Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving. The turkey is prepared, the dressing is baking, the gravy just needs to be made when we get to Thorntons, the pies are baked, the rolls are baked, the olives are bought... With everything everyone else is making, this is going to be a real feast!

I was looking at another blog this morning and the woman made a comment about writing something that will be published in 2010. It's not even 2009 yet, and she was wondering if what she writes for that date will even be remotely relavant at that point. The world is changing so fast right now, so much happens internationally that affects our day to day lives. We live in very different times. Something could happen between now and then that would change everything.

This is true.

Today while we celebrate, I will be remembering Thanksgiving celebrations of the past. My mother and father getting up at insanely early hours (they thrive on that) to put the turkey in the eletric roaster. My father making rolls. Mom busy making everything else. Mom was not one for asking for help in this. I think she likes doing it all herself. I struggle with that myself, letting people help.

I know that today at home my family with gather at my parents as they always do. My mom and dad, our three kids, our grandson, possibly my Uncle and Aunt (but they may go to their own kids' place for the day), my neice and nephew, maybe my brother will come from northern Colorado if he can find someone to fill in for him in his veterinary practice, possibly one of my sisters with her boyfriend, maybe even my sister in Idaho with her two kids. If it goes as it usually does, the house will be filled with good smells of food cooking, packed with people talking, laughing, mildly arguing about this or that, the dogs barking outside, Stirling running around as only a 4 year old can, the cats hiding away until everyone has left, football on the television. It might snow, it is forcast to snow, but who knows?

I can smell it, hear it, see it all, in my minds' eye. And yes, I am very homesick for my family right now. I always am on the holidays. In some ways it would be easier not to celebrate here and so not be reminded of what is not. But that is the ostrich way of living life - ignoring what doesn't please me.

I look forward to going to our team mates' home in just a couple hours. There several Americans will gather. Two couples here adopting little children from the orphanages, another single American gal here independently, our Kherson team. Who knows? Maybe someone else will show up as well! All in all, we are expecting 10 adults and 4 children. That is going to be a full house!

So, although I am not at home celebrating with my family that I love so much, God has given me "family" here to love. I will delight in watching one of the kids put black olives on their fingers (I hope they do! Stirling did last year - why do all kids just naturally do that??). I will enjoy watching people fill their plates, listening to the conversation, getting to know the 4 adopting Americans. I will enjoy looking at my team mates and knowing that we really are family. We are so different from each other but we know each other well. We have history together now. We have laughed together, cried together, rejoiced together, prayed together. We are watching the kids grow up together, cheering them on, enjoying their childishness, praying for them, encouraging them, loving them together.

There is much to be Thankful for this year. Even when hard things happen in our work. Even when life in general seems so insecure and unstable. God is still our Father. God is still in control. He gives us all things to enjoy. We can rest in Him.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey, Turkey

Oh my. It is almost Thanksgiving Day! Time to get the pies baked, the rolls made, the dressing/stuffing prepared, the turkey thawed and in the oven...

Oops. Thawed. What a nice word. I like that word. For some reason when I put 'turkey' and 'thawed' together, I get a nice picture in my mind, a comforting picture, kind of like this one:Butterball, whole frozen turkey webpage

I thought Julia was going to pick up two turkeys at the market. One for me to bake and one for her to bake for our Thanksgiving meal tomorrow. I probably came to this conclusion because I know I just cannot go to the market and buy one myself. Somewhere in our conversation, I made the assumption that she would go buy them like she did last year (Mel and I were in the States at this time last year).

I cannot do it. Well, if I was starving I would go to the market and buy a turkey by myself. Actually, that is not true. If I was that hungry I would go to the market and buy some cheese and bread and veggies....but I would stay away from the meat section of the market. If I had to buy meat at the market all the time, I would be a vegetarian. Anyone who knows me well knows this is very true. Mel has said on many occasions that the reason I did not marry a rancher in Montana is because that poor rancher would have a herd of cattle dying of old age.

I'm not sure when this happened to me. I have shot at, but never hit, a deer. I have helped hang, season, butcher, freeze and cook venison, which is deer, and elk and even part of a moose. I have helped butcher a cow. I have butchered a pig and eaten it's meat - although that was harder for me to do, the eating part, the butchering was fine. It's the eating it after I butcher it that has become harder and harder for me. It's like I know that piece of meat too well to actually want to ingest it. I'll cook it for you, just please don't make me eat it.

My grandparents had a small ranch when I was young. I remember butchering time. Cows, pigs, chickens. I helped kill, pluck, clean-out, butcher and freeze many chickens when I was a kid. I thought it was great fun then. Well, maybe not great fun, but I aways felt very grown up and proud that I was helping to provide food for the winter, etc. I haven't been involved in the process of chicken killing to chicken eating for a very long time.

Sigh.

So, when Julia and I talked on the phone the other day and I discovered that I had made a bad assumption, I was almost sick to my stomach. I have been to the meat section of the outdoor market just a few times in 10 years. I practically have to hold my nose when I go in that building in the summer, the smell gags me. The pig heads don't bother me. The piles of meat don't bother me. It's the smell.

And the dead birds of several species bother me. A lot.

They lie there on the tables, flies buzzing around, no cooling, the fat turning yellow due to the heat, and so forth and so on and all I can think of is
FOOD POISONING!!!!!!!

I was a professional cook for several years, at 4 different camps and lodges at different times. The Colorado Department of Health often did surprise inspections, checking to see that our water was hot enough for washing dishes, that the food was kept in correct containers, that appliances, counters, floors were clean, and that hot food was kept at the correct temperature before serving and cold or raw foods were kept at the correct temperatures as well. We always passed with flying colors.

So now I go into this market and I see these dead birds, out in the open air, heat, germs, flies.... Even thinking about it makes me sick. Why the beef and pork kept in these conditions doesn't quite have the same reaction in my head, I don't know. Maybe because I know bird can go bad so quickly?

I have no idea, really, how the birds sold at the supermarket are treated, except for the fact that when I buy a chicken there, the fat is still white, not 'heated up' yellow, so I can make an assumption that they have been kept frozen or at least colder. I would rather have a frozen bird than a 'heated up' bird any day.

Thats me.

So, I told Mel I was going to have to go buy a turkey. Maybe I looked a little green around the gills. Maybe he could see that I was starting to sweat. I'm not sure what it was. (The begging and pleading with my eyes, maybe??) He said to me, "I'll go buy your turkey."

However in the world am I ever going to be able to thank him enough? {Big smiles}

Mel arrived home with this:
I opened it up in the bathtub and found this:
I need reading glasses now and have a cataract in my right eye and lots of floaters in my good eye that cause me problems at times when I am looking at things. I still understood, looking at that bird in the tub, that something strange was wrong with it's innerds. Mel got the tongs and I pried it out:I just knew that was the head, they always sell the head with the chicken or turkey at the market, I just didn't expect it to be IN the bird...

What I did not take a photo of was the feet I pulled out after the head, the huge liver, the huge gizzard and gobs of fat.

I saved the head, the feet and all the innards and fat, froze them and will give them to my tutor to do with them whatever she pleases (she feeds street cats and dogs, but she might want them for herself.) I had to cut the turkey into pieces to make it fit in my crock pot. I'm cooking half of it now and will cook the other half when the first half is done. The oven is busy with other goodies - pies, rolls, cornbread for the dressing.

Yes, it is Thanksgiving. I am thankful for the turkey. I may not eat any of it myself, there is a good chance I won't - I know this bird too well now. But the other things are going to be great!!

ha ha!