Dori has two children, Rachel and Joshua. She’d planned for nine, but Mother Nature, in the form of a sudden onset of insulin dependent Diabetes Type II, had intervened. There would be no more children for Dori and Keith, and “I wanted littles. Lots of littles.”

 PaPa’s decision changed her life yet again, allowing her to gradually re-build a herd of goats and sheep. She got rabbits, ducks, a turkey, a retired donkey and a workhorse who needed some TLC, and a dog, and a fulltime dawn-to-dusk JOB that suited her down to the well-fertilized ground. She got her littles. The day I visited, nearly every animal except the donkey and the horse was either in heat, soon to be in labor, or nursing a brood of babies.

 Dori’s energies were still not totally satisfied. She makes her own clothes and sews up flounced and decorated dresses for granddaughter Caitlin. Dori makes aprons, she embroiders (“everything I sew has embroidery on it somewhere”), she put up 90 jars of tomato sauce last year and just slightly fewer the year she broke her foot by falling in a gopher hole (Caitlin called it a “torn leg-ament” and that expression stuck). Dori bakes her daily bread, which is sold on a route maintained by Joshua as well at the local farmer’s markets.  Dori grinds her own chili powders and makes soaps and bath products to sell at the farmer’s market.

 “Having diabetes, I have to watch what I eat, so I make every meal from scratch. I have a dishwasher but it’s rare that I use it. It’s more fun to hang around in the kitchen after supper, talk and get the dishes done by hand.”

 Not so long ago, Keith was permanently disabled by a freak trucking accident, so he and Dori have time to be together now. That’s something that her father and mother missed out on, so despite the difficulties the family faces as a result of Keith’s injuries, Dori is aware that challenge brings its own blessings. They go to weekly stock auctions in nearby Mt Airy to buy animals and to the farmer’s market in Elkin to sell veggies and Dori’s other products. Dori created the website - http://soaringeaglefarm.tripod.com/bio.html - and edits and contributes to her own local magazine, Country Family.

 She shares stories and tips with Lehman’s Front Porch e-zine, the information chatline for Lehman’s Store, the bustling Amish/Mennonite business in Lebanon, Ohio. Dori hasn’t been to Lehman’s yet, but I have, several times. We talk about it. She figures she’ll make the pilgrimage soon, maybe to buy a couple windmills.

 “So you aren’t one of those eco-thusiasts who doesn’t want a windmill around because it messes with your view?” I’m teasing.

 Dori is in earnest. “Not at all. A windmill can be a work of art, not like the helicopter kind they have up in the Blue Ridge. I’m talking about the old fashioned kind.” Dori opines that solar energy is temperamental and unreliable. “Maybe with a windmill we can operate one of the garden pumps, a support system at the least.”

 As we talk, we walk. Dori introduces me to all the sheep and goats, including Geronimo, the boss daddy sheep who has a flock of three ladies to service. “He’s such a lover – I mean, such a warm, cheerful personality - that he has a job here as long as he wants it. All that creative energy plus a good attitude!”

 Once a critter comes to Dori, it stays to retirement and death, or if it leaves, it leaves alive. “We don’t know what happens to them after they leave,” Dori states, commenting on my implication that “her” baby goats and sheep may make a meal for local Hispanic families. “But when they leave, they’re on the hoof, on the hop, or on the feather.” She’s recently added, “on the buzz” to this list, having acquired 2 beehives.

 Dori introduces me to Pedro, her Abyssinian donkey, who acknowledges our approach with a hearty “hee-haw,” a greeting that I don’t get to hear much in my ordinary life. Dori says that Pedro is a watch-donkey, and if he senses danger, his signal is a “Haw – hee. It’s a totally different sound.” In this case, Pedro is simply cadging for extra breakfast and Dori reminds him he’s already been fed.

 Pedro shares pasture with Gabriel. Here’s what Dori has written about Gabriel on the Soaring Eagle website:

 Gabriel is a light draft horse cross, we think with an Appaloosa (the spotted rump is the LARGEST indication of this). Gabriel is a retired work horse.  In his younger days he served as the power to pull a buggy and a plow.

 He has a very sweet disposition and was broke to ride. However, in these days of leisure if he happens to see you approach with tack he is liable to come up lame. The only problem is every other step it’s a different foot. He should get an Oscar for his award winning skills.

 However, come out with an apple or any other imaginable treat and he will run right up to you no problems what so ever.