I’m Billy, and I just had to break the news to the others that She has finally gone over to the dark side. It has come to my attention, from a source I trust, and who shall remain anonymous, that She has acquired several pounds of wool from some kind of weird English sheep called Masham. I managed to find a picture of one and we all agree: “Eugh! How could She?” Except Moses, who thinks “they’re really hot!” (He has his problems, which is another story entirely). I mean just take look

As if that isn’t bad enough, we now understand that she is dying the mushroom -mosham a bunch of colors, some in ombres. This while we stand over here in the winter cold growing our ombres naturally! And in lovely natural colors: browns, blacks, greys, tans. Who would even WANT to grow an ombre in red or green for heaven’s sakes!

We also hear that She really likes this Masham stuff, saying it is long staple and has a nice feel to it. Gone over to the dark side indeed!

I am Beatrix, the oldest and wisest of our little group and, truth be known, most likely the wisest of any group you care to assemble. Under my guidance (I’m even named after Queen Beatrix) we’ve persevered through what has been rather a dreary winter so far, cooped up in the barn, looking at the same faces, eating the same hay day after day, rubbing one another the wrong way,  having our little tussles. But finally something really exciting is  happening – the super awesome Knit Girllls on Ravelry (and TheKnitGirlls) are hosting a February Shetland spin along. We hope some of our roving will be picked (heh, heh – that’s a little sheep pun). Our incomparable fleeces are processed at Zeilinger’s so they are extremely soft, silky and lustrous. Almost like top. They also (unfortunately) seem to remove most of our winter hay decoration. And we all work hard on that. We also learned about Etsy coupon codes. If any of you dear readers decide to purchase our roving on Etsy use: Shetland10 for a 10% discount until the end of February. Let me stress this, my dears! The best of the best at 10% off! As my daughter Hannah says:

Hi there Girllls, I’m Hannah, the littlest of the group. Here you can see some of our lovely winter coats. And no, my coat does not make me look fat. Although those two big butts on either side of me look as if they need to get more exercise. Hmrrph! They certainly could cut back on the molasses cookies that the lady makes for us.

And I see where Mama Bea mentioned a February Shetland Spin Along. What’s this February stuff? What’s the matter with the other eleven months. Why on earth would you want to spin anything else? Masham? What kind of creature is that? Gotland? Sounds like something caught in your throat. Get real folks! Shetland is the way to go! I mean Look at us! How lovely is that!

Letty wishes all our dear and gentle readers a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year!

Letty has declared herself the spokesheep for our flock of Shetland sheep.  And although on her better days she will admit that the accommodations and cuisine at River Farm aren’t bad, she is firm in her belief that there is plenty of room for improvement.

“They could have done a better job decorating the barn. On the plus side, the lady made some very nice Christmas cookies for us. By the way, although it may look as if I am having a bad hair day, what you see is the Halo – which is the term given to the fairy-like haze that floats above real Shetland wool, created by the extra fine fibers. Which proves that I am charming and beautiful. Never mind what Kimberly says; she’s just jealous.”

So Merry Christmas from all of us and if you happen to be in the neighborhood on Christmas Eve please drop in and we’ll have a nice chat. We get sooo bored with those two who are here every day, well . . . except for cookie time.”

Well it is getting late in the season so perhaps this guy was prospecting the garden for a little something to bulk him up for the flight south to warmer climes. He hangs out along the stream every summer but is unobtrusive to a fault; we rarely see him. The heron seems a contradiction, combining, as he does, an ungainly, even clumsy, appearance with a smooth grace as one leisurely flap of the wings gets him airborne and soaring.The Heron

The heron stands in water where the swamp
Has deepened to the blackness of a pool,
Or balances with one leg on a hump
Of marsh grass heaped above a musk-rat hole.

He walks the shallow with an antic grace.
The great feet break the ridges of the sand,
The long eye notes the minnow’s hiding place.
His beak is quicker than a human hand.

He jerks a frog across his bony lip,
Then points his heavy bill above the wood.
The wide wings flap but once to lift him up.
A single ripple starts from where he stood.

—Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)

The new barn doors are partly built; now, how to get them hung? They’re quite heavy, not to mention cumbersome to the point of being dangerous. The obvious solution was to call our neighbor, carpenter and haying man and ask him to do it. He arrived with a friend. Here they are shown moving one of the doors outside.

Then, after leaning the door against the bar, Neal placed the old rollers onto the rail.

Then the door was shimmed up so the rollers could be fit snugly on top. Here the first door is already hung and the second is being put in position.

Why even bother shimming it up when you have the muscle to just lift it? These men make it look easy. The rollers are reattached and tightened and . . .

Shazam!

Now to finish! Begin adding paneling. But we were unsure at the beginning of the project how much paneling it would take so we deliberately didn’t buy enough. However, at the lumberyard there was very little rough hemlock because it has been such a wet spring that hardly any lumber could be brought out of the woods. So it’s temporarily back to the tarp and hope whatever critters wander by in the middle of the night are put off by the flapping, rustling unusualness of this weird lashup.

And finally, take a look at the ladies that all this hullabaloo is about. They don’t look all that grateful.

Wow! A sure enough sign of Spring . . . the first brave little crocus to venture above ground at the River Farm. Colorful and defiant, it gives us hope that the worst winter in many years is really winding down.

And of course the pussy willow is back. These guys are always out early so it’s an open question as to whether they are brave or just stupid. And I mean early! We are talking “Honey could you climb up over the bank and get your boots full of snow and clip the ones I yell to you to clip” early.

My old pal Frank Evans often remarked: “You have to be a masochist to live in New England because, number one, the weather, and number two, the Red Sox.” So far this year the weather is living up to Frank’s standards. As for the Red Sox, well as I write this they are last in the American League East with a record of 5/11. Meanwhile over in the barn the ladies are looking portly and perhaps getting a tad uncomfortable in their big winter coats . . . not to worry girls, the shearers are due any day.

This is what a long and bitter winter will do to you. You start out blathering about natural colors and the textures and hues of the rural autumn. Then the early flurries speak of purity and the cleanliness of the blank slate. “White,” you croon, “goes with anything. Tra-la.” Then it lasts and lasts. January omits its customary thaw. February shows no easing of the misery. March is better, but not much better. April is supposed to come “like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.” Not this year! April kicks off with snow and sleet and freezing rain and more snow.

Somewhere around the second week of March it happened! Ka-blooie!! The kitchen was transformed. Steaming cauldrons appeared. The discussion turned to the number of milliliters in an ounce. Wet skeins draped from doorknobs. The carder rasped its tune. And colors appeared from out of nowhere. The colors of spring. The colors of summer. Bright and reassuring. Everything will be all right. The drab and dreary season will indeed come to an end. Spring will soon come over the ridge and save us once again.

Cold, snowy, windy, bleak! No thaw to break it up. Little sun. Plows roaring in the night. Throw down a bale of hay, schlep it along to the sheep pen, stuff hay in the feeder, haul some firewood, that’s it, that’s the day’s work. That’s the winter of 10/11 as seen on a dank early March day. Think Emily Dickinson, the recluse huddled alone by the fireplace in 19th Century Amherst, Mass., creating a remarkable body of work, wonderful poetry that few people even knew about until after she was dead and gone.

“There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.”

How very bleak. How very sad. Where the hell is spring?

We talked it over and decided not to have lunch on the terrace today because it’s just too bright out there. It’s hard on the eyes.

Snow. Then more snow. And that was followed by more snow. And even more snow after that. And more snow to come in the next couple of days.

Not to mention cold. Ranging from cold to very cold to arctic blast cold to Siberian cold to temps almost as cold as in the old days when I was growing up and walking miles to school barefoot through five foot drifts of the white stuff.

Winter has lost its charm, to say the least. We reached that conclusion while trying to get a 50-pound bag of chicken feed open with the temperature at 9 degrees below zero. Really cold.
And did I mention we’ve had a lot of snow lately?