Christmas Letter 2007

**NOTE: Some of you may have received cards with a portion of the first two sentences missing. (We think Beaker hit the "delete" key when we weren't looking!) Being an English major, I will probably need an entire year to recover from the guilt of sending out a card with a major typo! Here is the correct version:

Season's Greetings!

I was just reading our Christmas letters from the last two years, and each holds the promise of a warm, historically restored house. Well, we’re not quite there yet. In fact, the house is as cold as ever and certainly messier. We’re actually boarding again at Hotel Brenda since the construction has seeped into every room of the house. Progress is occurring slowly but surely, though: Mike has finished stacking the logs for both cabins, and he has nearly completed the connector addition. I won’t make any promises this year, but if you don’t find me at Walnut Grove next holiday season, then look for me at the local sanitarium!

The animals are getting as restless as we are, I think. Despite our efforts to contain them in their roomy lot, the goats continue to break through the fence and take charge of the whole farm. It’s not unusual for Billy to climb the ladder into the cabin to give Mike a hand (aka pester him). We’re running low on eggs—a raccoon killed several of my best laying hens back in early fall, and the little diddles that hatched out in the spring were predominately roosters, most of whom have since been eaten. That Lance and I finally butchered a chicken is perhaps the biggest news of the year. We don’t plan on making a habit of it (as we still enjoy being vegetarians), but instead view it as a necessity of animal husbandry—and an activity that encourages a closer connection to our food sources and a deeper respect for Mother Nature. (The picture on the front of the card shows Lance and me holding one of our roosters after I roasted it on the open hearth for the Exchange Place’s “Christmas in the Country”). If the “autumn cull” is the biggest news, then the death of my brother’s horse, Scar, is certainly the most tragic. She was attacked and killed by two pit bulls at my dad’s barn last month. She had boarded all summer at Walnut Grove, and we considered her one of our own. She was always hanging her head over the fence in hopes of getting a carrot or a good scratch behind the ears. Ruby, our filly, also had a run of bad luck: She stepped on a nail back in the summer and is just now recovering. Johnny Cash, the black gelding that my dad gave me, is settling in nicely, but Jezebel, our dapple gray mare, still rules the roost (barn, stall, pasture etc). Besides the hens and Scar, I also lost my two sweet dogs, Spec and Rose, this year. They lived with my step-father’s other English Pointers in his kennel and were partners in crime when it came to hunting wild birds. The cats, though, seem to be doing well. Poe and Pippin are probably snuggling up in the hayloft as I write this letter; and Beaker is curled up on the Christmas quilt on my bed. Royalty, indeed!

In other news: Lance is still x-raying, and I am still grading papers. Lance is also becoming quite the pro at speaking Spanish. We are going to Honduras for two weeks in February to volunteer with the International Health Service; and Lance insists that he be able to understand the patients. I, on the other hand, am looking forward to remaining behind the scenes and quietly anonymous as the “general helper” aka “box carrier”!

We wish all of you a joyous Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!

Lance and Heather