Thanksgiving Imaginations

If I ever get to host the Thanksgiving ...

(with random fall photos)

Doesn't this look like a face???

 Right now we celebrate with our parents and siblings. Every year, I add to the feast - whatever anyone wants me to bring. This year, I'm just finishing the stuffing and mashed potato dish - WONDERFUL smells are wafting through the house! The stuffing has a diced apple from a Dear Friend's tree! 

No, we've never had apple in the stuffing before, and Yes, that might turn out to be controversial. What's a family gathering without a little controversy??? And if the raised eyebrows are ONLY over alternative stuffing ingredients, then we shall be truly blessed!

ANYway, if the celebration ever comes my way ...

And just how would that occur? Every year, I deliberately turn away from considering the mechanics involved in that. 

So - when that eventually happens, I have plans.

We will sing the doxology. 
Either before the prayer, after the prayer, or maybe even instead of the prayer! 

We would definitely include the kernels of corn tradition. I think just knowing that you're going to share something for which you're grateful would cause every person to seriously consider the many, many options available. 
And that would be time well spent.

OK - do you think the doxology is going too far? But it's so beautiful. And ancient. And traditional.  

That just makes it a WIN WIN WIN!  Yes, I was wavering, but the Doxology stays. 

It's firm.

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Oh the dreams we dream about days ahead!

I know it is highly unlikely that the future Thanksgivings of my imaginations

will actually occur. And in knowing that, it's safe to dream.

Pampered vs. Wild

So you know about me and gourds, right?

How I pursue them every growing season? To my own embarrassment and sad failure? 

This year, after nursing the gourd vines through a drought and spraying 

the fuzz right off their mildewy leaves ...

I was able to harvest a few tiny gourds!

This few was all that came from the vines I kept in a pot, nearby, so I could water adequately and add sweet talk (begging) to their diet. Not a very good showing, but these vines had issues, so I was happy with these few adorable, wee spinner gourds.

I put two vines out in the flower beds, pairing them with the 

zinnias which I figured were sturdy enough to bear almost anything I threw their way. 

*********

It's a teacher thing, right? 

Seating the naughty child next to the steady one, 

hoping they will balance one another out?

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ANYway, I only checked those two vines occasionally - as often as I went out to cut zinnias. They seemed to be getting along famously, with less water and less attention than the spoiled potted vines. The stalks of the zinnias made climbing posts and I didn't see the same pinched stem problem out there in the beds that was happening with the potted gourds.

The yield from those less cared for vines ended up being almost double that of the other!

And check out that big fatty white gourd in the back of the photo - what the heck? 

That was the ONLY fruit from one of the vines. 

So weird!

And fun! I love experimenting in the garden!

Sinister Chickens

What makes chickens so SINISTER?

(adj. - threatening, menacing, ominous, forbidding, baleful, frightening, alarming, disturbing, disquieting, dark)

Could it be those odd, brilliant red bits of skin protruding from their heads - the 'comb'?

That's just weird, folks. Maybe if it was the same color as the surrounding feathers, that wouldn't seem so disturbing. 

Look here  for more on the menacing COMB of a chicken.

Maybe the SINISTER-ness is all about the scaly and pointy, taloned FEET. 

How do those match their fluffy-puffy, friendly seeming bodies?

There's a lurking family story involving chicken feet and the pulling of a certain tendon that will cause the foot to open and close in an disturbing way. I'm fuzzy on that one - I think I blacked out during the telling.

But what about their EYES! 

It was my impression that a chicken's eyes DO NOT BLINK. That they remain staring, at you, at all times. 

And don't they seem to be glaring...?   Why do chickens look so angry?

Just to keep it educational, read here about chicken's eyes to find out if they blink or not.

While I have no trouble imagining sweet little mice snuggling into matchbox beds,  

jacket wearing bunnies (sans pants) raiding gardens, 

or toads out for a joyride in a gypsy wagon ---

I just can't get my mind around the loveliness of a chicken.