The Elusive Egg-Bug

Brief funny story: Yesterday I was working on the chicken coop, moving the curtains inside the doorway and adding a hinged door to the outside. One of my Golden Comets came over and flew up beside me to the door level, hovering there (as best a chicken can hover) and scratching at the wood like she wanted to get into the coop. I told her to just be patient, that I’d be done in a few minutes and then she could go inside and lay her egg. By that time, she was back on the ground (chickens can’t hover for very long, it turns out), and she walked away. I went back to working on the door. About two minutes later, I heard all of the chickens start clucking and carrying on like crazy right behind me. I turned around and saw 16 chickens chasing a rolling egg. Apparently that Comet tried to keep her legs crossed but just couldn’t hold it in. She laid the egg at the highest point in the run, so as soon as it hit the ground, away it went. The rest of the chickens obviously thought it was the biggest bug they’d ever seen. I ran in and grabbed it (egg-eating is not a good behavior for chickens to learn), and from that point until I finished installing the door, I let anyone into the coop who seemed even remotely interested. Lesson learned, ladies. Lesson learned.

There is Something in October Sets the Gypsy Blood Astir…

Once again, October has flown by at least twice as quickly as any other month. I realized yesterday that Halloween is only a few days away, and I haven’t even put a pumpkin on the front porch yet! Looks like we’ll go simple this year — no point in hanging fake cobwebs just to take them down next week. (OK, to be honest, last year the cobwebs stayed up until Thanksgiving. A few more weeks and I could have pretended they were snow.)

This is also the last weekend for the Downtown Market. I’m always sad to see it end, because it’s such a nice place to find local produce, plants, and meat. I bought several tiny heirloom tomato plants there at the beginning of the summer that are all now taller than I am and still bearing dozens of beautiful pink and yellow tomatoes. And the whole chickens from Native Meats are pricier than the grocery store roasters, but they actually have flavor and are so worth the difference!

We tried a new recipe last night that sounded like a strange combination but worked together so well. Turkey sausage, stewed tomatoes, brussels sprouts, and penne… Seriously yummy. It will be going on “the list.” The only bad thing about finding a new favorite like that is that it raises expectations for the next night’s meal. Any bright ideas?

I’ll be adding a new protein to my cooking repertoire in a few months. We bought two young female rabbits a few weeks ago and plan to find a buck this weekend so we can start raising our own meat rabbits. This will be a new experience for me — I’ve raised rabbits before to sell as pets, but Ben is concerned I might back out when it comes time to dress our first litter. I asked him to just be patient with me. I probably will have issues with it at first, but I know it will save us money on groceries and provide us with a safe meat source, and (along with the chickens and garden) it will help us teach The Boy that food doesn’t actually come from the grocery store.

Speaking of raising food, I really want Joel Salatin’s new book, “This Ain’t Normal, Y’all.” He’s full of the kind of common sense that used to be just that: common. Now, though, he’s more like a prophet in the wilderness that is modern food production. His article encouraging college campuses to use their land for agricultural purposes to offset food costs and reduce waste just seems like a no-brainer. We’ve gotten so out-of-touch with the land, and we’re paying the price in more ways than one. In a letter to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson remarked, “Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.” I think he just might have known what he was talking about.

Well, I could go on (and on, and on, as you know), but there are pumpkins to be carved and a brilliant supper menu to be planned. I hope the last precious weekend of October is wonderful for everyone. Go pick some apples and crunch through some leaves. And have a Happy Halloween!

Not So Crazy Chicken Lady

I love my chickens. Really. I can’t believe we considered not having any at our new house. They cost so little to keep, and they give us so much in return.

When I walk up to their pen, they all come running. If I don’t go in, they follow me on the other side of the fence in a big clump, “talking” to me the whole time. If I do go in, the seven Golden Comets (who were handled the most as babies) swarm around my feet, while the white leghorns and bantams (who spent about a month less in the house and never got to be as tame) hover a few feet away. They’re getting bolder, though, and occasionally one of the white ones will allow itself to be petted.

When I open the top of the nest boxes to collect the eggs, four or five hens usually come up the ramp into the henhouse to see what I’m up to and be petted. I used to think they were planning to escape while the lid of the box was open, but they’ve never made the slightest effort to do so. They just want to visit. They’re actually great pets.

And then there are the eggs themselves. I mean, I like my cats a lot, but they don’t DO anything. Granted, I haven’t actually tried to teach them to wash dishes or fold laundry, but I just don’t think they’re ever going to be big contributors around the house. My 15 hens, however, give me an average of 6 dozen eggs a week. Half brown, half white, with the occasional tiny bantam egg thrown in for fun.

I’m sure people who haven’t really been around chickens before or eaten fresh eggs probably think I’m crazy to make such a big deal about them. But keeping your own chickens is one of the most rewarding ways I know to save money while feeding your family safe, healthy food.

My mom has been talking for years about finding or building a small chicken tractor (mobile coop) for her garden. I saw a design for one recently that I’m hoping we can build for her for next year. It’s such a clever thing — a small enclosure that holds just two or three hens and sits between the rows of your garden. It keeps the chickens safe from predators and can be moved daily (or every few hours, depending on the size of it). The chickens scratch the soil and loosen it, eat insects that you might otherwise use pesticides to kill, and fertilize the garden naturally. Once again, they’re saving you money and keeping your food safer at the same time.

Most of all, I think, there’s just something very satisfying about being even a little bit self-sufficient. I will probably never own my own dairy cow or raise and butcher my own pig (although anything could happen, I guess), but I can’t foresee a future in which we will ever not own chickens.

Finally Fall

I thought this summer would never end! I didn’t blog at all because, honestly, I was following that old rule “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Worst. Summer. Ever. Anything that could go wrong (and a few things that couldn’t) did. Big things. Small things. Totally random things.

But hey, it’s over. It’s fall. Even better, it’s October. The best 31 days of the year, as far as I’m concerned.

I know for most people, springtime represents renewal and new beginnings. For me, it’s fall. By the end of summer, I’m feeling old (much older than 30!), cranky, and perpetually tired. But that first crisp, chilly morning hits (the one where I have to go dig out a pair of socks after 5 months of bare feet), and I’m a new person.

Sweaters. Crunchy leaves. Boots. Fresh cider (in all its forms). The sound of crows. S’mores. Trips to the orchard. Homemade soup. Candles. Heirloom pumpkins. And also Reese’s Pumpkins. So many of my favorite things are unique to the colder months of the year.

(On a side note, my sister and I were just talking a few days ago about the pull we feel towards New England, especially this time of year. We love the South, but we’re both first-generation Southern girls. Our father’s family came to Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island in the early 1600s and stayed there. Dad grew up in Springfield, MA, and we made family trips all over New England throughout our childhood. The place is literally in our blood, and every fall, I swear it starts calling to us. One of these years, we’re going to answer. In the meantime, we’ll keep feeding our obsession through Pinterest.)

We’ve made two trips to Skytop Orchard already this fall. Both times, The Boy has visited the animals, munched on fresh apples, and worn himself out running. And both times, as usual, I’ve come away wishing we could park a little cabin on top of the highest hill in the orchard and live, surrounded by mountains and apple trees.

Spring Chickens

I got my first chickens about twenty years ago (oh, how I hate that I’m old enough to reference anything that happened twenty years ago!), two Warren Red hens named Lucy and Ethel. We enjoyed their fresh eggs so much that my parents decided to let me get a few more hens, and suddenly, I found myself with 45 black sexlinks, Warren Reds, and Rhode Island Reds, the proud proprietor of a small venture named Omega Ranch Farm Fresh Eggs.

I sold eggs through junior high for $1.00 per dozen (laughable, when I now see fresh eggs at the Farmer’s Market for $4.00 or more!), mostly supplying my mom’s friends as well as the Foods teacher at the high school I wasn’t quite attending yet. If you’ve never seen a fresh egg cracked into a bowl alongside one from the grocery store, it’s probably hard to imagine why people make such a big deal about them, but the contrast is amazing, and it doesn’t stop at looks. Even in baking, fresh eggs make a noticeable difference.

Which is why my husband and I kept very happy hens for several years at our old house.

And why we’ve been busy moving, reconstructing, and expanding the chicken coop we built a few months before The Boy was born.

And why this spring, I brought home seven little reddish-gold chicks.

Cute little critters, aren’t they? They’re Golden Comets, which means they’re sex-linked, which means that you don’t have to wait six weeks or more wondering if any (or all!) of them are going to start crowing. Golden Comet chicks are red if they’re females and white if they’re males. Nice and simple.

When my Comets were almost four weeks old, I started hearing about “clearance chicks” at Tractor Supply. I’m one of those people who can’t pass up a bargain, even when it’s on something I don’t need, and somehow I came home with four “assorted bantams” (straight run, meaning they could be males or females) and six “assorted pullets” (meaning they’re all (supposed to be) female). Only problem is, at four weeks of age, several of those “pullets” seem to be developing combs more quickly, often an early telltale sign of a rooster. Back to the waiting game, I guess.

I raise my chicks the way my mom taught me — I keep them warm, dry, and safe from predators. It’s not the scientific approach I see a lot of people using, but in twenty years, I’ve never lost a chick. Makes me think there’s something to be said for the simple, old-fashioned method.

I want The Boy to grow up loving animals as much as I did — it wasn’t unusual for me to have a bottle-raised baby goat running around the house in a diaper after being abandoned by his mama.

(Yes, that’s a cat on the other side of the screen door. Yes, he’s bigger than the goat.)

My parents were very tolerant — Mom was usually pretty quick to take in a new critter, and my dad was a big softie, who always said “Absolutely not!”, but could usually be found cuddling the animal in question within 48 hours (when he thought no one was looking, of course). Ironically, he was the one who decided to come home with 30 chicks instead of the half dozen or so we were sent to the feed store to pick up on the day my egg business got its start… For once, Mom was the one saying, “What were you thinking?”

Now that I can tell my Comets apart, I’m working on names for them. Thinking I’ll keep it mostly Shakespearean: Beatrice, Viola, Cordelia, Juliet, Titania, and Ophelia. One, though, will be Esmerelda, in memory of my favorite hen ever, a Warren Red who had a penchant for freshly painted toenails and wanted to be wherever I was at all times. Even after the rest of the flock had to be confined to a large pen (after one too many conflicts with our nearest neighbor, who didn’t appreciate our free-ranging hens aerating his flower beds for him…), Esmerelda simply let herself out of the pen every morning and went back in to lay her eggs and to roost with the others every night.

Being the only chicken out in the open made her vulnerable, of course — a hawk picked her up once and tried to fly off with her, but she wriggled her way free and fell about 75 feet, landing in a pile of tree limbs waiting to be burned. I had to cut several branches to get her loose, but she was fine. She stuck a little closer to the house after that, though. More than once I caught her riding around on our billy goat’s back, and even the horses let her eat out of their grain buckets. She was quite an ambassador for the poultry world. She lived several years, in defiance of the coyotes, foxes, stray dogs, and who knows how many hawks who would have loved to make a meal out of her. And then one day, she fell over dead right outside the front door — heart attack, I guess. She had a good life, though, and she broke any stereotype about chickens being stupid.

These little ladies have some big shoes to fill.

Yes, you.

(If you’re thinking of raising chickens yourself, do lots of research beforehand. Check out the forums at Backyard Chickens. The people there can answer any question, and there are lots of coop designs and such. There’s also Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens, which is pretty comprehensive. Check into your local codes, ordinances, and neighborhood covenants, too, to make sure that the city or your neighbors can’t object. Many cities and subdivisions allow a certain number of hens, although for obvious reasons they sometimes object to the presence of a rooster. Plan ahead — there are some start-up costs associated with building or buying your coop, but the payoff is great. Umm… oh, and get you some chickens!)

“Hey, cow!”

After several years of good intentions, I finally made a trip to Happy Cow Creamery on Wednesday. Can someone please tell me why on earth I waited so long? Or why, when I finally did go, I didn’t take my camera? No, I didn’t think so.

We went with my mom, my sister and her three kids, her best friend and her three kids, and my brother and his three kids. My Boy had the time of his life — he got to ride in a trolley pulled by the biggest tractor he’d ever seen, and at the end of the ride, there were cows! He stood right against the bars of the trolley and hollered, “Hey, cow! Hey!” to any bovine that wandered within twenty feet. Again, why was my camera sitting on the kitchen counter?

So, occasionally in the Upcountry of South Carolina, you’ll see a “Happy Cow Creamery products sold/used here” sign, usually in the window of a small, family-run business. Even though I like the idea of eating local food, I’ve never really purchased their stuff, because a) it’s a bit more expensive than grocery store dairy products and b) whole milk makes you fat, right?

I am now officially educated and fully converted to the Happy Cow lifestyle.

Unlike conventional dairy farms, where cows typically spend 100% of their lives indoors on concrete, eating dry, processed food, Farmer Tom’s 80 or so cows spend their days in the sunshine, grazing in beautiful, green pastures year-round, thanks to his carefully designed Twelve Aprils program. His decision to pursue this “new” method came about after several years of farming conventionally himself and discovering that it was nearly impossible to stay afloat financially without pumping his cows full of production-boosting hormones.

Then one April day, his cows broke out of confinement and into a nearby field. After a few hours of illicit grazing, they were rounded up and returned to the barn. But at their next milking, the cows produced almost 200 pounds more milk than usual. Farmer Tom decided this was worth looking into, and for the past twenty-some years, he’s been developing and improving a program geared towards keeping his pastures naturally lush all year so that his cows can graze in what amounts to a never-ending April. No fertilizers (except what the cows produce) and no plowing (so as not to disturb the earthworms and microorganisms that keep the soil healthy).

We learned so many things during our tour with Farmer Tom’s daughter-in-law, Ashley. For example, because the cows are outdoors in the sunshine, their milk contains natural vitamin D, which the human body can process more effectively than the synthetic form added to grocery store milk. And the homogenization process that most milk goes through (to keep the cream from rising to the top) actually breaks down the fat particles into something our bodies don’t recognize and therefore don’t process well, which is why we’ve always been taught that whole milk makes you gain weight. And (and this was the part that turned my hard-to-impress mom into a Happy Cow believer), most of the milk we buy in the grocery store comes from the Southwest and has been in the jug for 4-5 weeks before we ever see it. So we’re basically buying fake vitamin D, unnatural fat particles, and preservatives. Suddenly, the price difference between Happy Cow and store brand milk doesn’t seem so important.

After so many years of being “fed” the low-fat, fat-free diet tale, the idea of full-fat milk being healthier for me seems crazy. But apparently a lot of local health professionals who’ve taken the time to investigate the Happy Cow way are coming around to the idea and recommending their products to patients. People who’ve been told they were lactose-intolerant often find that Happy Cow milk doesn’t give them any problem. It’s even been successful at (get this) lowering cholesterol.

While we were there, my sister-in-law chatted with a girl who used to work at the dairy — she said that she had been overweight and generally unhealthy, until she started drinking Happy Cow milk and eating the local, unprocessed foods featured at the farm store. She’s probably a size 4 now, and she practically glows.

It’s almost like (and stay with me here) these foods were designed to fulfill our bodies’ needs naturally, without any fiddling and “improving” on our part. Ashley mentioned milk and honey as the two foods that, when consumed in their natural, unprocessed form, are most beneficial to us. Seems like I remember a verse in the Old Testament about a land “flowing with milk and honey…”

Ironically, I think my conservative Baptist upbringing has slowed down my embracing the natural/organic food movement. There’s a strong feeling among the circles I grew up in that caring about the environment is the realm of hippies and liberals (i.e. “them”) and is, in fact, a form of idolatry. It’s called “worshipping the creation more than the Creator.”

Actually, a good rereading of the first few chapters of Genesis should show us that Christians, of all people, should recognize our responsibility to care for the earth. We’re not just consumers; we’re stewards. And I’m realizing (and yes, it’s taken me a while to make this connection) that the more responsible we are in our use of the earth and its creatures, the better the results are for our own health.

I grew up hearing stories about my great-grandparents’ farm in Pennsylvania, where my mom spent a lot of time while growing up. Anytime a study comes out condemning some new food (eggs, red meat, carbs) as the fastest way to obesity and an early grave, Mom mentions the huge breakfast her grandfather ate every morning. It was a Weight Watcher’s nightmare. And he lived 100 years and 5 days.

It’s not an easy switch to make — processed foods are so embedded in our daily routine now that it’s hard to even recognize them all. But Ashley said something the other day that really hit me — at some point, we became willing to accept lower-quality food simply because it was cheaper. And maybe, just maybe, it’s worth spending a little more when you know you’re getting a better product for your money. Like milk that was still in the cow yesterday.

Ten Things I Love About South Carolina

I’ve lived my entire life in this state, and trust me, I know it has its short-comings. But I hate that we only seem to make the national news when we have a scandal like Mark Sanford’s Argentinian affair or a tragedy like the Susan Smith case. There’s so much more to this place than those people and those events.

And it makes me sad that a lot of people who live here (read: people who should know better) love to run our state down. I read a comment this morning on a local news channel’s Facebook page in which the commenter referred to South Carolina as the armpit of the South. Makes me think he doesn’t get out much. I’ve seen a lot of this country, from Florida to Maine to Michigan to Colorado to Texas and a good bit of everywhere in between. Can’t think of a single one of those places that didn’t have a seedy, tacky, or downright scary side.

Poverty, ignorance, and yes, even rednecks exist everywhere — they are not exclusive to the South (no matter what Hollywood would lead you to believe), and they’re certainly not exclusive to South Carolina. And the Yankee rednecks I’ve had the misfortune to encounter over the years are ten times worse than the Southern ones. At least in the South, rednecks tend to be friendly, fun-loving folks who recognize themselves (watch “My Big Redneck Wedding” on CMT sometime if you doubt this — they know, and they’re fine with it). Rednecks in more “refined” parts of the country usually think of themselves as “classy.”

With all this in mind, and fully acknowledging my own identity as a first generation South Carolinian who is eternally grateful to both her parents for being wise enough to stay in the South once they got here, I decided to come up with a list of ten of the things I love most about this state.

1. The fact that I can eat a late lunch in the mountains and still make it for supper (or dinner, to some of y’all) by the ocean.

2. Hash and rice. I was 15 before being introduced to this delicacy, and since that day the sun has shone brighter and the gardenias have smelled sweeter. In my humble opinion, Jackie Hite in Batesburg-Leesville serves up the best there is.

3. Edisto Island. Canopies of Spanish moss-draped live oaks arching over dirt roads and old graveyards. The Piggly Wiggly. Po Pigs BoBQ. The Boob Tree. The Mystery Tree. A gorgeous, multi-faceted place to step back in time. But y’all can just keep going to Myrtle Beach and thinking THAT’S South Carolina. We don’t mind. It leaves Edisto for us…

4. The Statehouse. We have a beautiful home for our state government. They polished the copper dome a few years back, and it was impressive, but I honestly think I prefer it with its usual rich, green patina.

5. The Dark Corner. I love that just a few miles up the road from where we live, there’s a country store that simply cannot keep white sugar and Mason jars in stock. Moonshining is alive and well and living in South Carolina. We even learned a few years ago that my parents’ land and that of the neighbor just above them used to house a very successful still.

6. Peaches. Georgia might have the title, but actually, the only state that produces more peaches than South Carolina is California. And having tasted peaches from both states, I have to say that quality outweighs quantity on this one. All I can think is that maybe they have to pick California peaches really green in order for them not to rot during shipping, and the flavor doesn’t have a chance to develop. Because that’s not what a peach should taste like.

7. The Greater Greenville Scottish Games and Highland Festival. (Yes, it’s a mouthful!) The Games started in 2006, but we didn’t go till last year, when Prince Edward visited. The parade on Friday night had all of Main Street shut down for an hour-long procession of clans, pipe bands, and classic cars that had my husband drooling. The Games themselves took place on Saturday at Furman University. It’s supposedly the first Highland Games outside of the British Isles to be visited by a member of the royal family. We’re already looking forward to the 2011 Games at the end of May.

8. Charleston. Couldn’t leave this out, could I? If you love history, go to Charleston. If you love architecture, go to Charleston. If you love old graveyards and the churches that guard them, go to Charleston. If you love food, go to Charleston. If you love shopping, go to Charleston. Do not, however, fool yourself into believing that you belong there. One of my favorite stories of the city involves the churchyard at St. Philip’s Episcopal, where the side of the street closest to the church is reserved for members born in Charleston, and the “strangers” graveyard on the other side of Church Street is for those born elsewhere. John C. Calhoun was born in Abbeville but married a woman from Charleston, and they both were buried at St. Philip’s — she on the Charleston side and he with the strangers. As the city prepared for Union occupation, it was decided that Calhoun should be moved to an unmarked grave in the Charlestonian section of the churchyard to prevent Union troops from desecrating his remains. After the war, however, he was moved back to his “proper place” on the strangers’ side. A century and a half later, the sentiments behind those decisions haven’t changed. I’m not from Charleston, but I love that Charlestonians are so proud of their identity. They have every right to be.

9. Garden & Gun. This has to follow Charleston because it’s created there. Garden & Gun is a fabulously beautiful magazine dedicated to capturing “The Soul of the South.” It does a pretty darn good job, too, as evidenced by the head-scratching responses from other parts of the country. I googled it yesterday and found several blog posts that all said something along the lines of, “What do gardens have to do with guns? I don’t get it…” Yes, the magazine focuses heavily on a side of Southern life that 95% of us will never experience, but what magazine doesn’t? What percentage of Vogue readers actually go out and buy a whole new wardrobe every month? We love glossy magazines with beautiful photography and stories about the good life because they’re an escape from real life. If you want reality, you buy a newspaper. G&G isn’t all about the high life, though. They like a good seafood dive or barbeque house as well as any salt-of-the-earth Southerner does.

10. Downtown Greenville. When I was a little girl, Greenville’s Main Street was dirty, ugly, and not particularly safe. But in the past ten or fifteen years, the whole area has been rejuvenated, and now it’s the place to be at any time of day. Restaurants, shopping, parks, museums (including the great Children’s Museum) — there’s so much to do! It was my first big “outing” with my little boy when he was six weeks old: frozen yogurt at Blueberry Frog, a walk across Liberty Bridge, and an hour or two of sitting by the Reedy River, watching ducklings brave the little rapids. And every Saturday morning during the summer, two blocks of Main Street are shut down for the Downtown Market, a great source for local meats, produce, dairy, and crafts.

There are plenty of other things worth loving about this place. The Gullah culture in the Lowcountry, the horse country around Aiken, the Congaree Swamp…

Flaws? Absolutely. Humidity, low test scores (down near New York, DC, Pennsylvania, and Hawaii — yikes!), litter, Palmetto bugs, fire ants… I could go on. But it’s home. It’s beautiful. The majority of the people are kind and down-to-earth. I might live somewhere else someday, but South Carolina will always be where I belong.

Resolved: To Exercise Green Thumb Every Day

We’ve been planning our garden this past week. Yes, technically winter has just begun. But spring is just around the corner, and we’ve got lots to do before we actually put the first plant in the ground!
I grew up with a garden — tomatoes, squash, green beans, cucumbers, okra, peppers, zucchini, potatoes, onions… Getting supper ready in our house in the summertime often meant going out to dig up a hill of little red potatoes. True, they usually wound up with a generous coating of butter, so their nutritional value was questionable, but they tasted incredible! A few years ago, my mother had so many tomato plants that she picked between 60 and 70 tomatoes every other day.
I’m not planning anything on that scale, but we’re going to build a couple of raised beds in the sunny spot in our backyard. Hopefully getting them up off the ground will keep the neighborhood dogs out of the vegetables.
Out front, I’m going to put in an herb border along the top of the stone wall — basil, oregano, marjoram, all the Scarborough Fair herbs, fennel, and maybe some catnip for our three pampered indoor kitties who really need to get in touch with their wild sides…
Ben is reluctant to bring chickens to the new house, but we’re fortunate to have all the fresh eggs we want from Mom’s hens. Without chickens to give our kitchen scraps to, though, I’d like to start composting.
I guess I should also start weaving my own clothes and throw away all my high heels. Maybe next year.

How the First Thanksgiving and the Boston Tea Party Happened on the Same Day

This Thanksgiving was supposed to be a special one, since it was the first time we would have my whole family at home for the holiday in about 10 years. (The last time it happened, my brother, Kurt, was a childless newlywed, and I was in college.) Even though our Mom was still going to do the lion’s share of the cooking, my sister, sister-in-law, and I each had a task.
My sister, Kristin, was responsible for the desserts, as usual — she worked in a bakery in college and has been a legend in the family and her general circle of acquaintance for her mastery of the sweet arts ever since. I personally saw gorgeous chocolate, pecan, and pumpkin pies being carried into the house after she and her family arrived on Wednesday, and I heard rumors of the existence of an apple pie as well. Even if you hated everything else on the Thanksgiving table, it would be worth attending just for a taste of Kristin’s desserts.
Angie and I were assigned the green bean and sweet potato casseroles, respectively. With Mom handling the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and probably other delicacies I’m forgetting to mention, it was shaping up to be an old-fashioned family feast.
And then things started to go downhill. What’s usually a mid-afternoon meal had to be moved up to noon, then 11:30, and finally 11:00 because Kristin and her son were leaving with a friend of hers and her son to fly to Fort Lauderdale for a cruise they were going on together, and they were concerned about getting through airport molestation… I mean, security.
Then in the space of a few days, Kurt’s younger daughter got sick, and then I got sick, and then Kurt got sick. By Wednesday, we were all feeling better, so it looked like the celebration could continue as planned. But Wednesday night, as I was placing The Sleeping Boy in bed, he suddenly got very, very sick. All over the place.
This was the first time he’d ever thrown up, so he was terrified. I sat in the kitchen with him in my arms (linoleum floors = easier cleanup) until Ben got home from Black Friday preparations at his store. The Boy seemed to be feeling better, but he had a few more minor bouts before finally going to sleep about 1:15.
I had called Mom after the first siege to tell her we wouldn’t be there for Thanksgiving Dinner, but I don’t think it really sank in with me till yesterday morning. When it did, I got pretty depressed. I mean, I see my family a lot, but I had been really looking forward to having everyone in one place for the “big holidays” this year.
And then about 8:30 in the morning, Ben said, “You know, we have sweet potatoes. We can at least make the casserole.” Then we realized we had white potatoes, too, and if we just had some cream cheese, I could make Mom’s mashed potato casserole.
I really didn’t want to go to the grocery store, because I absolutely hate, detest, despise, and abhor the growing trend of stores being open on what should be days for family. I know that part of the reason I’m so strongly opposed to it is because my husband manages a major retail store that, so far, is keeping their doors closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. But just last year, they started opening on Easter, and I’m afraid that it might not be much longer before they bow to commercialism and open on those days, too. I dread that it’s becoming the norm.
I don’t really think the average consumer considers the fact that the person who rings up their big pre-Black Friday savings on Thanksgiving Day is probably working a 6 or 8-hour shift and most likely missing out on a family celebration. I know the husband of one of Ben’s assistant managers was missing their family meal because he had to be at work at another big chain store.
I think it’s ironic that we hear all this nonsense about the recession bringing us back to what’s really important, like time with family, and yet in order to supposedly get us out of the recession, major retailers are forcing their employees to sacrifice those things. I mean, how many of the people who went Christmas shopping yesterday wouldn’t have done the same thing today or tomorrow if the stores had been closed for Thanksgiving?
All that said, I have realized that I am not opposed to grocery stores being open for a few hours on Thanksgiving morning. As long as they close by noon, employees can still enjoy the day with their families. And sometimes, well-intentioned people run out of things on Thanksgiving morning. Like toilet paper.
When the toilet paper crisis arose, I realized I was going to have to compromise my anti-holiday-shopping beliefs. So I went to Bloom. And I hated myself the whole time. But as long as I was getting toilet paper, I went on and got a fresh turkey breast, that cream cheese I needed, more butter, and a bag of stuffing (hey, it was last-minute, and for a bag of dried bread crumbs, it ended up tasting pretty good).
By the time I got home, The Boy, feeling much better but utterly worn out from the night before, had fallen asleep on his Daddy’s shoulder. So we put him in bed in our room and got cooking. A few minutes later, we looked in on him and found Gilligan and Dickens, our two ginormous cats, curled up on either side of his legs. Guess they had assigned themselves guard duty. Their smaller (and fiercer) lady friend, Drusilla, was camped out under the bed.

Realizing that The Boy was in good hands… er, paws, we got back to work. And we had so much fun. We’ve rarely ever cooked together, even before The Boy was born, because our last kitchen was so tiny. And lately, I cook while Ben plays with The Boy, or vice versa. So it was unusual for us to be working side by side.
By the time The Boy got awake 2 1/2 hours later (thrilled to find himself surrounded by kitties), we had the turkey out of the oven and the sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, and extra dressing in. The tea was steeping, and we were pretty impressed with our ability to pull together a bona fide Thanksgiving meal at such short notice.
In fact, when the oven timer read two minutes and I was stirring sugar into the concentrated tea, Ben commented on the fact that everything was coming together perfectly. He probably should have kept his mouth shut.
When I crossed the kitchen to throw away the used tea bags, I thought I had the tea pitcher pretty far back from the edge of the counter. I forgot that our son is a giant with the wingspan of Michael Jordan. In the seconds I was gone and literally as the oven timer started beeping, he grabbed the handle of the over-half-full gallon pitcher and doused himself, his father’s legs, and the floor with a very sticky sweet tea bath.
All we could do was clean it up and laugh. We figure it’s probably going to be what we look back on most fondly from the day.
Still, even without sweet tea, the meal was delicious, and what started out as a day full of disappointment turned into a pretty special memory. And this way, the leftovers are all ours.

(Please note that on this plate of carbohydratey goodness, the odd piece of turkey sticking out one side belongs to The Boy. And he ate every bite.)

Same Words, Different Wavelength

A little at a time, we’re making this place look like our home. On Sunday, we finally finished painting our bedroom, set up our headboard, and hung the mirrors above our bedside lamps, so as long as you ignore the boxes against the walls, the room looks pretty good.
On Monday, I decided to hang the group of pictures from our trip to Scotland that used to be in the stairway of our old house. Getting the layout right took quite a while, but I was proud to show off my work when Ben came home. He said he liked it, and then he said that it was weird to see them there.
I thought, “Yes, exactly! It’s weird to see our memories hanging on the wall someplace other than our old home — the home we came back to from our honeymoon, from that trip to Scotland, and from the hospital with our first child. It’s weird to think that we will never see these pictures on the wall in that home ever again. Isn’t it nice that both of us are able to acknowledge the fact that no matter how exciting it is, it’s still strange to make a new home in a different place!”
A few minutes later, thrilled that we had connected on such a deep emotional level and hoping we could talk about it further and strengthen the bond, I asked my soulmate what he had meant by that statement. He said, “I meant it was weird to have the pictures where I could see them, because I never stopped on the way down the stairs to look at them before.”
Men are weird.