My name is Laurie, and my friend, Joe, and I welcome you to Shadowood. Allow me to make the introductions and show you around the place.

Joe is a full-time independent piano teacher and part-time commission artist. He is also the music director at a local Church and works at Home Depot in his spare time. ;-)

I am a "Jill of Several Trades". I spend much time in the summer tending my extensive iris garden and selling these beautiful plants both locally and over the internet. Winters are spent creating and selling handmade, custom switch plates and outlet covers. I am also a free-lance writer and have had a number of articles published, mostly in national equestrian magazines but also in nature, humane, and children's periodicals.

However, my primary interest and greatest lifelong passion is ...

HORSES

Visit my horse pages to find out about my involvement with these beloved beasts. You will find much equine-related information and a number of valuable resources waiting for you there.

But before you run off to explore the horse stuff, I'd like to give you a feel for our life in the remote woods of northern Minnesota where we live on a 40 acre farm surrounded by state and federal forest. Needless to say, it's a quiet life which suits me very well, although Joe yearns for a more urban environment from time to time. Oddly, it is Joe who was born and raised in this rural environment, while I migrated north from the Chicago suburbs where I was born and raised. I suppose we're prime examples of "the grass is always greener on the other side" syndrome.

I'd like to invite you to experience some of what I feel about living on this farm. Perhaps I should first explain my move from the suburbs in Why Rural? before acquainting you with my concept of community. Once you've gained a bit of insight on our living environment, you might want to start meeting a few of the neighbors. Seats at the Table tells of some uninvited dinner guests - the four-legged variety! Can you whistle? Neither can I, but it didn't keep me from becoming a member of this unlikely chorus. And meet the neighbor who dropped by to offer me yet another excuse to avoid a pile of paperwork.

Please allow me also to introduce you to a few members of our four-legged family. Clicking on any of the following names will take you to our kids' respective pages: Pea, The Babies, Noddy, Capri, Lamie, Pretty, BooBoo, Billy, Bitsy, Weasel, Bartholomew, Somer, Annabelle, The Three Mouseketeers - Footsie, Feather, and Phantom (you won't want to miss their integration story), Sweet Sweet, Roxie, Moonie, Sarah, Aspen, Ragtime, Tasha, Pippin, and Wookie. I'm still in the process of writing their introductions, so please check back often to find out more about our wonderful and unique family. Make sure you read the dogs' lighthearted welcome. Have fun and look around; you never know what you may learn from these, our most treasured teachers.

Before you leave, you might want to spend a few minutes exploring our page of links. You'll find many useful animal, gardening, and website development sites just a click away. Check back often; I'll be adding more links regularly.

If you've an interest in such things, feel free to check out the awards Shadowood has won or view the list of winners of Shadowood's own awards.

If you came to this page through a webring, please click on either of the following links when you've finished your visit to take you to the appropriate page of webrings so you can continue your journey: Webrings - Horse or Webrings - All Others. You will find all of my webrings on one of these two pages except The Poetry Empire Webring which is on this page (scroll down).

Because this website is being constantly improved, and because I want to make it easy for returning visitors to find the new material I'm adding on a frequent basis, I've set up a what's new section which lists every addition or update to these pages in chronological order. For a quick overview of all pages here at Shadowood, you might want to take a look at the site index.

Thanks for stopping by. Please come again soon ... and please sign our guestbook before you leave.

Wallplates With Panache | Iris Pages | Horse Pages | Winners of Shadowood Website Awards | Links | Awards & Affiliations | Webrings-Horse | Webrings-All Others | What's New at Shadowood | Site Index

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