Inclement Weather

It's snowy/drippy down here in the valley today. We have so needed the moisture. It's really good to see, and it was heavily predicted, so everyone I know can stay home and safe and warm.

Being house bound has enabled us to take the time to look at the stormy economy and check out some options for shelter there. Most of you know our main store front is on ebay. We love the community and our customers there. It is a wonderful portal to the world and has done well for us. But ebay is making changes in their pricing structure which are going to significantly increase our costs there.

We have been promising many of our customers who don't like the ebay format that we would get our store front back up on our Laffing Horse web site. Shawn has been working on that today, in between nailing looms, which he can do in front of the woodstove! We utilize Google checkout there and it has been working well in limited test mode. Check it out over the next few days and see what he gets listed. The graphics I can see over my shoulder look really nice.

I spoke with a business consultant on the phone who recommended that I check out Googlebase, which I haven't done yet and get listings on both Amazon and Etsy. So, I started an etsy store and listed a few items. I think we'll use that mostly for my one of a kind weavings and felted creations, but put trilooms, crochet hooks and knitting needles up too.

And then I turned my focus to Amazon. It is a whole different format. The listings are database style and the language is more formal programing. The colors allowed in your photos are given in Pantone code.

I figured out how to do single item listings (I think... does this link take you to a Learn to Triweave Kit?) but then trying to figure out how to do the drop downs for different sizes and different woods and I still can't figure out what the fee structure is and how to set up reasonable shipping costs and ...

I wanted to just close out the Amazon seller account that I had just opened and say that Amazon is not our format. Database is not a language that I speak very fluently. Time I spend elsewhere is time that I am not working on our main bread and butter ebay store. I am an artist! grumble, grumble, excuse, excuse...

So, I went out and did chores. Shawn came and helped me and listened while I muttered to myself. Or at least he did a good job of pretending to listen - he was probably running design ideas through his brain while we worked. And I convinced myself to leave the Amazon account alone for now and to look at it tomorrow morning with a fresh eye.

I know that I didn't learn the ebay listing format overnight, in fact it has taken me years to get some things right and there are still features that I do not use adequately or correctly. But it is comfortable. And I like comfort - like being inside next to the woodstove in a snow storm.

I don't know how long we'll be snowed in and I'll have the time to work in this direction. If you have any hints for setting up listings on Amazon, please let me know!

And stay tuned to see which way the wind blows.

Of sewing machines and Victory gardens

"I don't sew anymore," I said last summer. I don't mend, I don't make curtains, I just don't sew any more.
This is a statement that does not make any sense in my family. My parents both quilt. My mom has carried her sewing machine on an airplane as carry on luggage. I think they bought their fancy new camp trailer in part because a sewing machine would fit on the kitchen table.
So my mom's response to that statement was to loan me her old Bernina for the summer. Obviously, the only reason you don't sew is because you don't have a sewing machine, right?

Everybody else just ignored me. In the Renaissance Festival culture where grommet setters are as common as square wooden plates, it wasn't a statement worth commenting on.

So, I was probably the only person who was surprised to find myself in the back room yesterday, building a table for my Kenmore sewing machine. After 14 years as a costume designer, I am very picky about my sewing tables. I found extra bobbins, a whole box of sewing machine needles and a rolled hem foot in my desk drawer. I moved my rocking chair in front of the table, settled the sewing machine and went back to sewing.

What caused this turn-around?

Economics.

When I went to get the canvas bags that we have been using for our Learn to Spin and Learn to Triweave kits, I found that they had almost doubled in cost. Suddenly, it made economic sense to make the bags.

Price increases are showing up everywhere. Did you ever think you'd be paying $2.00 a dozen for plain old store bought eggs!

Suddenly, my friends who have market gardens are getting excited. They'll be able to sell their produce for less than the Evil Giant. They don't have the huge transport costs built into their cost of growing and marketing their produce. Most of them are planning bigger gardens.


We are hoping to have a market garden, too, this year. And toward that goal, I planted peas and lettuce today. Peas along the fence, lettuce under the tent. As I was planting, I was musing about the whole "buy local" movement and economics. While I love the idea, heck, "know your food producer," has been my soap box for decades, I was wondering where it was headed and which direction our nation's food focus would go next.

Victory gardens, of course. Probably not with that name - but definitely the concept of producing your own food, growing your own garden, taking your food choices right back to the earth.

Not you, you say?

Well, I don't sew any more...

A Day in the life

1-25-08
Woke up late, about 6:30, fire out, house cold. Restarted fire, about 18 degrees outside on porch.

Checked glue on tile on kitchen counter. Dry and solid, one tile tilted. Will just have to grout it that way, it's stuck on now.

Milked Yampa, Beth (Erie is dry now). Grained 2 horses, 2 llamas, 24 sheep, 4 angoras, 8 dairy goats in their various pens. Lena went out later and broke ice and fed hay and took care of the rabbits. She and Ziffer came in to tell me they were done.

Checked email, listed Learn to spin kit and Learn to triweave kit on ebay. Replied to several email queries. Updated a few listings in the ebay store. Took pictures of Shawn's new carved crochet hooks. They are stunning! I think the Sun/Moon is my favorite. Started color/contrast correcting photos. The one here is not cropped or corrected, just a quick un-edited shot. Now you see why editors are so important.

Lena and I rode the horses out to pasture after they finished their breakfast. The pasture is a dry lot right now, until spring rains bring up new grass.

Next - Telephone conversation with business consultant. Some great new ideas for getting our products up there in the search engine rankings. She suggested labeling all product photos so they are picked up on Google. Now I need to figure out how to add alt tags. Some ideas for getting our cost of sales down. Lots of great ideas - lots of stuff to work on! Do you know how many pics we have out there - thousands, literally. And no time to work on it today, sigh...

Now pack the orders that are ready to ship. Not much today. A single crochet hook, even those are so beautiful and gracefully carved. A crochet hook set and a one foot triloom. I am out of the bright rainbow cotton I've been using to wrap the hooks. Used a light blue plaid cotton flannel.

I set up a sale on Spirit Bells and wrote a quick marketing email. I totally forgot to mention Mardi Gras!

Got list from Shawn and Lena for trip to town. Get grain and hay, groceries, gloves for Lena, nails and thumbscrews for Shawn, go fill out some paperwork at the Folk Center, go to bank and take the chainsaw into repair guy, it won't keep running.

Shawn and Lena left for workshop, took dogs. I gathered everything to take to town, packages, library books, yarn to deliver, checks to deposit. No keys! Walked the .6 miles to the workshop in very frosty weather. Found Shawn working on a beautiful set of hand turned knitting needles on the jet lathe and Lena making spindles. Shawn said he left keys on his desk - instead of on the key rack where they belong!

Brought dogs back with me so they could warm up by the fire and went into town. Stopped at the Fox post office to mail packages and check mail. Two bills and one check...

I can't believe how much the cost of everything has gone up! Items I swear we spent 13 dollars on last month are now 23. Food that was 62 cents is now 78... very scary. I spent all our money and headed back up the mountain. I forgot Lena's gloves, but I did get a bow saw to cut wood until the chainsaw problem is figured out.

I loaded the rest of the fleeces from the Fox store and went to Foxbriar to cut wood with new bow saw. It's slick, works real nice and is quiet. I cut about 8 truck lengths, loaded them on top of the hay, grain and fleeces and headed back down the mountain.

Lena helped me unload the truck and we did all the evening chores except milking. Nugget was a brat and wouldn't let me get on to ride in to her stall. I think the cold has her grumpy. High today was 25 degrees.

It must be some kind of a sign - the chicken I got to roast for dinner had 5 hearts! Put the chicken in and went to check on Shawn. He was putting the finishing touches on a gorgeous 6 foot cherry triloom. Said to give him a while to finish up.

I grouted the kitchen tile while Lena cut firewood. Ran out of grout... We sorted fleeces and put the old, crispy or buggy ones in the rock garden for mulch. Started making coleslaw to go with chicken.

Went to pick up Shawn. Brought back knitting needles to ship - I still need to finish the felted case for this set, and the cherry loom to nail.

Mom called. Lena finished coleslaw and garlic bread while I talked and stoked fire. Arjuna called, he and Lena talked about his new computer and his planned trip out here. He is planning on flying here in March.

We ate dinner. Then Shawn started nailing loom and watching Alien Resurrection while I did dishes and milked. Lena made butter from the goat's cream she's been collecting. After I put away the milk and finished dishes, I started doing my Friday marketing on the computer. The new cherry trilooms seemed a good feature.

Suddenly - it wasn't Friday any more! Shawn was done with loom and movie and working on his computer. I still hadn't replied to any personal emails or updated my blog... but I headed to bed anyway!

No wonder I can't get anything done - all that stuff I do gets in the way!

Share your passion for Laffing Horse - a contest!

I was going through my e-mail this morning and found a message from ebay, asking me to review some of my recent purchases. I don't mind writing a quick review of the gardening books and cheesemaking supplies I just bought and I will probably write them up this weekend.

But the e-mail gave me an idea. Shawn occasionally cruises the web, looking for reviews of his Laffing Horse trilooms, crochet hooks and knitting needles. He gets so excited when he finds a review. (He's kinda like a kid that way.)

So, for those of you who use and love our products, (and you can include my soaps, herbal, felted, crocheted and woven items!) I'd like to offer you an incentive to write a review.
You can post a review on your own blog, on Ravelry, on ebay, on Google or probably on a variety of sites that I don't know about. E-mail me a link to your review and I will add a link to it from our website and give you free shipping on your next order from our Common Threads fiber arts and more ebay store, or our Trilooms.com store, our new Commonthreads etsy store, (which is empty at this time!) or any direct phone or e-mail order.
(You will have to send me a note with your order to remind me, our bookkeeping system has room for notes, but they often don't stick where they are supposed to, and my brain is pretty full of holes lately.)

Then, on Feb. 15, we'll have my mom (Hi Mom!) go through all the reviews that have been submitted and pick the best one. The winner of the review contest will get a special, one-of-a-kind, one-foot Laffing Horse Triloom done in cherry & oak and inscribed with their name.

So, crack your knuckles and get ready to type up a quick Laffing Horse review, send me an e-mail with a link to it and know that you'll have Shawn dancing all the way to workshop... well, most of the way, it's a mile to the workshop and mostly up hill!!


Smiles and hugs, Jen

What was that commercial?

Ok, let me preface this by saying I don't watch tv. We live in an area that doesn't get any reception. I have never seen an episode of Simpsons, Survivor or Cheers. But off and on over the years, I have seen snippets of shows and commercials.
There was that one commercial, about chocolate and peanut butter...

Tonight I was wrapping up in the kitchen, finishing the dishes, straining the milk to chill and scooping the last of the cheese curd into the drainer. Shawn came in to siphon off an evening glass of the Framboise (raspberry beer). Just to test it, he says. "You've gotta check it every evening to make sure it's coming along ok."
(I'm thinking at this rate, by the time it's done fermenting, there won't be enough to worry about bottling!)

So, just as I was scooping the last of the curd over the sink, Shawn swung the siphon hose into the sink. "Hey, keep your beer outa my cheese!" I griped. But now, thinking about it.... I wonder....

The right signs for making felt?

As part of my learning to grow things here in the Ozarks, I've been studying planting by the signs.
Now I understand planting by and working with and being aware of the phase of the moon. And that makes sense to me, my body feels it. The moon has a powerful affect on water, tides rise and ebb with its gravitational pull. And more than half of most everything - plants, animals and peoples is water.

But I don't understand the zodiac signs in relation to the daily calendar. Each day has a different sign related to it, the signs are related to different elements, they always flow in the same order but sometimes there are 2 0r three days of a sign... I think I'll take the word of people who understand the process, or be aware of it in my almanac, but it isn't native understanding to me.

Now people who understand the signs, say they affect everything - health, business, growing, creating, building - and on and on. Perhaps the signs explain why I suddenly can't felt!


Over the last few years I've grown to enjoy the process of felting, in all its forms - felting, fulling and needling. For the purist, felting is the wet process involving wool, hot water and soap; fulling is the process of washing a woven, knit or crocheted animal fiber item in hot soapy water to shrink, tighten and harden it and needling is the process of using barbed needles to tighten and tangle fibers into a felt-like mat or three dimensional object.

Mostly I felt my woven rugs, needle felt stress balls and felt cases for Shawn's knitting needles and crochet hooks. I use all the felting processes in making the cases and each case is unique. It kind of depends on the colors of wool we have on hand, the wool scraps I have felted, the buttons I have found and any new design ideas I've had.


So, when the last case was ordered, I set to work with the drum carder, blending soft white wool, a bit of turquoise, some black mohair, a highlight of jewel tone angelina. I carded and blended 5 soft fluffy batts and then began needling them into a square, 24 by 28 inches. I usually figure about 40% shrink, so was rather shocked to pull a 6X8 inch brick of wool felt out of the washer.

So I deconstructed a wool sweater, and needled a grey wool backing onto the resulting square fabric. It came out of the washer pretty well, but between the pattern, the way it wanted to fold, and the size - it was a crochet hook case. I needed one for knitting needles.

So I needled up some white wool, purple roving and highlights of yellow mohair. Kinda wild and 60's looking. The white wool turned a murky grey in the wash. The angles of the felt were interesting, but the grungy look just doesn't cut it. This one I might finish and perhaps someone will like it at a craft show or maybe I can find a way to brighten the colors.

Next, I decided I would needle a felt sheet and not wet felt it afterwards. The case would be fluffy, but I should be able to make it strong.... I wore out my arm, Lena wore out her arm, we tried steam ironing it and finally, about midnight last night, I finished hand sewing a backing on it. It's kinda pretty.



Now I just have to finish decorating it and find the right button and fastener....

Maybe the whole process just took long enough that the moon and the signs are now right for felting.

Got Rocks!

We live in Stone County, Arkansas. It is aptly named. We have lots of rocks.

There are the beautiful big rock formations on the bluff behind the Spring House. There are the rocks that make up the bridge over the spring creek on the path to the barn. Rock walls grace the paths of Meadowcreek. And then there the thousands of rocks that jump up and trip you when you are crossing the lawn or driveway in the dark.

I love them all - well, except for maybe the jumping rocks. I grew up in a family that has collected pretty rocks from around the world. I have taken pictures of rocks around the world.

Right now, with the daytime temps staying in the 20's, my very favorit-ist rocks are the "hot rocks". We collected these rocks from the Arkansas river, near Rocky Ford, Colorado about 10 or twelve years ago. (YES, we moved rocks into Stone County!) They are smooth river rock and have been time tested to make sure they have no moisture or gas pockets in them that would explode when they are heated. We keep them on top of the wood stove.

Then, when ever you are chilled or if you are sitting and working on the computer, you can go grab a hot rock to put under you feet or hold in you lap to rest your hands. If someone complains about being cold, we just remind them to go grab a rock. We wrap them in towels too keep from burning our hands. Last week, Lena crocheted a wool "rock cozy", now I want to make one. I'm not sure that there is a big market for them, though.

And hot rocks are super to put into the bed about half-an-hour before you go to bed. Then the bed is nice and toasty!

Of course, the critters think there is nothing quite like a human to keep the bed warm!

Riding in on hope

Ok. how did it get to be 2008?

What a year 2007 was - and for all the positive changes - it still wasn't easy. And it has me feeling kinda old and ache-y.

One of the decisions I made in the whole moving process was to sell my horse. It was very much the right decision, Liya went to a home where she is loved and ridden daily and she is key to the health and happiness of her person. A pretty wonderful place to be in life.

We did bring two horses with us to Arkansas, though. Fria is Lena's mare. She's the black rear at the edge of the picture. A spritely 25-years-old now, Fria has been Lena's partner since the horse was 13 and the girl was 9. And Fria still acts like a teen.

And because I think animals need company of their own kind we brought Nugget. She is Shawn's old mare and we figure she's about 22 now. We rescued her in 2001, she had been abandoned and almost starved to death before somebody called the local authorities. She is a good mare, though she gets nervous and worries about things. Nobody's ridden her in a few years, she's gotten a bit old and ache-y.

So, a few days ago, I was feeling sore and leading the old horse out to pasture. I thought about the wonderful healing that Liya brought to her new owner, and the hundreds of other horse healers I've known.

I asked Shawn if I could borrow his horse and got him to help me up on Nugget's back (quite embarrassing as she is a pretty short horse!). I just wanted to check it out. I sure didn't want to cause the old girl any pain.

But after a quick walk down to the creek and back - both Nuggs and I were moving better.

That was right about Christmas. Now a short morning jaunt is part of our daily routine. And both Nugget and I seem to feel much better for it.

Here's hoping that we are all riding into a better, healthier, happy new year!

We iz whut we iz

I spent several hours over the last two days corresponding with a person who wanted to know exactly what she (I think?) was getting with one of Shawn's hand carved Laffing Horse crochet hooks. I could sense from the tone of her written messages that she was frustrated.

I took pictures, (these and then they wouldn't e-mail!) but you can only tell so much from pictures. This hook is one of Shawn's Laffing Horse crochet hooks. Shawn's are beautiful to look at and feel wonderful. They also work well, because I test each one. But each hook is a natural wood, hand carved individual. So, I tried with words to describe the hook.


At the end of all this correspondence, I think we were both feeling somewhat put-out and she still didn't have a crochet hook. I think Lena's analogy was best - Even in catalogs that specialize in handcrafted, one-of-a-kind items, like Deva Lifewear - they show a picture of ONE of those items. The others will be similar, but they are all made by hand. You order on faith, or you go to a craft show or local store and buy something you can touch.

I can understand the frustration of shopping. A friend and I ventured into the metropolis of Little Rock this week. It is a big, beautiful, modern city. I was pleasantly surprised. We found the East Indian grocery store and got rice and tea and curry. We found the craft store I needed. And then we went shopping. Horrors! Neither one of us shop, so it was definitely the blind leading the blind. She wanted a cotton cardigan with pockets, I wanted a yarn basket. As many stores as either of us could tolerate (I think it was 4) she settled for the right weight cotton cardigan in a sort of ok color and without pockets. I still don't have a basket.

Online shopping is a bit better - but still frustrating. You are in your own house and can drink your own coffee. You can be comfortable and there aren't other people around. But you can't touch the product, or try it on, or talk to the merchant or see how well it is constructed.

We understand the limits of our online stores Common Threads on ebay, our Google store, and our Auctiva store. We try to work around them by communicating with our customers, working to word our descriptions carefully, keeping an open mind with inquiries and if all else fails, having a fair return policy.

We enjoy what we do. We want to share our love of fiber arts and farming with anyone who is interested. We are passionate about teaching skills.

But when it comes down to it, we are just three people in very rural Arkansas working very hard to make a living by trying to make our world a better place.

We iz whut we iz.

Time off - farm style

Happy Yule everyone!

Yeah, I know, it's a few days late, but what's a few days in the great scheme of things.
It was a happy Yule here at the Spring House, with good friends - wreath making, story sharing, cookie eating, yule fire burning, critter ornament creating, rug weaving, mead brewing and all the trappings of a Laffing Horse Yule - minus all the denizens of Laffing Horse. I sure miss all you guys and wish we could fold that thousand miles between us.

This past week seems to have been a repetition of that lesson I've been having trouble getting, over and over again.

"Slow down, things will go faster."

"Relax, you'll get more done."

The fire is a good example.
A wood stove in the living room is our only heat for the whole 8 room house. Very cost efficient, wood is easily available here. Dead standing trees are everywhere and downed ones litter the forest floor.

It's been frosty the last few days. Cold enough to need a fire through the night. (Grin! Just the last few days! That is a big part of why we moved here - it's warm !). So we've kept the stove stoked through the night, but in the morning it needs to be built back up to warm the house before everyone else gets up.

The temptation is to put all the paper, kindling and logs in the stove - shut the door and go make coffee. That's what I did yesterday morning - and came back from making coffee to a still cold, smoky stove. An hour later, after blowing on coals, re-arranging wood and smoking up the house, I still did not have fire and was very frustrated.

This morning, I added one log and a handful of paper. Then I spent 10 minutes carefully feeding one stick of kindling at a time into the stove, waiting for it to catch and then adding another. After 10 minutes, I had a nice little fire going. I added another log, then went and made coffee.
In 15 minutes (a quarter of the time it took yesterday when I was in a hurry and wanted to do it fast), I had a nice little fire starting to heat up the house.

Our day off was another good example.
Sunday, Shawn and I admitted to each other that we didn't really want to do anything. So we decided to take a day off. And we began to putter around together. The together thing was really nice, we've spent far too much time working on our separate parts of the farm and business lately. After a day of relaxing fun, we had the whole sheep pen fenced!
This was one of those overwhelming jobs that had been looming on the To-Do list for a few weeks. It was a mondo job that no one wanted to tackle. Yet, by changing our focus and just playing with it and doing it together, it just got done.
But I didn't cross it off the To-Do list until Monday, because Sunday, we were taking the day off.

One of our customers e-mailed that she was using her time off this Christmas to learn how to use her triangle loom. And I have a good friend who is taking this time off to make some felt boots.
Time off, time to slow down, time to relax is important. It gives you a chance to stretch different muscles, to reroute your brain and to let those lessons sink in!

And now - It's Merry Christmas.

Oh, Glory!

It has been foggy and rainy here for going on two weeks now. It is glorious! The mist and fog have an ethereal quality, making sound and smells more intense and mysterious.
Last night, it rained all night long.
When we woke up, there was a waterfall outside the bedroom window. Scraps barked at it viciously, but it did not run away.













The road up the mountain was running fast,













And the bridge is somewhere under there.














Our wee pond has had a growth spurt.















Wonderful, wonderful water - all over the place!

Making sense (or scents)

I have fallen in love with working in the green house.
Open the door and draw a deep breath of green moist air!
It is the best place to be in the winter. The air is soft, silky, warm and damp. The smells are earthy and green. The light is gently energizing. And the people I work with there, Tina, Kathleen and all the wonderful "Herbies" are the best.

And along with my enjoyment of the greenhouse has come an infatuation with Pelargoniums.
Pelargoniums are scented geraniums. They are edible, come in hundreds of varieties, were oh, so very popular with the Victorian ladies and originate in South Africa.

The Folk Center is known for its varieties and they are what I have been working with in the greenhouse - taking cuttings, repotting parent plants, growing up the babies. They smell wonderful, mostly rosy, a bit citrusy, sort of fruity. As I pinch back the plants to get them to branch and grow pretty, I taste each variety. Currently, Lady Plymouth is my favorite.

Shawn asked me why my sudden passion for pelargoniums? And that gets me into a whole thought process of why do we like something... why does something catch our attention... why does something become a passion?

Scent mapping

Last night, as we were walking down the road looking for a missing llama in the foggy dark, a spicy, crisp earthy smell caught my nose. I sniffed deep and wondered.

We turned on the road toward the wood shop in the dripping darkness. A smell of dark rich soil hung in the air. I turned off my flashlight and let my feet feel out the stones of the road while my nose sampled the pockets of foggy air that we drifted through. Subtle changes of earth, water and plants made for incredibly different smells as we walked slowly down the road.

I listened and sniffed. Quigley walked quietly with me, doing the same. We stopped where the road forks in the big meadow, earthy, grassy smells. As we got closer to the river, its scent was as distinctive as the sound.

I turned the flashlight back on and decided that there was no way we were going to find a llama that didn't want to be found in 1,600 acres of foggy, drippy, dark wildness.

We walked back to the house, listening to the occasional soggy leaf dropping from a tree and the fading sounds of the river. The fog seemed to hold the air still, keep the sounds and smells close to their origin. The garden still smelled spicy sweet as we walked by and the crossroads in front of the house smelled like dust, even though it is soggy.

The llama came strolling down the road this morning, bringing his unique, exotic llama smell with him.

New views

I did it - I actually spent all day Wednesday down in Meadowcreek valley (thanks to Lena who went up the mountain to do the shipping and take care of the critters on Foxbriar).

Life didn't change, drums didn't roll - but maybe it is a start of trying to get out of the whirlpool and flowing in a direction.

We had planned on keeping the store in Fox as a storefront, fiber arts store, shipping drop off and my weaving workshop, but are now debating the sense of that idea. It is one more direction, thing to do, bill to pay and space to be responsible for....

Shawn has arranged to set up one of the dorms in Meadowcreek as an artists' workshop. He is starting to move his woodworking into two of the ground floor rooms.

This is an unauthorized "before" photo of his new workshop :-)

Tom and Sage Holland are setting up a bead making workshop in the common room and I hear there are a few other people looking at rooms. I found a room that I think will work as a weaving workshop, behind door #3. It has interesting lighting because of the window set up, it is open to the loft room in the front, and has a walk out door to a porch. These are views of the deck and the view from the deck off the room.


I still have no plans beyond heading up to the Post Office at the top of the mountain by 2:00 today with orders to ship. So... it will be interesting to see what develops.

The Sky is Falling

In true workaholic fashion, when the going gets tough, I go to work. When life gets scary, I work harder. And when I get exhausted, I collapse and deal with life. Hmm, maybe someday I'll learn not to run around that circle. (Doubt it!)

There is always so much work to be done and there are always people who need help with their work. I am a social being, I love to feel needed and I love the feeling of working with someone on a project. And, when I am helping other people with their important projects, I can forget my own messes.

But, I realized this week that I really needed to quit running around like a chicken with my head cut off and stay home and go back to work - the real work of taking good care of our animals, communicating with friends and customers and getting our business and living space organized.

I had been using my job to avoid doing all that. It has been a rough year and I have not taken the time to deal with much of anything other than the day to day fires. Watching Shawn and Lena settle into the routine of Meadowcreek and seeing their creativity and productivity increase made me realize the circles I was running in.

Maybe the sky is falling, but I'm too tired to keep being the whirlwind that keeps it up. So, I'm going to slow down just a wee bit - today is going to be the very first day since we moved to the Spring house that I have not been out of the valley - and try to catch up in my world. This is the view from our bedroom window, and about the only thing that I am familiar with down here.

If it works, I'll be back to posting more here about life, the sheep and everything in my reality.

Wish me luck.

Prayers of Thanksgiving

First, the goats love the woods in Meadowcreek.

Sometimes it's really hard to find the words to express a concept. There are lots of different ways of saying the same thing. If you take the time to look at the meaning behind the words, then communication opens up.
I believe that you can do anything you want enough to work hard on and focus on. I also believe that focus is an important way to move energy. I think it more for small things, but I suppose it works on a larger scale.

I was working with a friend in the garden last week and she queried, "I wonder if we are making global warming worse by focusing on the problem? With all those people putting thought into the problem of global warming, are they giving it energy to manifest?"
When I find myself focusing on a problem, I have learned to change my perspective to put energy and focus into the solution. As for global warming - I don't know how to get everybody on the planet focusing on solutions. If we could, I do believe we would accomplish a lot by just changing the mental energy of the planet.

First frost here at Meadowcreek, the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 7.

But for now, I just take it my small view at a time.

Yesterday, for instance...
We moved the goats down to Meadowcreek. My entire goat herd is down to just 11 goats. They are top quality animals, excellent producers, the product of years of selective breeding. And I love each one of them for the wonderful being that they are.
We have been blessed at Foxbriar with safety for most of our animals. Thanks be. I don't begrudge the occasional chicken that a predator can't resist. We lived in harmony with the coyotes, foxes and raccoons at Foxbriar - even though our neighbors lost livestock to predation. But we did live right there with them, sleeping outside in a camper not 20 feet from the barn. Now I am moving to a house, with the benefits - and the drawbacks. The house is only about 100 feet from the barn, but houses are more enclosed, harder to get out of and more sound proof.

I spent Saturday at a sheep and goat seminar at Heifer Ranch. I learned many important things. Check the Foxbriar website soon for those updates. But I heard so many stories of people losing their lambs and kids and adult goats to predators. One man told of shooting 17 coyotes, 3 lynx, using guard llamas and donkeys and still losing lambs.

So, I was terrified at the though of moving my precious flock down into the valley. I fretted, worried and worked myself into a state. Then I realized what I was doing. I was focusing on what I feared. I was putting energy into the negative.

I changed my focus and began to pray. "Keep my girls safe." "Please keep my goats safe from harm."
I envisioned the safe space, soft yellow light and pushed it out around the barn. With every breath I asked the Divine for protection for my little flock.
I had left the light on in the barn after checking on the goats at sunset. When we went out to milk about 7:30, they were obviously upset by the light. So when I was done milking, I put my trust in the Divine and let Shawn turn off the light.
The house was so noisy, with the fan, and the fire and the refrigerator. I propped open the kitchen window and turned my hearing that direction while I tried to focus on crocheting an order I have to fill. I've gotten used to sleeping outside, so the house felt confining. But I am trying to become civilized again, and I didn't want to upset the goats with my fretting, so I sat on the couch and breathed my prayers for the safety of my goat herd.

I woke up frequently last night and went to listen at the kitchen window. All was peaceful outside. The night birds and insects kept up their gentle cadence. About 3:30, one of the goats hollered and I ran to the door.
I opened it and listened. No more goat noises. The birds and the bugs chirped on.

I got the book I am currently reading out of the bedroom and curled up on the couch to read. Good science fiction, giving up on the illusion of sleeping and send my brain off to play on another planet. There are some really nice perks to having a house.

At daylight, Lena came out and peered through the kitchen window. "Well, they all look happy," she said.
And my heart sang prayers of thanksgiving!

The long road home

When we decide to move to Fox, my brother Scott looked at a map and said, "I didn't think you could get any more rural than you already were, but you did."

Well, now we've even gone better than Fox. Or worse, depending on how you look at it. I had stopped thinking of Fox as rural. After all, our farm is a mile away from our store and the store is right across from the Post Office and the city park. Heck, we even have trash pick up at the store.

A recent visit from my parents and a glimpse of our area through their eyes did remind me that we are pretty far off the beaten path.

But now, at least for the winter and maybe... who knows?


At the bottom of a very long (three-and-a-half miles, 20 minutes by truck), steep, rough, winding, narrow road is the glistening valley of Meadowcreek. We first looked at it in May and after my first trip down the road, I swore I would never drive it again. It took my two days to get my stomach straightened back out. That'll teach me to swear!

We are moving into the Spring House at Meadowcreek. The valley is a land trust with a varied and fascinating history. The directors of the Trust hope to establish an artist colony/sustainable agriculture/teaching facility.

There is already a small community in and around Meadowcreek. Lots of fascinating people with a variety of very interesting arts and farming. I am excited about getting to know everyone and spending time learning about the land and the people.

We are going to start with working on restoring the Spring House. It is the original homestead and has seen almost a century of wear. It has been loved and neglected and cared for by many people over the years. It is a unique house and an interesting challenge. I'll share more pictures and ask for your ideas as we settle in and start fixing.


In spite of the challenges of the road and other difficulties (there is no mail delivery in Meadowcreek, there aren't even addresses on the houses, UPS won't go down that road at all, the electricity is intermittent...) I think there is no more beautiful place on this planet. I am honored to be able to be a part of the dream that is Meadowcreek and hope that I can become a good steward of the land and a productive member of the community.


The gift of a rose from Meadowcreek, grown by nature for all of us this very morning. Happy November!

Making beds

Fall has finally crept into the Ozarks. The trees are reluctantly donning their bright season colors. The mornings are now wool sweater chilly. The evening icy tip of my nose lets me know that frost is imminent.
I have been enjoying using herbs from the garden at the Ozark Folk Center in my cooking there at the Country Kitchen. The many flowers and plants that line the walkways are marked with informational labels so I have been able to learn while I bustle from one craft house to another. I've loved the gardens from a distance, but until today, I really hadn't had a chance to play in them. But now the craft grounds are closed for the season - and I have a few extra minutes... until I fill them :-).
I told Miss Tina Marie that I would love to help her and Kathleen in the heritage herb garden this winter, if they needed a hand. She didn't let me forget my offer. Today I got to help prepare the new beds for next year.

Tina Marie Wilcox and Kathleen adding amendments to the beds for next year's garlic in the Heritage herb garden at the Ozark Folk Center.

Kathleen digging and weeding the new garlic beds.

You can catch Tina Marie's weekly column, Yarb Tales in the Ozark Folk Center Newsletter.
It is full of all kinds of wonderful information about herbs and Ozark life.

I learned so much today. When I have a chance to process it - I'll pass it on! One of the more interesting things to me was the use of alfalfa pellets as an instant green manure and amendment to the new beds. Tina told me that it provides an instant boost to the young plants.

And on the Foxbriar Farm homefront - we have bunnies again. Shawn brought home 3 french and 2 satin angora bunnies from the Bella Vista show. I have so missed having the little warm fuzzies. Thanks to Lena and my parent's hard work, the buns have a nice rabbitry in the the barn.
Pequena was having a bit of species confusion, so we had to build a fence to keep her out of the rabbitry. Even though she has the big ears and soft brown eyes, she is a llama, not a bunny!

'Til next time - have a bright and shiny day!

Fall colors

All of a sudden, it started getting cold at night. One night, a bed sheet was too hot to sleep under, the next, we needed the down quilt. I had to break out my woolies for my feet this evening. It's been 46 degrees and dark the last few mornings when I started chores.

So, I expect the trees to start changing into their fall dress colors any day now. But they haven't, yet. We are headed to Bella Vista craft show in north western Arkansas next week and I would love to see the hills in all their glory. But they haven't even started changing colors, yet.


Lena has been dyeing wool and mohair for us to sell at Bella Vista. The colors she is getting are fantastic. She just pulled the latest roving out of the roaster - and - suddenly, as she hung the hanks of roving out to dry - I had my fall colors!



Have a fantastic fall weekend everyone!

Blurring the lines

My days of late have been spent in the past - the 1890's Ozarks. I have been cooking a variety of delights on my new favorite toy - a 1931 Kalamazoo wood cookstove at the Ozark Folk Center. She is just about the sweetest thing for cooking since maple syrup.

Just this week I've experimented (very sucessfully!) with peach cobbler made with fresh peaches, scottish shortbread, apple and oatmeal cookies, venison pies, cranberries cookies, chicken vegi stew thickened with cornmeal and butternut squash pies. I am having Fun!

It has left me with little time to record all the wonderful stories and ideas that have filled my days. I hope I can remember enough of them to write them down when I have a bit of time...
And it makes me even more aware of how different our life is from most people's though. My answers to the many questions I get each day are a good illustration of this.

The most common question is -
"Aren't you glad you don't have to cook this way at home?"
Um... actually, when I have a home again - I want a wood cookstove just like the one at the Folk Center. And, right now, that is the best cooking facility I have. Depending on how crowded it is, I answer that question with a negative and explain the details as well as I can.

"How long did it take you to learn this?"
Well... Thanks to my parents, I've been cooking all my life and we did enough camping that cooking with fire makes sense to me. It really is no different than modern cooking. Really. I rarely use recipes, but today I decided to look up a recipe for pumpkin pie in our 1915 Golden Rule Cookbook and adapt it to the butternut squash pie I was making. I was stunned when the recipe's first ingredient was "1 can pureed pumpkin". Obviously this was a townie cookbook! Pumpkins store just fine in the pantry without putting them in cans!

I gave up on recipes and made very good butternut squash pie. I had lots and lots of compliments on it and one question that kind of stumped me. One lady, after tasting it, said, "You didn't make the crust, too, did you?"
Umm... If I didn't make it, where did it come from? Is there a pie crust tree in the herb garden that I don't know about?

Sometimes I don't even realize my answers come from a different reality than the question.

"Why don't you churn your own butter here?" asked a young woman.
I answered honestly, "I don't because I have goats and you can't get cream from goat's milk without a cream separator. So I just have to make-do with store bought butter."
I thought a minute and then I added, "But I do have a neighbor who has a cow. Maybe I could ask Dave for some cream."
The young woman seemed to think I was doing a fine job of staying in character...
Tomorrow I'll see if I can pick up that cream on my way down the mountain.