Merry Christmas to everyone.
I got over my writer's block and moved on. And now working on Chapter 14.
Everything came to skidding halt as Christmas has approached. Mark and I are spending Christmas this year with my m up in New Hampshire. My mother lives next to my aunt Cathy, who lives in a big, white, New England farmhouse that has been in my family for over 100 years.
It sounds lovely, and it's not bad to spend Christmas in, but the house has never had much work done on it, and is falling apart.
The family farm itself was originally only about 25 acres, and never supported our family. My great-grandfather was a blacksmith, and my grandfather ran a taxi service that he turned into a small regional bus company. The children took care of the animals, which included a milk cow, a few sheep, goats, chickens and a duck. Grandmamma took care of the vegetable garden, did the canning, braided the rugs, and whatnot.
The crop land has since been turned into an eight-unit housing development, pasturage for three horses, and then the rest has just gone back to words, like much of northern New England.