Thanksgiving Morning

On Thanksgiving Day, Adam and I share a large meal with our church family and anyone else who wants to come. Adam left early to take the turkey out of the church refrigerator. I'm sure he's knee deep in gravy and rolls by now. I set up the long table yesterday.

None of our children are here for Thanksgiving this year, so the house this morning is quiet, just me, Beau, and a Pandora station.

Beau is in charge.

This year I'm making a delicious apple pie. Here's the recipe:

Mississippi friends, this is from the Jackson Junior League cookbook, Southern Sideboards.

I used 3 Granny Smiths and 3 Honey Crisps.

 I made the crusts yesterday. I'm not a fancy cook; this is about as fancy as I get!

 It did turn out prettier than other pies I've made.

 This pie is different because after it's done, you spread a mix of butter/brown sugar ... well, you can check the recipe ... on top. It bubbles and gets crusty later.

 Normally I'd use pecans, but Adam is now allergic to them. (So, so sad!!!) So I used a blend of almonds and walnuts (not too many). We'll see.

I'm also making my usual sweet potato casserole, my mother's recipe:

We'll have about 22 or so eaters today around that table, and it will be delightful. Right now we have two folks in our church family who are in the hospital in New Bern, and their loved ones are, I'm sure, struggling with Thanksgiving today. Many of us are. It's an old saying, but we must focus on the good, on God's blessings and the joyful things in our lives, and not let the dark overtake us. But that's hard, especially when the dark is coming from people we love, which it often is. This is true of many friends I know right now. How do you put a loved one in the back of your mind and forget about that grief for today, and turn your mind to joy? Doesn't it feel like turning you back on that person? I struggle with that.

Well, not to end on a down note, I hope you all have lots of pie!! I nearly made a cranberry pie, which I LOVE, but I remembered that often nobody loves it but me, and I don't want a whole cranberry pie sitting around the house afterward. Someone else is making delicious pumpkin pies, and for Adam's sake I could not make his very favorite: pecan pie. (So, SO sad!!!) So I made his favorite apple, and I hope that compensates. There are usually compensations for losses on Thanksgiving, if we think about it. Love to you all!

Time for a Catch-Up

Hi, all. I seem to be as spotty and disorganized in my blogging these days as I am in other parts of life! 'Tis the busy season. Tonight is our Community Thanksgiving Service -- ecumenical, crowded, beautiful, liturgical, warm and welcoming, musical. I'll be in the musical part.

Adam is nearly finished installing our new heating/AC system.

 The machine above is the compressor, which is outside. It's mounted on sturdy braces well above the flooding line.

This (below) is the inside unit - there are three of them, so we can zone the house. We operate them with little remotes that have little cradles on the wall.

The lines that run from the inside units to the compressor were all over the side yard as Adam organized them for hooking up.

 

That sad space heater above just died the other day. It's served us well for over 25 years. The house is chillier, and I'm ready for Adam to get our new heating cranked up tomorrow.

I've spent lots of time shipping out copies of "The Thanksgiving Mice." It's sold so well, much better than "Punkin and the Littlest Mouse." I've sold 40 copies so far.

Adam says the more books you have, the better they sell. I'm already working on my next one.

We took our church's OCC shoeboxes to the drop off location across the river. We had 34 boxes, our usual amount.

 The ferry was running on a reduced schedule, so we stayed over there and ate Mexican for lunch.

 

I'm curing gourds this winter outside. A good video I watched said to let them cure in the weather and grow their normal mold. Isn't it cool-looking?
A rosemary plant a friend gave me -- it was not feeling well -- is now recovered and replanted in the garden.

 Adam does the cooking now in our family, but this week I had a yearning to make a pot of spaghetti sauce. I used some of the last of our fresh herbs. Soon they'll be frozen and gone.

 I tidied up that scarf that I thought was so messy. It actually turned out really interesting. I cut the warp yarns that I'd left unwoven, and tied them up in knots, and it gave lovely texture to the scarf.

And I wove that autumn one. Then I pulled out this funny lap loom I bought for $5 at the thrift store, and gave it a try. It worked!

 That rigid heddle (the rectangular piece with all the slits in it) is tricky to handle, but otherwise it worked.

I bought a magazine about using herbs. I love herbs.

 

I like that quote.

My "teenager" hens are now laying. Their eggs are darker brown than my silkie hens', and rounder. 

This will be an evening of Thanksgiving in our community. I'm thankful for my life, for my husband, for the closeness of God in the middle of life's griefs, which are many. I don't tell you my griefs, and I know you don't tell me yours, here on our blogs. But we know they're there. May you find comfort and joy in spite of them, and the strength to keep moving forward. Love to you from our little farm!

The Grandpuppy Came to Visit

This lovely spot is a horse farm in the county. The Bradford pears are stunning in fall and spring.

Look who came to visit grandmummy and grandpappy for Thanksgiving!!

He brought his parents too.

Philip and Kara swung by Julia's college and picked her up, so we had those three for Thanksgiving. We had the big dinner at church with a table full of friends. It was a very jovial, delicious afternoon!

Beyond dinner with all the trimmings ... this was all the trimmings and then tons of extras!

Julia got to see old friends ~

And Philip deep-friend the turkey!!

The moistest turkey I've ever tasted -- there were no leftovers.

Don't believe the deceptive calm of this photo; Charlie and Trixie wrestled and played and wore each other out straight for four days.

Yes, he is just as adorable and downright beautiful as he seems.

I pestered everybody until at last we drove down for Philip and Kara to see the Vandemere Waterfront Park. Charlie chased his frisbee.

This park is quiet, hardly used, and immaculately designed. It's Pamlico County's best kept secret.

I'd better add a photo of Trixie for my mother, who wants to see more of the newest pup. Mother, she has "Cleopatra eyes" like Katie the Dog used to have. She's getting taller.

At Philip's suggestion, Adam bought Trixie a set of bells. Charlie learned quickly to ring them when he needs to go outside. 

Will Trixie learn that fast?

I've slowly kept illustrating my story about Punkin and the baby mouse. Here are a few more pages.

That's the end of the first half of the story. Wait till you see what happens next! 

A Few Pretty Things

 A rose from a friend's garden last Saturday. Yes, we have roses in November, and even December.
I took a series of shots of these two boats on the river as they approached each other, as they met/overlapped, and afterward.

 This may not be very pretty in the technical sense, but it is lovely to me! This is the old-fashioned food mill I bought at the thrift store for $5. I made applesauce at work with the children, and oh my!! It worked like a charm! So much easier than my other hand-crank food mill, plus this one is much easier to clean, and gentler on aging hands. I used 6 lbs. of apples this day, half Granny Smith and half some other small red, hard apple.

 I loved watching the applesauce come gloop-glooping down the cone.

 I'm weaving again. Julia told me I need to do bright scarves, not these dull, muted autumn colors I love. Haha! So here's one:

 I'm doing a very loose weave so that the warp yarns can stand out and be seen.
Here they are, below:

 This is a fun, fast scarf.

 Speaking of colorful, yesterday at work, I had the children make these easy wreaths -- "thankful hands" or something like that :) I traced the hands and copied them onto colored construction paper.

 They cut the hands out, and then we glued them together as wreaths. Some of the kids wrote names of people they're thankful for, on the hands.

 This morning Adam and I went to the church to prepare the Thanksgiving feast tomorrow. I set up the long table (for 20 people) while Adam fiddled with turkey and ham in the kitchen.

It is very truly fall now. Cool outside. A skim of ice was on the chickens' water this morning in their yard. I've graduated from listening to Handel's Messiah to Bing Crosby. Soon I'll snuggle into the sofa for an evening of White Christmas and wish very much that Anna were here. ((heavy sigh))
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!