We’re back!  Sarah and I took a hiatus from blogging and building and are just now getting back into the swing of things.  The last three months have been a whirlwind of blustery New York weather, Christmas trees, and baby lambs.  Yes, baby lambs and don’t worry… I come bearing pictures!

Every year (for the past three years) a friend and I run a Christmas tree stand at St. Marks Church in the Bowery in Manhattan.  It’s a month of preparation followed by a month of fourteen-hour days slinging conifers in the cold.  The stand is open twenty-four hours a day from Black Friday until Christmas Eve, and is such a unique, enriching community-building experience.  This year a highlight for me was having Sarah come work with us at the stand.  She not only heaved Fraser firs over fences with the fellas, but also put her superb eye towards making wreaths for us.

I also realized that as part of my work for the stand I’ve been building a “tiny house” on the street each year. It’s a 4x8x8 structure that can cozily hold three people making espresso (yes…there’s been an espresso machine).  This year I upped the ante with my newly-acquired building skills, and framed this little house in panels, built in a loft, and salvaged and installed a real door (in the past the door was hinges on a warped piece of plywood).  Next December…when our house is finished…who knows what new additions will be found in the tree stand shack?  Sky-light?  Running water?  H-VAC? We’ll see.

Christmas trees wrapped, we flew back to California for some R&R at Tassajara, then back to the sheep ranch,where we had forty new baby lambs to keep track of. Laaammmmbbbiiinnggg Speeeeed! Out of the pot and into the fire we go.  Two of the new babies didn’t bond with their mothers (a pretty common occurrence with first-time ewe mothers) so we are feeding them twice-a-day by bottle.

So the last month has been spent catching up on work with the sheep and lambs and observing the cycle of birth and death (to be continued in another post I’m sure).  We’ve also been tying up loose ends from 2013, and doing some all-important planning for 2014 – house planning, work planning, well-being and health intention-setting, financial planning, and more.  We erased our window, re-categorized some things, and believe that we now have a plan that will take us at least until July of this year…if not Christmas 😉

The tiny house is back to being built nail-by-nail, and Sarah is studying to be a certified interpreter (English-Spanish), and we’ll be posting here as we go…

Now…some sheep.