What's the Plott?

Sugar Mountain, North Carolina- easily one of my favorite places! We rent the same house year after year. It feels familiar in the best way. I love skiing. I love the mountains. I love the rhythm of coming back somewhere that holds memories for our family. This year we drove in under 60° skies. Bare ground. No snow to speak of. But the weather app kept telling me not to panic.  Snow was coming. And it came. Not gently. Not romantically. Not the soft Hallmark version. It came in 26 mph winds and ten inches of snow that fell sideways. It swirled. It blasted. It howled. At first, we thought it was pretty. Coming from South Carolina, where snow is rare, it felt magical. We had planned to hike the Glen Burney Falls trail and visit Appalachian State that morning. While hiking there was a gentle dusting... Flurries . It was really quite magical. But by the time we were off the trail and eating lunch, it wasn’t magical anymore. It was cold. Windy. Sharp. App State turned into a drive-by wi...

I wrote a post a while back called A Flock of Our Own . At the time, we were just getting started. Dreaming. Learning. Figuring it out as we went. And now… There are babies in the barn. Friday, February 6th, I noticed one of our young ewes acting… different. Not dramatic. Not obvious. Just different. She looked different. Moved different. Stood different. I told Peter, “She’s either in heat or about to have a baby.” We went to bed and didn’t think much more about it. The next morning was freezing — unusually cold for us. Peter had already left before sunrise. All the animals were tucked into the barn because of the cold. My middle son, John Grady, was on morning feed duty. He burst back into the house and said, “There’s a baby in the barn.” I didn’t believe him. I ran out in slippered feet, pajamas, and an old Carhartt thrown over the top. And there she was. Already dry. Already clean. Already groomed. It barely looked like a birth had happened at all — the sign of a very good mother e...

I’m not much of a shopper. I don’t love buying clothes—even when I need them. I don’t enjoy wandering stores or looking  for that one special something. I really don’t like spending money on much of anything... especially seasonal decorations that I know I might not even take the time to put out. It is frustrating to me that while Christmas decorations are still being boxed up, the stores have already moved on—Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter—all stacked on the shelves like time is sprinting ahead of us.  Maybe that is why I choose not to decorate for every season. It seems the seasons come and go so quickly. However, I do find myself drawn to the holiday consumable aisles with a desire  to put out a bowl of seasonal candy. Whether it's a Christmas tree shaped Reese or a Cadbury egg ... I find the holiday candies especially tempting.  Years ago, I always had a bowl of cherries on the table. It felt elegant. Thoughtful. Something I’d seen done before when h...

If you’ve been a boy mom for any length of time, chances are you’ve been involved in Scouting in some way. And if you’ve been involved in Scouts, you know that the Pinewood Derby always shows up right at the beginning of the year. For us, it’s been a staple. We’ve done every design imaginable. Every shape. Every weight trick. Every creative idea the boys could dream up. We’ve sanded, painted, puttied, and polished. We’ve won awards, placed in the top spots more times than I can count, and gone on to district races year after year. All the cars are lined up on display — tiny wooden reminders of time, effort, and boyhood. This year was our last. My youngest will age out of Cub Scouts and move into Boy Scouts in less than a month, and this felt like the final chapter of a long, familiar story. He designed a super-cool pencil-shaped car — literally called "The Pointless Pencil" — with '2B - or not 2B' written down the top side. It was clever. It was fast. It was very him....