November 28th, 2004

A Whirlwind of activity the last few days here. I'm sure it hasn't been much different for any of the rest of you.

When I got home from work on Wednesday night , I started cooking. Even though the big Thanksgiving meal was to be at our oldest daughter's home on Thanksgiving, we were all bringing dishes. For me, noodles to roll out , squash and potatoes to peel and blackberry cobbler to make.

We had had quite the little snow storm the day before Thanksgiving here, so we woke up Thanksgiving morning to a winter wonderland. The several inches of snow on the ground and trees limbs were quite beautiful. It musta presented another problem though somewhere else though, because the electricity went out. Yep, Lots of food to cook , casseroles ready to pop in the oven. No electricity. Now food is one thing,,,,, but the GREENHOUSE!!! Yikes.!! Usually our Rural Electric Coop folks are very good at getting things going again and I wasn't too worried and Hubby and I have been Y2K compliant for quite some time.. I have never had the opportunity to use my generator and was at the ready.. Actually I thought , it wasn't that cold and I could probably heat my little Greenhouse up pretty quickly with a bucket of coals. I did imagine that my Sister-in-Law was running aroung frantically with lots of company coming , but even when I called her she was calm. No.. She said, "We'll just pop some pototoes in the fire (We all burn wood) and just take it one step at a time. " I think I was almost disappointed they didn't need to borrow our generator. And My oldest Sister and her family were going to my Brother's house. So I knew she would bring enough food for them all even if the electric stove didn't come on for a while. The excitement of that was short lived though... On came the electricity in about an hour.... casseroles came out of the oven steaming hot, the chicken and noodles were brewing in the pot..... The squash bubbling and sweet, and my blackberry cobbler was a flop like usual ( another family tradition) --- .. Yep , I am a failure with pies. My daughter's all compensated nicely with pumpkin pies and pecan bars at the ready.. One of my oldest daughter's friends also dropped by with a peanut butter pie,.

We got to my daughter's house around noon, our big meal wasn't to be until the evening meal, since one of my Son-in-Law's had to work Thanksgiving. So we played cards and were generally a rowdy bunch until he got there. We could all barely breath after it was all over.... But since our youngest daughter is spending the Christmas Holidays in Bulgaria with her boyfriend , we quickly opened out Christmas presents to each other. We all draw names to keep spending and Holiday stress under control a bit. We also have a spending limit and a dollar gift to buy. We buy the Grandkids whatever we want, however.

Friday, I spent Babysetting my two Grandchildren. We had a great time .... Yesterday Hubby and I both spent recovering from the festivities... Soon I need to get back to my farm work. It is muddy here. I need to haul out hay for the livestock... I try to haul out enough big round bales for a couple of days at a time. That way I shouldn't have to haul any out after dark , when I get home from work. I keep one big round bale out for the horses, sheep and goats and two for the cattle ... since the purchase of my new heifers however I think I may need to haul out more than two..

OK, well off to check on everything outside and How was Everyone's Thanksgiving?