It is weirdly warm and muggy out, and silent. At 9 AM there is no visible activity outdoors in our neighborhood. The Japanese maples in Noel's and Victor's yards are still brilliant scarlet while most of the other trees are bare, and the neighbors have been diligent about raking and moving leaves off the greenway so everything looks tidy and loved. Of course our own little patch of grass is covered with the leaves of the willow oak, and maybe I will break our passive tradition and rake those leaves today.
While all of American society has wrestled with how to celebrate Thanksgiving, our family has not had to give up very much -- except for the far-flung cousins and siblings who will not travel to us this time. But there will be about 20 of us in Mom's front yard, sitting at tables scattered all around instead of the one big table at Anna's house. It might be too warm for a fire, but there is a fire pit there. Today the predicted high temperature is 68 degrees. I hope that everyone everywhere is eating outside today.
There are two large turkeys in brine down in the cooler. One from Sophia's father's farm and one from Whiffletree. Very fancy, pasture-raised happy turkeys. I don't know why I got two, but as it happens we have two cooks in this family who want to use two different methods -- Jon will do his butterfly method and Benjamin wants to do the boiling oil in the giant pot. We will have enough to share with everyone who is stuck at home and is not cooking turkey this year.
Alissa has been doing her pie preparations since yesterday afternoon -- and she arrived with all her pie dough already made, packaged in portions. Her list of pies is exotic and varied ( Coconut pineapple, Ginger cherry, Blueberry swamp, caramel Earl Grey, Pumpkin chiffon, carrot pecan, North Carolina lemon pie, cherry chocolate, apple.). For the last ten years or so, she has been honing her pie systems, and getting further and further from traditional recipes. Last night Jon made a pumpkin chiffon pie using his mother's recipe, something he hasn't done in many years.
But this isn't really what I wanted to write about. This morning as I toodled through the farm on my golf cart, admiring the fields with their healthy crop of crimson clover, I was flooded with that familiar feeling of joy and gratitude. The farm is ready for winter, packed up and put away. Where there were cherry tomato vines on trellises, there are now beds of winter radishes in Carrie's front yard. Where there used to be beds of sugar snap peas and lettuce, now there is spinach that will grow all winter and be ready for spring. The whole farm is beautiful, dressed in its winter clothes. There is no bare soil. Yesterday, in fact, I used our brand new no-till grain drill and put the last seeds into the stand garden that only got disassembled on Dick's last day of work, a few weeks ago.
All of that beauty came out of a season that stayed on schedule from start to finish. While the whole world suffered and struggled to cope with the pandemic and the horrors of our political reality, the vegetables marched heedlessly forward. The soil was ready, the plants and seeds went in, there was rain and sun and the seasons rolled on. Many people worked steadily to keep it all going forward. While it was certainly stressful for the humans, the constant effort to avoid getting covid, the vegetable part was practically stress-free. Everything grew. Bugs ate some of it, but still everything grew.
When I got to the stand (also mostly packed up for winter), I went into the coolers to gather dinner. On the way in, I was welcomed by the fresh green smell of Christmas trees -- they are leaning against the stand, waiting to go out this weekend. I gathered handfuls of perfect carrots, one big rutabaga, an armload of cauliflower, some small potatoes for roasting. I had already given Gordon a crate of root vegetables yesterday so this was just a small supplemental load. My mother had picked lettuce for dinner and left it in the cooler. The two turkeys reposed in their brine. It just made me feel so rich, seeing all that food stored and waiting. We are now good at hoarding food for the Winter CSA, especially potatoes and onions, because we know we will sell every single one if we don't save some for our winter folks.
This is the first full pause since late March when the season started. We have not had many chances to catch our breath, and we have not been anywhere or seen anything off the farms. We have to live on memories of restaurants and theater. But we have nothing to complain about in this family, on these farms, in this community. I am full to the brim with gratitude. It is great to have a moment to notice the riches of this life. Shechechyanu.
