One day closer to Thanksgiving Day

 TERRY

As I write at 7:20 AM Terry is in bed reading the paper with the TV on.  She said she feels better today than yesterday.  Yesterday she did not get out of bed.  She could have but with the swollen right hand and left knee that is banged up she decided to stay in bed for the day.  I have canceled water therapy for next week as well.  They said she could come in and do exercises in the gym BUT the entire idea of going to that place is WATER so I said no.  There are a few things that are different now as staying in bed is mostly what she will do but I will look at it this way, one step backward but then two or three steps forward as she heals.  

I have our Thanksgiving meal all planned.  I am going beyond the normal for us and ditching the instant potatoes.  It will be REAL potatoes using half Yukon gold and half Russet.  I feel I need a challenge.  The turkey will be on the Traeger Grill and mostly on the "smoke' setting.  I have yet to decide on how to do the dressing and then the only other side dish will be a mean green bean salad!  That should keep me out of trouble for the day!!!  The 20 pound turkey comes out today and will sit on the counter for 24 hours and then go into the fridge.  What do we need with a 20 pound turkey?  I just could not resist as the 12 pound looked so tiny!

We are overflowing with food so don't know what we are going to do with Thanksgiving leftovers.  The meals that come on Friday, there is a box with 3 meals in, keep us full for 6 meals.  Then there is Joe, down the street, who brings over "firehouse meals" once in a while and then Cheryl who is down the street to the south is bringing over homemade wild rice soup today.  The fridge will be more than full.  I really do not like to freeze leftovers as what happens is I forget them and then when all the containers are nowhere to be found I remember six months later that there is food in the freezer.  

I am not going to play tennis today.  Every Saturday there is a group of guys who show up at 9:00.  I have been playing 6 days a week but my body tells me this morning it is ready for a couple of days off.

I do need to go to the store for a couple of things this morning.  I try to do that in the AM Monday-Friday when we have help here but it will be a short run today.  I have yet to tell Sonja that we do not need her so as of now she is still scheduled to come 5 days a week.  She is a help for me but yesterday Terry said she really likes her and I think it is good for Terry to have more than me around sometimes.  I will see as times goes on.  Next week it will only be Monday-Wednesday as she will not be here Thanksgiving and we will also not do Friday.

I will ramble a bit this morning about life long ago

From page 141 of my book comes this picture of chickens.  I could pretty much fill MANY blogs about the chickens on our farm but will try to make it kind of short today.  When Leo was 6 or 7 he loved the CHICKEN POOP  story!!!

There are several stories involving chickens.  One is about the day that we processed the spring chickens as they got big enough.  We had a crate that we would put them in:

The chickens were in the chicken house, as we called it, and the catching was done at night.  We would take the crate and place it on the floor of the chicken house.  We would then get a home made chicken catcher!  All it was is a long stiff wire with a bend on the end in the form of a hook.  We would get close enough to the chickens and then use the wire to catch a chicken by the leg.  The bend was such that if you got it around the leg and pulled it was tight enough they could not get it off.  It was then a matter of grabbing the chicken and putting it in the crate.  To start the day we would have a crate of chickens that were noisy and crowded in the wooden crate.  We would then fill a barrel half full of water and heat it to scalding hot.  One at a time the chickens would be taken out of the crate and with a hand axe the head would come off and then you would let the chicken go.  It would flop around for a bit and then was ready for Mom to pick it up and holding it by the legs she would dunk it in the scalding water.  It was then a matter of picking the feathers off and gutting it out.  As I read what I have written it sounds like something one would see in a horror movie!  But it really was not that bad.  Well the smell was the worst as the chickens went into the scalding water the aroma was something one could do without but when all the work was done and whenever Mom made SPRING chicken for dinner it was delicious.  

Another story for the chickens were the times we had to clean out the chicken house.  The ammonia smell as one cleaned the chicken house was about the worst.  Especially when one had to bend over and clean under the far end of the chicken house which was under the roosts.  It seemed that one had to get up close and personal so to speak as you bent at the waist and scooped up the poop in an up close and personal kind of encounter.  I do not know WHY Dad let us get by with this but often we just cleaned up the poop and there was a pile of it just outside the chicken house door.  It seems to me that we should have put it in the manure spreader and gotten rid of it but often we did not.  I guess that kind of tells the story of the LEE farm so to speak!

Well here it is after 8:00 and time for a bite to eat.  I had to get these pictures off of google so writing took more time than usual.  Terry has had her Milk of Magnesia this morning so it could be an interesting day!  I am still working on my FP.  I need to do a little work with my 2021 calendars today as I intend to send them out next Tuesday or Wednesday. I will get the calendars and the Christmas letter and the Christmas presents off to the kids all in one scoop so then my 2020 Christmas things will be finished!!!  Well I do have one more "surprise" in store for some people but IF I were to say what it is here it would not be a surprise any more.

As I write today I am hoping that everyone is being careful in terms of staying healthy.  I need not mention this but I will--my siblings and many relatives and friends would fall in the category of "being kind of old" and so we need to be more careful.  I will be careful BUT I will not resort to wearing a mask in my own home as some people suggest and I have no idea why!  Saturday, here I come.