looking lovely

Rory mowed the lawn the other night right after my dad had weed whipped and all of the sudden our farm looked gorgeous. You know how that takes a while each spring? Our farm went through a real gnarly phase after the winter and we had lots of piles to put away like cinder blocks, a wood chipper covered in blue tarp, piles of wood and lots of weeds. But we have been wood chipping our trees, weeding like crazy and building new fences so that all of the sudden it all looked lovely again.

I have so much to write about it seems, but I can't seem to catch up. So I'll just tell you one thing I've been wanting to share for a while now: Rory and I sheared a sheep together. We had a professional come out last Saturday to do all the sheep, but weeks before he was scheduled to come we had 90 degree days and a Ewe who had five inches of wool on her. We had to help! So we ordered hand shears on Amazon, watched a few Youtube videos of Amish shearing sheep and gave it a go.

I am so sorry we don't have pictures. That will be a regret forever. Because the words 'hack job' come to mind. Though that maybe makes it sound worse than it was. We were decent. It took us two nights, working from "the kids are in bed...let's go!" to sundown. We took turns pinning the Ewe down (think WWF) and shearing. It actually was good fun and every snip felt like we were liberating that sweet Ewe from a northface parka on a July summer day. She actually acted grateful and relaxed after she figured out what we were up to.

So add that to the list of unexpected life experiences. I can now say, "I have sheared a sheep."

When we were all done and walking back to the house I said to Rory, "I just want to point out that you married a really good sport." And he replied, "Well, you knew what you were getting into when you married a computer programmer."

Exactly.