Wild Willow and Alpaca Fiber Basket

I finished this basket today from willow collected along side the road and the alpaca fiber I handspun a few weeks ago.

(details of the fiber and willow adorned with a snowflake)

First Snowfall

Thin beauty--

 first snowfall

coats icy fear

reminds of mortality

and also that 

angels are near.  

The Triplet Sister

Our two little goats are part of a set of  triplets. Today we brought their sister home. Her name is Emily, and her dad is a Nigerian Dwarf and her mom a Nubian/Boer mix. 

So far her brothers haven't been acting very happy to see her, and spent the day chasing her around the barnyard. I understand that that is classic goat behavior and they should accept her once they get used to her. She is very friendly and sweet and just as chunky as her brothers. 

God Is There

Facebook doesn't work for me in the middle of tragedy. I found myself getting angrier and angrier as I browsed through my feed after the Sandy Hook school shooting on Friday. I was trying to absorb the horror of it all, and I felt as if the posts on gun control or lack thereof, homeschooling as the answer, and other solutions to the problem were about using a horrific tragedy to push political and religious agendas.

But the post that made me shut down the computer was the one showing a tee-shirt where a student asks God why he allows tragedies like this in schools. God answers to the effect that he doesn't go where he isn't wanted. I shut my computer down and went for a walk instead.

Because the God I know is bigger than that. He isn't controlled by the petty actions of human beings. He is THERE. He is ALWAYS THERE. He was just as much present at this public school shooting as he was when a man walked into that little Amish school house on Oct. 2nd, 2006, and killed five little girls and wounded six others. 

I don't have the answers as to why he allows things like this to happen. But the God I know does not abandon us, even if we abandon him. In my own past he stood by me quietly, always there, even when I had stopped believing in him and believed my own life was not worth living. 

 He is there when innocent blood is shed. He is there where there is pain and suffering. He is there in the silence and the screams. He is there in quietness and despair.  At this shooting he was there in the tears of children and heroic acts of teachers and staff. 

He is there and waiting, to comfort, to save, to heal the brokenhearted, and to bind up all their wounds.

The God I know is always there. 

Linked to Imperfect Prose. 

Mossy Macros

A few photos from my walk in the woods this morning. 

Travel Lines

Linked to Skywatch Friday. 

Making Yarn the Old Fashioned Way

This is how I've been spending my evenings this week. Washing a fleece, then carding the wool by hand, and spinning it into yarn using a drop spindle may not be the quickest way to make yarn, but I find it the perfect way to relax by the wood stove in the evening after my work is done. 

(This is alpaca fiber--one of my brothers sent me a large box of raw fleece from several different colored alpacas last winter. I am finally getting to washing and spinning the fiber.)