Hello and Happy New Year

Hey there, everyone who still reads this (d.b. - a special hello to you since I know you faithfully check in).

I hope all is well with everyone and I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.

Ok, first an update on the dogs. I did manage to find a wonderful, loving home for Brandy. She was taken in by one of my longest, dearest friends and is currently being spoiled by her 5 year old daughter. From what I understand, they are mutually in love with each other.

And Tessa. Sigh. Sadlly, I could not find anyone willing to take Tessa. I honestly think the idea of her being part pit bull scared a lot of people off. Which is really unfortunate because she was an amazing dog and so willing to please. Since we are such saps when it comes to animals - particularly dogs - we coudln't bring ourselves to take her to the shelter. We were slowly incorporating her into life on the farm. She was learning not to chase the chickens and was actually becoming a good helper with the goats. She was so eager to help and only wanted affection in return. As it happened, she came out with us one evening when we were feeding and, I can only guess, took off after something. It was already dark so I can't even say for sure. She made her way down to the road and I'm sure you can fill in the rest. We were so sorry to lose her because she really wormed her way into our hearts and our lives. She now has a forever spot on our farm, under a statue of Saint Francis.

Hubby and I have since discussed getting yet another dog but we want to take some time and wait until we are ready.

The rest of the animals are all doing remarkably well. We actually have a goat on hold for a buyer and another potential one sold. Woot!

Some big news for our farm - we finally have our web page up and running! You can check it out at www.lpfarm.net There is also a tab on there for our farm journal. I basically set up a new blog that will focus on what is going on at Lone Pine Farm. Chances are I will spend more of my time on that blog but I will come back here from time to time - most likely to rant and rave when I need to or just to write about non-farmy things. However, since the farm consumes so much of my life right now, I imagine that won't be very often.

In other news, our daughter, Hannah, leaves on the 12th to begin her spring semester in Italy. I am so excited for her. We have also decided to send our son, Sebastian, over to visit her when he is on spring break. I just know it's going to be amazing for them. He is talking about renting a scooter while he is over there so I have to check into that. It's something that I didn't even really consider but what a good idea it is.

Let's see...what else. Oh. I have decided to temporarily escrow my real estate license. That was a hard decision. After all, I did spend a lot of time and money and really only recently earned my way to broker. However, the market being what it is, and the time strain of having a full time job, I decided it is for the best at this time. I'm not completely abandoning it but I can't devote to it the kind of time it requires. I have to admit, though, the idea of not getting calls from frantic clients while I am in the middle of my supper will be nice.

I think that about covers it on the Big News Front. Other than that, we had a splendid holiday, getting to see family and spend time with them. It's a bit sad that it's only that way around the holidays. Actually, I kind of made a resolution to get back into life a bit more. Even if we have to set up some kind of schedule to do it - say pick every third Thursday as our socail outlet day. We realized how fast time is slipping by and, even though there is always work to be done here, we need to take a break from it once in a while.

So we've got that going for us.

Our other resolution is to try to pick small projects that need to get done and accomplish something every week. Just one or two hour things, but something to always keep the momentum moving forward.

And with that, I will close so I can go work on my weekly project, winterizing the front door.

Don't forget to check out the farm site and tell me what you think. It is still under construction so some of the buttons just refer back to the home page. Hopefully we'll get the rest of the pages completed soon.

Take care, all!