Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving.  I think it may be my favorite holiday!  I love getting ready for Thanksgiving.  I love baking and cooking the dinner.  I love setting the table.  I love the decorations, I love the warmth of gathering family together to share a meal and think about our blessings.  I just love it!

Today was a wonderful day.  We had a smaller gathering this year, only 18 here for dinner, which is fine.   I don't care if there are four people here, or 40, both Reynald and I love hosting this day.

My favorite part of this day, absolute favorite part, is when we "sing for our supper"!  This is a musical family, and when we all gather in the music room before dinner and sing one of the traditional Thanksgiving hymns, it sends chills up and down my spine.  And then it makes me cry.  Such beautiful music this group makes!  And what wonderful conversations we have!  It's so much fun to catch up with those we don't see all the time, and to reminisce about days gone by.

Here are a few photos of our day.  I didn't capture the full day, as I got involved with visiting, but this gives you a bit of an idea of what a warm and cozy day we had!  And a few photos of the prep leading up to our dinner.

Cranberry sauce.  Reynald's favorite part of Thanksgiving.  He LOVES cranberry sauce!

K, didn't use all four pounds of butter, but I came close!  Thanksgiving is all about butter for me!  Actually almost every meal is all about butter!

Butternut squash roasting in the oven.  Again, a carrier for butter!

So, I peeled three potatoes for dinner!  

The last of the eggs from the old hens.  The chicks will be laying soon, but until then, we have to buy eggs!  Ugh!  I know there is a difference between store bought and farm eggs, but this was a dramatic illustration.   The egg on the right is a farm egg.  Notice the color difference!

Last night was a full moon.  This is what we saw this morning, as we were getting ready for our day.  The moon setting in the west, and the rising sun lending color to the western sky.  Also, notice the black tank in the distance.  We had a 40 mph wind yesterday and the tank rolled from the shop to here!  We're calling it "the traveling tank"!  One of these days we will settle it back in to it's home north of the shop!

So, the one thing I don't really like about Thanksgiving dinner is making the place cards.  Thank heaven for pinterest!  I don't have an original idea in my head, but I can copy!

We were all able to fit in the dining room this year.  

Another look at the table set up.

Three men that have been shopping at Costco for their shirts!

The dessert buffet.  You can't see the pumpkin pie, but it was so good!  I roasted a hubard squash from the garden.  Oh my!

A closer look at the "turkey" fruit tray that Karen brought.

The dinner buffet!

Reynald carving the turkey.  He would have smiled but his mouth was full!

Cousins, Sue and Doug.

Darling Torri, who made her first appearance at our Thanksgiving table, and Jeff with a mouthful of dinner roll!

Nathan......happy to be filling up!

Jeffery, aka Roy (sometimes I forget that his given name is Jeff, not Roy!) and Don and Karen!  

Uncle Doug and my dad talking farming!  

More of the dinner crowd.....

Simple gifts, we all give to one another, just by being together, sharing a meal and conversation.  We are so lucky.......

It's the first snowfall....

of the season!  New England readers of this blog will have to forgive my excitement!  I know you had your fill of snow last winter, and many are not looking forward to the upcoming winter, but the two inches that fell last night looked so beautiful this morning.  Plus, it's been several years since we've had a snowy winter.  Our winter prediction is for warmer and drier than normal conditions, so two inches is cause for excitement!

I think the orchard trees look so pretty with a light dusting of snow.

And the red barn really stands out in the white snow.

The pumpkins look a little out of place in the snow!

A little more than "frost on the pumpkin".

Baxter always goes goofy with the first snow, running like crazy, scooping up snow with his nose as you can see here!

Leo isn't as anxious to play  in the snow as Baxter is.

Yesterday and Sunday we washed the outside of the house, under the porches.  The terrible wind storm last week made for a very dirty house.  The second story really needed to be done as well, but we had neither the time nor the energy for that.  The main floor looks wonderful, shiny and clean!

Reynald washes the siding and the porches and I follow up by washing all the windows.  My mom always says, "nothing cleans a house like freshly washed windows".  And she's right.  You don't really notice clean windows, but you sure do notice dirty ones.  Happy to have a whole house of clean windows, for a day or two at least!

Washing the north west side of the house.  You can see the frosty tree in the background.  This was a chilly job yesterday.

Everything was covered with dirt so Reyanld even washed the porch railing and the porch deck.  

Tomato Day

Each fall, Lynnie, Beth and I get together and make stewed tomatoes.  Everything we put in to our mix, comes from our gardens, except the celery.  We all freeze our tomatoes through out the season, as well as sweet and hot peppers.  The onions and garlic are just in storage in the root cellar.

It's a super fun day, albeit a long one.  We put up 122 pints this year, which is a record for us!  The result of our hard work, both from summer gardening and then processing, is a flavorful stewed tomato that is unmatched by anything that can be purchased in a grocery store.

Lynnie peeling onions and Beth peeling tomatoes.

We figured out that if we freeze the tomatoes the skins slip right off  when slightly thawed.  No need to blanch.  Plus, we have a lot more tomatoes since we freeze all our extras as they ripen throughout the season.  

We fill three roasters this size and a huge pot on the stove. 

Processing takes place in these two pressure canners.  Lynnie has had hers since she first was married, over 40 years ago.  It's the one on the left.  Many, many, many jars have run through that pressure canner!

Three of four years ago, Beth showed up to tomato day with a darling "tomato day" apron for each of us, that she had made!  They are now part of our tradition.

  

The fabric is adorable, with all these little tomatoes.   Beth appliqued this larger tomato on to the middle pocket for a little extra tomato interest!

The winds of November

Yesterday I did a tour of the farm to document the damage that was caused by the extremely high winds that blew all day Tuesday and in to the evening.  We are lucky though, to still have electricity. when so many in the Spokane area do not.  What a challenge that is, especially when it stretches in to days, not hours.

Porch furniture tossed and tumbled by the wind.

If you enlarge this, you can see how dirty the house is from the storm.  There must have been just enough rain to glue the dust on to everything!

The wind flipped this picnic bench over.  There's a really fun story behind this picnic table.......a story for another day.

We have some kind and generous neighbors that share their weeds with us when the wind blows.

More weeds.....mostly Russian thistle and tumble mustard.  These carcasses have happily seeded themselves from their point of origin, all across the fields as they roll along.

Now this is amazing.  This is our 3000 gallon water tank.  It is empty now, for the season, but it is supposed to sit up by the shop, by the white tank that you can see in the distance.

It rolled through the field, (like a Russian thistle!) and ended up here.  It's covered with dirt from the journey.

You can see the circle area in the gravel, where the tank is supposed to be sitting.  And the distance it traveled.

These big tanks are storage for spring and summer fertilizer.  Again, you can see the circle in the gravel where they are supposed to sit.  The tank on the left not only moved back, but twisted.  The valve that is sticking out to the left is supposed to be headed in the same direction as the other tank.  

And, here's the big grain auger, tipped over and smashed in to the grain bin.

A little closer look at the smash.

Baxter inspecting the damage.

On a happier note, the chicks are growing like crazy.  Their little voices are beginning to change from the high pitched cheep, to an almost cluck now and then!  Most of the time it's still a cheep, but if you listen closely you can hear a change coming!

Our adolescent chickens!  My how they have grown.

Here's my little runt.  She has been smaller all along.  I kept expecting her to die, but she just hangs in there.  You can see how much smaller she is than the gal right next to her.

This is our rooster.  When he gets a little older, and starts to learn to crow, it's just hilarious.  It takes a couple weeks for him to get his big boy voice.

The girls were so curious while I was trying to get some good images.  This photo cracks me up!

This one is pretty funny too, but not as good as the one before.  

Here's how the little runt gets to the food,  She flies up and perches on the edge of the feeder.  Since she did it, this bigger hen thought she should try too!  She's just too big to perch on the edge like the little one.  

Looks like winter will soon be upon us with much colder temperatures and even a chance of snow in the forecast next week.  Time to snuggle in and nest for the winter.