Happy New Year!
Our New Year's letter, reflecting on 2015...
Our New Year's letter, reflecting on 2015...
Like
any respectable country person, I am going to begin this letter by talking
about the weather. Thanks to El Nino, we have had quite an unusual winter. Christmas was almost tropical with rain showers
and mud puddles galore—which our new ducks thoroughly enjoyed. The world seemed
completely topsy-turvy when I was harvesting cabbage two days after Christmas. Now,
however, we are officially snowed in. Looks
like we might have a real winter after all.
With
the weather bit taken care of, I’ll continue with more “personal” news:
This
year has been eventful for all of us here at Walnut Grove. In April, Lance returned from Afghanistan and
has since shifted to inactive reserve duty in the Navy. He has also taken on a more administrative
role at the VA and continues to take pride in serving the veterans.
In
addition to running the farm (and running after Thomas), I still play in the
symphony and volunteer at Exchange Place.
My family recently co-sponsored a symphony concert that featured
“Appalachian Spring” (one of my favorite pieces) and brought Bela Fleck to the
stage to perform his “Impostor” banjo concerto—a real treat and challenge for
all involved. At Exchange Place, I
continue to expand my Junior Apprentice and hearth cooking programs, and this
year, I helped construct a new hog lot, which will house two male Guinea hogs
come spring. (Guinea hogs are not the
same thing as guinea pigs, mind you.)
In
September, my dear Aunt Betty passed away after suffering from severe dementia.
Over the years, I have gotten much gardening advice from her, and I take joy in
the fact that zinnias—from seeds she gave me over a decade ago—continue to
bloom each year in my own garden. Next
month (February) my (step) grandfather turns 100, and we’ll be traveling down
to west Tennessee to celebrate the special occasion with him—and maybe get some
advice about raising those hogs.
Thomas
began his homeschooling journey in the fall and enjoys being a student at
“Walnut Grove Kindergarten.” He spends
most of his “free” time building with Legos (or “Lego bricks” as the company
claims is the proper plural term), carrying sticks, and showering our cat Ollie
with attention (as you can see from the picture on the card). He has lost two
teeth since his 6th birthday in November, yet he still enjoys eating
apples and other crunchy foods (like bacon when Mamaw sneaks him a piece). Just a few weeks ago, he saw the new Star
Wars movie—his first movie in a theater.
His favorite character is C3P0—no surprise because he likes all things
golden and shiny.
In
June, we all traveled to Colonial Williamsburg.
I participated in a “Farmer’s Boot Camp” at a living history conference
there, and Lance and Thomas joined me at the end for a family vacation. The temperatures reached 107 during the day,
but that didn’t stop the learning process.
Thomas especially enjoyed getting tips on muzzle loading and growing
cucumbers from folks well versed in the ways of the past.
In
animal news, Marley, our new dog who showed up at the farm last Christmas, has
proven quite the guardian of the farm. My
worry about her digging up tomatoes (that I mentioned in last year’s letter)
proved unwarranted (probably because we keep her out of the garden!); but she
does have a nasty habit of killing chickens when they fly over the fence. Recently, she killed my favorite hen, Hoecake,
which makes me wonder if we should resort to the “old time” remedy of beating
her with the dead chicken and then tying the corpse around her neck and leaving
it there until it rots off—a drastic measure we have so far avoided. I don’t
know, though, she’s an awfully sweet “dawg.” As mentioned earlier, we have new
ducks—four White Pekins that were a gift from my father. Named “The Puddle-Ducks”
after favorite Beatrix Potter characters, they are charming, but messy. Over
the summer, we had to put our goat Lily down, as she was suffering from chronic
bloat. She was one of the triplets born
to Iris, one of the goats that my uncle gave us as a wedding present. We have since added a new goat to the herd,
though—Marjorie, a tri-color Nubian, who my mother says looks like a spotted
heifer. Hmm…maybe a milk cow will be next!
And
now, I’ll return to the weather: Time to shovel snow!
