Thanksgiving on the Farm

I love Thanksgiving.  It is the only holiday that doesn't have anything really attached to it but enjoying your family.  We don't go to parades, haul everything out for a picnic, hassle over presents...it's just about being with the ones you love.  Oh, did I mention that it is also a wonderful excuse to throw out every concept of correct eating and try to cram 364 days of missed calories,  forbidden fats and sinful sugars into one meal.  A friend recently quoted that the average Thanksgiving meal will have 3000-4500 calories.  I did my best.  If I didn't meet that goal it wasn't for lack of butter, cream, cream cheese, cheese, eggs and sugar.

Like most women who are hosting the annual feast, I leapt out of bed before daylight to get started on the turkey.  My son had lobbied mightily for something other than the traditional bird.  "You've always tried to make dinner a celebration of the bounty of our farm, so why turkey?  Let's do prime rib, we do, after all, raise beef."  I nodded, but reminded him that we no longer raise our own beef for the table, so that meant buying our beef along with everyone else at the grocery.  (I'm sorry to say that our shrinking family and growing waistlines mean that it just isn't economical for us to try to use a whole beef at a time.)  When he considered the cost of a rib roast for our crew (a price which doesn't really reflect the price that we get at the stockyards for our beef cattle), he decided that maybe he wouldn't be making a trip to the grocery for our dinner.  Besides, Hubby and I like turkey--especially the left overs.

While I studied my to do list, like Eisenhower planning D-Day, Hubby wandered through the kitchen. "I'm going to feed." he announced.  "How long before dinner?"  I glanced up from my studies and waved him out the door, "We are eating at 1:00, so you should have plenty of time."

 Farm wives should know better. 

The morning passed with a frenzy of cooking, tasting and basting. I was approaching the final countdown when Hubby stuck his head into the kitchen.  "When's lunch?  We've got one more chore to do if there is time."  "As long as it doesn't take long." I muttered as I shuffled casseroles from the counter to the oven.  "No problem.  We've just got a few calves we need to get up." 

Farm wives really should know better.

The guests started to arrive and the house was smelling a lot like a turkey dinner.  We all gathered around the counter in the kitchen, catching up on news and enjoying a glass of wine while everything finished up.  Finally someone asked where hubby was.  "Oh.  He's just finishing up a little chore.  He'll be here any minute." 

Farm wives really should know better.

Time passed and the casseroles went from the oven to the warming drawer and we all had another glass of wine. 

The appetizers disappeared and so did the bottle of wine.   No Hubby.

Just when I was beginning to wonder if we should go on and eat the kitchen door opens and Hubby appears.  It seems that he had just spent the last hour chasing three calves around the field trying to get them rounded up and penned.  That was after he had repaired the fence they had knocked down when they escaped from the first time he had penned them.  Tired, dirty and frustrated, he greeted his guests and disappeared to clean up. 

I opened another bottle of wine and checked the warming drawer. 

In a farm wife's life, an hour late for dinner is just about on time.

Farm wives really do know better.