What would you like to read about first? What local foods we ate, or what wildlife we witnessed, while they ate our local "foods"? Got it. Write about what we saw eat, what we have not eaten. Does this make any sense?
I was originally going to post my Thanksgiving menu, first. It is my most unique, yet it is the most simple of any year. I was thinking about posting this unusual menu list as I was putting together the dinner this past Thursday. It was a two day process with pie baking and chestnut boiling started the day before followed by opening a few jars of red cabbage sauerkraut, apple sauce and bread and butter pickles the next. We used our own butternut squash, potatoes, carrots, onions, parsnip and green beans. The cranberries came from Hardwick, a few towns west of here. I had ordered a "farm fresh" turkey from the Jordon Farm, literally, just over the hill, in Rutland and picked it up on Wednesday. By Thursday, the chestnut stuffing was already made, along with a homemade pumpkin and apple pie. And, yes, these too, came from the garden- that is, the pumpkin and the apples. A homemade bread that I had used ground wheat from Four Star Farm out in western Massachusetts was warmed and sliced to go along with the meal.
Our dinner was almost ready to go on the table as it was becoming dusk. I was standing over the kitchen sink looking out over the garden as I love to do while my hands are doing something else in the sink. Kent happened to be looking outside at the time and called out to me that he had just seen a coyote near the northeast corner of the garden. For a moment, I thought I saw a slinking creature, but then it disappeared. When it reappeared out from the forest edge, it's features were not of a coyote, at all. Quietly it turned back, and then it turned again toward the garden. It's short little tail was the "tell tale" of who came to visit. It was a Bobcat! He was one very large Bobcat with a handsome cat face and large furry coat with huge paws. He became our Thanksgiving Day surprise. There seems to be always something. Last year, I decided to run at the local 'turkey trot' that started at 8am, the day before. The guys were all set to go and begged that I give it a try. I fell for the "last minute" decision.
I've seen Bobcat here before. They come around for the rabbits, mice and squirrel, I suspect. Rabbit is their favorite, I have read. We do have all those lovely rabbit families as neighbors. The news about the shortage of acorns in the region, is also true for our Oak trees. The nuts are almost non-existent. I can see the squirrels scrambling after the fallen rotted apples. I wonder if they are going after the apples because there is really not much else. I don't know. Any apples that have fallen inside of the garden fence are thrown back out for any of the creatures looking for food for the winter. However, the squirrels don't mind the fence. They'll climb up and down it for a rotten apple in a flash. The Bobcat didn't seem to be hunting at the moment that we saw him. He seemed like he was checking out the place for perhaps future hunts. He quietly slinked back into the woods. I waited until I couldn't see him anymore and then called everyone for Thanksgiving Dinner!
Thanksgiving is always lively and filling. We become filled with good company and good food. We don't want either to end. Kevin said today (Sunday), that we should have Thanksgiving every Thursday so that we could have left overs to last long enough to the next Thursday and then we could start over again! I never thought of that one.
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