Slowing Down: Thanksgiving at Freedom Ridge

I blinked, and Thanksgiving has come and gone, special baking done, leftovers packed and sent back to school with the Catron Kid, and quiet has now descended on Freedom Ridge Ranch.

Last I looked, it was September, and the High Holy Days just finished. We were looking forward to Sukkot, and suddenly we are on Standard Time, the leaves have fallen, the Sukkah is long down and the days are alarmingly short. How did the fall days get away from me?

The election, that’s how. From the day after Yom Kippur until election day, I was caught up by the needs of the Gary Johnson Campaign. As the New Mexico State Director for Gary Johnson 2012, I felt as if I was swept away for the month of October, with the High Holidays serving as the deep breath before the final lap. The rest of the week of the election was spent in Albuquerque, too, doing the post-mortem on the campaign with senior campaign officials, and the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, along with spending time with my new primary dissertation advisor, getting myself primed for The Next Big Thing.

I intend to write about the last weeks of the campaign—I really do!—but I need to let it all settle. It was exciting, maddening and exhausting. I learned so much, and I need to let it all settle before I decide which lessons are lasting.

I arrive home on Veteran’s Day, and by the following Thursday—Rosh Chodesh Kislev, for I seem to have missed Cheshvan entirely!—we were in Show Low, the Engineering Geek and I, shopping for Thanksgiving. On Friday morning, I began my baking, and then after a weekend adjusting to not needing to be glued to the computer, it was Elisheva’s All Kitchen, All the Time Station right up through Thursday. After several months of neglecting my family in order to be mom to various and sundry Gary Johnson volunteers, I felt the need to s-l-o-w down and bake and cook, and bake  and cook some more. We also deserved some time to talk, to study, to do a slow dance in the kitchen to a Hank William’s Jr. tune, and read to one another in bed in the morning until the sun comes over the mesa. So I cooked for five days of leftovers, and made everything from scratch: from crescent rolls to pumpkin pie. (I made my own filling for those from the pie pumpkins we grew in the garden).

The weather has been wonderful. Short, late fall days of sunshine with those heartbreaker turquoise blue New Mexican skies, that fade into deep blue as the sun goes behind the mesas by four in the afternoon. Afternoons at 60 degrees are followed by cold, star-filled nights that cry out for a fire.

Since he had a late class on Wednesday in Albuquerque, the Catron Kid had driven down early on Thursday morning, and rode El Chapo in the early afternoon, when I chased everyone out of the kitchen—everyone, including dogs and cats.We ate our Thanksgiving dinner as the sun slipped behind Power Line Mesa, slowly and with great attention to the goodness of our fortunes. Elections, war, and scandal notwithstanding, our little family is truly blessed and we know it.

After dinner, we settled down to watch Monumental, Kirk Cameron’s film about the Pilgrims. We were reminded that  this election and the challenges it will bring to our freedom are grave difficulties, the door seemed to be slammed repeatedly on the Pilgrims, they did not give up, cry foul or fall into despair. They persisted in believing in their 500 year plan. And since we have a bit more than 100 years to go on that, we should be strong and resolute as were they.

Friday, the Engineering Geek and I took an afternoon’s lazy drive up into the mountains behind the Little Colorado over in Arizona. We worked our way up into the caldera that holds Crescent Lake, and then descended again along a Forest Service Road into Greer, enjoying the bikers and trail riders of that mountain resort town, while we talked of the future plans for Freedom Ridge and hopes and dreams and half-baked ideas that may shape the days to come.

Yesterday, we took a Shabbat walk with the dogs and our walking sticks in hand, we climbed to the top of Freedom Ridge, our mesa to the east and marveled at the view of the Red Hill and its attendant volcanics, and the San Francisco Mountains to the southeast.

And today, Sunday, I ironed shirts for the EG and the Catron Kid; I packed him up some quart-sized zipper bags of turkey and the trimmings and holiday eggnog to take back with him to his little apartment in Albuquerque. I watched as he drove away, straining to see the movement of the white car against the dark volcanic pressure ridge extending from the Red Hill as he turned onto the county road two miles away. Thanksgiving 2012 is a wrap, but in two weeks he will be home again for the long winter break, just in time for Hanukkah.

I have some work to do to get my Comprehensive Exams back on track because of all the changes in my committee since EN, my original advisor, retired. We have chores to complete while the weather holds, here at Freedom Ridge Ranch. And our renters at the Los Pecos House decided to relocate to warmer climes, and so we have our contract with them to conclude and the house is on the market once again—for sale or rent. There’s lots to do, as always. But nothing that requires the kind of immediate response and dedicated time that managing even a small campaign team requires.

Although it does look like I am being tapped as an alternate for the Libertarian National Committee . . . but more on that after we watch the sun drop down behind Power Line Mesa, and after we feed the animals and gather any eggs laid since this morning by our fine-feathered hens and after we feed the dogs, enjoy a turkey dinner and a glass of wine together, here on Freedom Ridge Ranch. Where the mountains are high and the tumult is far away . . .

 

Technorati Tags: Times and Seasons,Meanwhile Back at the Ranch,Thanksgiving

A Cowboy Country Thanksgiving

"The Eternal has brought you into a good land, a land

with streams and springs that issue forth from valleys

and mountains. . . A land where you will eat bread

without scarcity, where you shall lack nothing;

a land whose stones are iron, and out whose hills

you may dig gold and silver . . . And you shall eat and drink

and bless the Eternal your G-d for the good land..."

--Devarim 8:8-10

We don't think Moses was talking about this land when he told our ancestors that they had been freed from Egypt to work a land flowing with milk and honey, and where their flocks and children and gold and silver would increase by their own hands. But when we traveled to Cowboy Country, and sat down to Thanksgiving dinner on our own ranch, we certainly understood how they felt.




The morning of Thanksgiving brought snowfall, and the Rasta Jew looked out and said, "This is the best Thanksgiving ever!" as he laid a fire in the stone fireplace.

The cabin smelled of the slow roasted turkey, and not having a double oven, of the pies baked the day before. We felt warm, and with a full larder, we felt blessed. The hard work of the spring and summer, finding and buying the ranch, and the fall's labor of beginning to prepare it for our future work, was laid aside for a day, so that we could celebrate that quintessetial American holiday celebrating the fruits of our productive work.

In the late morning, the sky cleared and our customary walk before the feast was spent walking the boundary fences, repaired the day before. The Engineering Geek found the repairs he and the Rasta Jew had made to be sound. The fences must be walked each week this season, as the elk are about, and walk over and through barbed wire as if it did not exist. We walked together, the Engineering Geek and I, talking of the future, while the Rasta Jew held down the fort and played with the dogs.







Returning from a few hours of wind, snow and sunshine, we found a fire had been laid anew, and the Rasta Jew provided us with some music to cook by while we made the gravy and the mashed potatoes, and laid the table for the Thanksgiving feast.


I had brought with us my crystal wedding bowl for the cranberry sauce, my harvest tablecloth, wine glasses and special Thanksgiving tchotkes to make the festive table. The slow-roasted, free-range turkey made the best centerpiece.







The prepared table, minutes before we sat down, a congregation of the three of us, ready to eat and be satisfied, and bless the Eternal for bringing us into this new land of ours, a land that by the work of our hands will become even more productive and beautiful.
Before we said the blessing over the bread, we told the story of the Mayflower Compact, the Plymouth Plantation, and the lesson learned anew of the tragedy of corn collectivism American-style. We ended that lesson with a singing of America the Beautiful: "Oh, Beautiful for Pilgrim's feet whose stern impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for Freedom beat across the wilderness . ."




Any occasion upon which there is singing, blessing and candles bring forth the canine members of the household, because they have come to expect a share of the challah, the bread over which the blessing is said at the beginning of the meal. This night, they had to make do with crescent rolls and turkey, which pleased them as well, and attention all around.

At the ranch, even Lily does well, and Shayna is ranging further and further from the porch. With an invisible fence that covers a good acre of territory, they all get plenty of running space and many interesting places to sniff and explore. Another item on the Thankful List--the ranch has saved Lily's life. A day of ranging through meadow and trees, and she's tired and content. The hierarchy has gotten settled, and the dogs are getting along.

Unlike that of the Pilgrims, our Thanksgiving ends with the Blessing for Food (after eating), as we have been told: "You shall eat and be satisfied and then bless the Eternal . . ." Then dishes, and then relaxing around the fire, talking about the days to come, and enjoying each other--just the three six of us--celebrating Thanksgiving in Cowboy Country.

A Quiet and Snowy Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was a quiet one again this year.
The Chem Geek Princess is traveling. So it was the three of us,
plus the two dogs and two cats, for Thanksgiving dinner.



Just as we wrapped up food preparations, the rain we got yesterday turned to sleet and then snow. The Engineering Geek got the vehicles moved to the top of the impossible-to-climb-in-snow-and-ice driveway.

Then, with the turkey finishing the final two hours of it's nearly 24-hour slow-roast, and the stuffing, sweet potatoes, and green-bean casserole warming in the second oven, the EG and I repaired to our bath.


By the time we got out, the snow had stopped and the view from the bedroom looked like this. The setting sun was playing with the moving clouds to make a blue and white and gold sunset in motion. Beautiful!

Dinner was at five.
We got out the fine China for ourselves, and used our wedding crystal goblets for wine and cider.
After dinner, we watched Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life as our tradition demands.
Dessert and coffee followed the movie.

It was a restful day, overall.
In particular, I enjoyed the chance to cook at my leisure, and so I roasted two pumpkins for a pumpkin bread pudding.



This morning dawned with clouds spilling over the Sandias and racing across the sky.

I got the pumpkin bread pudding in the oven early on. It is for a more convivial Thanksgiving/Shabbat we will spend with friends this evening.






Walking the dogs this morning was an adventure.
The driveway was impossibly iced-in, and we could not walk up it for fear of breaking our necks. So we confined our walk to the meadow.

The snow still covered everything; individual blades of grass, pine and scrub oak branches, and this twisted Cholla cactus.

It has been a very nice few days.
And I am looking forward to having a feast with friends tonight.

And this is the time of year where I appreciate anew that I do not have to endure crowds and chaos for "Black" Friday.

Thanksgiving: A Rainbow Blessing

"You open your hand and satisfy the needs of every living being . . ."

--Birchat ha-Mazon (Blessing After Food)

This morning, as we were preparing for our Thanksgiving Dinner, we looked out and saw this bright rainbow over Rancho Verde. The rainbow came at the beginning of the approaching storm. It is a reminder that storms do come in our lives, but even in the midst of them there is beauty and blessing. As the storm approaches, we give thanks to the Creator who has blessed us with the strength and resolve to see each other through.



The rainbow is a reminder of our blessings, for in the Southwest, at least, rain is always a blessing! There are so many blessings that we have to be thankful for this year and all years, and it is our joy to share those blessings with family and friends, near and far. Our thanks extend to all of those who share this great land with us, and those who protect it with their unceasing vigilance. They are far from home, on the seas and at the borders, and our thoughts go out to them, too.


We are thankful for those who grow the grain, harvest the crops, and bring our food to us. By the work of their hands, we have bread to eat. We are thankful, too, to all of those bright minds whose innovations have improved our lives, and lengthened them, and we are thankful for the strength to share our work with all of them.


Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday: a holiday on which productive people rejoice in the plenty that they have made, and give thanks for the riches they have earned.
And for me, the quintessential song for Thanksgiving is Woody Guthrie's Pastures of Plenty:

"Green pastures of plenty from dry desert ground,

From the Grand Coulee dam where the waters run down . . .

My land I'll defend with my life if it be,

For the Patures of Plenty must always be free . . .

Now, the rain is turning to snow. The turkey is browning in the oven, and the house smells of pumpkins roasting, and spices for the cider. We are warm, dry and safe. We have each other, and we each wake up every morning with joy in our hearts and work that needs doing.

It is our prayer that all of you have the same and do the same!

L'chaim! To Life!


Happy Thanksgiving!

The Albuquerque Turkey

In honor of our yearly pilgrimage to the shrine of the bird, we bring you the famous Albuquerque Turkey song.

Sung to the tune of "Oh, My Darling Clementine--sort of.

Albuquerque had a turkey,

it was feathered, it was fine.

And it wobbled as it gobbled,

and it's absolutely mine.

It's the best pet you can get yet,

better than a dog or cat!

It's my Albuquerque Turkey

and I'm awefully proud of that!

Now my Albuquerque Turkey is

sleeping snuggled in his bed,

And for our Thanksgiving dinner

we'll have egg foo-yung instead.

But seriously, folks, our Albuquerque Turkey is browning nicely in the oven.

After a nice walk in the woods, we are just getting ready to get the trimmings heated up so we can sit down for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Here's a wish that you are having a wonderful day with family and friends near and far!

Thankful...

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

I am feeling thankful this week as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving very quietly.

I am thankful to be alive on days like the one on which I took this picture and the one below.

This was taken on UNM Main Campus looking north toward the Centenial Library from Logan Hall.




















This picture brings to mind the little doggerel I wrote looking at a gold and orange oak tree against the blue October sky in 1976:



"...And it hurt with piercing sadness
that the autumn with her gold
would woo us with her tangy gladness
and betray us to the winter's cold."
EHC October 1976






There is something bittersweet about the vibrant colors of autumn--they cannot stay long, nor do we want them to. And that creates a sudden sense of joy and a lifting of the heart towards the infinite.











And I am thankful for my long-suffering husband who did not intend to move the rest of the furniture last night, but did so anyway, simply because I asked him to.





Great are our blessings! How fortunate are we for our lives, our families and the beauty of our surroundings.

Enjoy the real blessings of Thanksgiving Day

along with the Turkey and Pie.