Thanksgiving Weekend

As you can see, I'm like the butcher who backed into his meat grinder and got a little behind in his work!  :)  I could write a book about Thanksgiving Weekend with tons of photos of people and things I'm thankful for.  I'll spare you, and go with the "lite" version . . .

Apart from Katie and Cameron who were too far away in chilly Scotland, we were blessed to have the rest of the family here for the whole weekend.  Herb got home from Dallas with the Triplets on Tuesday.  Jenny and Jean-Marc arrived in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.  Jim and Monique with Charis and Kol arrived on Wednesday afternoon.  Kara, of course, was here all along, although when the children arrived, she retreated to her house to nurse her case of Strep throat.  The main thing to be thankful for there was that she was able (although pretty silently) to join us for dinner on Thursday.

A few untraditional Thanksgiving photos will give you a peek at our weekend . . .

  An antique cabin expert, Kerry Hix of Antique Log Cabins, came on Wednesday to an evaluation of our log cabin.  He was fascinated by it, proclaiming it "unique" and "a mystery."  I'll save a more detailed report for a future post.

We made a huge batch of my homemade curing salts, this time pureeing the other ingredients in the blender, then adding the salt (thus the green color).

I got our two 15 lb. hams salted, using a combination of my homemade curing salt along with Morton's Quick Tender Cure.

While I was hamming it up in the kitchen, Herb was out in the yard building a fence for the Triplets.  I refused to let them loose outside considering all the dangers from big dogs to coyotes to hundreds of unfamiliar acres for getting lost in.  Great was their joy when Herb let them loose in their safe new play area!

Jean-Marc had to work, but Jenny kept busy lending a hand in the kitchen and being our official photographer.  Here are her portraits of the Triplets:

Olivia, age 10

Jackson, age 6

and Monty, age 12.

Next up in the kitchen was the 37 lbs. of nice, lean bacon.

I did it all with the homemade curing salt, thus avoiding any nitrates or nitrites in it.  We used up all of our glass pans and pieces of plastic sink liner . . .

. . . even layering the bacon on top of each other using wooden skewers to separate it.  When we ran out of glass pans, we began using ziploc bags.  Finally all the bacon was curing in the fridge alongside the hams.

On Thanksgiving we ate to our hearts' content, beginning at breakfast with the first bacon I cured and farm fresh eggs, ending with a copious dinner that included our home grown green beans, sweet potatoes, and carrots.  We declared the organic turkey the best we'd ever had and decided that raising a couple of turkeys has to be on next year's agenda.



On Black Friday, while countless other Americans subjected themselves to horrendous traffic and other insane shoppers, we spent a wonderful afternoon in the barnyard with the whole family (again, minus Katie & Cameron).  From left to right:  Herb, Angel, Jean-Marc, Tai, Jenny, Zephyr, Kol, Monique, Jim, Charis, Kara, Brandy, Susan with Hero in front.

In this photo you can see the front of Kol, as well as Tai and his three "big" cousins, Zephyr, Hero and Misty.  (The Triplet cousins weren't included in the barnyard fun for fear of a horse or cow stepping on them or them chasing the chickens.  The cats, of course, stay scarce when there's a crowd.)

Siobhan got into this photo, but the camera was too quick for her to get a head.  You can finally see Kol's face; he was too interested in everything going on to spend time staring at a motionless camera!

One final photo shows the ducks looking on in astonishment as we all tried out our goofy (read "normal") personas.

Once the photography session was over, we really started to have fun.  Jenny and Monique rode the horses bareback with halters, Charis and Kol got wagon rides from Jim and horseback rides from Monique and Jenny with Mimi's help, Kara and Herb and Jean-Marc took tons of photos (many of which had my rear-view up front and center and therefore did not pass the Public Decency test!), and the dogs just generally mixed in with chickens, ducks, and Siobhan to create a fun and exciting atmosphere.

We wish all our friends and family could have joined us for the fun, but since that was not possible, we'll just say, "We hope you had a blessed and thankful Thanksgiving with as many blessings to thank God for as we have!"