Thanksgiving

It always seemed cold out on the Louisiana marsh as a boy. On Thanksgiving eve my father and I would head out to the hunting camp, a ramshackle building under centuries-old live oaks. At dinner we’d sit down at a long communal table and enjoy hearty bowls of duck gumbo. The dozen or more men would talk, and we the sons would keep quiet, seen but not heard. The morning smell of bacon and eggs served as an early alarm. And by 4:30 we were climbing into mud-boats and heading off across the marsh. At regular intervals a father and son would disembark into a wooden pirogue and push off into the darkness, usually arriving at a duck blind an hour before sunrise. Our hunt would begin with my father calling the ducks, enticing them to circle and land.

At the end of the hunt in late morning, we’d head home, pulling into the drive around noon. Thanksgiving preparations inside were well underway, pies lined up on the counter. I’d cast an anxious gaze to determine that a favored sweet potato pie was among them, then off for a shower and a change to clean clothes. The table was set and dinner typically eaten in mid-afternoon; afterward, the calls would begin from distant relatives.

Today, as a grown man, my rituals have changed. I’m now the relative calling across the distance of a time zone and seven hundred miles. Instead of a duck hunt early Thanksgiving, my morning is filled with chores: feeding pigs, sheep, cattle and chickens, stacking wood for the woodstove. Busy, but still time will be made later for a woodland walk on our farm. We eat late, so no need to rush dinner preparations. Some years we are graced by the company of friends, and other years we dine alone. This year, Cindy travels and I will dine by myself or with a couple of friends.April Scrapbook 028

I’ll prepare a roast duck in memory of those boyhood hunts with my father. And I’ll regret the absence from the table of a sweet potato pie. But since it is Thanksgiving, I’ll be grateful for reasonable health, a loving partner, a satisfying life, a full library; that my father is still with us, as is a large abundance of siblings and other kin. I’ll also be thankful for what is absent in my life, namely, the darkness of war and the dislocation from hearth and home of the refugee.

As I step out on the porch before sunrise Thanksgiving morning, the air will smell of smoke from a dozen farmhouses in our valley. It will be cold on our farm here in the hills of East Tennessee. The cattle will begin to bawl. But over their din, if I listen well, I will hear the sound of my father calling the wild ducks out on the marsh.

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, a sacred day slowly being encroached on by the steady beat of commerce. A day we pause in our mad rush to accumulate more things. Things we manage to forget the ownership of even more quickly. A day when we hopefully pause to reflect on what we are most thankful for in our lives.

For most of my childhood Thanksgiving morning started around four am at the Duhon duck camp. All the men and boys rolling out of bed for a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, grits, biscuits and homemade fig preserves before piling into pirogues and pushing out into the marsh to hunt ducks. By mid-morning, loading up our game harvest we pushed back through the marsh. A light lunch before everyone headed home with the cleaned ducks. We arrived to find the dinner preparations well under way for the main event. Not a bad way to spend ones youth, hunting ducks in the company of your father. For that memory and experience I am thankful.

Last Friday I deboned a twelve pound pork shoulder roast, prepared a corning solution and immersed the meat to brine for five days. I pulled it out today, rinsed and put it back in to soak overnight. The corned pork roast will be the center piece for our dinner tomorrow. A classic boiled dinner of turnips, cabbage, carrots and potatoes to accompany the meat with a fresh pumpkin pie for dessert. Not a traditional meal. But I’m thankful to have a partner in Cindy who is willing to indulge these culinary whims and thankful we are able to provide the majority of the food from our farm.

Saturday we had an excellent dinner with the Fuja brothers a few valley’s over. The brothers entertained us by showing off their farms extensive ornamentals and vegetable plots. Sunday Mr. Kyle drove his tractor over to see us and chat. Earlier in the day I hung out with Lowell, an older farmer over the hill, talked and loaded a truck load of hay. Monday evening our friend Adrienne came up the hill to see the new lambs born over the weekend and stayed for conversation and a glass of wine. For all of them and so many more I am thankful.

Everyone enjoy the day.