Nov 29, 2013

A little valley fog over the Columbia River
on Thanksgiving Day.

Wednesday 11/27.  Today was partly overcast with a high of 27.   Neither of us were feeling very well, so we just puttered around inside.  I finished wrapping and packaging the last of the gifts, which were RJ's and Mike's.  He may be up next week, which will save me some postage.  I addressed all sixty Christmas cards, so now I am just down to writing personal messages in them.

JB took the dogs on their morning walk and I went on the afternoon walk, after bringing in the wood.  It felt good to get outside for a little while and connect with the earth.

We started getting ready for our Thanksgiving dinner today.  I baked the sweet potatoes.  JB made the corn bread for the dressing then cut it into 1/2" squares to dry out during the night.

Twice during the day deer were walking up our driveway just as we let the dogs out.  None of us saw them til the dogs were well into the yard.  Dinga barked and the deer bounded up the east slope.  Jesse chased them just to the fence.

Lots of interesting facts from the forest health seminar JB attended.  According to journals from early white men crossing our country, trees in the forests were far enough apart for them to ride three abreast through them!  For a healthy trees, they should be an average of nine feet apart.  Boy, do we have work to do. . .

The heavens during these past, cold starry nights have been phenomenal.  The stars seem twice as bright as usual.

Thursday 11/28.  Clear and 24 this Thanksgiving morning.  Jesse went outside right after I fed them at 8:30 am and was gone for two hours.  We heard his occasional bark but didn't see him until he returned right at 10:30 am for their morning walk and treat.  His internal clock is amazing.

I was feeling much better but JB was not, until I gave him a decongestant and some tylenol.  We both worked at fixing dinner.  I made the pie filling and JB made the crust.  Then he made the dressing and turkey, and some celery sticks with cream cheese to nibble on.  I fixed the bourbon sweet potatoes and gravy.  He broke out a bottle of Orange Muscat wine given to us from his brother - oh, my!  I have found my new favorite wine.

I had always seen pictures of home made pies cooling on window sills and thought that someday I would love to do that.  Well, today was the someday.  It wasn't on a windowsill, but I did set the pie outside to cool.

We have so much to be thankful for, which made our Thanksgiving dinner even better.  I could have easily fallen into a post-turkey-dinner stupor, but I left the couch to JB and went out to get fire wood, then took the dogs for a nice, slow walk.  Very enjoyable and just what I needed.

Then I got on the internet and spent my Christmas money at gohastings.com on many of the TV series we wanted.  After that, we settled in to watch three episodes of Bones.

Friday 11/29.  It is 30 and mostly cloudy this morning, with river-valley fog.  Already two degrees warmer than our high of 28 for yesterday.  We will probably spend most of the morning cleaning up our kitchen mess from yesterday.

There is a snow storm predicted for Sunday and icy temperatures from the Arctic moving in on Monday.  Possibly into the single digits, and sub-zero Up Here.

Thought for the day:  When there is trouble on earth it means there is movement in Heaven.  Irish tradition