Hand Dyed and Spun Yarn

Donna and I took a class to dye alpaca fleece last summer and we dyed a
lot of fleece using different methods. We enjoyed ourselves and since we
have 3 white alpacas, we'll have plenty of fleece to work with. Donna
finally had time to spin the dyed roving and made a two ply yarn- nice,
bright colors and have nearly 150 yards to work with. We still have more
roving to spin and we also bought some of the supplies (dyes and
mordants) to make some more.

Bread

Tried a new recipe for bread a couple of weeks ago. Turned out nice, not
the prettiest loaf I've ever made but was a very easy and quick dough to
make. I added some Parmesan cheese and a mixture of herbs and spices
from King Arthur Flour so the bread had a lot of flavor. We ate a lot of
it fresh from the oven, then more for toast and sandwiches. Ummmm, good.

Christmas 2014 Part 2

Dolores, Paul, and Donna's dad (another David!) were here to open
presents and have dinner during the late afternoon. We all ate more than
enough and exchanged presents. We played a board game later that night.
 A busy day for everyone.

Christmas 2014 Part 1

We had a nice Christmas with family and lots of presents. Here are some

pictures of the morning activities. Chris and Mary were here on Christmas Eve and stayed a couple of nights.

Footers Poured

Local concrete company poured the footers for the new house on a cold
day- foundation walls will be poured next after gravel is spread inside
the footers and drains placed around the outside.

We're using several different contractors for this build, I'm acting as
the general contractor to try and pull it all together and we'll do a
bit of the work, mostly finish electrical and trim work ourselves. Most
of the contractors we plan to use did the work on the guest cabin as

well, we were happy with all the subs we used so are asking them to work on this house as well. The main portion of the house is being framed and dryed
in by Brad Fouts. The house will have vinyl siding and a metal roof.

Here are the footer pictures.

Ground Broken for House

We've broken ground on a house here in Romney located just next to our
property. Donna's sister Dolores and brother in law Paul, along with her
dad are building the house. They are staying in the guest cabin until
this one is ready so close by to help pick out materials and get it just
the way they want it. Work started just before Christmas but just now
getting some posts and pictures online. House will be about 1600 square
feet with a two car garage in the basement. Front of the house faces to
the south with some views of the near by mountains.

Here are a couple showing the dig for the basement.

Visit from Mom and Patty

In mid-October, my sister Patty flew out from Kansas City and brought my mom with her for her first visit to our place in West Virginia. We had a great week of visiting and hanging out. While they were here, we did the Potomac Eagle train trip through the Trough. As usual, the scenery was excellent, we hit the leaves in full color and saw a few eagles from the train. Here are a couple of pictures.

Here's one of mom, Patty, and Donna.

Donna's sister Dolores, her Dad, and husband Paul. These are taken at the station before leaving- the trip down and back through the Trough on the South Branch of the Potomac takes about 3 hours.

Here are a couple of pictures of the trip, it was an overcast day but we were lucky and the rain held off.