It’s a quiet holiday here at the farm. The oven is currently pre-heating for the 7-pound turkey breast that’s been defrosting in the fridge since Sunday. I have picked out my favorite of the potatoes from their basket, set aside to boil (and then bake) for a cheesy mash. The wood stove is burning bright and Harry Potter movies are playing in the background while I look, one eye-brow raised, at the directions on my family-sized box of stuffing.
Stovetop has never been a choice in my personal history. “Stuffing” (we called it filling) was sold by nice elderly protestants in bread tins back in Pennsylvania. That stuffing was so thick you could cut it like a slice of pound cake. Honestly, it was more of a congealed British-style of bread pudding than what this box seemed to advertise, but I’m open minded. I’ll make it. I deserve to get stuffed.
Chores were done hours ago, the house is swept and last night’s dishes are done. It’s time to make new ones! I’m puttering and planning the feast. Besides roast turkey and potatoes, there will be butternut squash and brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, and a slice of buttered sourdough made by my amazing neighbor Linda. A few years ago we started trading my hen’s eggs for loaves of her bread and now it’s as much a staple around here as border collie stares and hawk feathers. I’ll probably eat around early afternoon and then head out in Holland Taylor (my prized 2009 gold LL Bean edition Subaru Forester) and do some holiday raptor trapping. I am a woman with hopes set on a kestrel. Maybe a Thanksgiving miracle will occur?*
I’ll tell you this much for free, I never thought birds would be this large a part of my life. Now just north of 40, my solo holiday is focused entirely around them:
I just swapped eggs for bread and I’m about to put this turkey in the oven. I woke up at dawn and opened chicken coops and fed my geese while listening to wild bird song. My day also included cardinals, white-breasted nuthatches, black-capped chickadees, and one little rogue Carolina wren, all hanging by the feeder just outside the glass French doors. An hour ago, I watched a young coopers hawk zip by like a rocket. Ravens called out from their perches far up mountain at daybreak, their Gruk! Gruks! still made me smile as I pulled buckets from the well.
I know them all like neighbors; the local songbirds, raptors, and corvids. These birds are household names, their nests known as well as neighbors’ mailboxes. And they are also my emotional dessert, because my plans for the afternoon center around the hope of getting lucky looking for a small falcon. While neighbors and friends gather around tables, I will be out there on the back roads, looking up.
Anyway, I wanted to share this quick post to everyone to say I’m so grateful to be on this side of my story. To finally be in a place of hope after years of being so afraid.
I am grateful be finally writing to make a living again, even if it’s just a small slice of my income. If you are one of those people, I can’t thank you enough. The reason this Thanksgiving isn’t sad is because of you.
This afternoon I’ll be planning the essays for the week ahead. I need to plan them now, because I’m not doing this the way I used to. I’m not sitting at desktop just whipping up some words and hitting send like before. Flight Paths took ten hours. That last piece about losing animals; two days. I am crafting these essays, editing more, actually writing with pride. I’m working harder than ever to prove I deserve to make a living doing this and I am not giving up.
All a writer wants is to be read, to share what’s inside, and have that be good enough to earn a living. My goal these days is dignity in what I do and writing well enough to be worth your time and money. And while this start is humble, It’s encouraging!
I hope wherever you are, and whomever you’re with, you are able to find some time for grace amongst the chaos. I hope your bellies and hearts are full. I hope whomever you’re around, even if it feels forced or tense, finds common ground over a football game, movies, recipes or hunting season. And above all, I hope you find peace and contentment in uncertain times, even for one day.
Happy Thanksgiving from Cold Antler Farm! Regardless if you’re surrounded by thirty screaming family members or home alone with Chinese take out and Netflix, I hope you take time to feel lucky about some small thing, and are excited for something ahead, however distant or small. Gratitude is grace, but hope is what sustains us.
I look forward to writing to you again, and for that I can never thank you enough.
I love you. Be kind. Eat well.
Gruk Gruk!
*If I do catch a kestrel it will be shared behind the paywall. I keep all animal and farm updates out of the public eye now. I feel safer that way.