plied on my Louet S-17, medium whorl.  This might become mittens or a hat or a cowl, not sure yet.  Or maybe the Windchaser Shawl by Lori Law, from the same issue of Ennea.  I could spin some solid grey for the border.  Hmmm...my yarn is a little heavier than fingering, more a sport weight, so I may not have enough.  But wouldn't that be pretty?

This was such a happy project for me, thanks Ennea crew for suggesting spinning batts!

Here's another happy project, a knitting one.  At my LYS, Sip 'n Knit, we're knitting socks.  This is actually a pattern that I wrote up called Sip 'n Sock.  It's simple, really, just a basic sock with a coffee cup motif.  I wanted to do a shop sample out of a soft squishy yarn and we had been having those dreary grey days, so I grabbed two hanks of Cascade 128.  How's this for a bright sock, LOL!  I shouldn't lose these, should I?  The red is some of my yarn, leftovers from making mittens.  Looking at it now, I kind of wish I would have made the heel red as well.  I need to hurry up and finish the second sock so I'll have those to wear around the house now that the temperature has dropped into the teens!

Finally, here's what's next on the spinning wheel, another "finish-up" project of just four ounces:

This was named "Ugly Duck" by its producer, but I don't think its ugly at all!  Unique maybe ;)  Anyway, I came across this the other day, too, fiber I received in a swap and thought I just need to finish spinning it as well.  I'm pretty sure its going to remain a single.  And I think I need to check that fiber stash more often! 

I'm looking forward to spinning at Sip 'n Knit on Saturday.  Any of you reading near Ithaca Michigan, feel free to join us!  We'll be there from 10 am till about 2 pm.

Retro Recipes

I'd love to pretend and have you all think that we only eat super healthy, all produced here on the farm, good for you meals.  I would love it if you thought that ;)  Probably even better if it were true.  And while it is true most of the time, there are also those times when I just opt for fast food, deli food or comfort foods from my memories growing up.

These simple, satisfying recipes are throwbacks to my childhood.  My Mom was an excellent cook....I mean to tell you, she was really good!  She cooked at home.  But in that odd, tilted way that life has because she was such a good cook and because we ate mostly at home we always thought tv-dinners and fast food were treats!  And maybe that's okay - it would be a lot better if we all thought good home cooking was "the norm" and these others were "treats" to enjoy only occasionally, instead of the other way around!

Thursdays were Dad's payday and Mom's grocery shopping days.  I remember the routine - go to town, pick up Dad's check and go grocery shopping.  By the time there were five of us kids ages 10 and under, it got to be a rotational thing to be able to be the child who went to the store with Mom.  Anyway, I'm wandering here....what I wanted to do was share two recipes with you that are from that era for me.  You might laugh, but as kids one of our favorite tv-dinners was "Franks and Beans"  LOL!  It came in the little oven safe packet with two little hot-dogs in a rich brown baked bean mixture with a little piece of cornbread and (I think) chocolate pudding for desert.  Whew, no color in that menu and probably not much nutrition either!  But we loved it.

So here is a recipe that recreates that taste treat from long ago (okay, its probably from 30 or 40 years ago for me).  Really, you've got to try this, it's so good!  Unless of course, you are one of my healthy-choice friends who never eats processed meats and store bought beans - that's okay, just skip over this recipe then.

FRANKS AND BEANS


2 (16-oz) cans baked beans (use the most common baked bean you can find for this – in our area the brand name will usually start with a “C” or a “V” and is a kind of tomato-ey base)
1 large onion, chopped – about one cup
2/3 cup unsulphured molasses
2/3 cup catsup
8 frankfurters, cut diagonally into pieces (3 or 4 pieces per frank is good)

Butter the inside of your crockpot. Mix all of the ingredients together in the crock, making sure the franks are pushed down into the beans.   Cook on low setting for 3 or 4 hours, or till mixture is heated through and nice and thick.

To be true to our tv-dinner memories, I make a nice moist and dense cornbread to serve with this. This is one of those lick-your-spoon comfort dishes to me. It can also be made in the oven – set at 300 to 325 degrees, combine the ingredients in a well greased casserole dish and bake for one hour and a half, to two hours.

Here is another one, only this comes more from my junior and senior high school Home Economics class.  I loved Home-Ec class!!! I still remember the Home-Ec room with its sets of well supplied kitchens (our class room had four different, complete kitchens)  As I mentioned earlier, my Mom was a great cook and people often say to me "you must have learned to cook from your mom"  Not so.  I was/am a very messy child.  My Mom was extremely, obsessively neat and clean and orderly.  I think I really distressed her!  So no, I was not allowed to cook with her.  Maybe I learned some things just from being in the same household?  I don't know, but I do know that I loved those cooking lessons in Home-Ec.  We didn't just learn to cook, we learned nutrion and menu-planning and grocery shopping.

Okay, I'm wandering down memory lane again, sorry!  I really just meant to share this second recipe with you from Home-Ec class.  It wasn't one of the healthy recipes we learned, it was a home made "fast food" of the day, one that was popular with kids.  It seemed like everyone made this occasionally at that time.  Now days, I know a lot of you don't eat canned tuna and if that is the case, this is another recipe you just want to skip over.  But oh my, it makes my stomach rumble just to think about it ;)

TOAST and TUNA CASSEROLE


8 slices bread, toasted (rye bread is really, really good in this dish!)
1 (6 ½-oz can) tuna, drained
1 small onion, chopped
¼ cup mayonnaise
4 slices American cheese (I prefer to use a nice slice of real cheddar)
Canned peas, drained (use your personal preference here – I use about half the can, but you can use the whole thing if you like)
1 can (10 ¾ oz) cream of mushroom soup
¼ cup milk

Arrange 4 slices of the toast in an ungreased baking dish. Mix tuna, onion and mayo; spread over the toast. Top each slice toast with 1 slice of cheese; place remaining slices of toast on top.

Mix the rest of the ingredients together and pour over all. Sprinkle with pepper. Cook, uncovered, at 350 degrees until hot and bubbly, 25 to 30 minutes.

Even better than the tuna-melts we had as kids! The original recipe called for broccoli rather than peas, but to me peas just go hand in hand with tuna.  I have even added chopped hard boiled eggs and that's good, too.  What to eat as a side dish to this meal?  Good ol' salty potato chips!  LOL...hey, we are going unhealthy here, we might as well go all the way.  And then wash it down with a big glass of super cold white milk (now that IS healthy!)

Okay, so now we have enjoyed our 1960's throwback foods, we will return to having a farm raised, free range chicken baked with garden produced garlic for supper tonight along with redskin potatoes from my brothers garden and frozen corn from the neighbors garden.  Healthy and delicious and local or home raised.

But I still lick the spoon on those other two retro recipes ((grin)).  Do you have a favorite?

 

Still Looking For Snow

January 2011 Pasture, no snow

Happy 2012, Everyone!  Do you know what I keep thinking about?  That this year (this month actually), I will turn 53 years old.  LOL, that's not as bad as it sounds because I kept thinking I already was 53 ((grin)) - I guess I "gained" a year! 

It's January 2nd already and still no snow for us, unless you count the two times snow fell but we got less than an inch. 

We've had a lot of rain and we're thankful for the moisture.  But all of this wet and warm winter weather is truthfully hard on livestock.  Its hard to keep the barns clean and dry, the lanes (pathways the sheep use to go back and forth to pasture) are rutted and muddy and difficult.  I'm lucky that our sheep are able to chose whether they want to be in or out of the barn and you might be surprised to learn that they will stay outdoors on bitterly cold and snowy days, but tend to stay indoors when it's windy and rainy.  I was seriously thinking about going ahead and shearing last month, and I kinda wish I would have gotten that done.  The picture above was taken on January 4th, 2011.  Here is one taken yesterday, January 1, 2012:

Pasture, January 2012

Notice anything similar?  Right, no snow (that and the section of fence boards missing).  Am I the only one who thought we had a lot more snow last year?  Well, we did have but obviously not at the beginning of the year! 

Over the weekend, weather men were predicting a terrible storm for us and we prepared accordingly.  We were under a winter storm advisory.  I spent the morning closing up barn windows, nailing them down (jobs we usually do around the first of November!)  I had some small pieces of equipment in the big barn here that needed to go into "storage" at the Burnham barn, so I took care of that.  I changed some water tanks from the large metal stock tanks that freeze easily to the heavy black ones that are easier to break ice out of.  I bedded all of the animals with fresh straw - the chickens; the horse in his three-sided shed; the boy sheep in their lean-to and of course the ewes (expectant mamas and juevinile yearling girls)  When I finished up night chores I locked the barn doors up tight and came to the house, listening to the wind howling in the top of the pine trees.  In the house, I made sure that both Bill and I were freshly showered and all of the laundry was done up.  I drew extra water and made sure the oil lamps were ready to go.

We got nothing.  But boy, I felt good being all prepared!  There is probably a lesson in that, somewhere.

Still, its a long way till spring and I'm sure we will still see snow.  Just take a look at a few more pictures from 2011, taken in February ~

Very pretty and it sure cleans things up, doesn't it?  But, can I tell you a secret?  Other than the sloppy barnyards, I haven't minded not having to wade through snow that reaches my knees to get to the barn or try to keep the wheelchair ramp and driveway clear of ice and snow so that I can get Bill safely to the van when we need to get out.

Well, no matter where you are at...whether you have snow or winter rains or if it is warm where you are....no matter what, I pray that January 2012 is giving you the chance to look forward from the day and that it will be a good year, come what may!

A Belated Christmas Gift

SNOW!


It's wet and it's heavy and it's melting nearly as fast as it's falling, but still - it's SNOW!

We Are The Shepherds...

So here is the stable and there is the manger, 
The new Saviour sleeps on his first earthly night
The wise men brought riches, but we brought a candle
It's all that we have but it gives a good light


We are the shepherds, we walked cross the mountains
We left our flocks when the new star appeared
Oh the beautiful singin' of heavenly choir
We had to come see him, we had to come here!


We beg you forgive us for such a small offering
But our sheep are all out there with wolves in the night
We bring you this candle - it's all we have with us
But with it the new Saviour has his first light.


We are the shepherds...
We thank Thee kind Joseph for bidding us enter
Please take our gift for the new babe of thine
'Tis only one candle, but it is our symbol
Of how we believe that his great life will shine


We are the shepherds...

Merry Christmas! 

You know, I don't think there is a farmer across this whole country (and probably the world) that doesn't say the same thing on Christmas Eve if they have livestock to care for..."I fed the animals a little more and spent a few extra minutes in the barn (stable) with them tonight."  I did.

I love the song I opened this post with (by Johnny Cash) - I have listened to it over and over for the past week or so.  I wish I had a beautiful picture of my own flock laying peacefully out in their pasture, but I don't so you will just have to imagine it ;)

I hope it has been a peaceful Christmas for you and your family and if you know Jesus, then it should have been.  If you don't know Him, if you chose to ignore Him and pretend that He isn't the reason there is a Christmas then I hope you did not have peace - I pray that you had a yearning so strong for something, for Him, that you need to seek until you find Him!  Give God a chance in your life, why not?

I hear a lot of religious people shouting today about how the world is changing and trying to take God out of our day to day lives.  I was thinking, though, when I was in the barn on Christmas Eve -  how is that different from the night Jesus was born?  Who paid attention?  People on that night were running around, going from place to place to follow the dictates of their laws at the time and probably complaining or celebrating, depending on their circumstances.  Joseph and Mary were probably looked down on, as they searched for a place to spend the night.  Maybe someone in line behind Joseph at the hotel/inn thought "foolish man should have planned for his trip better and made reservations".  An evil ruler wanted to destroy even the possibility of a threat to his power, the baby born that night.  Did that bright light in the sky (the star) shine only to the shepherds or is it just that out there in the country, living close to the land, they were the only ones who took the time to look?  And the Wise Men who traveled so far to bring gifts - do they represent the few level heads we might have still have in high places of this world, who sought peace in the most unlikely of places?

I don't know - I'm rambling, I guess ;)  But its what I was thinking about on Christmas.  It rushed by so fast, we hardly noticed it.

Is that what it was like on the night Jesus was born?

Five Years and More

Excuse the fuzziness of this picture of a special little hand - it might be a misty-eyed Grandma's reflection of how fast time flies by.  Today our youngest grandson turns five years old, and in just a few more days - on Christmas day in fact - our oldest grandson turns thirteen!  Is it just me, or does it seem like the grandchildrens birthdays go by faster than the childrens did?

Happy Birthday, Little E!!!  We'll celebrate this morning with a birthday breakfast and tonight with a preschool Christmas pagent.  He has been belting out songs for weeks now, his favorite being "Go Tell It On The Mountain".

Five years old and jumping into life with both feet!  Blessed days ~

Things Are Cooking Again!

And no, I'm not talking about Christmas cooking - although there is plenty of that going around this time of year.  What I'm talking about is the wood cookstove at the Round House!!!  Take a look ~

On Monday this week, my Dad and one of our friends (Vern) came to visit and to work - the goal was to get both the wood heating stove and the wood cook stove working in the Round House.  They accomplished both jobs and in very good order.  We are soooo excited!!!

Can you say warm and toasty?

They checked all of the stove pipe and the chimney outside - everything was in great shape even though it hadn't been used in years.  You can see from the photos that the cookstove especially is in need of a very good clean up, but then I am anxious to give it a try.  I'm hoping my friend Angie might offer some suggestions ;)

While they were here they also did some repair work on the cabin door, and looked at the best way to build a functional ramp on the building so that Bill (and others with disabilities) will be able to get in to this wonderful and historical place.  It will be wheelchair accessible!  This is such an exciting prospect for all of us.

Just wanted to check in with this latest news.  I'll leave you with more from around the Round House....Enjoy!



Iron bedstead (above) and wide plank floors.  More of those plank floors sitting beneath an antique spinning wheel and the current porch entrance (below).  You can see where the door needed repair, something that has now been done.

I'm so excited about the possibility of future Wool Workshops and Spinning-in-the-Round-House days as well as lots of other fun things.  I'm especially looking forward to the first time that Bill is able to make it back to this special place that he has been caretaker of for so long. 

I'll end this post with a final picture from outside the building, showing the huge oak tree that sits next to it on the northeast side.  On the south and west it is sheltered by pine trees.

What do you think?  Will you be able to come for a visit some time?  We sure hope so - the fire is on and the coffee will be perking!

Home Is Usually The Best Place

I was supposed to go away on Saturday, a long day trip to visit another Corriedale breeder and I was really excited, really looking forward to a day of sheep and sheep talk!  But the need to care for family and farm right here at home prevented me from making the trip.  As it turned out, that was probably best as the weather was "iffy" all day alternating between a kind of freezing drizzle to downright rain.  I can make the trip another day, maybe in the spring. 

Staying home, I got a lot of work done around the house!  The back room really needed a scrub down and it got one - walls, door (all those little fingerprints and scuff marks) and most of all the floor.  This is where we come into the house from the barn and it gets all the traffic.  Rugs were washed, old boots and shoes sorted through (do I really need to keep three different pairs of old sneakers to wear to the barn and garden?  Especially when two of the three have holes in them?  Out they go!)  And then I did an on-my-hands-and-knees-with-a-brush scrub of the floor.  Probably no one else but me notices, but it's still a good feeling.  Then I wiped down the washer and dryer inside and out.  Hmmm, I think this room needs a fresh coat of paint before spring!

The picture at the opening of this post is of a homespun, handknit shawl I finished recently.  It's residing on the back of my favorite chair near the window and the fireplace.  Saturday would have been a good day for a fire in the fireplace, but we're having some work done on both our chimney and the fireplace itself so that isn't quite ready.  We hope it will be done before Christmas.  It was gloomy all weekend, and I was very content to be at home after all!  The light was so low all day, even with a lamp on, that the picture of the shawl turned out to be very dim and "gauzy" but I like how it looks anyway ;)

I continue to turn out mittens like a mad-woman and am having a blast doing it!

Today I'm going to have to give in and work in the mud and rain to move some sheep.  I sure hope the ground freezes up and it dries out a bit before we finally do get that snow.

Even washing machines need a scrub down every now and then - here is mine, sparkly clean!

At the end of the day, it was a good feeling to have some undercover but necessary work done and have some gasoline saved.  Bill and I really enjoyed the thick and creamy homemade Potato Soup I had on the stove (potato soup loaded with cheese and onions and carrots and spicy sausage, yummy!).  Still, I really would have liked to have seen those sheep ;)

I Did Say Yarn For Mittens...

I titled my last post "yarn for mittens" and then I only showed you the yarn!  Well, here's more of the story...




Yesterday my daughter and I planned to move some sheep - weanling ewe lambs that we aren't breeding this fall to a different pasture where they will spend the winter.  Two younger ewes and one older ewe need to go in with the ram (I didn't want them lambing so early next year, so have held off putting them in to be bred).  The weather did not cooperate ~





Rain, wind and ice is no kind of weather to be working the livestock and moving them from one location to another.  Especially when you need to be working around a breeding ram - even though we have good tempered rams, sometimes you have to be quick on your feet! 

This is Derek, a ram.  Nothing moves in the pasture near his girls that he misses!  See the apples on the ground?  The sheep love them ;)

 So, we put that plan on hold and hunkered down in the swirling storm.  I could have been cleaning house or something, but decided to work on mittens and sorting stash yarn and fibers instead (okay, I did cook and do dishes and numerous loads of laundry)  We didn't get the quantity of snow that our neighbors to the south did (Renee at Tail Spin Farm is only 20 miles south of us and she says they have about 8 inches!!!), probably only an inch here but it was very slippery.  And cold!  Cold enough that wool mittens are the best thing around and much needed. 

The first pair finished are already being put to good use as you can see!  Two little farm boys have put in their requests, and I'm also working on a pair of black ones for a big brother and a pair of lavender-pink for a bright eyed little girl.  I love knitting childrens mittens, they take no time at all.

Hmmm....I'm thinking some matching wool caps and socks might be in order, too.  You know, it's nearly impossible to find tall, warm, wool socks for children unless you make them yourself.  Something to fit inside chore boots and look like Grandpa's hunting socks....

Come to think of it, I could use some new chore mittens myself.  And Grandpa needs new socks, too.  Let that winter weather blow all it wants to, there is knitting to be done!!!  I guess we'll have to move the sheep another day ~ and we'll have wool socks and hats and mittens to do the job warmly ;)

Note: All of the mittens shown in this post were produced completely here at Serenity Farms from wool grown by our Corriedale sheep, then spun, dyed and knit by the shepherd (that would be me).  There is a special satisfaction in that, I must admit!





Yarn for mittens

A result of some of the yarn dyeing I did last week, posing for a picture on the Round House steps.  Spruce, Plum, Red and of course the white is natural.

I had fun having the dye pots out again, after long neglect!  Nothing fancy or involved, just single colors on white and overdyed on brown.  The wool is all from our Corriedale sheep, as you've probably guessed ;)

And best of all, knitting with these yarns has already begun!

It's Always Something

First I wanted to say hello and Welcome to all of you who are new visitors to the farm (well, to the blog anyway!) who found us through Maple Valley Farms - it's great to have you here and I hope you can stay for a cup of coffee or tea and a visit with the sheep and the family ;) But I don't want to forget old friends and followers, too. Grab your mug out of the cupboard and let's catch up on farm news!  You're going to have to follow me around the kitchen and to the barn, though.  Life has been incredibly busy the past few weeks and shows no signs of slowing down.  In my dreams, I write incredibly lovely and poetic and informative blog posts about sheep and spinning and knitting and cooking here at Serenity Farms.  I share some of my daily visits with God and how He leads me through the day.  Yes, in my dreams....

Well, while its true I have my daily visits and He leads me - more often than not He is the parent and I am the toddler who continually veers off path, grabbing at every bright and shiny penny that comes along to distract me ;(  Sigh...does God ever tire of saying "No, no Cary, don't touch that - it's hot...It will burn you.... Don't run, you're going to fall down and hurt yourself...Come back over here and sit down for a minute"

Does that sound familiar to anyone else?  I'm sure it does.  And just when I think I have my days all planned out nice and neat, someone else's schedule changes and I'm at the mercy of it.  I think I have things settled in the house and something happens that alters the course of the day.  This morning I am feeling like that ship going up and down, and up and down, and up and down on the waves.

Dear God, I need that cup of coffee with You this morning...

Encouragement and endurance

The sunlight streaming across our yard as I prepared to leave for my friends farm

God says, in His Word (Hebrews 12:1-3 NLV) "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart"

I heard these words at church last week and it was like hearing them for the first time - they replayed in my head over and over again.  And one of the things that I kept thinking of is that sometimes we need encouragement and confirmation from others when we are trying to "run the race".  It has particularly been on my heart recently for other farm wives, mothers, grandmothers, daughters who sometimes face discouragement and opposition - especially those of us with small farms or farmsteads.  I've been praying about it a lot!

Yesterday, I was able to spend some wonderful fellowship time with just such a farm woman.  And even though we are fairly new friends, it seems like we have known each other forever in the things that we believe and love and care about.  I came away so refreshed and encouraged, I will treasure this memory for many days to come and hope we will have many more!

Thank you, my friend, for the joy of good food; gracious and energetic children; special farm animals and just the gift of our time spent together!  Yes, definitely you have to come this way next time ;)  Oh and tell the girls that next time I am your way, I am bringing my pitchfork (lol...I have my own personal pitchfork, a long ago engagement present from my dear husband!)

A recently finished shawl, handspun from our Corriedale wool, warm as a friends hug!

Out Of Touch

Bree and Collette, sisters, born one year apart

It's time for my computer to gets its annual check-up ;)  So I will likely be out of touch for a few days till it gets back, but when I'm back on line there will be some sheep stories to share (thanks to those who have asked for them!) as well as a new soup recipe I'm sure.

We had a true, heavy killing frost last night - it coated everything with these lovely ice crystals!  A strong signal of change and promise of winter months ahead.  But truth be told, I prefer fall and winter!

A look across the ditch from our back yard

See you when we're back up and running ~