My parents arrived last night, after catching an evening flight, stopping at the store (madness), and driving the long, dark way out. Poor mom was riding shotgun and therefore had gate duty when they at long last reached our driveway. It was, of course, raining.
My stepdad was looking watching through the rear view mirror to make sure mom would be okay out there, when he noticed that something was wrong with the mirror - it appeared that the gate was in front of Mom! That's when he realized that my mother had shut herself outside the gate....
The next precious picture I am anticipating is my mom donning my daughter's rubber boots (at least they are as stylish as rubber boots can be - pink with running horses) and slogging out to visit my sheep. It really is precious, because the mud and barn muck is not my mom's natural element, but she is gung ho. One visit she and the kids had the horse stall so clean it gleamed.
I think I am winging it a bit today -usually, I have this tight schedule of all the dishes starting at 5 am, but the turkey is a bit smaller than usual and everyone wants to eat later, so I guess I will figure it out as I go along - especially since I am not sure how many people are showing up (love that about having teens: friends showing up unexpectedly). Since last year, I have become accustomed to making 48 bagels, two loaves of bread, 36 English muffins and some kind of treat on a single day on the weekend these days, so the multi-dish martial exercise that is Thanksgiving in an American household is not so daunting.
I love Thanksgiving, am more thankful than I can say that my parents are here, but I found myself a little wistful thinking of the outside things I could be doing on this vacation day..... all involving manure in some state of decomposition. Perhaps this farmer thing is embedding itself deeper than I suspected.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
8 comments:
Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving... hoping you have a chance (even if it is just for 15 minutes) to relax and enjoy everything you are blessed with in life!
Thanks, Daph, blessings for your family and you, as well, Is your son coming up for the day? (Figure I will leave out names :) ). Mom's helping with the cooking and she helped with the worming (mostly by standing outside the gate and giving suggestions) - my little mom out there cleaning the stall :).
Happy Thanksgiving! Make sure your mom doesn't fall in the mud.
Chai, she made it safely to the barn and back! We are hours behind you, so we're still cooking - two sets of hands make it light work. Pies are done, haupia and Okinawan sweet potato pie is done, turkey is in the oven...just have to make the vegetarian dishes for my oldest: shallot and mushroom strudel and quinoa, kabocha, and glazed tofu.
Hurray for your mom's adventurous spirit! I can just picture her out there.
We actually did a lot of work today. A first for us. We had to do an office cleaning right off the bat, then we had to protect the figs for the coming freeze which was quite a lot of work. But I'd cooked the turkey and gravy the day before, as well as pumpkin pie, and the menu was pretty low key this year, so the meal went together in under an hour.
All in all, an unusual day, with temps in the 70's. Beautiful. Almost like Hawaii! :o)
~Faith
Nice you had such good weather, Faith! So did you stuff the cages with straw around the figs? Are they still small?
We were doing really well, all relaxed, until we realized that we hadn't boiled the potatoes! It got a bit more busy at the end there. Everyone is stuffed and playing Taboo.
So glad you could spend Thanksgiving with your mother. Have a great weekend with all your wonderful farm animals.
Thanks, Beyond - we had such a lovely day. I even got the worming done.
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