Category Archives: Thanksgiving

2023: Ten Reasons I’m Thankful This Thanksgiving Week

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a few shelves, among many.

Thanksgiving Day, that best of all holidays, is this week. It is time for my annual exercise in sharing what I find myself most grateful for in this life. But the exercise is not just done once a year; it’s a practice I carry out daily, when each morning I express, privately, my gratitude and hopes. It has been a helpful habit over the years, one that serves to lessen my too easily accessed anger and general cussedness (family and friends reading this may shake their heads and ponder, “if this behavior shows restraint, dear God…!”). This Thanksgiving I am thankful—

  • For my partner of almost thirty-nine years. Her love and companionship are essential, and her work ethic never flags, in this life we share.
  • That she and I have perfected, with years of long practice, the art of the siesta, an essential three-hour quiet time of the three R’s, reading, rest, and reflection, observed from 12:30 to 3:30 each afternoon.
  • For the lesson from my father, that in one’s community it is better to rub shoulders than to throw elbows. It’s a lesson I plan to revisit each morning during the upcoming election year.
  • For the skills and patience that husbandry has taught me, and for the maturity that has been acquired, sometimes painfully, in its practice.
  • That creation is a daily act of revelation on a planet more resilient than we.
  • That the current drought is a reminder of the fragility of both our work and how we treat the land. Such reminders of our smallness are always good for our species, if we are willing to pay attention.
  • For my younger neighbors the Scarboroughs and the Stricklands, both families who practice the arts of farming and homesteading while working full-time jobs and juggling raising children. They embody the best of this life.
  • For my siblings, their children, their children’s children—and the continued possibility of an endless supply of free labor during their visits.
  • For the books in my library that provide comfort, knowledge, escape, and entertainment.
  • That on Thanksgiving Day I will share with friends around a convivial table the produce from our farms. And in the center of that table will be a country ham, which I cured twelve months back, sticky and shining with a Dr. Pepper glaze.
  • And a bonus, if you are counting: for friends Melanie and Sara, and our tradition of the monthly cocktail hour (it really should be daily, you two).

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Speaking of books, a goofy indulgence this week was My Effin’ Life, the new autobiography by Geddy Lee. It was a fun romp—with a somber chapter on the Holocaust—through the rock and roll life of one of the greats. “We have assumed control.”

2021: Ten Reasons I Am Thankful This Thanksgiving

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#11 Good soil

This farm has always been a refuge of sorts from the storm. Even the pandemic, at times, has felt more like a “ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars” event.  With a rumble of howitzers over the horizon but no conflict in the lower pastures. But change is in the air, both with development in our valley and the loss of neighbors and family. Yet life remains always generous and there is much for which to be grateful. Here are a few of the reasons I give thanks.

  • I am thankful that my aunt (100), father (94), and stepmother (80) lived good lives and were respected. Might we each hope for the same when we die.
  • That their passing gave me time to spend with my siblings and their children.
  • The farm continues to provide an embarrassment of abundance. And I have grown to an awareness of the fact that this has less to do with me, more to do with the productive power of this good earth.
  • For the many farm dinners we have prepared for friends. The wine we have shared. The evenings we have passed in good conversation.
  • That many friends and family have decided that Tennessee is either where they want to visit or to live. And that our home is a waystation in that journey.
  • The lesson of a neighbor who lives on one acre and raises chickens, hogs, and maintains a nice garden, for showing the way to do more with less.
  • The sound of wild geese in the dark, the buck on the hill caught in the rays of the morning sun, dogs who are glad to welcome me home, and even the rabbits who ravage my garden.
  • The partner in this life who keeps me grounded and focused.
  • That the act of farming well is a constant moving target, and a challenge worth pursuing, even after 22 years.
  • We have a true Thanksgiving table to share that is a reminder that this day is a celebration of the harvest and bounty of our land.

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Reading this morning: The American Chestnut, an environmental history (written by my friend, Don Davis), a fascinating portrait of the tree, our relationship with it, and what it means to reintroduce it into our forests.

 

2020: Ten Reasons I Am Thankful This Thanksgiving

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At first, I thought that if any year were a challenge for giving thanks, then this would be the one, and I have wondered for some months now how my annual post might be compiled. Then again, the act of thanks-giving is precisely suited to a year like 2020. Being grateful in this year, as in any other, is in the end quite a simple act. The real difficulty is in limiting the list to only 10.

  • First and foremost, I am grateful as always that my father, 93, and my mother’s sister, 100, are with us still. Even more important, I am grateful to have had them in my life. I also give thanks that the Louisiana-based members of the clan survived nature’s worst and are recovering.
  • I knew and enjoyed the friendship of Tom, and the colleagueship of Sue, both of whom were lost to COVID-19.
  • The farm’s garden, thanks in part to the mandated downtime this past spring, was the most productive in years. And it appears, more broadly, that a pandemic has reawakened in a nation the simple pleasure of cooking for and eating with loved ones.
  • Having experienced daily lessons in the fragility of global food supplies, our community turned to local sources to set their table with meat and vegetables (which certainly helped our farm’s bottom line).
  • The card game The Mind and an aged deck of Uno (circa 1970) lay easily to hand for those evenings when the sun sets soon after 5 and rises at 8.
  • A well-stocked library for those same evenings.
  • The rural population has been left behind by the digitally connected world, leaving us more time to be productive and creative. And I live with a partner who embodies both.
  • A walk through the woods on a crisp autumn afternoon, cigar in hand, with no particular destination ahead.
  • The conflicting feelings of seeing a deer in the orchard and wishing my neighbors were better shots, then seeing a doe with two fawns grazing in an upper pasture at sunrise and being glad they are not.
  • A table crowded with roasted goose, assorted sides and desserts, a few choice bottles of homemade imbibements, and friends to share the food and the day.

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Reading this weekend: Highways and Byways in North Wales (A. G. Bradley)

2019: Ten Reasons I’m Thankful This Thanksgiving

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  1. Once again, my father, at age 92, and my mother’s oldest sister, at 99, are both still around.

    The weekly snap: red sky at night….

  2. My off-the-farm job allows me to touch base with widely scattered friends and family when I travel for work.
  3. The valley in which I live is filled with people I like. And I have been recently reminded of the particular pleasure that is gained from visiting.
  4. The land and the bounty it provides … and provides, and provides. (I think we are okay now on the turnip greens, thank you.)
  5. Guests this Thanksgiving — because, as Dorothy Parker said, “Eternity is two people and a ham,” and we have a 22-pound ham.
  6. My friend Jack reacquainted me with this other Parker gem: “What fresh hell is this?”
  7. My partner in this life is still able to appear interested when I say, “Let me read to you something I just read.”
  8. She genuinely shares my pleasure on a November day in simply watching the last of the leaves blow to the ground.
  9. Joey the ram, the flock’s herd sire, has not maimed or killed anyone this year. (And not for lack of trying, Joey, you evil bastard!)
  10. Twenty years ago we made the decision to leave the city and start fresh. Now, when outside, I am more likely to hear a rooster crow or the bawling of hungry sheep rather than an angry voice and the blare of a horn.