Tag Archives: everything else

A couple of years ago, I did a blog post about the leaving out scraps of yarn for the birds and posted it on the Vernal Equinox. That post is far and away the most popular thing I’ve ever written on this blog. Pinterest and Facebook helped it go viral like nothing else I’ve ever posted. Two years on and the post still gets a couple of thousand hits per week.

Weirdly, it has also been the most controversial thing I’ve ever posted.

The thing about the internet is that there is a lot of information out there that may or may not be accurate. In fact, I struggled with even using the word “information” in that sentence. Someone posts that their neighbor/friend/cousin’s wife saw a baby bird tangle up in a piece of string and suddenly your’s truly is responsible for the extinction of all the song birds in the Western Hemisphere.

You would not believe some of the nasty, hateful screeds a handful of people have left as comments on this post. My favorite comments were the one’s that accused me of not caring about animals. (Clearly, they read nothing else on my site.) I deleted them, of course, but it was a PITA and sometimes kind of hurtful.

Before I did this project myself, I did some research. I found a reputable source that recommended putting yarn scraps out for the birds (no less august an institution than  The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has posted about this very thing, see link below.) I also talked to my local Audubon Society to get their approval. But in spite of my efforts, this post still occasionally draws ire.

Why, then, am I am reposting it? First of all, because it’s a great, easy project that has brought lots of people a small amount of joy. But also because I think this little story I’ve just shared with you can serve as a cautionary tale. It’s really important to do some research and consult reputable sources before getting out the torches and pitchforks. Repeating something you heard from a friend or read on Facebook isn’t the same thing as research. Just a thought for the first day of Spring.

Below is the original post, with a few changes I have made over the years as I learned more about nesting material.

***

Today is one of my very favorite days of the year. Today we celebrate surviving another cold and gloomy winter, and are rewarded with the first hints of buds on the trees, daffodils, blooming tulip trees and the general feeling of renewal that comes along with Spring.

At the farm we are eagerly anticipating the imminent hatching of the eggs Ethel has been sitting on seemingly forever and , of course, the lambs that could start arriving anytime now. There’s an energy in the air, a feeling that everything is potential and just waiting to burst into being. It’s pure magic.

I have a little project I like to do on the first day of Spring. It’s crazy easy, so easy that you could do it with even the smallest of children, inexpensive and environmentally friendly to boot.

You will need:

A cheap bird suet feeder. I got this one at Tractor Supply for $1.99.

A couple of handfuls of yarn scraps, cut into 3-6  inch lengths. (I only knit with natural fibers, so that’s what my yarn scraps are made of. It might not be a good idea to use acrylic yarn scraps, as they may not remain warm when wet.)

Put the scraps in your suet feeder and voila! You’ve just provided nesting materials for all the birds in your area.

I’ve been doing this for years and I never fail to feel a thrill when I see a bright strand of yarn carefully woven into a bird’s nest. You can also fill your suet feeder with raw fleece, if you have any handy. Ernie’s fleece scraps have always been particularly popular with the birds.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE: The Cornell Lab of Ornithology gives yarn scraps a thumbs up.http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Page.aspx?pid=1144 (Scroll down to “Nest Material”).

The soft colors in this flannel fabric. I can’t wait to figure out what these half yards are going to be.

The Rancher Sue action figure my friend Jenna sent me. She is an awesome reminder that I am exactly who I wanted to be when I grew up. (I’m hoping that the bottle baby in her arms is the only one we have this lambing season!)

The blueberry and cream cheese sandwich Amy’s daughter Neve made for her lunch yesterday. Who says you can’t invent your own sandwich

This gorgeous picture of one of our new yarns for Spring, Moonshine, by Downtown Knits. Aren’t the colors lovely?

What is inspiring you this week?

***

Just a reminder- Thursday is the last day to join the JMF Blanket CSA.

On Friday, we’ll start taking pre-orders for the Spring issue of BY HAND Magazine. It’s going to be a humdinger!

Speaking of BY HAND, Marisa of Food in Jars is doing a BY HAND Giveaway now through March 1st on her blog. Enter here to win a copy of the Fall/Winter issue and a BY HAND tote bag.

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March 1st is also the day the voting closes on this year’s lamb naming conventions. Nearly 1200 people have already voted, which is a new record for us!

I feel like I need to give all you lovely friends an update on what’s going on with me but every time I think I know what I’m going to write, things change. It’s sort of hard to write around a moving target, but Maureen’s comment on my latest lambing update made me realize that I needed to allay some of your concerns.

Even though I spent the better part of 2012 feeling not-so-great, I am still very new to this whole auto-immune disease thing. At first, I was surprised that I could feel so bad for so long. Then- when I got a diagnosis and started treatment- I was surprised that the treatment could actually make me feel worse than the disease did.

And then, wonder of wonders, about a month ago, I started feeling better. Like a quick-to-tired version of my old self again. As you can imagine, I was elated! My doctors have said that once the drug treatments start to work, I will be able to live my life just as I did before, and I felt incredibly lucky to have reached that threshold so quickly.

But, in the last week, my worst symptoms have returned. First it was the eye pain, which indicated that my immune system is once again attacking my eyes. Next my joint pain return, an indication that my body still isn’t absorbing Vitamin D. Finally, for the last two days, I’ve had intense GI distress.

What does all this mean? Well, it means that I am still working on it. It means that the doctors may have to re-evaluate my current treatment and do some more tests. You might think that this is dispiriting to me, but it’s not. Because now that I remember what it’s like to feel good, I’m not going to let anything stop me from getting back there. This is a temporary set back, that’s all.

In the meantime, I am able to get most of my work done, albeit more slowly than I used to. My days tend to be a bit shorter because I’m trying not to run flat-out and then feel terrible the next day. I am learning moderation, and that is a good thing.

In response to Maureen’s hope that I am going to have more help during lambing- no fear! I have a few friends who have volunteered to come to the farm and help out, and you all will be seeing a fair amount of my friend Amy and her tribe of girl children here in the coming weeks. My Aunt Ann lives in Richmond and she is always happy to come help. And I would love to get my Mama and sister here for a weekend, cause they have never experienced the pure magic that is watching a newborn lamb find it’s feet.

About the title of this post… It may be that, right now, I’m taking two steps forward and one step back, but the important thing is that I’m gaining ground. And you know what comes after that step back? You guessed it: two more steps forward.

Note to Maureen: Thank you for worrying about me. It was a nice reminder that there are many people who are in my corner.

Amy’s youngest daughter daughter Oona is my hero.  When told that she shouldn’t use up an unexpected bounty of glow-in-dark bracelets all at one time and save some for later, she replied, “That’s just how I live.”

Well said, Oona. Well said.

I was scrolling through iPhoto, looking for a specific picture of Cini when I stumbled across this visual representation of why I moved my sheep flock from New York’s Hudson Valley to Central Virginia.

Every morning. We had to break up the ice every morning in the winter time with a mini sledge hammer so that the sheep could have water.  Mis.er.able.

The Hudson Valley is one of the most beautiful places in the world, rich with history and natural features. It’s just a little to cold for someone who grew up in Texas.

Last week was not a good week around here. Actually, all of January has been a bit of an ordeal. And I mean ordeal in the literal sense.

In addition to feeling nauseated and exhausted all the time, I am still doing battle with the lack of appetite that goes along with one of the drugs I’m taking.

Also, the T1 internet line that I pay a truly insane amount of money for every month has been down since 12/27 and I have spent actual days on the phone with both customer and tech support trying to get it fixed. I spoke with more than –wait for it — 70 human beings in the course trying to get the em effing internet turned back on, to no avail.

Then the hard drive on my computer crash while I was in the middle of editing the 4000 pictures I shot last weekend for our Spring/Summer photo shoot.

I got at flat tire after leaving Amy’s house at nearly midnight in middle of a rainstorm.

Oh, and did I mention that I came home to find that the house was suffering from an infestation of field mice and that rats had taken over the barn.

Like I said, not a great month.

To say that I was feeling sorry for myself would be an exercise in understatement. I felt like a black cloud have settle over my life. I was overwhelmed. I was drowning in a sea of misery and despair.

I was a wreck.

And then a couple of things happened. First of all, my mother, who has always been the person I call first when things go wrong, pointed out that I was spending an awful lot of time and energy feeling sorry for myself. She didn’t exactly tell me to knock it off, but she pointed out that I might feel better if I cut that shit out.

I’m not going to say that I turned my frown upside down and that suddenly the sun came out and the mice took their leave. But I did stop wasting energy on being miserable. When I felt a wave of self-pity coming on, I took a nap or worked on editing the photographs for our forthcoming collections. When I felt any overwhelming bout of brooding about to overtake me, I took Amy and Paul up on their standing invitation to come over and use their internet.

The nice thing about being with people who care about you when you are miserable, is that you really can’t just spend hours on end openly weeping. Plus, Amy and Paul’s house is always kind of a circus. Their daughters change outfits five or six times a day to suit their moods. The chaos is hilarious and infectious, and I always leave their house feeling better than I arrived.

My friends Saint Tanya, Kris and Shirra also helped me tremendously by checking in with me from time to time via text and emails.

I started taking itty-bitty baby steps to get things back under control. I fired the internet company and found an alternative. I ordered a couple of humane (but deadly) mouse and rat traps (they’re called Raticator Max Rodent Traps, in case you’re interested) and successfully evicted my uninvited guests. I cleaned out my pantry, bagging up everything I can’t eat and sending it over to Amy’s house so that I don’t have to fight my gag reflex every time I need a snack. I found a few more things that I can eat fairly successfully and stocked up on them.

And then I did something completely out of character for me- I turned the heat up to 70 degrees in the house. (I figure with all the money I’m saving on food and wine, I can afford to be warm this year.)

“The greatness of man lies in the decision to be stronger than his condition.” Albert Camus wrote that and I think it’s so important that I’m going to write it again. ”The greatness of man lies in the decision to be stronger than his condition.” That is powerful stuff, y’all.

Next week, I am going to take more baby steps. I’ve got to go to Texas for some some medical tests and an adjustment in my medication, but while I’m there I am going to continue to my forward progress. I’m going to make some difficult but necessary decisions about the future that will make things easier going forward. I’m going to try very hard to be stronger than my condition from here on out. That’s the first decision, and I have made it.

Why am I sharing all of this with you, my lovely readers? For a couple of reasons. First of all, because I think we are all fighting our own battles, struggling with our own demons, nursing our own wounds. I want you to know that you are not alone. That whatever you are dealing with right now, there are other people who are going through the same thing. And there are other people who have been through it and come out on the other side.

I’m also telling you this because I want to encourage you to spend this upcoming weekend getting all that self-pity out of your system. Take naps. Cry into your pillow. Take long hot bathes.

Cause, come Monday, I want you to make a decision to be stronger than your condition, too.

Last week was not a good week around here. Actually, all of January has been a bit of an ordeal. And I mean ordeal in the literal sense.

In addition to feeling nauseated and exhausted all the time, I am still doing battle with the lack of appetite that goes along with one of the drugs I’m taking.

Also, the T1 internet line that I pay a truly insane amount of money for every month has been down since 12/27 and I have spent actual days on the phone with both customer and tech support trying to get it fixed. I spoke with more than –wait for it — 70 human beings in the course trying to get the em effing internet turned back on, to no avail.

Then the hard drive on my computer crash while I was in the middle of editing the 4000 pictures I shot last weekend for our Spring/Summer photo shoot.

I got at flat tire after leaving Amy’s house at nearly midnight in middle of a rainstorm.

Oh, and did I mention that I came home to find that the house was suffering from an infestation of field mice and that rats had taken over the barn?

Like I said, not a great month.

To say that I was feeling sorry for myself would be an exercise in understatement. I felt like a black cloud have settle over my life. I was overwhelmed. I was drowning in a sea of misery and despair.

I was a wreck.

And then a couple of things happened. First of all, my mother, who has always been the person I call first when things go wrong, pointed out that I was spending an awful lot of time and energy feeling sorry for myself. She didn’t exactly tell me to knock it off, but she pointed out that I might feel better if I cut that shit out.

I’m not going to say that I turned my frown upside down and that suddenly the sun came out and the mice took their leave. But I did stop wasting energy on being miserable. When I felt a wave of self-pity coming on, I took a nap or worked on editing the photographs for our forthcoming collections. When I felt any overwhelming bout of brooding about to overtake me, I took Amy and Paul up on their standing invitation to come over and use their internet.

The nice thing about being with people who care about you when you are miserable, is that you really can’t just spend hours on end openly weeping. Plus, Amy and Paul’s house is always kind of a circus. Their daughters change outfits five or six times a day to suit their moods. The chaos is hilarious and infectious, and I always leave their house feeling better than I arrived.

My friends Saint Tanya, Kris and Shirra also helped me tremendously by checking in with me from time to time via text and emails.

I started taking itty-bitty baby steps to get things back under control. I fired the internet company and found an alternative. I ordered a couple of humane (but deadly) mouse and rat traps (they’re called Raticator Max Rodent Traps, in case you’re interested) and successfully evicted my uninvited guests. I cleaned out my pantry, bagging up everything I can’t eat and am sending it over to Amy’s house so that I don’t have to fight my gag reflex every time I need a snack. I found a few more things that I can eat fairly successfully and stocked up on them.

And then I did something completely out of character for me- I turned the heat up to 70 degrees in the house. (I figure with all the money I’m saving on food and wine, I can afford to be warm this year.)

“The greatness of man lies in the decision to be stronger than his condition.” Albert Camus wrote that and I think it’s so important that I’m going to write it again. ”The greatness of man lies in the decision to be stronger than his condition.” That is powerful stuff, y’all.

Next week, I am going to take more baby steps. I’ve got to go to Texas for some some medical tests and an adjustment in my medication, but while I’m there I am going to continue to my forward progress. I’m going to make some difficult but necessary decisions about the future that will make things easier going forward. I’m going to try very hard to be stronger than my condition from here on out. That’s the first decision, and I have made it.

Why am I sharing all of this with you, my lovely readers? For a couple of reasons. First of all, because I think we are all fighting our own battles, struggling with our own demons, nursing our own wounds. I want you to know that you are not alone. That whatever you are dealing with right now, there are other people who are going through the same thing. And there are other people who have been through it and come out on the other side.

I’m also telling you this because I want to encourage you to spend this upcoming weekend getting all that self-pity out of your system. Take naps. Cry into your pillow. Take long hot bathes.

Cause, come Monday, I want you to make a decision to be stronger than your condition, too.

No post today because my computer crashed last night. Taking all the nicely organized and ready to edit photos from this weekend’s photo shoot with it. I’ve been on the phone with the lovely people from Apple for hours already and it looks like we’e in for a long night of reinstalling my operating system, etc.

So no blog post for you. Be grateful; it would be chock full of swear words anyway.

First of all, thank you all for the lovely comments on yesterday’s post. It was wonderful to hear from so many of you and feel supported and loved. Very uplifting.

To answer some of questions, being back at the farm doesn’t mean that I am better. We’re working on it, but I don’t think I will “better” for a long, long time. I am still pretty weak, still losing weight, although the rate has slowed. I am wearing a sweater that I haven’t worn since college, one that I lent to Amy’s 9-year-old daughter last year.

I didn’t quite realize how frail I look until I saw Amy and Paul’s faces yesterday when they saw me after two months. I am somewhat confident that eventually I will be healthy and thriving again, but not tomorrow, or next month, or the months after that. It’s going to be a process.

In the meantime, I have (finally) come to the conclusion that I am going to have to make some major changes to streamline and simplify my life. I have been struggling and fighting with this decision for months and I thought that giving in to this disease would be giving up, something I am loathe to do under any circumstances. Instead, making the decision to give some things up has felt incredibly freeing, like an enormous weight has been lifted from my chest and I can breath again. For the first time in a very long time, I can imagine what the future might look like, and that is incredibly hopeful.

I don’t have any real news to report at this point- no decisions have been made. But I know there will be changes and I am okay with that now. I hope you’ll be okay with it too.

And now, on to resolutions! I have only two this year, and they are more like goals than resolutions.

The first was inspired by a conversation with my sister Carrie. She and my mom had offered to help me with something and I turned them down, as I am want to do. When the task proved so difficult that it drove me to sobbing, body-racking tears, my sister asked why I hadn’t just taken them up on their offer to help me in the first place. I answered, through gasps and sobs, that I thought they only offered to be nice, that they didn’t really want to do it.

My sister countered that if that hadn’t wanted to do it they wouldn’t have offered. I replied, “What do you mean? I offer to do things I don’t want to do all the time!” And Carrie said, “Well stop.”

Please don’t think I’m completely moronic when I tell you that this was a revelation to me. I sort of thought everyone agreed or offered to do things they didn’t want to do all the time. Apparently they don’t. And from here on out, neither do I. I am going to start saying no.  At least, I’m going to try.

The other resolution is a small thing really. I was at the doctor’s office the other day and I looked down and noticed that my nails were a mess. All different crazy lengths and in need of filing. And then I decided that, after 40 years of not being able to grow long and lovely fingernails, I am never going to. I’ve been trimming my nails short every Monday since then.

Do you make resolutions? And do you keep them?

P.S. The internet is down at the farm so please forgive if you are awaiting an email from me. I’ll be going into town to blog and check emails until it’s back, but we have a big photo shoot scheduled for this weekend with lots of friends coming in from out-of-town to help out, so it may be hit or miss.

This is a re-post that seemed just perfect for a day when it’s cold even in Texas. The original ran on January 4, 2009. Enjoy!

Last September I had the good fortune to sit next to a woman named Nancy Aronie at an animal communication workshop I was attending. I say good fortune because Nancy is an absolutely fabulous woman. She’s a wonderful writer and gives a very famous workshop on the Vineyard called Writing from the Heart.  Everyone at the workshop we were attending had to go around the room and introduce themselves and Nancy laughed deeply and wept openlyin the same sentence. She is brilliant, and brimming over with life, and, lucky for me, she is freezing all the time.
Lucky for me, because the other reason I was so fortunate to be sitting next to Nancy was that she brought a hot water bottle with her to the workshop. Turns out she takes it everywhere she goes to keep her warm. During a break in the morning session Nancy refilled her water bottle from the tea kettle. At first I thought the whole thing was kind of bizarre, but when she stuck it in between us on the couch, I was instantly converted. “You’ll have to get one,” Nancy said. To which I replied,  ”Nancy, I am 38-years-old. I cannot start carrying a hot water bottle around with me.”

Which turned out to be totally untrue. Even as I write this I have my trusty hot water bottle by my side, keeping me toasty. Oh, I don’t carry it around with me. Not out of the house anyway. Unless I’m going up to Patrick’s parent’s house across the street. Or for a long car ride. Or to the movies. Not that we ever go to the movies, but if we did, I’d take my hot water bottle with me.

The only problem with the hot water bottle is that I can’t take it with me when I’m doing chores outside cause you have to hold it. I actually considered getting one of those baby slings to hold it in place against my chest while I’m feeding or working the livestock but it seemed kind of impractical.

The thing is, I am cold all the time. Well, not all the time. I’m warmish from May through September. But winters in the Northeast kick my ass. I hate being cold, and as a result, I dread doing all of the everyday tasks that I so enjoy doing when it’s warm.

And, if I may be frank with you, (and I think I can speak frankly with you) the worst thing in the world is when my breasts get cold. It’s beyond uncomfortable- it’s painful. And, short of taking a hot shower, I find it very, very difficult to recover from cold breasts.

Until today that is. Today, I came up with the idea for which I will become famous. Forget the whole “started the first Fiber CSA” business. If and when my obit appears in the New York Times, it will be because of the discovery I made at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 4th.

And it never would have occurred to me to share this particular piece of awesome if Patrick, upon hearing the news of my miraculous invention, hadn’t groaned and said “I can’t wait the hear what the blog readers think of this!” That’s when I realized it would be wrong for me to keep this discovery to myself. As wrong as wrong can be.

I was getting ready to go out and work sheep and goats with Patrick and Erin this afternoon. “Working” livestock means trimming hooves, worming and delousing all the animals in a particular pen and it. takes. for. ever. Like hours. Outside. In the cold.  As usual, I was dragging my feet and stalling because I was already cold, and I really didn’t want my boobs to get any colder or more painful. So right before I left the house, I grabbed two of those “Hot Hands” hand warmers from the kitchen drawer. You know, those little packets that you shake up to cause some kind of chemical reaction and then stick in your gloves? Only I stuck them in my bra. And it was magic, my friends.

I worked outside for two hours without getting cold. At all. I don’t think it’s overstating it to say that this may very well have changed my life.

I think ya’ll know me well enough to know that I don’t regularly talk about my breasts in public, and I truly hope I haven’t offended anyone with my immodesty, but if even one of you suffers from the distress of cold breasts and is helped by my discovery, it will all be worth it.

We happened to have bought a whole passel of hand warmers for our Solstice party, and I think they cost around $2 a dozen at Walmart. Of course it means having to step foot in Walmart- an errand I put right up there with being water boarded- but believe me my friends, it will be worth it.