I’m thankful this Thanksgiving that...

SUBHEAD: We can still join with our neighbors to share a meal, a few drinks and a few laughs and then clean up the ensuing mess. 

By Brian Miller on 23 November 2016 for Winged Elm Farm -

(http://www.wingedelmfarm.com/blog/2016/11/23/ten-reasons-im-thankful-this-thaksgiving/)

Image above: "Lord thank you for this turkey" cartoon by Steve Benson in 2015. From (http://theweek.com/cartoons/591095/political-cartoon-donald-trump-thanksgiving-cartoonists).

I’m thankful this Thanksgiving that …

1. The severe drought has made us grateful for the water we have stored in our cisterns and has made us more thoughtful about our usage and plans for conservation.
2. Several years of culling to improve our flock of sheep has paid off. The market wethers are fat and healthy. The ewes are pregnant and lambing season is still a couple of months away.
3. Our hoop house is complete, loaded with greens, and warm on a cold day.
4. Cindy, as my partner, continues to inspire me with her energy, skills, and willingness to share this life.
5. My father, after suffering a stroke this year, is still with us at 89. He continues to find the time to volunteer each week at a local church helping feed the needy.
6. My mother’s eldest sister is still alive and well at 96, the last surviving stalk of that line. She reminds me through her continuing penchant for reading that one’s intellect is a gift to keep and nourish.
7. The Republic still stands even as those on the right and the left trumpet its demise.
8. My blogging friend Clem, with his insufferable positive outlook, reminds me to not herald the end of the world, just yet.
9. My friend Rayna harvested enough pawpaw fruit this year for Cindy to make pawpaw crème brûlée for Thanksgiving dinner.
10. My brothers and I (and a brother-in-law) managed to find the time for a recent get-together. A weekend in the north Louisiana woods eating good food and sitting by a fire is a wonderful tonic for the soul.

See also from our archive:

Ea O Ka Aina: Thanksgiving with Trump & ISIS 11/22/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Thirty things for Thanksgiving 11/26/15

Ea O Ka Aina: Happy Thanksgiving Day 2013! 11/28/13

Ea O Ka Aina: Modernity Bites 11/26/12

Ea O Ka Aina: The Last Black Friday 11/14/12
Ea O Ka Aina: You Must Watch the Empire Bowl 2/9/11

Ea O Ka Aina: Why is the bird a Turkey? 11/24/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Gross All Over 11/22/10
Ea O Ka Aina: TSA Humiliations 11/19/10

Ea O Ka Aina: Wild Thanksgiving Food 11/30/09

Ea O Ka Aina: Giving thanks for our harvest 11/25/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Black Friday & the Walking Dead 11/25/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Courting Convulsion 11/23/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Thanksgiving in Fallujah 11/22/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Carving up Africa 11/17/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Thinking the Unthinkable 11/2/09
Ea O Ka Aina: TGI #19: Holiday Season 12/24/08
Island Breath: Thankfulness and its pathways 11/29/08
Island Breath: TGI Column - The Holiday Season 12/14/07
Thanksgiving Past - Island Breath 11/22/07
Island Breath: Locavores eat local food in T-Day 11/21/06
Island Breath: Don't Mess with Turkeyday 11/24/05
Island Breath: R Crumb Thanksgiving 12/17/04
Grandma's Farm - Island Breath 11/24/99
Turkey recipe - Island Breath 11/24/97
Indian Pudding - Island Breath 11/24/97
Thanksgiving Feasts - Island Breath 11/24/93

Summer Sanctuary

SUBHEAD: Closing the blinds, we lie down under the ceiling fan and take a sacred midday nap.

By Brian Miller on 7 June 1025 for Winged Elm Farm-
(http://www.wingedelmfarm.com/blog/2015/06/07/sanctuary/)


Image above: Vincent Van Gogh's "Noon Rest from Work" painted in 1890 after the work of Jean-François Millet. From (http://www.artofeurope.com/van_gogh/van20.htm).

The mowers across the valley hum with honey bee intensity. Mid-morning heat and the grass has parted ways with the dew after their nightly tryst. Hay is down in dozens of fields, signs of industry from the stewards of those lands.

Other pastures are newly shorn and baled, revealing lines both stark and sensual. Round and square bales dot the landscape like chess pieces randomly scattered after play.

Gathering my own pieces—a stirrup and a Dutch hoe, a pitchfork and a rake, a 50-gallon tub—I head into the vegetable garden. As I work, the sounds of lawnmowers combine with the nearby shout of a mother to a son, “Pick the green beans while you’re at it.”

The sounds of scraping the soil, grunts of my own exertion, a ping as metal strikes rock, the thud of a rock casually tossed to the edge of the garden, where dozens more have gathered over the years.

The tub gradually fills with a spring mix of weeds, a buffet of flavors I tip over the adjoining fence for the sow and gilt, Delores and Petunia, to enjoy. They have been pacing the fence since I arrived, coated in mud from their wallow, grunting and squealing their impatience to begin dining.

Another hour of weeding and culling and another tub filled: cabbages and turnips past their prime, leaves of chard and collards, all to be fed to the hogs in the woods later in the evening.

A retreat to the house and a lunch of the previous night’s dinner of grilled ribeyes, creamed chard, and new potatoes, then we catch up on our respective tasks. I read and finish a book before leaving to ted the hay in an upper field.

The grass cut only yesterday is already dry and ready to be baled, no tedding needed, its conversion to winter’s feed complete. Leaving the tractor behind, I enter on foot the sanctuary of the woods. Meaningful word “sanctuary,” both a refuge and a sacred place.

Under the canopy of large oaks, poplars, and maples, the woods are still cool and sheltering from the blazing afternoon heat, and the word is both to me. The dogs drink from secret stumps water collected in recent rains. How many other animals know the same? Do they find these watering dishes by scent or instinct?

I walk along the winding lane and exit back into the sunlight. In a heat not yet marred by the humidity of late day, there is an oven-like comfort, like a woodstove in a cool house.

At pasture’s edge, a new mother guards her calf, fiercely eyeing the dogs. We move on, past the pond, past the white oak, through the equipment yard. The dogs find shelter from the heat under the chicken coop; I find shelter indoors.

Closing the blinds, we lie down under the ceiling fan and take a midday nap. Sleep is refuge against a hot Tennessee summer day, a sacred state of renewal before the workday reconvenes.

.