Like everyone else Amy and I are sticking pretty close to home these days. But we’re still putting in full work days—plenty to do around the farm. We won’t re-open the mill for another few weeks. Don’t want to risk frozen water pipes.

Besides Amy & I, our youngest son Gabe and his college friend Gabby will be with us until they go back to school in the fall. Gabe plans to put in a large garden to sell at the South Haven Farmer’s Market. Gabby is still working on lining up an internship, she has a couple possibilities pending. In the meantime she’s been helping out around the farm.

Amy spent most of her winter spinning. She’s built up quite a large stock of hand-spun yarn for sale in our booth at various festivals and markets. She’s also been poring over seed catalogs and as usual has a wish list that will require some serious pruning. Amy doesn’t like the cold and spends most of her time in the house but she does venture outside once a day to tend to her small flock of hens.

My recent projects have included building a barn for livestock, working on a re-model of the kitchen and training a team of oxen. Blame that last one on Gabe. He planned to train a team, it piqued my interest and on a whim I decided to get a team, too. My team and I, Elmer and Boris, have become a familiar sight walking around the neighborhood. Now Gabe is home from school with his team, North and Star. When the lights go out, we’ll be prepared.