Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

From seals to snapdragons.

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On Saturday I drove my out-of-town friend to the coast. We have several times made this trip when she is visiting her family for Thanksgiving. The weather was forecast to be sunny all day, which we received as a wonderful gift, though we are used to fog out there at any time of the year.

When we arrived it was truly a gorgeous day. No wind, and plenty of sunshine and blue skies. The long road to the parking lot next to the beach was closed to cars, with no explanatory signage. Maybe it was because of the king tides still happening, which make these already dangerous beaches even more so. But we were allowed to walk down, which just gave us more good exercise coming back, so that was okay.

Only about two dozen harbor seals were lying by the mouth of the Russian River. But throngs of gulls were coming and going above us, and then making a racket as they swam in huge flotillas of white specks on the river, the whole scene sparkling.

Suddenly, the fog arrived! Unexpected, but not surprising.
That’s how it goes on the North Coast.

After watching the seals and gulls for a while longer, Mother S. and I began our long, slower this time, walk back up to the car, and our long drive home again. We were well satisfied.

Moving on to this morning… When I was adding water to the fountain I heard a woodpecker up in the redwood tree in the neighbor’s yard behind mine. I rarely do hear those birds around here so it was a pleasant encounter, though I couldn’t get my eyes on him.

I did see a hummingbird checking out my new abutilon that is in a pot; I wonder if that is a flower that actually offers any drink to the hummers? Seems like they would have to fly upside down while drinking…

Today I cooked up the first batch of greens from the planting by the driveway. It’s convenient having them growing there, because I notice them at least several days a week when I get in and out of the car. These I picked Saturday morning, and stuck them in the fridge to wait a couple of days. Yum! The flowers are on either the Chinese broccoli or the kalettes; I got them mixed up. But they taste good so they went into the pot, too.

When Pathfinder was here he was looking at my olive trees that are growing in pots. One of them he gave me fifteen years ago, and the other I bought in a little pot at the grocery store a couple of years later. I also got them mixed up, because after years of careful pruning, they have the same shape, which they didn’t at first.

Pathfinder asked me what type of olive I had bought for myself, and I said it started with an “A.” That would be an Arbequina, he told me. And he knew that he had given me a Manzanillo; then he pointed out the different shapes of the olives that are right now on the trees. He knows the Manzanillo, which is this one with pointier fruits:

Which means that the Arbequina is this one:

I never noticed the difference before! They are on opposite sides of the path from each other, so I don’t see them closely at the same time. That’s my only excuse for my inattention, but it saddens me that I don’t know my beloved trees very well. Pathfinder cures olives, so he has an eye for them. And now I know them better.

The last unripe fruits to show you are my pineapple guavas. Last week I harvested six ripe ones from the ground under the bush. Today I searched, but no more had fallen, and even the largest of the hundreds still hanging on were hard. Probably few if any more will come of age; their mini climate is just not ideal for them.

At least the snapdragons are being beautiful along the front walk.

This week I’m joining quite a few people in the parish for a Thanksgiving dinner in our church hall. I’m bringing a large quantity of the famous Orange Yams, adapted from my mother-in-law’s recipe. I see that I’ve never shared that recipe here before, so I’ll try to remember to take a couple of pictures to go with a recipe to be posted later.

December is almost here… And then 2025 will be history!
We must breathe deeply and make the most of every day ❤

We plough the fields and scatter,

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I have always loved this hymn since singing it in the Presbyterian church of my childhood. I included it in a booklet of Thanksgiving hymns I put together some years ago, for our family to sing when we gathered for the feast. Here is John Rutter conducting a choir singing it: We Plough the Fields and Scatter. The lyrics have undergone some adaptation over the decades, which you can read about on Wikipedia where the hymn has its own entry.

Matthias Claudius published this poem in Germany, where it was set to music attributed to Johann A. P. Schulz, in 1800. I also like this bold instrumental version: We Plough the Fields and Scatter.

WE PLOUGH THE FIELDS AND SCATTER

We plough the fields and scatter
the good seed on the land,
but it is fed and watered
by God’s almighty hand;
he sends the snow in winter,
the warmth to swell the grain,
the breezes and the sunshine,
and soft refreshing rain.

He only is the Maker
of all things near and far;
he paints the wayside flower,
he lights the evening star;
the wind and waves obey him,
by him the birds are fed;
much more to us, his children,
he gives our daily bread.

We thank thee, then, O Father,
for all things bright and good,
the seed-time and the harvest,
our life, our health, our food.
Accept the gifts we offer
for all your love imparts,
with what we know you long for:
our humble, thankful hearts.

All good gifts around us
are sent from heaven above;
then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
for all his love.

-Matthias Claudius (1740 – 1815) Germany

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Savoring the togetherness.

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Deer on a coastal rock.

I hope you have people to love, and those who love you. Every conversation with a neighbor or hug from a grandchild feels more precious to me as the days go by; before November winds all the way down I want to share a few scenes and moments that have been to me infusions of grace and joy in the midst of “interesting times” in the world.

It was almost a month ago that my neighbor Kim had a dinner party for several couples and one widow (yours truly) on our block. It was a very restorative and healing time, I think for all of us. Several of these people I had hardly seen for two years, though they live just a few doors down. Half of them had known my late husband.

After we were seated around a long dining table, our host gave a surprising toast to “The first of many more post-covid neighborhood parties!” All cups were raised, and the general tone of the ensuing comments, and the whole evening, was of holding on to our humanity and neighborliness as much as possible, no matter what comes. No one went home early that night; we sat around the gas firepit, or stood in the kitchen, chatting and sipping and savoring the togetherness, acting out the toast for a few blessed hours.

Closer to Thanksgiving, I returned to the beach with a former housemate who accompanied me three years ago just before she moved to New York. Our time there was refreshing and sweet; instead of the scores of seals we’d seen that time, gulls by the hundreds were swooping and gliding back and forth where a river empties into the sea.

We watched them, and the waves, while sitting on a log. When it was time to go, we climbed up a sand dune and tromped back to the parking lot, weaving through clumps of grass in our bare feet.

A few days later, who should arrive but my dear daughter Pippin and her family. They came in stages; when only three of them had got here, we went for a walk in the hills. It was the first time I’d been with Pippin in that particular park since the day Jamie was born, lo these many years ago, the  day after my husband’s funeral. So Jamie had been along, too, and maybe the jostling of that walk in springtime had prompted him to start his journey into the outer world.

This day, he was climbing trees with Ivy. First they climbed a Valley Oak, then a Buckeye (horse chestnut), and finally a Bay (Laurel) tree. Pippin joined them up in the bay.

We noticed many little trees and shrubs that were fenced in by wire cylinders, presumably against nibbling by deer. From a sign, here is a list of species that have been planted in the last ten years:

Later we worked on pies for our feast, and the children had the idea of making gluten-free pie-crust cookies for Uncle Steve, for whose sake Pippin was making such a dough for a pumpkin pie. I assembled the fourth version of my famous Grapefruit Gelatin Salad, which after ten years I am still refining to accommodate the changing ingredients available in the stores, and the loss of my favorite, odd-sized dish I always used for it. I’ll pass the recipe along when I fix it so that it fits in one 9×12 pan.

Our long weekend was very full, starting with Divine Liturgy on Thanksgiving morning, and including two (food) feasts, the little hike; and a busy afternoon, when Pippin and the Professor helped me to sort through old camping equipment, put hardware cloth over my planter boxes where the birds have been pecking, and hang fairy lights in the living room.

This little report covers only a small fraction of the loving friends and family who have made me feel the solace of God and the blessedness of the world. I reconnected with old friends and drank tea with many others. It has been a good month in important ways. May God keep our hearts during the next one and bring us with joy to the Feast of the Nativity of Christ.

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” I John 4

A happy hodgepodge.

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Today was Goldfinch Day in the garden. It could be they were celebrating the rain; I know I am, for several reasons, not least that it’s warmer when it’s raining, and right now I have so many open spaces in my ceiling upstairs, it’s quite drafty when the wind blows through the attic. We had a very cold night and two or three suddenly wintry days.

A male goldfinch announced their event to me when I was standing near the sliding glass door: he flew right up to the glass and hovered, went away, came back two times looking at me. You say he was seeing his reflection? Well, whatever he thought he was doing, he did draw my attention to the dozens of goldfinches feasting, at the feeders and on the ground. I guess when they heard I was catering their convention, everyone wanted to come. I also stayed around so long I was almost late for church. I was trying to be the photographer, but they make it difficult by being so shy. And the rain that made their yellow brighter to my eyes only dulled the scene as a whole, and they look gray against the wisteria leaves.

It took me ages to get dressed for church; I was trying to find the boots I bought last winter, which were stored away “somewhere,” many moons ago when I was so certain that the remodeling project would be complete before another winter came along. I finally found them, and then other parts of my outfit. I am temporarily between dressing tables and have been just wearing the same earrings every day.

Granny Marigold asked how it’s going, the remodeling. A huge thing is that the floors are scheduled to go in a week from tomorrow. That means an incredible number of tasks need to be wrapped up in the next five days, if it’s all to be in the right sequence. My plumber doesn’t see how it can happen. He told me that gently when he was here this evening planning his part of the job; I was really glad he stopped by when he happened to be in the neighborhood. It seems he doesn’t use email anymore, and I’ve been writing him urgent emails. I’ve known him for almost 30 years, since he was in high school; we talked about his parents and his children before he left. He lives with his father and his son, and all three are named James.

Here is the floor plan of the changes in my upstairs. Three new rooms are being created from one very large room that had never had much done with it. Maybe because the original builders saw that they didn’t have enough support to bear any more walls; one unfortunate time drain has been the addition of great beams to floor and ceiling of the room, what the contractor kindly calls “deferred maintenance.”

My master bedroom, bath and closet are at the bottom of the drawing. The new walls are shaded dark. The door has been cut that will open my bedroom to the sewing room, and all the framing is done. A few pictures from the last year, in chronological order:

First, after removing the “popcorn” ceiling, and when they began to add support in the ceiling for the new walls:

The first of my two new windows framed:

How it used to look between my closet and bathroom (although not quite that crooked):

How it looks now:

They have put up plastic film in that new doorway temporarily, but it doesn’t keep out the cold. I’m so glad I thought to hang the sheet on a spring rod, because it’s always warmer on this side when it’s pulled closed.

Below, an example of the extra support that has been added to that end of the room, where the weight of the roof was not resting on enough beams that went straight to the foundation. When the team was looking at the situation and brainstorming what to do, one contractor who works for my contractor said to me, “You’re learning how not to build a house.”

No one worked all these four days of the Thanksgiving weekend. On Thanksgiving I did two things I’d never done before on that day: First I went to Liturgy, which was quite lovely, and I took my new friend Kay who I’ll tell you more about sometime. Afterward, we went shopping at my favorite market that has a vast deli section, to buy a few things to take to the feast we were attending, at the little monastery in town 🙂 I’d never had Thanksgiving at a monastery before, either.

Maybe twenty-five people were there. They are on the old calendar, so they had just begun their fast. Unlike many Orthodox, they do not bend the rules, so we had no turkey, and I didn’t miss it. We had various sorts of fish, and so many many different dishes that people had brought, or the nuns had made. One of my favorite things was the beautiful salad I had bought at the market. It was crunchy and pretty and everyone loved it: Mango and Jicama salad, those two ingredients cut in long matchsticks, with Chinese cabbage and cilantro and strips of sweet red pepper. It was lightly dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.

Before we came home the nuns gave us boxes and bags of pineapple guavas from their hedge and trees; as we went to our car we saw just how prodigious a crop they have. Theirs are certainly situated better than mine, none of which ripened this year.

I didn’t go to the Christmas bazaar that was at my church on Saturday, but there were a few things left that we could buy today during the agape meal, like this origami garland that I hung as soon as I got home.

After selling items at a discount for a while, they eventually were giving stuff away, at which point I accepted edible goodies, which I have put away for Christmas. Who knows if I’ll find time and concentration to make my own cookies this year.

 

I had many things to carry to my car, and it was raining, so I dug the napkin bag out of the trash to carry stuff in.

How was that for a hodgepodge post? I guess it’s only fitting that I publish at least one that reflects the scattered and nearly chaotic style of my life right now. As soon as those floors go in I will be sharing that bright news immediately!