Monday - 262nd

Today was much like yesterday, only colder and the walk was better.

I'm not talking about the morning famette walk -- that early lap around the backfields of this property, to the rear of the barn and home again.

True, I love these first minutes of outdoor time. I get a feel for the weather, I can smell the dry crustiness or the damp slushiness of the earth. The day is fresh and young and I'm ready for it. But I get how this isn't particularly exciting to you: oh, another sprint around the familiar. Yawn. 

And it's nearly always followed by again a very familiar breakfast. Today, in the sun room, even though there is no sun.

But these steady and stable routines are not what turned the day into a more adventurous and pretty one for us. As I said, the walk, the big walk, the hike was (in stark contrast to yesterday's stroll) glorious.

Once again, we really hesitated about going out. The temperature never passed the freezing point. For the last day of November, that's not totally strange, but it is on the colder side of cold. Still, a morning of shopping (online once more) needs an afternoon of rejuvenation. I call Bruce Company -- a place that always has abundant Christmas trees, all freshly cut in Wisconsin -- and purchase a small tree for curbside pickup. And I suggest to Ed that as long as we're driving 15 minutes to Bruce's, mightn't we drive another 15 and hit the trails at Indian Lake County Park? 

It's a beautiful park with nearly perfect trails, but the drive to get to it, plus its weekend popularity push it off our usual list of favorites. But on a cold Monday, late afternoon no less, it's nearly empty. And the clouds part just enough and the colors are sublime. Want to walk with us?

On the way home, we stop to pick up the tree. So pretty, if a bit unusual in shape! No decorations yet. I'm waiting for the little lights to arrive in a day or two. Still, it definitely feels grander doing life's chores and tasks with a tree in the corner, bringing that bit of the outdoor world straight into the farmhouse living space.

Sunday - 261st

Do you remember the commercial that implored you to let your fingers do the walking (through the Yellow Pages)? Funny how, sixty years later, we've come around to just that: finger shopping. I should be pleased. I so dislike malls and department stores and long check out lines. (I do like small shops, but they are a rare breed, unless you live in the city or in a place rich with small shop tradition.) Nonetheless, finger shopping, aka online buying can be numbing. Today is proof of that.

It's not that I wasn't excited to start in on heavy duty holiday gift purchasing. After the morning walk, of course.

 

And after breakfast -- which I moved to the sun room because of... the sun!

But you just should not do long stretches of it. Too much clicking and digital page turning will drive you nuts. Or, near nuts.

In the afternoon, Ed pulls me out of my screen stupor and suggests we take a walk:  a path that sort of kind is okay. Couldn't be more than a mile from where we live. One might even call it a "river walk."

But it doesn't really go anywhere. It deteriorates into a muddy wetland. In the winter, we sometimes ski here and even then, you feel you're not exactly on solid ground. And did I mention the winds? They are ferocious!

Still, the walk clears the head. And we do get to wave good bye to the sandhill cranes who are ready to make their journey south.

Evening. I do a dinner delivery. Hi guys!

And home again. Same Sunday dinner. Same ingredients! That's what they want, that's what I cook. For them, for us. There may be great uncertainty in our lives right now, but my kids know this: if there's a dinner food they crave, I'll cook it for them.

Saturday - 260th

It is still Thanksgiving weekend and we are still making Thanksgiving connections. Today, for example, I drove to Illinois for an outdoor, distanced and masked (except when eating and then super-distanced) meetup with my younger girl, her husband, and of course Primrose.

And so my morning is rushed. Hurry up, animals! Eat! Hey Ed, you'll need to de-ice their water dish, I didn't have time to do it!

 

Breakfast... (thanks for coming down, I know you're half asleep still)

And I'm off. 

We chose the same park for our time together -- Raven Glen Forest Preserve -- because it's convenient, uncrowded, and with wide paths. And don't forget the lake to throw sticks in! Again, we are so very lucky to have radiant sunshine and relatively mild temperatures all day.

It feels good to be in this now familiar space with the three of them.

(Arrival!)

 

(Ready for an adventure)

 

 (But first a snack)

The worry evaporates, the pleasure of being together sets in.

And of course, it's grand to watch Primrose grow in confidence and maturity. (Again, I am grateful for a Zoom lens...)

(Classen treats!)

 

(A final look...)

I'm the first to complain about longer car rides (anything over 30 minutes feels long to me), but for this particular meetup, the ride is just fine. The radio is on (I'm so old fashioned), my thoughts fly to my kids and their families. And of course, the sun is out and the world looks lovely, even in November.

On the return trip, I stop at a farm that is selling Christmas trees. I always get a small tree from my Madison grocery store, but they are refusing to do curbside pickup or delivery of their trees and wreaths, so I'm happy to pick one up now, in this southern corner of Wisconsin.

 

But as I get out of the car and one of the young men approaches me to help with the selection, I can't help but feel disappointed that he is not wearing a mask. Neither are his siblings (they look like their sibs). I say no thanks and get back in the car. I want a tree I can feel happy about, from a business that cares about the safety of its shoppers. The tree purchase will have to wait until I can get to the nursery in town that does indeed do curbside pickup.

I get home in mid-afternoon. Ed has been knocking around the farmhouse. That wont do! It's a beautiful day, we need to walk! It's a challenge to find an empty space on this weekend, without hunters shooting at you, but we do find peace (and safety!) along a Nature Conservancy trail.

 

Such a beautiful day! And once again, there's a no fuss dinner (turkey leftovers!) waiting for us this evening. Thanksgiving just keeps on giving!

Friday - 259th

And what does the day after Thanksgiving look like? The clean up continues. Pots, pans, dishes are stacked in the cupboards. Recipes are returned to the Thanksgiving folder and the whole pack is shoved back on the shelf. Thoughts of turkey remain, but they're without ambition (leftovers? we can always do sandwiches) and with some relief (phew! I don't need to roast a turkey for a whole year!) and a bit of pity (the poor French... their turkey roasting is still before them, since the French these days often go with turkey for their Christmas meal). Oh, I do like turkey preparation, but it takes so long to get the bird ready and it requires a meticulous coordination to have it be done just as everything else is set to go! Ah well. Thanksgiving traditions are about cooking. Perfecting that turkey is a lifelong project. I surely must have roasted some forty or more birds in my life. One more behind me! And now I face Christmas.

Only not today. After my morning walk...

 

And breakfast... Lackadaisical...

And tidying, Ed and I take a better walk -- one in our local park. The sun is out and we are at the edge of a two day warmup. A few deep breaths on this very pretty day!

Oh, but that felt good. Can face the world again. The clothes dryer that stopped working, the credit card company that wont release my $34.11 in rewards because they can't resolve the fraud claim that has been without movement for four weeks, the knocked up vacuum cleaner, the stove top in need of a scrub. All silly nothings. 

And of course, there is no dinner to cook. Sure, I tossed a salad. Otherwise, today's plates are the same as yesterday's plates. Same colors, same tastes. The beauty of Thanksgiving is that it has this spillover effect. In many ways, it just stays with you for a long, long time.

Thanksgiving Day

So different, so much the same! But that's true always, no? Perhaps this year poses for most of us the greatest hurdles toward being in each others embrace, but then, there have always been years with great stress. No one goes through life without some amount of drama or disappointment  and Thanksgiving can't always heal pain and promise us unbounded joy and unity. And maybe this year, when we appreciate the togetherness we cannot have, we are, in fact, more likely to love deeply, at a distance, to feel grateful for the time that we had and that will come again. There is happiness in gratitude. True happiness. And so yes, I am wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving holiday.

A real November day: cold, but not freezing. Damp, but not super wet. I walk with the gang to the animal feeding stations. Let me honor the oldest of them all -- Java. Such a mother hen. She doesn't run like the rest, she hops and gallops. Like a chicken on a pogo stick!

 

Let me honor, too, the farmhouse that gives us so much comfort and joy...

And now it's breakfast. Special today. Apple cake from the bakery. (I snipped some sweet pea shoots and mint sprigs from the yard. These plants seem not to care that we are past the growing season!)

And now it's time to roll up the sleeves and hit the kitchen. In trying to stay within the bounds of sanity, I cut out one of the dishes. [I heard on NPR that on average, people are gathering in wee groups but spending way more on Thanksgiving food this year. Odd how we try to fill a void with overabundance.]

Do you mind if I skip baking the corn muffins? -- I ask Ed.

Gorgeous, do you want to skip the turkey? That's okay too!  Yep, he always makes me laugh. 

I start with the cranberries. Have to use frozen ones this year, but believe me, no one will notice. (With apples and spices. Recipe from one of my favorite (occasional) bloggers, the ever generous and talented Catherine at Ben and Birdy.)

 

Somewhere in the background I have the Macy's parade. When Santa comes, I'm to hop over to my daughter's house with this pie. (Purchased, not baked by me.)

 

(Hey, Mrs. Claus is in a mask. Perhaps my grandkids will feel common fellowship with her, having had to mask up routinely to keep others safe.)

Outside, distanced. I back far away so that I can have them take off their masks for this photo...

Home again. This is where I have a window of no kitchen work. Too early to work with the turkey. Ed and I are about to take a walk, when the FB Messenger jimgles. It's Primrose, with parents!

And that's not all -- we connect to my Madison daughter and her brood. Hey Ed, look, we're all together!

Utterly delightful!!! Happy Thanksgiving indeed!

 

And now Ed and I do take a walk. We climb up the construction hills to the east of us, just to check things out. 

(A view of the farmette: bare trees reveal the outlines of the farmhouse, the silo, the sheds and the barn)

It's muddy. I mean, really muddy. We retreat and stick to the sidewalks of the New Development, pausing every time we come across a puddle to work on cleaning our shoes. I'd say this ranked as a very "interesting" stroll. 

And now kitchen work intensifies. Bird is prepped and goes in. I make the turkey stock and get the potatoes -- both sweet and yukons -- ready for their scalloped bake. And brussle sprouts. And mushrooms for the gravy. That's the Thanksgiving roll: everything starts slowly and then intensifies as the dinner hour approaches.

Finally. The turkeys are done!

For the Madison young family -- herbed. For the Chicago bunch -- spatchcocked  and brined. For Ed and me -- herbed as well. Three turkeys. Shared in the classic 2020 way: on screens!

 

Ed and I sit down to our dinner. Next to each other, as we like to do when we go out to eat.

Plates of food, with the colors of a Thanksgiving meal. Repeated in more households that I can imagine.

After the meal there are always the dishes. Lots and lots of dishes. As I go through the steps of cleaning up, I think about those who had a tougher year. So many people to worry about, to wish well in these most difficult times. So many stressed families. Maybe this day, with its turkeys and cranberries and yams, was just a little more normal. Maybe people could take the time to smile, to exhale. Maybe even to feel happy.

With love...

Wednesday - 257th

The day before Thanksgiving. Normally, in years when the family gathered, it would be near chaos here, at the farmhouse. There have always been three meals in the game plan for Thursday -- a breakfast for when everyone arrives (baked goods, some store bought, some freshly made), a lunch that keeps them all from going wild with hunger when the turkey is not even near ready (roasted squash soup with dumplings, chive scones), and then of course the Big Meal. 

By comparison, this year, Wednesday is quiet. But not as quiet as it was in the years when the kids were taking their families elsewhere for the holiday. I don't know why, but this year, I decided to do a Thanksgiving meal for just Ed and me. Maybe it was because for a while I thought we may be having at least one young family here for the day. So I began making plans for that possibility. When we realized we couldn't pull it off safely, I could have cancelled the whole deal: the bird, the side dishes -- all of it. Ed wouldn't have batted an eye. 

But I did not cancel. Somewhere in my head I thought that in cooking along with my daughters (albeit not in the same kitchens), I'd be part of their day more fully (and they would be keeping tabs on my turkey as much as they had in years when they were in the next room). I did beg the turkey farmers for a shift to a small bird, but they told me that this year, their birds grew and grew. They picked out the smallest of their flock and last I heard the turkey clocked in at 13 pounds. I am grateful that Ed likes frozen leftovers, otherwise we'd be eating turkey from now until Christmas.

[A bit of trivia for you: are all Thanksgiving turkeys Toms? For some reason, I always imagined that they were. But it's not so. First of all, male turkeys are more appropriately called gobblers. Why? Because they gobble as they chase the girls. But, tom will do. If your turkey is big, like over 15 pounds, then it's nearly certain that it's a gobbler. The smaller ones? It's a toss up. All hens are small, but I suppose at 13 pounds, mine could be a scrawny gobbler or a robust hen.]

Still, my Thanksgiving this year is greatly simplified. There is only so much food you want to make for two people (especially where at least one of them never wastes leftovers). We'll skip the lunch prep. And breakfast? As you know all too well, Ed and I always have breakfast. This year I'll add a baked good option. But I wont be baking it. 

Given all this, my Wednesday is nothing if not easy. 

I get up late, face the anxious cats (where is our food??)...

Walk the wet and bare farmette lands... (snow? what snow?)

And fix us a breakfast that Ed is willing to take outside, even though it is 41F (5C). One of the cats is out there and he wants to keep her company!

[We are in a state of cat shock: sometime in late August one of the big guys, a twin brother to Friendly, disappeared. We assumed he died because he was, like his brother, very affectionate. We called him Friendly II. Yesterday, he showed up again! Scampered into the shed for the morning feeding, startling his siblings and me, happy to reintegrate into our daily routines. Was he lost? Sick? Hurt? As usual with these cats, there is a lot that we will never know. So once again, we have six cats with us here.]

 

At noon, I drive to do my curbside pick ups. Bakery first! I'm a bit wistful. It's raining hard, but I'm staying outside. I dare peak in, but what good is that -- I can't inhale that bakery smell that I love so much. No matter. I open the trunk, hop back into the car and wait, imagining that maybe next year I'll buy out all the croissants and cinnamon rolls and apple cakes, letting loose all that pent up craving for a real bakery experience.

Next, I drive to where the turkey farmers are distributing their prepurchased toms and hens. (Turkey pick up in someone's driveway...)

Honestly, I haven't had such a fresh bird since my grandma chased a hen around the yard and took an ax to her over a tree stump before Sunday dinner. We will see tomorrow if I can do her (or maybe him) justice.

 

Evening. In normal times, you do not want to cook big stuff on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. You're gunning to meet holiday deadlines.  But I'm not really gunning for anything grand this year and so I get a tiny bit ambitious tonight. I have a huge mound of tatsoi (that deeply green veggie that is sort of like bok choi only different) and lots of clumps of fresh ginger from my CSA farmers. A sautee is in order. Too, I have this ground salmon which could be made into delicious Bun Cha (Vietnamese meatballs, typically made with pork, but in this case -- with the bits of fish that remain after cutting the salmon fillets).

A big meal on Wednesday. That's not a good thing! Ah, but this year, we are allowed to break the rules.

And then I settle in to do some reading, allowing myself to think back to other years and other meals, feeling grateful that at a time when there is so much wrong with life on this planet, there, too, is so much that's right and good and noble.

Tuesday - 256th

It's day two of Thanksgiving week! This is when I should develop a cooking timeline. Normally, I'd be out grocery shopping. Not this year, of course. We had our food delivery. All that's left are the turkey and the bakery goods.

Ah yes, the turkey. Today, our bird moves from being a live animal, to something you marinate and sprinkle with herbs and stick in the oven for a hearty meal. Our farmers promise us that all their turkeys lead joyful, carefree lives. Today it all ends for the poor birds. Tomorrow I'll do a curbside pick up of our guy.

But it's hard to focus on any of the food preparation this morning. We wake up to a beautiful, sugar coated landscape!

It wont last. Not in its splendid entirety. By afternoon, the snow will change to a misty rain. But for now, it's lovely out on the farmette lands!

It's a good reminder that winter isn't a season we merely want to pass over and leave behind. Ed and I are real snow fans and especially when the white stuff comes in a quiet way, staying put on even the most delicate twigs and pine needles.

The day will come when every surface will be ice covered and slippery. When the car will feel bitter cold. When shoveling a path will be a chore. But none of that happens today. For a brief while, we are all enchanted!

Breakfast is a little hurried. I want to run over to my daughter's house to deliver some ingredients they need for their own holiday preparations. And I want to witness that kid joy that comes with the first bigger snow. I need to hurry before it turns soppy wet! Ed! Wake up! It's breakfast!

Ed! (Note that I finally trimmed both beard and hair.The Santa look is gone for now.)

 

I'm off.

For once I tell the kids to skip the masks. I'll stay only a couple of minutes and keep to a super distance. Sometimes it's good to let them just stay in a moment of normalcy. 

(The little girl has one outfit that she likes. Call it her isolation leisurewear.)

(Sparrow, on the other hand, is proud of any animal that appears on his shirt or sweater.)

 

Again I am thankful for Zoom, in my meetups with friends of course, and today -- in my camera lens!

It's true that by afternoon, the rain is pernicious and not at all pretty. But that's okay. We're promised sunshine for the holiday. Now, where was I with my Thanksgiving recipes??