Category: Front Porch Musings

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Happy Thanksgiving from the Front Porch!

I love to cook and I love to cook Thanksgiving dinner, but this year decided to do things differently. Work and Karl and typical weather (which we GOT!) all made me decide some time ago that this year’s holiday celebrations would be celebrated at home – the three of us.

I recently read something on the order of there are people who get energy from being around others and people who get energy from solitude. I definitely fall in the solitude camp and find it exhausting to do much of the “people” thing. I know…it explains a lot :)!!

So, this year, the fambly Summers Thanksgiving Day will not only be intimate but I also decided to depart from the usual turkey dinner.

We are not departing from a cozy fire in the woodstove, though – Bob would never allow that to happen!

On top of the TV is my Thanksgiving bread on the rise – it is Broa, a Portuguese corn bread according to the recipe. Not southern cake-like cornbread, it is a crusty – chewy bread made with some cornmeal. And I’m adding the recipe’s Thanksgiving variation which includes dried cranberries and orange zest. I think it will go perfectly with the pumpkin stew that will be simmering on the stove this afternoon. A green salad and some fizzy apple cider will round out my dinner with Nantucket Cranberry Pie for dessert.

There will be leftovers, just like the usual turkey dinner, as I find it impossible, no matter what my intention, to make a small pot of soup or stew…

A large gift box of the Meyer Lemons arrived last week and some of them will join the cranberries to become cranberry-lemon marmalade. Meyer Lemons are a hybrid lemon-mandarin orange (might be something else from the orange family) cross – slightly sweeter than a regular lemon, thinner skinned and rounder. And fresh off the tree – beautifully fragrant…a wonderful gift!

A little snowthrower maintenance is also on the “menu” – rats! My own fault as I decided to do some cleanup in the dark, hit a few rocks and the auger belt broke. Also, it needs an oil change. I’d have it picked up and serviced except it is snowing…

..kind of constantly and supposed to keep going and another storm so will see if I can get all in working order today.

Karl in his closet looking concerned that I am in there as well AND pointing the camera at him. It is the last weekend of hunting season and the guns were on the loud side this morning. Both he and Bob will join me at the table when the food is ready. No one misses a meal at this house!

Seriously, Thanksgiving – I have so much to be thankful for – Karl and Bob, this warm and comfortable house, good food to fix and enjoy, good work, friends and family – all is good and well.

Happy Thanksgiving from Karl, Bob and I to all.

***EDIT*** And I’m thankful for my neighbors, Mike and Nancy. And I’m REALLY thankful for their backhoe :)! I had just hit Publish for this post when Mike and their backhoe headed up my driveway…takes the pressure off the snowthrower repair.

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Battle Stations!

Uh-oh…

Karl is on the job…

There is no sick leave at Beardog Consulting… When the going gets tough, the tough get going!

We are at battle stations!

Karl is protector of house, home and property as usual. Last evening, we started the medication that I believe gives him comfort without adverse effect. He wagged his tail last night! It does not have its curl back, but it wags – VICTORY!

For my part, I visualize my own army of warriors – angelic knights – standing at the ready around us and this house -with swords raised – keeping fear, worry and all that is not Joyful at bay. If something sneaks through, I yell at my army, fling forth my arms in wizardly power and command that the intruder be turned away!…dramatic maybe, but the visualization works :)!

The foe (and squirrel!) must be vanquished!!

Bob’s comment on the proceedings is not printable…

**All photos taken this morning (9/8/2010) – Karl rolls with the ebb and flow of his energy – I’m learning to do the same.

Thank you…more than words can say for your comments and prayers.

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Other lilacs

I picked lilacs yesterday and arranged them in a Mason jar.

They made me remember lilacs given to me in a large white pitcher – 6 years ago. My memory of those lilacs – overflowing the pitcher and filling the house with their fragrance is a vivid memory.

About this time of year, 6 years ago, I had a horse riding lesson, given by my neighbor in my own round corral. In a freak accident getting on the horse, I suffered a depression fracture of the tibia and was ordered to keep my weight off my leg – be on crutches – for 6 weeks. I stared at the doctor, incredulous, and said that was NOT possible! At the time, I was running a growing art pack and ship business single handedly, had 2 acres of lawn and garden around my house, a dog and 2 cats, and my programming work. There was no way I could be on crutches for 6 weeks!!!

Stop laughing!

I went home and called everyone of my acquaintance and told them that I needed someone to help me with everything from gardening to cooking to cleaning house to packing and shipping art. And I prayed – a lot!

Two women, friends of friends, responded. It was miraculous. Two women who had flexible schedules, who needed flexibly scheduled part-time work, who were both able and willing to do anything I needed – they were there and we worked out that one of them was with me from 10-3 every day. They gardened, mowed, trimmed, cleaned, cooked, learned how to make the boxes that I made for the art shipping – in short, they were my legs for 6 weeks. I concentrated on my programming work which requires no legs. It worked.

In the process, one of the women in particular, became a friend as well. She has 5 daughters and they helped too – playing with Karl, brushing Karl (no small task in the spring), the 14 year old mowing with my lawn tractor ( a 14 year old wants to drive so badly, she will drive anything!), raking the lawn, picking up sticks and generally being just a pleasure to have around.

And one day, she arrived with a white ceramic pitcher filled to overflowing, with lilacs from her yard. That pitcher of lilacs sat in the middle of my dining room table and filled my house with fragrance and the love behind the gift. I doubt that I will ever forget that gift of lilacs and the joy that they and she and her daughters brought me.

Yesterday, as I arranged a few sprigs of my own lilacs in a Mason jar, to sit on my window sill, I remembered other lilacs.

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Bosque Birdwatcher’s RV Park: San Antonio, NM

San Antonio, New Mexico is a small town, located just off I-25, south of Socorro by 10 miles, Albuquerque by 80 miles. It is home to Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge

Bosque del Apache is Spanish for “woods of the Apache,” and is rooted in the time when the Spanish observed Apaches routinely camped in the riverside forest. Since then the name has come to mean one of the most spectacular National Wildlife Refuges in North America. Here, tens of thousands of birds–including sandhill cranes, Arctic geese, and many kinds of ducks–gather each autumn and stay through the winter. Feeding snow geese erupt in explosions of wings when frightened by a stalking coyote, and at dusk, flight after flight of geese and cranes return to roost in the marshes.

In the summer Bosque del Apache lives its quiet, green life as an oasis in the arid lands that surround it. From the Bosque del Apache Wildlife website

From the main intersection in town, a small sign pointed the way to Bosque Birdwatcher’s RV Park, 3 miles south. The spot appeared to be a farm turned into RV spot with maybe 30 spaces that bordered the wildlife refuge.

This morning I saw what I think are Sandhill Cranes that live in the refuge.

Beautiful in the morning’s pink alpenglow.

Sunrise to the east was worth watching as well.