1. WE HAVE POWER! Who knew how amazing running water, electricity, WiFi and heat could be? You know what I’m most excited about? Vacuuming. And doing laundry. And taking a hot shower. And not sleeping in the cold. Okay, I’m excited about lots of stuff.

2. THANK YOU! Thank all of you for all the cards and letters and little gifts  you’ve been sending. I am humbled by all the support and it means the whole world to me. I read them all and save them for the inevitable sucky days when I need a little pick-me-up. Y’all are awesome and you make me feel like I can do anything.

3. Due to the crazy weather, I am a scooch behind one dyeing the sample colors for the Fall 09 Shareholder yarn. As long as the power stays on, I should have the photos posted by Saturday.

4. Newsweek’s International edition has a round-up of luxury farm stays this week and guess who’s in it?

[If anybody living outside the U.S. sees a copy on the newsstand, could you grab one for me? I'll reimburse you for the postage.] We are swamped with requests for info, so if you have a specific week or weekend you’d like to reserve, let me know right away so we can get you on the calendar. susie AT fiberfarm DOT com.

In spite of the inconvenience, I can’t help loving the snow. Everything looks so pretty and there’s a lovely hush over the farm.

A couple weeks ago I posted this picture of one of my favorite trees.

It didn’t fare very well during the blizzard.

Still no power and our woodstove seems to be leaking smoke into the house, so I had to let it go out. How happy am I that I bought a super-warm down comforter last month? Very happy indeed. Gulliver and I were toasty until we had to get out of bed this morning.

All of the animals are well and happy, although they goats are looking a little weary. They just don’t have the body fat that our sheep do and they feel the cold more as a result.

Gotta head back to the farm before the next big snow starts. Hope you are all warm and cozy!

Heading back to the farm now.

Can I be honest? I was kind of dreading getting back to the farm today. I missed my flock and my dogs and even my bed, but the lack of electricity and company were daunting. (Paige is in California visiting her father this week.) I not in the mood for roughing it in my own home.

But once I pulled into the driveway I felt my equilibrium was restored. The farm looked absolutely beautiful and it was so quiet and peaceful.

We have a few trees down.

Our driveway still hasn’t been plowed, so I had to park by the road.

Of course, my first stop was the barn to check on the lambs and kids. Dimples was modeling some serious hay-head.

The dogs were super-happy to see me.

We brought the little lambs into the barn during the storm. They don’t have as much body fat as the big sheep and they were looking a little miserable.

They were happy to see me too,

but only because I had a pocket full of animal crackers.

I love the chicken footprints in the snow.

The snow hasn’t stopped the hens from laying.

Alabama (right) is now officially bigger than his mama, Daisy (left).

It was so great to be home that not having electricity or running water didn’t seem like such a big deal. Which is good, because it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting power back tonight. And tomorrow? More snow!

As you may have read, Central Virginia got 30+ inches of snow this weekend. That was on top of the 12 inches we already had on the ground. Everyone at the farm is fine but we’re going on day three without power. I was lucky enough to be in DC for the weekend, although the snow was out of control there too. In fact, I couldn’t get over how shut down the city was even today.

I’m sleeping over at Kris and Charlie’s house in Arlington, VA tonight so I can get up bright and early to head back to the farm.  There’s a pretty good chance we could be without power for another three or four days. So no internet, no phone, and no water. We do have heat, thanks to the woodstove and the delivery of wood we got last week.

I think I might have a case of the Day-Three-of-the-Storm Blues. Not at all looking forward to going home to no heat but very much looking forward to getting home to my flock and my dogs. I’ll blog when I can, but I might have to drive in to C-ville to find electricity and WiFi.

Hope you are all some where warm snuggled up to someone you love.

So, we are getting between 26-40 inches of snow if the next two days. Yes, you read that right. Up to four flippin’ feet of snow. Enough already with the snow.

Yesterday, Paige and I took Lucy for her last post-accident check-up with Dr. Johnson.

Paige trying to get Lucy into the car.

Lucy loves everyone at Fork Union Animal Clinic; she just hates riding in the car to get there! Maremmas get very, very car sick. In spite of skipping breakfast, Lucy managed to throw up in the way back of my station wagon.

You’ll be happy to hear that Miss Lu is, according to our vet, 100% gorgeous and amazing. The tenderness on her abdomen is gone, so we can finally take her off the NSAIDs that replaced the steroids she had been taking. Her lungs and heart sound perfect. In short, Lucy is healed.

Lucy celebrated her clean bill of health by playing with Sabine in the snow, her favorite past time.

Sabine is such a good girl. She’s just good-natured and so very patient with Lucy. She also appears to need her nails trimmed.

And Cini? Cini is the hardest working dog in show biz. He always protects his flock, even the jerks like Roquefort.

This picture totally reminds me of the beginning of America’s Next Top Model.

Yesterday, 13,000 of my neighbors and I lost power for about 12 hours. Honestly, it wasn’t a huge deal. I spent the day reading and napping instead of sewing and blogging. Our house is new and very solidly built, so it didn’t even cool off all that much.

Losing power at my house also means losing water and phone service. Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet called Tosh to ask him to plow when the power went out, so I was stuck at home for a bit. Because Tosh is my hero, he showed up on his own around three, but by then it was to close to time to feed the animals for me to go into Charlottesville.

It was a lovely, quiet day here. Luckily, my camera batteries were charged and I can share some of it with you.

I am so full of gratitude these days. That I get to live in such a beautiful place. That I get to live this life. I’ve never felt more at home.

Without a doubt, getting water to the flock in the winter is the single hardest job on our farm. It’s not so bad when it’s just below freezing, but when there are 11 inches of snow on the ground, it’s a task we all dread. Normally we can just back the truck up to each pasture and fill the water troughs from the tanks in the back, but the snow makes the farm road way to risky. Our only other option is to empty the tanks into buckets and slog them down to each pen.

For me though, seeing this makes it all worth it. Kind of.

I was so busy enjoying myself at the Solstice Celebration that I didn’t have time to take many photographs. Here are the few I took.

Notice Logan’s lack of pants. He was “helping” his father with the fire and got hot and it seemed like the best way to cool off was to take off his pants.  Needless to say, I was in the house when this decision was made.

Snowstorm-