Well, we woke up this morning to a beautiful little blanket of snow on the ground, much to our surprise.

Just two nights before we had an incredible storm move through leaving it's twisting path behind.

We have somewhere between 30 to 50 trees down in a tangled mess on the ridge just about 400 yards behind our house.

We are very thankful to the Lord that nothing but trees and fence lines were down and that no people or animals were injured.

On the bright side of the storm is, we'll have plenty of fire wood for next winter and canning season.

 The newest {and prettiest} addition to the farm, a two year old palomino filly!

She's a little muddy, but she'll clean up nice. We have not named her yet and she is only halter broke- so we have our work cut out for us this spring.  Fun work!  :)

Fleck in the snow.

We got our birdhouses in a row.

Enjoying the morning sun with Maybelline.

Beautiful snow on some cedar trees.
By the way, we wanted to let y'all know that our Specialty Soaps, Homesteaders Soaps and Rolling Pin Recipe Card Holders are on sale while supplies last, so drop by www.homestead-blessings.com

The Good Lord willed, and the creek did rise!

And the rains came down and the floods went up...

and up...

and there was a little Mississippi in our yard!

Then we got the classic Southern winter storm, no snow but ice!

It makes everything so pretty, the only kind of crystal a country girl wants!

The horses paid the storm no mind,

just as long as they got their way, I mean hay!

A glassy canopy over our chert road...

all the way home again.

Winter is here, in it's mild Tennessee manner. Today we even had a beautiful snow shower that stuck to the trees making it look very wintery out. We are keeping busy on the homestead, yesterday morning we mucked out the barn stalls where the horses and cow make their winter abode. It was quite a job, but we got it done just in time for a wonderful dinner and fellowship with some friends down the creek, over the ridge and through the woods.
It is our prayer that all of y'all had a wonderful year past and have a very blessed on to come!

So many holiday cards from friends and family hang over the dinner table

Dinner settings

Off -grid winter lighting, puts out a warm, cozy glow

One of our ewe's, Lassie, lambed in December!

It's always so much fun to have babies on the farm!

The little ewe, Holly, and Mama

It's supper time!

Our other ewe, Starr, had just one lamb, we call her Cocoa.

Getting kisses from Holly.

Winter days brings out sewing, stitching and crocheting to be worked on in front of the woodstove. 

The finished product, a crochet rug made from rags!

Blessings from the Homestead.

Howdy Y'all from Homestead Blessings!
   As you can see, we are covered in snow and it is so much fun! We love snow!
We have been very busy and productive on the homestead these past few months and due to that {and a cranky camera} we have not been so productive on blogging. What is that they say? Oh, "you can't have your cake and eat it too". I reckon we could change that saying to "you can't have your homestead and blog too". :)

     Back in the fall we helped our dear friends in Alabama harvest their first sorghum crop. It was lots of fun and a load of work too! Here, where we live, our neighbors make sorghum every year and we usually help out in the fields- so it was a new adventure when we were blessed with the opportunity to help out our friends.
   In September, we got to attend an Old Fashioned Ice Cream Social and Dance at a church fellowship not too far from here. We had a lovely time and met some wonderful new friends which is always a blessing. Most everyone who attended the dance came arrayed in period clothing with the Civil War being the main theme and we learned new dances like "The Tennessee Traveler" and "The Grand March".
    Thanksgiving was quiet at home and another family came to share our bountiful meal with us and in the late afternoon we had a huge rain storm which then brought cooler weather. We really had a good time decorating {in any creative manner we could} for the holiday of thankfulness. Jasmine and I found these beautiful green tinted wine goblets for only fifty cents each and we bought all of them {there were only 8}. Then I made name tags cut out in the fall leaf shapes with scripture on the back and we tied them to the goblets to complete our table setting decor. The meal was delightful with the usual dishes including our own homegrown turkey, weighing out to be 19 pounds dressed! We were pretty excited I must say.
  And now, here of late we have been painting the house, room by room. It has been such a blessing to "build our house" as the woman in Proverbs 31 does. Coming up next is maple syrup {yeah!} and seed planting and chicken butchering and spring plowing....      Well! I better go and get busy! :)
                 Y'all take care and many blessings to your homesteads!
                                      Cecilia for the West Ladies