This year we decided to host our families Thanksgiving Dinner. It didn’t matter that we did not have a big enough space to sit 25 people, much less a warm space to even get that many people inside.The most we’ve ever squished around our table was 10 and it was very difficult to crawl in and out of the kitchen then. We would just have to build it.
So began our January of this year. Trading for services, since we didn’t have the money. Cutting trees, milling the siding and wood for a table, doors and eventually cabinets( not by Thanksgiving). We started to close in the large roofed area where the oven is. Adding the sink and creating a space to make the bread and cook near our baking oven. Slowly arising out of the ashes and sawdust, a room took shape. We now also, through the help of a good friend, joined our wood slabs together to build a large table 11.5 feet long. The benches are still in the works as are the doors.
Lately the momentum of our farm has almost swept us away. We tried hard to keep this year focused on two projects, fencing a larger garden in and hopefully readying it to plant for this year ( also making a huge mountain of compost to amend our sandy virgin soil ); Then the oven area getting walls and warm for our crowd on Turkey day.
The adventures and stories involved in all this and the people who have helped it to happen this year could fill a book. But thanks to Chris San Giovanni, Amie Heath, Drew and Corina Common, Katie Norton and Margarita, Bobby Smith milling our wood, Bob Askew for making our Table.My sister Annie Woods for the Tablecloth and silverware and design vision. But mostly my husband Dennis for his constant support and willingly putting up with me.
Then came the food, it was almost easy to look past this part and just figure we’d eat bread. So growing now in the garden are two large beds of purple onions, a long bed 4×40′ of potatoes red, russets and yukon golds. We’ve ordered three turkeys through Mendocino organics CSA http://mendoorganicscsa.com/. The free range birds will not be as large as the commercially raised birds.The butternut squash is starting to get harvested as well as the acorn and delicata squash. The pumpkins are very small and I hope I have enough warm weather to get them to develop. Although I just found a wonderful pie recipe using butternut squash. Lettuces are in. It’s probably too late for more beets than we already have in the ground. Although I’m going to try for some carrots in the next couple of days. Parsnips, parsley, thyme are in the ground and romanesco broccolli are doing well. Peas are planted and starting up the fence and another bed in flower in the garden. Food has not been the hard part.
We’ve come a long way. The reality of trying to create takes a huge effort, like birthing a baby each time a new thing is created. At a certain point if you are doing good work your one step towards God is matched by his nine steps back towards you. The first step is the hardest but the bounty and abundance of the response is all worth it.