Mid-January: Good morning all! NOTE: to self.  Do NOT smirk and smile that the ground is bare on the first of January.  Mother Nature will be watching you.  In return for your big toothy smile and smirk, she will DUMP snow on you.  I believe it was like maybe 2 hours after writing you last and proclaiming the bare ground, that it started to snow.  Big time!  And has pretty much done it ever since.  My arctic boots barely get the snow off them before they are back in use again!  Yesterday it snowed ALL day.  I cleared the first 12 inches off the pavers, and before I could even get back in, it was several inches deep  again.  So I spent a good deal of yesterday shoveling snow.  And it is COLD.  Today we are expecting a high of 8 degrees!  Are you hearing this, Phoenix?  So, in the future, I will not be smiling so big, I will just whisper the news to you and you promise not to tell, OK?  The upside of this is I am still hanging on to the hope that shoveling snow will make me tall and thin.  So far that thought has not become reality, but it keeps me shoveling during the whole winter...just in case. I haven't yet gotten to work on the "organizing".  Bet that surprises you, huh?  Actually I don't have a clue what I have been doing.  Putting the dolls on eBay was time consuming.  And, as we have discussed in the past, my sorely lacking computer skills makes that task ever slower for me.  Inspite of the fact that Beulah does all the camera work and uploading etc.  You will note, however, that you don't get the whole lengthy list of who gets this letter anymore, because I discovered the purpose of the Bcc: thingie on the screen.  That blocks all those pesky addresses from showing up! I tell you, I learn something new on this drated computer everyday!  Bill Gates, I am not...but I feel a little more "worldly" each time I discover something new!  OK, I know.  You already knew about the Bcc: Everybody knows more about computers than I do.  BrunieMae ( www.saltbox.com ) didn't! and she is pretty smart, so that bolstered my ego some! All this outside activity in the cold and snow has made me dig into the front hall closet where I keep my unorganized pile of hats and gloves (on the floor) in a heap, to find the famous red wool ski cap.  This cap is NOT attractive.  But it keep my forehead warm.  Well actually more, because I usually wear it way down, so about all you see is a little bit of face.  The many times I venture outside during the day with this piece of beauty on my head has really done some serious wrecking of my hair.  Besides being way OVERDUE on coloring, my hair is really long now.  Remember when I told you last January that January and February are my self destruct months? These are the months when I usually think I should cut my hair.  I think this nearly each day now. I am contemplating about 8 inches off.  I am sure that chocolate would clear my mind on this, but I have sworn that off for awhile, but may have to rethink that and buy a bag of something to gulp down before I cut my hair.  The upside of another dimple on my ankle from the chocolate would be that if I don't get desperate about a hair cut, then I don't have Ron cut it. NEVER let your husband cut  your hair!! NEVER!!  The aftermath of that is very detrimental to your mental health..... I am sure I am still suffering anxiety attacks from that... Crow soup came out this morning!   www.crowsoup.com  I haven't gone around the entire list of exhibits today yet.  Had to shovel snow, remember?  But did go to a few of my favorites to check  out their new stuff.  I will look around later.  We are at http://www.crowsoup.com/Market586.php that link should take you right into us. THANKS for looking!! Also would like to show you http://www.topsitelists.com/bestsites/amycrafts/topsites.ht  this is a top sites list that showcases primitives, country, candles and patterns etc. Laurie does a great job on this. Pour yourself some thing hot and wander around on that. Also Beulah is making some changes on our web site.  www.highbuttonshoe.net When you come in now, you will see a different page to start off with.  I love it!  She is working with some new darker colors.  You don't see them all yet, as several are still in the works.  I saw the pictures and love the look.  Many are in the dull brown (sepia) colors of age.  Gives the stuff a very different look.  As time allows we ( Yes! SHE, not me!) will be adding this to the web site. Thanks for asking to be a part of the farm.  Farm life for the moment consists of keeping the wood stove filled with wood, my many paths shoveled in the mounting snow, feeding the wild turkey herd, and going thru patterns for new ideas.  I spent a couple hours today painting new dolls, angels, and critters.  The haircut?  hopefully I call the hair stylist before I collar Ronnie in the hall again.  Bad! That is just plain bad! OK check out all the stuff. In fond regard, Miss Clotilda

January Newsletter~ I personally think that Christmas should come in August.  I simply can not fit it nicely into December.  There is too much to do. BEFORE Ron got sick so we missed Christmas completely..we were doing the mad rush like everyone else to get everything done that we all think is so important, when in reality, I doubt it is. We ended up with NO Christmas tree this year. And I KNOW this was the year the Tree Beautiful people were coming to photograph the house too!  My house is simply too full to accommodate a tree very easily without moving a bunch of furniture. And my brain fuzzies from all the show activity and our Christmas Open House at the shop carried over to my plans for decorating for the holidays.  I DID get the shop decorated, does that count for anything?  My Christmas tree almost always leans toward those ratty ones with only a few branches and holes here and there. Bet you already suspected that, huh? I usually start walking around the farm's many plantings of trees to find just the right candidate of bad tree, around August.  Our trees are wild, no spraying color on them, and no trimming, what you see is the tree in it's natural state. Didn't this year, and didn't really think about a tree until we did the show in Mt. Vernon just before Thanksgiving.  One exhibitor close to us had brought in this (about 7-8') dead tree.  I figured it was for display and it was so totally cool. However, she SOLD it !  It had a trunk about 5-6" across and was tall, but the very few branches it had, maybe 10, were all dead. I, of course, loved it. So naturally, my brain is thinking o'boy, dead tree.  We probably have some around the farm some where. The next  day I headed out to the pines, where I always drag the Christmas tree of the previous year when I take it out. Thinking surely it would be DEAD, it was. However, as I let Ron choose the Christmas tree last year, and given the choice, he cuts a nice (normal)  one, that dead tree, while all the needles had fallen off, had WAY too many branches. I mentioned my dead tree fetish  to him, so the day after Thanksgiving, we jumped in the truck and headed for the swamp. Didn't I tell you before that the BEST stuff comes from swamps?? And with him driving this time, we didn't bury the truck in the mud, as I did with the swamp thing this spring.  He tells me I need a dead CEDAR tree not a dead blue spruce. We laughed ourselves silly contemplating being in a swamp with saws to cut a dead tree for Christmas.  We ended up with 3 really nice dead trees.  Only a few branches.  And then cut all the fresh boughs I needed for the shop displays too. I want you to go in and look at the new shop tour pictures of Christmas on the home page  www.highbuttonshoe.net ,  (click on shop tour) anyway, but the dead tree in the shop is shown in the grandma's room.  As my tree problem for our house continued, I contemplated one of the dead trees for here. However, could not QUITE get that one past Ron. The living room could accommodate a skinny, no branches, dead tree. But not a live one. That left me with either a table top tree (live, still) in the living room, but I would have to move the big martin house on the table somewhere..... or in the corner in the dining room by the window, where I would never get to see it. So thus, we had no tree.  BrunieMae ( www.saltboxfarm.com)  thought my dead tree was a great idea. If you are so inclined to see what SHE did for her Christmas Open House out of her house, she has pictures up on http://community.webshots.com/user/saltboxfarm and she did a huge tree, along with all the trimmings of Christmas evident everywhere, INCLUDING her bathroom.  The upside of my No Tree Christmas is that while all of you had to take it all down and have needles everywhere in the carpet all the way to the door.....I don't! While I logically know that we can begin anew at ANY time, the first of the year always makes me think the slate is clean and I can start over. I don't make any resolutions, due to my total lack of discipline. That organized part of this household, and reluctantly me, have decided we are organizing the house this winter. Climbing over all my heaps of stuff ( great stuff, really!) in our utility room, Ronnie took measurements for shelves. You have to know the man himself to realize the scope of accuracy and exactment that he does everything with! So he draws an outline on paper with the proposed shelving. And we are off to Home Depot for the wire shelving and all the stuff you need to go with it. And boxes.  I now have 20  (20!!) big plastic boxes with covers, to put all this sorted out stuff in and our entire walls will have boxes to the ceilings with organized stuff! Being somewhat skeptical of the finished outcome of this monumental undertaking, I am still keeping a positive outlook on this project and telling myself everyday, yes, I can do this!! And I don't even have my fingers crossed behind my back! However, IF you don't hear from me in a reasonable amount of time, better check up on me.  I might have succumbed to a landslide of junk on me, and couldn't crawl out from under it. And I have temporarily given up chocolate, so won't even have that to tide me thru till somebody discovers me!  I did look over this one book I have on organizing things however, and it must be SOME of you out there are organized people, so there might be hope for me. With all these plans for "organizing", I missed getting my things photographed for ranting raven. Kathy manages to get it out, even if I don't!! But better check it out.  www.rantingraven.com  click on directory.  And, while I had little to do with this, because we all know of my VERY limited computer knowledge! Beulah (aka Robie) put up our dolls on eBay today. We have some new ones, if you would care to check them out.  If this works, it should take you there. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2585884072 click on other items seller is showing (or some such words) and it will show all the dolls we are showing. Otherwise, if that doesn't work... click on ebay auctions off our homepage.  OH, and when you go into  our home page to see all the changes we made in the shop display, and to see that dead tree!  click on shop tour/ folk art.  Beu put up some new thumbnail pictures of some new stuff we did. Click on the picture and it will make it bigger. In ending, I want to share with you that we have NO SNOW AT ALL on the ground!! Yup! I know you can see me smiling from where you are! I 'spect its just a matter of time, but now my winter hating soul is smiling thinking...only 3 more  months of winter! YES!! And you KNOW the turkeys like this so much better. I have my Arctic boots right out in sight, so I know where they are, but my feet LOVE the bare ground. Thanks for asking to be a part of the farm.  I gave you lots to look at this time, so take a break from putting all that Christmas stuff away, grab some coffee and, check out some of this stuff. In fond regard. Miss Clotilda