I'm so glad the brain MRI was clear, and I am thinking of you both as M goes into his double-chemo regime. Hugs to you both!

Donna, What an amazing project! (Not that I'd expect any less of you.) Congratulations on persevering, and on having the passion to give back to Lithuania too through the publishing process. And on making your Pubslush goal early--you go!

I'm with Rod and others: I think terroir is a perfectly appropriate word for landraces and fleece. Thanks for appropriating it and for the discussion. I chuckled with you about the peat, since I've spent some time in peat bogs as a botanist (yes, they're very mucky, especially at certain times of year) and those fine organic particulates are very familiar. (And very interesting under a microscope, should one choose to collect them and look!)

Wow! The motif sweater is just gorgeous, are those afghans. I love the landscapey look to the design in both of them. And the crayola sweater is fun. You do such beautiful work, with such respect for the fiber and those who produce it. Thank you. Blessings to you and M….

Thanks for this post and congratulations on the publication of Stone Cold, Dead, Catherine! It's great to know that your hard work and vision paid off, and that you have serendipity in your favor with the Prospectors series too. Isn't it interesting that we accept coincidence in life, but we question it in fiction? That's something for me to think about as I finish my second memoir and ponder my long-time aim of writing mystery. Good luck with the book!

Wonderful updates, Deb! I want a Ryeland for my yard.... :) I hope Orkney is a treat.

Hugs coming from here too. See you next Monday to give some in person....

Just lovely. Thanks for sharing her with us....

Wow! I had no idea how much work was involved, or the care needed to keep the wool from felting. I love your creative solution with the cat litter boxes--great idea! I'm looking forward to the next parts too, to learn more about a process I had no idea I knew so little about.

I hope that Estes Park was healing or at least restorative, and I'm so glad for the timing of the first issue of PLY with your "First Sheep" article. That's surely cheering and also validating. You're doing what you need to do, whether in the love of your family, or your love of sheep and fiber. Take comfort in that and in the supportive community you've woven over the years. xo from me!

Serene Corner it truly was. I'm so glad she had you and Beth and Becka and the rest of the family (love those photos of her and the family!), and that you had her too. Blessings and much love coming your way....

Tussah was lucky, and so were you and Bekah and Ariel and Ceilidh. I'm sending much love to you, and hopes that Ariel and Tussah are hanging out together in the dog-spirit world....

I got tears in my eyes reading about the Dreaming of Shetland eBook project, Deb. I'm thrilled that you have this innovative and dedicated support-group, and that they're helping make it possible for you to pursue your passion, which of course will benefit all of us. Yay! And what a treat it is to see your art peeking out from around the words. Those research notebooks are like any artist's illustrated sketchbooks, and would make intriguing eBooks themselves, just to show others how to present information graphically. (Yes, I can see the influence of Tufte, but you've developed your own systems for conveying number data visually and they're very compelling as images.) I'm excited for you and the work ahead.

Pencils to Theo Chocolate to St Kilda yarn--the thread being attentiveness to living thoughtfully and lightly, and making beauty as we go--lovely post! Thanks for the view of the world through your always interesting and informative perspective.

Snirk! I hadn't thought of the Border-collie-instincts part....

Oh, yeah. I love this post! Especially the Ram's head. Is that how you know it's the right direction--because you'll grow a full curl if you go that way? ;)

I figured choosing the locks for the Field Guide might give you a new perspective on the sheep breeds. As for the "Rhymes with Orange" comic, it was perfect timing for me too, as I start into learning finish carpentry to finish this house.... I'm sorry about your bandwidth issues, and hope they're resolved soon, but the testing itself sounds horribly taxing. :(

I think you're right about the re-photography. With the smaller format, it'll be critical to have clean, comparable shots. Sorry it means so much packaging for you though! BTW, you'd appreciation the comic that begins my latest blog post. It's about finding the equation to explain the difference between how long we think a project will take and how long it actually takes. ;) http://susanjtweit.com/2012/12/catching-up-keynote-comic.html/

Deb, I think if your samples are only missing three breeds, that's extraordinary. Great job! I can't wait to see how the new guide turns out. I'm sure it'll be as well-written and visually appealing as FNF.

Wow! What a brilliant idea. I clicked through to Susan's announcement and then spent a happy half-hour reading about Juniper Hill Farm. I love the scholarship to get more women into shearing school especially. Having helped out with lambing (always at two in the morning, always in a blizzard--what's with that?) and shearing earlier in my life, I can say that once you get involved with sheep intimately, they do tend to take hold of your heart. Thanks for the post about this, Deb!

Thanks for the field trip, Deb! What fun to meet the yaks and learn about their fiber and the yarns coming from it. That Yak/silk combo sounds wonderful. Your fingerless mitts are lovely too. And congrats on filling Explore 4 (v.2) beforehand--the participants are lucky to be working with you....

Deb, It sounds like the research for the workshop gave you new material for that wide-ranging book, and an expanded framework for understanding what I hope you'll be writing about someday. We've talked about doors opening from F&F, and it seems like they still are, and they're interesting ones that pay as well. I like that! BTW, that Cormo sweater is gorgeous! And looks wonderful on you. It's nice to see you looking relatively relaxed in the photo. (I realize it's only relatively, but still, given all you're dealing with, that's a big achievement.)

Wow! Congratulations. It's great to see the finished article after hearing about it on and off over the past year. I know you could have said a lot more, and I hope you'll get the chance to do that in book form one of these days, but I think amassing all of that breed and lineage information and then distilling it into an overview is a huge contribution. I love the photo of the Ryelands on the cover, too!

Deb, As I said on FB last night, I am so sorry for your friends. What a tragedy! The High Park Fire, and the other large fires burning in Colorado this summer, seem to me to be an example of the "perfect storm" of fire conditions: extreme drought drying soils, fuels, and atmosphere to tinderbox conditions, too many decades of successful fire prevention allowing natural fuels to build to dangerous levels, pine bark beetle cycles amplified by the above conditions, and too many people living in forests that can no longer be allowed to burn with regular small fires because of all of the development. Oh, and the warming and drying due to global climate change. That we can explain what's happening doesn't make it any less tragic, especially for your friends. May they find the support they need, and thank you for being part of that! (Don't forget to take care of you, too.)

Yikes. I don't think tomorrow's predicted weather is going to help much. it's cool and wet here in the PNW, and I imagine flying home tomorrow evening we'll get a pretty spectacular view of the fire. I wish I could bring rain with me, but I'm afraid this is our year of confronting the triple-threat of drought/global climate change/fuels build-up. Stay as cool as you can and as out of the smoke as you can.