A photo from a family wedding from last year – showing just some of the future guests 🙂
Hands down – Thanksgiving will always be one of our favorite holidays of the year. Mary put it best when she described it a few weeks back in one of her recipe posts. She wrote that Thanksgiving is the chance to have family and friends seated together, enjoying each other’s company, catching up and telling stories while sharing a wonderful meal together – with the only gifts required being ones of companionship and love. Truly what it should all be about!
We will have to build a few more barn tables to seat everyone!
So as we figured our schedule of when we go where for family gatherings this coming Thanksgiving week – we allowed ourselves to dream a little into the future – and think about hosting one big gathering of families for a future Thanksgiving Dinner At The Farm.
Although we grow quite a bit of our own food at the farm – it will still be a few years before some of the long-term plantings like the apple and cherry trees, or the wine and jelly grapes begin bearing sizable yields. So with that in mind – we picked 2020 as the dream year.
And hopefully that dream can become a reality. After all – it wasn’t that long, in fact just 3 short years ago – that Mary and I stood at the top of an overgrown hill and dreamed about the chickens, barn and garden..and with a little work (and sore muscles and loss of blood now and then) – that dream came true – so why not dream a little more!
The barn that started the dream will host the dream dinner
It truly is a completely different feeling to sit down to a meal that comes from what you have grown or raised. Everything tastes fresher, more pure,and of course, we have the satisfaction of knowing exactly where our food came from and also the work that went into growing it. From the early spring days when we first planted it, to nurturing it throughout the summer months, and then to the proud moment of harvesting, it all comes down to a chance to share them with family and friends. And after all – isn’t that where those very first traditions of Thanksgiving from the Pilgrim’s came from?
Much of the gardens harvest , like these green beans, will hopefully make it to the table
So by that future 2020 date, with a little luck and good fortune, we will be able to serve the first vintages of our home-made wine – made from the Marquette grape vines. And the apple and cherry trees, along with the pumpkins from that years garden will create the pies for dessert. That of course will go along with the meal prepared with a bounty from the garden – green beans, corn, potatoes, carrots, onions, fresh herbs and more.
So as our little dream continued on for that someday dinner – with thoughts of the barn decorated and long tables with centerpieces made from our home-grown Indian corn, gourds and pumpkins, it became apparent that this is truly what we are most thankful for – the opportunity to have a hand in what we grow and eat – and of even more importance, to share it with family and friends. I am sure that over the next 7 years – we will have many highs and lows in the continued building of the farm – but we also know that nothing can ever stop the power of dreams.
Mary and I both wish everyone a happy and wonderful Thanksgiving season! Oh, and if you are reading this and are part of our extended family – consider this an invitation for 2020 :).
Jim and Mary
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