Photographic images posted to 
Designer scarves and shawls added to 
Lovely buck from summer litters that carries chocolate gene for sale.
Dyeing, Dyeing, Dyeing!
Spinning a hand carded blend of my fawn angora, moorit wool and tussah silk on my Reeves Wheel
Posted in Other Stuff
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At the top of Squirrel Spur MyThreeDaughters lives in North East Victoria, Australia and said in a comment on the last post that my house reminded her of the house that she lives in in a town of about 1,000. I visited her blog, Snowys, and it's a delightful 'trip' over. There's a particularly interesting entry on planting tips, and some beautiful pictures. It's interesting to read about someone's life so far away, and see what is different, and what is the same. To answer her question, the house in the pictures on this blog is mine. It was built, probably before 1900, on a piece of land that had an older house on it, which was probably closer to the existing springhouse. The original land grant that included this house belonged to a family called Langhorne, who came to the area in the 1830s or so. They found a few people already settled, some old families with names like Boyd, Eden, Reynolds, and Webb. The first Langhorne is credited with naming the small community here Meadows of Dan. The Dan River begins on a small farm here, and apparently the area had been cleared by a forest fire when the first settlers arrived. The piece of property that belongs to my house was originally given by the Langhornes to a denomination for building a church. The money was never raised for this purpose and it came into private hands.
Window This farm belonged to my father's father, who bought it in the 1920s after working in the coal mines of West Virginia. The original house was four rooms, two up and two down, and, like most old houses, has seen birth and death, joy and sorrow. Sometime during the 1930s a two room addition with a basement was built at the back side of the house, to provide a kitchen and dining room. People around here didn't name their houses and farms in the early days. This was probably because they were of mostly German descent and from common stock and it wasn't part of their tradition. Houses were known by the names of the families that owned them the longest. The name of the business is Greenberry House, which I took, at the suggestion of a cousin, from the first name of my great-grandfather Steadham. The farm itself doesn't really have a name.
My kitchen The rooms are not large, with low ceilings and hardwood floors in the old part of the house. We lived here when I was a child and my father did some work on the house, remodeling the kitchen and adding a bathroom. He also enclosed the open porch at the front of the house and made part of it into a bedroom for my brother and me.
Kitchen, with my favorite purple chairs When I moved here in 1990, the house had fallen into some disrepair because it was rented. I did what I could afford at the time, replacing neglected plumbing, ceilings and floors. I lived here for two months with no lights except in the bathroom because the wiring had to be redone. Fortunately it was in the summer with the longer days! Later I had siding put onto the house, new windows put in and remodeled the livingroom. Livingroom I spent most of five years looking after my grandfather, so during that time the house served mostly as a place to store my stuff. He became feeble in his last years and couldn't be left alone, right after I finished remodeling the livingroom and putting the siding up. I was working nights and staying with him during the day, so my financial situation kept me from really completing the needed repairs to the house. I'm planning to remodel and expand the kitchen, put on another tin roof, and add a porch.
Livingroom There's always work to be done to an old house. Along with the remodeling I want to do some basic painting needs to be done; the livingroom floor needs another coat and the doors need a touchup this spring. I had the floor in what was my bedroom refinished but I couldn't afford to do the livingroom. So I painted it, a tradition in this area. I really like painted floors, and eventually I can have the floor sanded and polyed when it's affordable.
Computer Room The former dining room is now my computer room, where I spend my mornings writing, working on web pages, researching books and antiques, and blogging. A cheerful cockatiel chatters along with my keyboard, and often a sleeping spaniel or labrador puppy curls up to sleep at my feet under the desk.
My Bedroom under the eaves My father moved in with me a year ago, and I put him in the bedroom I had downstairs. This moved me up to a cozy little room upstairs, which also needs some work but has pleasant memories for me. When I was small this was the 'junk room', a necessity to store the many odds and ends that the generations had collected. We played here when we were little, discovering our family history through the pieces that they had collected. It's a wonderful room for reading at night, with the wind blowing in the eaves and the rain rumbling on the metal roof.
My Studio My studio and workroom is also upstairs, but since Dad moved in I've had to cram a lot of stuff in there and I work in the livingroom most of the time now. My great-grandmother's spinning wheel is pictured on the right, beside a walking wheel that we bought at an auction in Lexington, Virginia.
Part of the stash Last fall we started construction on a shop building here beside the house. With our location just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, we hope to attract tourists to our antique and book store, and I plan to use a small portion as a working studio. I think people will enjoy seeing me spin and clip bunnies. My way of life is very quiet, and the busy visitors that come to our area want to know about how we live here and what we do. Sharing our heritage and traditions is part of what we offer. My house, imperfect as it is, is a small place of quiet and calm. I sit spinning near a window where I can look out and see busy birds in the apple tree bird feeders. Sunshine streams into the computer room, and the vista from those windows is fields, neighbors and a placid pond. I wash dishes looking out at the same pond, watching the ripples as the wind tosses the surface. And at night moonlight streams into the window of my bedroom, while the wind blows across the eaves. |
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