Monday, February 17, 2003

We interrupt this program for a weather bulletin

 
Happy President's Day! We've just finished one of the ubiquitous storms-of-the-century, and this one really might be one for the record books: we have somewhere between two and three feet of the stuff (it's hard to figure it out with all the drifts). Luckily we have a pretty good winter setup for our sheep (a cozy barn with ample room for sheep, their troughs, and their hay baskets, as well as a pump and electricity to keep the water from freezing). Even more luckily, I have Sally: she seems to get stuck with all the grunt work, going bravely forth in her trusty Chevy Tahoe, ploughing her way through snow drifts, and making sure our roof didn't cave in and nobody's stuck in the snow somewhere frozen to death. A good sheep partner is invaluable, especially in a blizzard.

The bummer of it all is that I had a vacation scheduled this week, the highlight of which was a trip down to Kent Kuykendall's in North Carolina for some shedding lessons. I thought for awhile that the trip wasn't going to be able to happen at all, but I managed to reschedule it enough so that I'll be rolling down to Kent's on Wednesday, for a Thursday and Friday lesson. (I'll be going with my friend Eileen Stein, which will be great fun.) An added bonus is the fact that it'll be 58 degrees in North Carolina, with no snow at all. That alone is worth the price of admission! I'll report on what happened when I get back. Poor Phyl hasn't been able to stretch out in a good long while, so I know she'll enjoy it. And I'm certainly itching to pick up my whistle and work her again. A little glimpse of spring will be very, very welcome at this point.

posted by Heather Nadelman