Some Time to Catch Up

Greenberry's Blueberry Bell

Monday Sue and I went to Galax for what turned out to be an all day series of seminars on starting a business. We've been to a few of these recently; there are always a few gems of information. They tend to try to cram too much into a day, though, and can't really get into details on any given subject. The presenters did very well in the time that they had to work with. We stopped back along the way and handed out brochures for the Hit and Miss Festival. There's a huge flea market in Hillsville during Memorial Day weekend, so we made sure to cover the town. If you're traveling down I-77 that weekend, allow extra time! Traffic is crazy around Hillsville.

I've been working on the blogs this week. I remodeled Squirrel Spur; tired of the green and a couple of things had gone wrong lately with the template. This template was really easy to work with; I found another one back in March I liked but it was taking hours I didn't have to add the links and other information. I never did get the web ring code to look right. This one was a snap to put together, compared to that one.

Two fine writers submitted articles to Gossamer Strands this week. Connie submitted an excellent article on the history of merino sheep, with some fun personal experience comments. Kathy from over at A Particularly Persistent Point of View wrote a wonderful piece about how she discovered rug making. This article should really help the uninitiated see how the fiber addiction grabs us. Kathy does some wonderful work; check out this link that she added in the comment section for one of her hooked rugs.

I actually managed to get some updating done to the Greenberry House site; not much but a little. I reworked the index page; it was getting too cluttered and I went back to my original idea of just a portal with main links. I added some postcards to the postcard page and tidied up a little here and there. Things have been selling fairly well, especially fiber. I really need to tackle the fiber page and update it drastically. Unfortunately, after I did the updating, I couldn't get access to my server. Yelling at the poor server guy again!

The baby bunnies are doing well. Joy lost one, which I expected since the baby seemed pretty weak. What I didn't expect is two white bunnies in this litter. I knew there was a small chance of white when I bred Quenten and Joy, since Joy has a pure grandparent and Quenten a pure great-grandparent (or something like that). But the last litter the bunnies were all different chocolates. This time there are two chocolate bunnies, one that is probably lilac, and two white ones. Mary still had nine bunnies when I checked yesterday; they all looked well fed but as they grow the runts may lose out.

The sun stayed out all day yesterday, although it was cool. I sheared Blueberry, pictured above, and Chocolat. Blueberry is the daughter of Elwood and has a lovely blue coat with lots of color. I had a buyer waiting for her wool, and packed it up and sent it off right after I sheared her. Chocolat had a nice fleece, too. He's such a good boy; while I was shearing him Dad came in needing help with a project. I left Chocolat in my chair and he just sat there until I came back.

Clouds are moving in today. I'm working in Stuart and then with the aunt on the hill. I'll probably take the opportunity to run some errands. The rest of the week will be busy. Tomorrow morning I'm going to Ferrum to interview a writer for an article for the Blue Ridge Gazette, then this weekend I'm going with Sandra and Linda to the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival up in Berryville, Virginia. Next week I have to clean up this house again for delightful company and then we are making a quick trip to Asheville to see Biltmore and pick up a rabbit. The Hit and Miss Festival is Memorial Day weekend. It all should be a lot of fun (except maybe the house cleaning!)