The Opening Salvo

Hello, everyone! This is the first post for this new blog. I have to confess that I am a compulsive writer anyway, so blogging will be a small jump from my notebook to the computer screen. For right now, I am trying to downplay the fact that someone might actually read my pithy thoughts for a change! Of course no one will take them to heart, I'm not expecting miracles.

We live on a small Appalachian hill farm in a rural area. We did have horses, sheep, chickens, dogs, and cats, but we just found the horses a new home. And I am looking for one for the sheep. Can you tell it is the dregs of winter? I'll explain the whole rationale in a later post.

We also have a new indoor puppy, so if I start ranting about potty issues, that is what that is all about. My daughter is planning to learn to show the little darlin' in a new kind of dog showing called canine freestyle. It involves both basic obedience moves plus tricks and is choreographed to music. I expect I'll start ranting about all that also.

From my seat at the computer, looking out the window I see the neighbor's 4 Guinea hens who have adopted us sitting on the cross bar of my clothesline post, looking like a Greek chorus of morose vultures. I can also see our flock of varied egg-laying chickens wandering around pecking at the patches of ground not covered with a thick icy crust and snow. My eye is conditioned to scan the pastures for the horses. I am so glad we found a new home for them but it still feels a little odd to not have them out there. I am so used to doing automatic head counts.

The sky reminds me of one of my other pursuits, feltmaking. I have had it in my mind for a couple of years now to make a scarf with the colors of the winter sky. I wonder, could I get the fiber mill to make some of my huge amount of roving into batts? I may call around to see. Those glorious colors keep taunting me.

Today is our errand afternoon in town. I will hit the grocery store and then on to Sue's Irish dance lesson. St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner and the goup is planning a number of performances, so I'm expecting near pandemonium at the studio. But we have to leave on time to be home for a visit by our preacher. More on that later also.

So...this is who I am. A busy wife, mother, homeschooling sheepfarmer who tries to fit it all in and make it all work. Welcome to my blog! Hopefully you will be enlightened, amused, provoked to thought, and enjoy our association. I hope I will not become some textbook cautionary tale about what not to do! See you tomorrow morning. I'll be the one with wild hair, in barbed-wire picked sweats, drinking iced tea no matter how cold it is outside. 'Til then!

Lori