I'm joining in this wonderful worldwide blogging giveaway event - One World, One Heart! What a fantastic idea. This is the 3rd year for this fun event - basically it's a fantastic way to meet new folks from around the world, check out their blogs and see what cool/fun/creative/crafty things they are up to, and maybe win free stuff!


I am offering a FREE SCARF OF YOUR CHOICE from my etsy store. I use natural dyes, and have an absolute blast creating gorgeous 100% silk scarves such as this:


or this:
If you win, you get to choose ANY SCARF YOU WANT. Cool, huh?

To win you must:

1. Leave a comment on my blog, on THIS POST, by February 11th.
2. Leave your EMAIL ADDRESS so that I have a way to contact you if you win!

The winner will be announced Feb. 12th.

Please enjoy reading my blog and maybe even check out my etsy store. (I sell naturally dyed silk scarves and hankies, mohair locks, furoshiki and handspun yarns). Let me know what your favorite scarf is in the comments, if you like! :)

If you are interested in natural dyeing, here is a free article I wrote on rust-dyeing for Hobby Farms Magazine - enjoy!

Good luck, and I cant wait to hear from all you One World One Heart blog participants! For all of you visiting my blog for the first time -my name is Maggie and I also co-own an herb shop called Prairieland Herbs. I love to spin, knit, ready, play with herbs, cook, do yoga and martial arts, and have a whole load of cats and dogs.

So, I finally got my spinning mojo back. I do LOVE to spin -but just haven't really felt like it for several months. I'd been on a bit knitting kick. Then, Monday afternoon - blam. The urge to spin struck. OH! it feels soooooo good to be spinning again.

Of course, the cats LOOOOOVE when I spin. Fiber is fun!! Oj (above) just likes to lay on it. MMM....fiber is soft.

Tori is a bit younger, and cannot resist attacking/killing/disemboweling/chewing on/and generally mauling bumps of roving. Here she is trying to act all innnocent ("Who me? Touch your roving? Nope. it was, um...the other kitties?? No, the dog! The dog did it.")...but yet somehow, I know that she is not entirely guilt-free :).

And, biggest surprise of all, my 7 year old nephew Toby has quite an aptitude for spinning! He is expecially good at pedaling - he and I did lots of "co-spinning", where he works the pedals and I work the fiber. But he did have a go of spinning on his own, and did a mighty fine job. (No, he does not have some sort of strange disease -he painted his face to look like a tiger. Raarrr!!!)

It's a lazy snowy Sunday here. We got a few inches of light, fluffy snow last night....it's piled up on the plants and the fenceposts, as you can see above.

The pets are all sleepy. Here is Ollie in his favorite spot on the couch. He looks rather small in this photo, but he's really a big boy - about 110 lbs.

Asparagusis enjoying watching the world go by, from his spot on the cat tree.

Tori and Spike are having a cute and cuddly nap. They are the "babies" of the family.

Pop quiz: How many kitties do you see? A hint - it's 50% of our cat population...and 4/5ths of our tabby cat population. :)

And, now for this week's edition of Freezer and Pantry Soup:

Vegetable Butternut Soup with Chevre and Pesto

6 or 8 carrots, sliced
2 onions, chopped
1/2 head celery (optional: I just had some that needed to be used up)
1 head garlic, chopped
olive oil for sauteeing
8 cups veggie stock (as usual, mine is homemade from leftover bits of veggies)
1 quart bag frozen corn
1 quart bag frozen heirloom tomatoes
3 cups mashed butternut squash
1/2 cup (or to taste) pesto
8 oz. chevre
dried sage, dried thyme, dried parsley, cracked black pepper, 2 bay leaves, and sea salt

Sautee onions, carrots, garlic and celery in olive oil. Add veggie stock, frozen veggies - heat to simmer. Add butternut, pesto, chevre, and herbs -simmer until veggies are all at your desired texture and the flavors are blended. That's it! this made a BIG batch. If you preferred, you could add cubed butternut instead of mashed,but I liked the creaminess the mashed butternut (and chevre) added to the soup. Everything I used was locally grown or produced, except for the celery,olive oil, sea salt, and pepper. YUM!