Hello again from Maybelle Farm.  I can't believe its been so long since I wrote for our blog.  I just checked and it was July 27th when we last added to the blog.  It is now Monday Sept. 5th, 2011 and its pouring rain this afternoon.  Maybelle Farm came through Hurricane Irene without too much damage.  Our road washed out some and the small brook went over my spring, but we are up on a hill so were safe from serious damage.  I'm so glad that we live up here!   Before Irene arrived, we shut our 39 sheep in the barn and screwed the backdoor closed because we were worried about heavy rain and wind.  The sheep just stayed inside munching away, oblivious to the terrible weather.  At the bottom of our hill is Rt. 100.  This was washed out both above severely to the north and south of our hill. My nephew Norman, who lives on Route 100 right at the bottom of our hill,  and his family lost their shed, garage and home due to the flooding Whetstone Brook.  My niece Jackie, who is our Town Clerk, also lost her home along with five other houses in our town.  The river came up so high that my niece Debbie went to my brother Burdette's house to rescue them.  My brother Burdette just turned 82 yrs. old and they were in their basement trying to pump out water and didn't know how high the river was.  All the towns around here were hit very hard and the roads are washed out in so many places.  The schools have postponed the opening and Darcy has to go back tomorrow if she can get there.  It is so scary to hear the rocks rolling in the brooks and to see the water come up so fast.  We are all so very lucky to be safe.

The summer has been so very busy and now here is fall.  Where did the time all go?  We had a good garden and still have summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, spinach, carrots, beets and which is wonderful.  When the power was out during the days after the hurricane all of us on the "hill" decided to get together to help each other out until we could be reconnected with the world.  The local excavating companies and my brother Everett and nephew Mark have been working long, long days trying to clean up the mess from the flood.  The National Guard arrived on Wednesday to start helping with the repairs and helicopters have been delivering supplies.  We have been getting together every night at my niece Debbie's house for supper. Everyone brought stuff to eat because we were without power from Sunday to Thursday night.  We all used up stuff from our freezers as some of us had generators but others just had to cook up lots of stuff.  There was anywhere from 15-25 people each night and then Saturday night we had a birthday supper/party for Burdette.  It is very comforting to be with family through this and everyone is looking out for each other.

We do have some exciting news from Maybelle Farm! Cheryl Flett,  who taught the Fiber Fun Camps this summer, had the students make a wool mural as a part of their weekly projects.  She entered it at the Deerfield Valley Fair in Wilmington and it won FIRST prize and also "Best in Show" so we have two blue ribbons!!  We have donated the mural to the Wardsboro Public Library.  It will be raffled off at the Gilfeather Turnip Festival and the money from the raffle of this mural will go to the Library.

I have put a couple of the little ram lambs up for sale so I will add a couple of pictures to this blog.  I'm going to put a picture of Norman's house with the river going around it and then some of the sheep too.

That's all from Maybelle Farm for this time.

Kathleen