The Willow Farmyard

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! This is my first holiday officially living full-time at the farmyard and our first Thanksgiving with our very own turkeys, which we consider pets and will NOT be eating for dinner! I would normally be preparing a store-bought turkey for the oven right about now. But, as fate would have it, I’m not cooking the Thanksgiving feast this year.

In the past 6 years, I would have had to pack up multiple dishes and utensils from my house to bring to Chris’s in order to cook a big holiday meal. When we first started dating, his kitchen was severely lacking in cookware. He was a bachelor, after all, and made himself a whole lot of boxed meals. Over the years, we gradually added utensils and pans and such to the kitchen here. But there are things that I owned, like my handheld chopper for onions and celery for the stuffing, and my large crock pot for the homemade macaroni and cheese, instead of his tiny little crock pot, that I would still need to bring over. Maybe my deeper casserole dish, and certainly my deep dish pie plate and pie server! Seems I always had a carload of stuff to bring here in order to make the meal, which has been here every year.

Needless to say, I was really looking forward to the ease of cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year. Everything I would have needed would have been right in my own cupboards. No packing things up and hauling them here and then hauling them all back home later. Because here is home now!

But, as it turns out, my 2 kids went to their dad’s family’s cabin for the holiday, which is their tradition, and Chris’s daughter and her kids are going to her grandparents’ house. That’s where we’re headed later, too. So no cooking for me this morning. Just a bit of relaxing after having done my farm chores.

I did make some Brown Sugar Cinnamon Butter Caramel Cookies yesterday to take with us today. Quite good! I highly recommend!

Other than taking Bella out for a few potty breaks this morning, writing this blog post, and grabbing a shower, I think I’ll just take it very easy this Thanksgiving morning. And be very grateful for that opportunity.

But, before I go, I feel it’s appropriate today to introduce you to our turkeys. We have Mr. Peepers, the smaller one, whom I named. I tend to name our animals something sort of funny. Whatever pops into my head and seems fun to say. Or something I can easily create numerous nicknames for. Chris, on the other hand, named the second turkey. He usually leans toward something more mainstream. So we have Mr. Peepers and Hank. They both wish you a happy Thanksgiving. And I hope you can enjoy family, food, and maybe even some much needed relaxation!