I’ve always loved to write. When I was young I wrote short stories and poems and school reports and angst-ridden diary entries. As I grew older I wrote essays and articles. I freelanced for several magazines and newspapers and wrote two monthly columns when my children were young. One of these columns was about life on our small farm.

I homeschooled my children, worked our small farm, built my craft business and wrote on the side for many years. When my kids were teenagers, I started working full time at the local newspaper. By the time my kids were ready to enroll in the local community college, I was managing editor of a small agricultural publications group on the eastern plains of Colorado. That’s where I met my partner, Shawn. We merged households and found ourselves raising four teenagers together.

In 2002, Colorado experienced the worst drought in tree-ring history. Our farm on the high plains got 2 ¼ inches of rain that year. I experienced the great walls of dust storms that drove early pioneer women crazy. Like those women, I hung wet towels and blankets over my windows and doors to shut out the howling winds and airborne dirt. We had a community well on our farm and water rationing allowed us 8,000 gallons a month – nowhere near enough to keep 2 adults, 4 teens, 10 horses and more than 200 sheep and goats hydrated. We hauled water by truck from the next town over and started making plans to find a new home more suited to the farm life we loved.

We looked all over the US. Growing up as an Army brat, I had lived throughout the country. My dad’s home base was Redstone Arsenal, Alabama and I have a special fondness for the hills of Tennessee. West Virginia caught our attention and we also studied the coast of Oregon. We spent time in Hammond, Louisiana and Heber Springs, Utah. Sometime in there, I started blogging, not regularly, just writing a few things, every once in a while.

In 2005, Joe Jewel, an amazing musician, spent his summer playing hammered dulcimer in front of our booth at the Colorado Renaissance Festival. He told us of a magical land called Mountain View, Arkansas, where water falls out of the sky and wood grows on trees. He also talked about a great place for crafts people, the Ozark Folk Center. That year, we juried into the Bella Vista Craft Show in October and traveled to Arkansas to check it out. At the same time, wonderful lifetime friends of ours, Robin and Summer Woodsong, bought land in Fox, Arkansas, about an hour from Mountain View.

The Bella Vista craft show was wonderful. Dollar-wise, it was our second best show of the year. The people were very nice, both crafters and visitors. The staff was well-organized and helpful. It is one of our favorite craft shows.

Everything came together like some kind of divine plan. Robin and Summer helped us move our entire farm from Colorado to their land. We built barns and fences using the trees on the land. We lived in a camper and tents. The winter of 2006 was rough in Colorado and every trip back to the farm to pick up another load confirmed that we had made the right decision to move.

In 2007, I started working as a contract crafts person at the Ozark Folk Center. I demonstrated soap making, drove Rosie the mule, cooked in the Country Kitchen and helped in the gardens. I saw little things that could be done to help make life easier for the contract craft business people at the park and make the park a better experience for the visitors. In March of 2008 I accepted the position of Craft Director. After three years of commuting the very scenic hour from Fox to Mountain View, we bought our small farm just outside of Mountain View.

My days are full of weaving, spinning, sheep, goats and the delightful, creative people I work with. Countless stories weave their threads through the week. Almost every morning, I wake up with stories and ideas that I want to share with my friends and family. I usually write my blog posts about 5:30 a.m., before going out to do morning milking and feeding. I never have enough time to write all the ideas I’d love to share. I am blessed to have such a wonderful, full life and I hope some of my stories give you a smile.

 

Jeanette Larson is the craft director at the Ozark Folk Center  in Mountain View, Arkansas.  She writes about Spinning Dreams and Weaving Yarns on her blog www.jenonthefarm.com.