Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday. That is because it doesn’t involve trying to outdo one another with gifts. My old favorite was Easter, but now Easter gifts as well as Easter outfits have stolen the significance of the holiday—so Thanksgiving is my new favorite. It is all about family and togetherness and good food and being grateful. And that is how we celebrated it here on Big Ugly. Even though we all lost a lot of produce to the excessive rain and some flooding, we had home grown potatoes and delicious sweet potatoes to round out the meal. We also had some home grown pumpkin here and there. And we had togetherness and good friends. Michael and Marchelle brought over some of their friends for dessert here in front of the fire. I was worried that I had enough desserts: three kinds of cookies and two kinds of pie. But then homemade éclairs, biscotti, brownies, apple crisp and French vanilla ice cream magically appeared. The whole table was covered with desserts and I had to bring out the full size dinner plates instead of the little dessert plates. The coffee was good; the conversation was good and Gemutlichkeit was the mood of the evening. We were all grateful in our own ways.
Marcelle has a new experiment going on this fall and winter. She built a half tunnel up against the south side of their house. So far, so good. We have had unusually cold fall mornings: in the teens. We usually don’t get that kind of morning until we are into the dead of winter. She is only using a single incandescent light to maintain the temperature. She isn’t trying to recreate a greenhouse, but rather to just keep some cold tolerant greens going for winter harvest. All the reading I have done about “the old days” hints
Marcelle used simple construction techniques to build her half tunnel against the south side of her house
You can see the single light bulb in the tunnel
The kale is coming up
Spinach plants in the tunnel
Mustard greens sprouted and started growing
that vitamin C and vitamin A were often deficient in the diets of people—especially children. We need to make sure that our food security plans deal with that issue. We live in a narrow “holler” with steep sides. The dark and the cold collect in our holler. We have to combat those with good food and good exercise. But on the positive side, our holler feels safe and sound and we are glad to live here. Something else to be thankful for.
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