Getting Liberty Farm, est 1808: January 2015

It has been another 3 months or so since my last entry... it seems once the holiday season hits, firewood season also hits, and all my time is spent on art projects, farm projects, spinning wool, and baking for the holidays...that is, the spare time I have when I'm not keeping 2 wood stoves up and running to heat our house. We had a glorious autumn in the Shenandoah Valley!

My Finn sheep. I love them so much! They are so sweet and friendly!

Just a little autumn sheep folk art, inspired by my pumpkins and Icelandic sheep.

We LOVE sheep projects at home! Here my boys and I made autumn snow globes with

some vintage plastic sheep toys.

Another autumn project which I love, is collecting acorn tops from the Blue Ridge mountains and making felted acorns for fall décor. These sell for $1 each. :)

Repurposed sweater pumpkins with glass gem corn stems, stuffed with wool.

View of the Shenandoah Valley...Our farm is in the upper left somewhere.

Glass gem corn garlands from our garden, my favorite autumn decorations, later they are ground into cornmeal, and make amazing blueberry cornbread muffins! :)

Just not Thanksgiving without a houseful! We use a lot of canned food from our garden, and mutton from our sheep to supplement a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

My dream of farm life came from the Shire....

In 3-D glasses!

I am blessed to have my handspun yarn, and folk art on display and for sale in Alta Vista Arts & Antiques, in Gretna Virginia.

My little flock

My felted animals, yarn, painted gourds and acorns for sale.

Almond cinnamon sheep milk soap. $3 a bar

Finn sheep

Art hanging

Another batch of homemade soap. The sheep milk, olive oil and coconut oil make this sooo sudsy and soft! I will never use store bought soap again!

Icelandics

I have not yet graduated to a spinning wheel... I really enjoy using a drop spindle. This is one I made from an antique doorknob.

A break from farm life... Les Miserables on Broadway and Times Square! It was nice to forget about firewood and mud and hay for a few days. Ramin Karimloo as Jean Val Jean, and Will Swenson as Javert on Broadway is a show worth saving up to see... it was outstanding!!!!

Cozy Christmas in our old farmhouse.

Decorating the tree, of course bigfoot shows up...

Making a batch of lemon goat milk soap, from locally raised goats.

This year our annual gingerhouse was the TARDIS from Doctor Who. We are big geeky fans of the doctor!

Christmas folk art

Dagny the guardian of the barn who never stops barking, has done her job this winter! We haven't lost a single chicken!

This was an AWESOME new project I did with my 17 year old son...wood ash lye soap, made from the ashes in our stove and scented with eggnog and nutmeg! Just like the pioneers did it... with added olive oil to create a soft, silky bar. It is such an interesting process... you pour rain water over hardwood ashes and allow the water to drip out... the water that comes through is Lye!! Cooked on low with a 1:2 fat ratio, and several tsp of salt, and it created a hard soap bar. So much fun!

This is a crazy little project that helped the dark, grey January days go by... we had dozens of tiny gourds in the garden, so I used paper mache to turn them into little farm animals .

The Mormon missionaries helping to carry feed to the barn

I just love baking comfort food in winter! This was a first time experience making donuts... they were delicious!

Our big fat rooster, Brigham

My son on #socialmediasplits with the Woodstock Sister missionaries

Snooooow.... I am so ready for Spring! We've been heating with woodstoves for 3 1/2 months so far, and I am tired of the mess, as cozy as it is. I can't complain too much though... it's so beautiful.

Out shooting in the pasture with some of our best friends! <3

I just love this view of the house... I've wanted a historic house all my life!

Thankfully we have the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who offer us service when they have a break in their schedule...they have chopped and split several cords of wood for us this winter!