Thanksgiving at the farm

Three generations

We're just back from a trek to Himself's family homestead in northwest Pennsylvania.  Two days of driving for two days there, but boy, was it nice to have everyone together.  My dear father-in-law; my mother-in-law, who, though in late stages of Alzheimer's is still home; Himself's older brother and his 17-year-old son; and his older sister, her husband, and their two boys, 15 and 19.

My kids are the youngest of the grandchildren.  Thing Two had to hold her own against all those young men.  Does anyone remember the book "Eight Cousins" by Louisa May Alcott? 

My brother-in-law's boy, the one in the middle, looks so much like my father-in-law did when he was 19 it's startling.






 
My brother-in-law and his son, who live in the old farmhouse, grow pumpkins and squash on the flats of French Creek, behind the barn, and sell them from a cart on the side of the road.

Himself's parents live up the hill from the old place.

The farm has been in the family for several generations. The narrative is remarkably similar to that handed down on my side: poverty, backbreaking and ceaseless labor, a certain grim, joyless faith (substitute Methodist for Baptist).

Story goes that Himself's grandfather dug a ditch, by hand, the length of this field behind the house.  I wonder if he enjoyed the view over the valley while he was at it.

Midcoast Maine and rural northwest Pennsylvania are, culturally speaking, worlds apart.  There's a shared love of the outdoors, but it's the difference between Cabela's and L.L. Bean.  Down there, deer season opens the Monday after Thanksgiving so it's pretty much all everyone was talking about. 

The older boys took Thing One deer spotting and target shooting. 

This almost - almost - made up for the lack of WiFi.

Thing Two enjoyed her first visit to a taxidermist.

Okay, perhaps "enjoyed" is not the best choice of word.

The weather in Pennsylvania was unseasonably mild, while coastal Maine enjoyed a white Thanksgiving.  

Okay, perhaps "enjoyed" is not the best choice of word.

I am thankful for family, for family history, for a sense of time and place;

for the fact that my home decor does not include dead wildlife;

for the insurance which allows my mother-in-law to be cared for at home;

for having reached the point in my life where I can cook a turkey dinner for 12 in someone else's kitchen and not stress out about it;

for the friends we were able to spend time with, including my voice and conducting professors and the Rev. Dr. S., who even though laid up with a broken leg can still cream my kids at poker;

for audio books, which make almost thirty hours in the car go by faster;

and for the unrestrained joy with which our dogs and cats greeted us upon our return. 

Life is good.