Holly’s Fiber Farm | Foxfire Fiber & Designs

This week Holly took the reigns at the farm so Mike and I could escape to Orlando, Florida to celebrate our son's birthday. We left Monday and arrived just in time to experience a week of record low temperatures for this time of year. Lovely.

Sunshine, green grass. palm trees and flowers made up for the lack of actual warmth. And it's always great to visit our son, Caleb, who works at Disney's Animal Kingdom. We often remind him that we have our own little animal kingdom right at home, and he's welcome to work here anytime he wants.

Holly knew how much I would miss farm chores this week. She thoughtfully sent some pics yesterday, just so I wouldn't be homesick. Here's Butch waiting for breakfast and Gypsy, having hers.

And Crackerjack, the world's greatest lamb nanny.

And then she sent this mysterious/alarming image, with no explanation at all. While I know she would have called immediately if there was a problem, I had to phone her right away to ask "what's up?". She spotted these tracks just outside the pasture fencing yesterday. Being a good little detective, she checked it out and found evidence of a small animal killed, probably by coyotes in the field not far from the barns. It's not the first sighting of predators cruising close to the barnyard this winter. A few weeks back a neighbor called to say he spotted a wolf just downhill from the carriage barn paddock, which really made us anxious. It's really not surprising. With the amount of snow cover and harsh cold, this winter's been hard on all living things.

I'm grateful for Holly keeping a sharp eye out for fresh tracks in the snow – and for so ably taking control of the farm for a few days, so we could take a breather.

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photography by Holly.