By Angie Mentink
A Thanksgiving tradition that our family embraced several years ago is to take the day before Thanksgiving off of school and prepare food for the next day. I relish this time with our children working side by side in the kitchen, listening to music, and thinking of the great food that will be enjoyed by many, along with the numerous undeserved blessings the Lord has bestowed upon us. We baked our turkey, peeled potatoes from our garden, made French fried onions for green bean casserole, baked graham crackers for our homemade cherry cheesecakes, and baked pumpkin for pumpkin pie. That night the meat was removed and I boiled the turkey bones over the stove to make flavorful gravy and homemade stuffing the next day. The stock will also be used to put in the crock pot with the turkey to keep it moist. This was a trick I learned a few years ago and love not having to prepare the turkey the same day as Thanksgiving.
In the spring we had purchased ten turkeys thinking five would survive. We were pleasantly surprised when butchering time came and we still had nine! Cory and the boys carefully butchered them, bagged them up, and we called grandparents to beg for freezer space. Cory figured we had put 300 pounds of meat in our freezer. The turkeys were especially easy to grow this year. They started out in our brooder in the barn with a heat lamp. After a few weeks we put them into our chicken tractor that gets moved almost daily to new grass. Finally after several weeks, they were released to free range on our 34 acres. The hardest part was staying awake until dark to make sure they were in the barn and the door was closed to avoid predators. We noticed that they didn’t eat much grain this year, but gained very well. They were a bit of a nuisance since they enjoyed hanging out around our house and pooping on my sidewalk that we had to clean daily. My hope is to somehow discourage this next year.
Another tradition we started years ago was a fall party. This year we all dressed up as someone from history and everyone guessed who we were. Then everyone loaded up for a hay rack ride through the peaceful pasture, observed how the leaves were changing on the trees, rode over the dam looking at the water, and sang silly songs. After arriving home everyone enjoyed a glass of apple cider that we saved from a batch of apples we received from a friend. The party ended with roasting hot dogs over a fire and simply relaxing around the warm glowing fire.
As we reflect on the many blessings of this past season we look forward to whatever the Lord has in store for our family and business this next season. As Christmas approaches we pray that you are encouraged to eat clean, great quality food, find and meet a great farmer to buy from, slow down and enjoy each day, and be blessed with abundant health!