Free Time (Not!)

So wonderful to be feeling better and back to normal.  I woke up at 4 to stoke the stove and knitted for a while.  I have a hat going for Hannah and am happy to be knitting again.  It is so wonderfully absorbing and restorative.  When the doggies kept sleeping I thought I would get some more shut eye myself and woke up at 8:30 - positively scandalous for me.  Off to the Louis Gale Feed Mill for my weekly haul and visited with Theresa, the office manager for a while.  It's still cold, but sunny and bright.  A woman ran off the snowy Beaver Creek Road and ended up on her side in a deep culvert.   Matt and another man pulled her up out of her car.  When I went by they were waiting for a tow.  Second time Matt pulled an old lady out of her turned over car in a year.  He's trying to fix my kitchen faucet right now, plugged up by debris when the pipes froze. If only I had thought of turning on my dye oven in the milk room before I went to work on the coldest day last week.   I'm doing dishes in the little bathroom sink again.  I shudder to think what I would have to pay a plumber, in addition to all the cleaning I would have to do before I could let any repair man in here.  With all the livestock and wool washing I do, water is a very valuable commodity around here.  I am blessed with springs and ponds all over my land, but getting it to work inside the barn where everybody needs it is problematic.  I am so far behind on my wool prep for Maryland Sheep and Wool I can hardly think about it.  It will be shearing time in a few weeks - you won't fine ME shearing in frigid cold, thank you very much - and I will hardly have touched last year's.  I better get my mojo back pretty quick or I will be in deep doo-doo, or even deeper doo-doo than I usually am.  NY State requires me to make at least $10,000 to be a farm.  New Jersey only requires $500.  Go figure!  I have to hustle to do it.  I have a turquoise Merino run ready to be sent to the carding mill to be made into a felting batt.  I have a vision of peacock feathers on turquoise....For now it's raking and tending to critters in the barn, which seriously cuts into creative time, but sheep is what it's all about.  My cattle panel hay feeders are falling apart and must be taken down.  They are more of a liability now than an asset and can seriously injure my animals. Loren was a no-show this morning.  Hope he didn't fall through the ice when he was fishing on Hunt's Pond.  I'll be splitting, toting and stacking firewood myself if he did.  Luckily my sprained ankle is healed enough to get my foot into my rubber boot.  Couldn't manage it until yesterday.  It's the little things...