Thanksgiving

Reynald and I love Thanksgiving.  It's our favorite holiday.  My favorite used to be Halloween, but now everyone likes Halloween, so it's lost some appeal for me.  Thanksgiving seems to get passed over, looking ahead toward Christmas and all the hype about shopping and Black Friday etc.  For me, Thanksgiving is a warm and cozy holiday.  I love spending a couple days preparing for our feast.  I love setting the table.  I love the gathering.  Most of all I love "singing for our supper" as we begin our time together in song.  This is a family that sings and it sends chills up and down my spine, as I play the piano and listen to the spectacular voices raise up in praise and thanksgiving.

First a few photos of Thanksgiving eve, and some of the prep work going on!

Alicia cubed the left over dinner rolls from the wedding and we popped them in the freezer to use for dressing!   Also added some homemade cornbread, and let that sit on the counter for a few days to dry out.

Bread cubes and cornbread, drying on the counter.
Thanksgiving morning I add sauteed mushrooms, onions and celery to the bread cubes, sauteed in lots of butter.  This is not a day to think about cutting back on fat calories!  Also add chopped hazel nuts, sliced water chestnuts, some fresh sage from the herb garden, the cooked giblets from the turkey and the liquid that I cooked the giblets in.  SOOOO  GOOD!!!!

I roasted a blue Hubbard squash a few days ago to make the "pumpkin" pies.   We favor the Hubbard squash over pumpkin.

"Pumpkin" pie ingredients.

Two pies ready to pop in to the oven.  I make sloppy crust, I know, but it tastes good!

Beth made pumpkin shaped dinner rolls for our quilt retreat so I decided to try it for dinner and use them as place card holders.  I thought they turned out cute......and tasty!

Pumpkin shaped dinner rolls

These are a thyme and honey glazed dinner roll which is a family favorite.

Setting the tables is always fun.  I don't go all out, but like to make it look festive and colorful.  For the dining room table we use the Johnson Bros. "Frozen Up" dishes.  Auntie Marge gave me three plates years ago and I loved them so much that over the years I have purchase enough to bring the total up to 12.

Dining room table

A better look at the Thanksgiving dishes.  I really love them.

 The garage is set with Fiestaware plates...color persimmon and brown, which I also love!

Garage dining!

I put some of the silk fall garlands on the plant shelf in the garage to make it feel a little more decorated.  

A beautiful sunrise started Thanksgiving day.  Much to be be thankful for.....

 Some images of folks that were able to spend the afternoon with us.  This is not comprehensive!  Just  a few photos that I managed to snap through out the day.

John and Lisa were here for dinner, traveling from the village of Downs!

Cousin Sue and her daughter Krista always drive over from the west side to join us for the day.

My parents, Jim and Jo,

Nathan and Torri, newly wed this summer!  And what a beautiful wedding day and celebration they had.

Chris and Leslie came from Bend OR. They introduced us to 7 month old Luke, who is an absolute doll.

Grandpa Don totally monopolized Luke!  Don let some of the rest of us hold him, for a few minutes, then right back to grandpa he went!

When I Make Mistakes....

I try and try again!  When Roni Jo was a very little girl, one of her favorite books was "I Like Me" by Nancy Carlson.  She asked us to read that book to her time and time again, until she had it memorized and would "read" it to us.  It is a positive self esteem book with a good message.  One page in the book said, "when I make mistakes, I try and try again!"

I started making this bag over quilt retreat weekend and just finished it.  This project was a "when I make mistakes, I try and try again" project!  But finally, I got it and I love how it turned out.  If I would make another one tomorrow, I think I would have better luck getting it right the first, or maybe second time!

I had all this sewn together and didn't like the shape of the bag, so I tore half of it apart in an attempt to fix it!

It made a terrible mess of tiny strands of thread.  Not to worry, the vacuum cleaner was readily available.

So one of the tricks with this, is to hold the finished part of the bag level, rather than tipping it up, as you sew.

The bigger the bag gets, the harder this is to do.  It's so easy to tip it, which makes the bag get smaller and smaller towards the top, resulting in a vase, not a bag!

The finished product!  I love it!  Worth the time and the '"try and try again" until I got it right!!

PS  We finished our late fall farm work on Thursday afternoon.  Next up.....Thanksgiving!

Patience....

It rained overnight, enough to keep us out of the fields until at least noon.  We're hoping to finish our late fall field work by Thursday.  It's a cruel turn of farming events, to put the slowest, least exciting operation at the end of the season.  It's the time of the year when you are ready to do something besides sit on a tractor!  We are both turning our thinking towards winter shop work, winter house work, and of course a little sewing thrown in here and there.

It takes a great deal of patience and discipline to sit all day long, when there is so much to do off the tractor.  But, sit we must, for a few more days!  The following photos are what happens when your camera is in the tractor and your brain is elsewhere!

Trying to be a little creative!

This is a sturdily built piece of equipment.

You can see from this photo, that there is a lot of volunteer wheat that has sprouted in the fields with all the rain and warm weather.  And look at that sky!

Now here's were you can tell I am getting a little antsy.  Just taking random photos out of the window of the tractor.

And the rear view mirror?  Goodness!!!  

I do have a good view though.  It's not a bad office space!

OK, here we are.....5.2 mph with a 23 foot implement.  Not a lot of acres per day covered at that rate.

Watching the farm as I go back and forth, back and forth, up and down the hills.  This is the operation where you get to know every square inch of the farm.  It's actually interesting to be able to take the time to get to know the shape of every hill, the flow of every draw, the pitch of every slope.

Daylight ends early now, the sun setting around 4:30pm.  A good set of lights on the tractors allows us to extend our working hours beyond daylight.  Makes it seem like you are working really hard!

In the east, the almost full super moon.

And turn your head to the west, and the sky was beginning to show sunset color.

I think it's so interesting how the clouds color up so beautifully so far away from the setting sun.  This bank was almost due north of the sun.

The sun is setting well south of the east/west parallel.  One of the things I especially enjoy about our wide open spaces is watching the progression of the seasons, through the setting of the sun on the horizon.  

November Yard Report?

This morning, before I went to work on the tractor, I planted the rest of the wedding chrysanthemums.  It's supposed to be chilly and rainy for the rest of the week.  A frost is predicted for Thursday night, which would be our first killing frost of the season!  I wanted to get those mums in the ground before the ground froze up!  In the meantime, summer annuals are still blooming.  It's actually starting to look kind of odd.  This late in the season and the dahlias and begonias are still blooming like mad!

I had to take a few photos so that I could look back one day, on this late fall, and remember that I still had all this color in the yard on November 13th.  

We were treated to another amazing sunrise this morning.  

This rose looked so pretty in the morning light.

Tuberous begonias still in full bloom.

A little closer look.

And dahlias....my goodness.  These are tender plants.  

Such a pretty dahlia bloom.

I love the foliage on this geranium.  The flower isn't much but who cares with foliage like this!

I dead headed all the geraniums about a week before the wedding, thinking that would be the last time I would need to do it.   Who knew, over a month later, they would still be blooming like crazy.  Not going to dead head again however!

Look at this pretty rose!

And this one!  Loaded with bloom

The grape vines are giving a long and beautiful color display this fall.

And inside the garage, the Thanksgiving cactus are blooming as is the anthyrium.  (Google doesn't like how I spelled that and a quick dictionary search didn't turn up anything, so I'm leaving it as is!)

I'm dreaming of a greenhouse.  Someday.......

Thanksgiving cactus, which will be finished blooming by Thanksgiving!

And a different color Thanksgiving cactus and this plastic looking anthyrium.  

I promise, this is not a fake plant!  I swear by watering my plants with water that I put in to empty wine bottles.  Reynald says I'm crazy, but I think the proof is right here!  It's clear that I need to continue to drink wine so that my plants can be healthy and happy!!