A Farm Moment: The Story Behind Barn Yarn
Creativity has a way of snowballing. Our story starts with my wife, Melissa, when she was about six years old, and became fascinated with keys—all keys. Her relatives began giving her their old keys, which Melisa kept in a little box. A month ago we found her key collection while blasting through the attic in […]
Behind the Book: Freak of Nature or Diversity Icon?
When Rachel Merriam, the illustrator for my beginning readers Silly Ruby and Funny Ruby, was trying to create “Ruby,” she first painted a sheep with a white face and white legs. “Looks good,” I said. But the art director wasn’t sure, so asked Rachel to paint a sheep with a black face and black legs. “Looks […]
A Farm Moment: Impatient Sheep
Up here in the north, by April we’re all pressing our noses against the windows, desperate to get outside. Then May arrives and everyone goes from sedentary to crazed—gardening, landscaping, mowing, biking, walking. We’re frenzied. The sheep are just as excited about spring because it means moist, tasty grass. No more dry, boring hay. Our […]
Behind the Book: I am NOT Taylor
When I was writing my middle grade novel, Barn Boot Blues, I decided to put my protagonist, a 12-year-old girl named Taylor, into my scariest imaginable situation: being home alone when a ewe goes into labor and needs help. (Birthing? Not my thing. The touching of bodily fluids? Not my thing.) In the novel, Taylor […]
Behind the Book: Back-of-the-book Blurb
My publisher says it’s time to write the blurb for the back of my new book, explaining that I know the book better than anyone else. IMHO, that’s exactly why I’m not the one to write it, but I’ll never win that argument (heavy sigh.) So here it is. I’ve decided that in the future […]
Holiday Yarn Sale!
There are still a few skeins remaining from my last batch, and since the holidays are approaching, I need to clear them out so I can have my dining room table back! My web guy Steve showed me how to put a coupon in the shopping cart, so I can give everyone $2 off per […]
Can This Yarn Be Saved?
As I was getting ready to put my last batch of yarn up for sale online, I kept looking at one group of skeins. Thanks to a Facebook suggestion, I’d named it “Tangled Up in Blue.” It took me awhile, but I finally figured out I liked the name better than I liked the yarn! […]
Fall 2014 Yarn Batch!
After a crazy summer of dyeing skeins in the laundry room (with help from friends), I have a new batch of yarn to sell. Naming things, as you know, is always a challenge for me, so I got some help from my Facebook fans. Such a relief. You can find the yarns at the Rising […]
Yarn for Sale!
I finally finished dyeing nearly 100 skeins of yarn, so I’ve put them up for sale on our farm website. The yarn was spun by a local fiber mill, and is SO much softer than the last batch. I think I’ve finally found a mill that’s going to work. Here’s the link to my shopping […]
The End of the Llama Saga
So, how do you bury a 350-pound llama in the middle of a MN winter?Sounds like the start to a bad joke, doesn’t it? Luckily, our senses of humor remain intact, so we can chuckle about this. But when our beloved llama Chachi died two weeks ago, the question became very relevant.When Zipper died a […]