The chickens are laying again.
I spent yesterday at the farm of a friend, touring her angora rabbitry and helping with chores. There was knitting, yarn fondling, playing with rabbits, and chocolate! A perfect day. This is the friend that gave me my rabbit. She almost has me convinced to breed my doe.
Her website will go live soon, I'll keep you updated. She has lovely wool/angora blend yarns for sale. She will also be at Shepherd's Harvest, if you're close enough to attend that.
This is R2. She was my first dog as an adult. She was a bluetick/black & tan coonhound mix. She was a gentle, old soul.
This is Max. He was my second dog, a purebred Bluetick coonhound. He was goofy, but then posed for photos with a haughty air about him.
So you can see why I had to have Kora. In appearance, she is like a short version of the two of them mixed together. Looking in her face for the first time, I saw Max's eyebrows, and R2's eyes. I think she is a dachshund/bluetick mix. The rescue place guessed basset and Australian cattle dog.
Kora is a fearless little dog with great athletic ability. Man, can that dog jump. I have signed us up for a beginning obedience class. We will learn to walk again, together.
You know how some people fall down and come home with yarn? I fell down in a truck stop parking lot in Iowa and came home with a dog. 
Ok, so I was meeting the foster Dad there. But it sounded vaguely mysterious to say it the other way though.
Her current name is Violet. Think she has some Bassett in her?
Yep, she barely comes up to my 20qt dyepot. She can walk under Simba.
How difficult/traumatizing is it to change a dog's name? Anybody know? More later, I have to be to work at 8:00. (Which gives me a minute to log into my work computer. I love working from home!)
That is what it feels like. Literally and figuratively.
For four years, I lived my life at Mom's pace, in her world, whatever it happened to be that day. Shortening my stride to match hers, constantly scanning the ground for unevenness that might take her down. Hovering, almost fearful of what may happen next. Let's face it, with Alzheimer's you never knew what was going to happen next.
Walking down the driveway the other day, I realized that I was still walking at Mom's pace, shortening my stride, watching the ground...but she isn't there anymore. Granted, some of this may be because my driveway is like a level luge course, hard and icy and dangerous (yay for STABILicers). Everybody (if you're prudent) walks like an old woman around here nowadays.
When I'm in a store,(about the only place with dry, level ground) and when the ground isn't so dangerous in the coming months, I'll practice walking. Head up, striding with purpose, at my own pace. Moving and looking forward, wherever that may lead.
This is what happens when we get a heat wave in the 30's followed by a quick snap back to below zero. An ice wave off the roof of the barn. It makes me want to go swimming.
This is what you see when the sunrise shines through a small sliver at the top of the not yet opened drapes and lands on the tips of the lights on the ceiling fan that hasn't worked for a year or more. I groggily thought the lights were half-assedly working. What can I say, it was early.
This is what happens when freezing fog lands on a cobweb in the barn. Breathe lightly or the crystals (they look like tiny evergreen trees to me) drop to the ground.
