WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

Not long after I finished baking the pies

 …a crowd began to gather.

 By the time the turkey was ready; all twenty-two of us had assembled.

 We were breaking in a new bird-carver 

and he wasn’t working with the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Food from every direction appeared and the table was set.

 A dinner like this is a good time to be taught the difference

 between cave-man and party manners.

 Those whipped Idaho Russet Potatoes go down real smoooooth.

 Ooooo!  They were right about turkey making you drowzzzzzzzzeee.

 We were celebrating more than mass quantities of food.  There were one...

 Two…

Three… BIRTHDAYS!

 Two elevens and a ten.  No spitting.

 Contests followed, like this impromptu game of balloon volleyball.

 The mathematically-minded love rummy-cube.

There was also an extreme game of Pictionary 

for the many artistically inclined in the family.  

No photos are available, but I’ll tell you there was intense competition

 and the field was leveled by adding the challenge 
of drawing with eyes closed or left handed. 

I was beat out by some granddaughters with amazing skills.

 When a gathering is held in snow weather a lot of winter clothing tends to stack up.

 We ate all the pie…

 …the turkey was gone.  And then after three days of partying 

all the guests were gone.

The dolly who spends most of her days 

sleeping in her little bed upstairs wanted to know…

 WHAT JUST HAPPENED??

BLIZZARD IN AN ICEBOX

This morning my computer weather bug icon…

 …looks like this.  This was after the sun came up and warmed the temps 

all the way up to plus one Fahrenheit (-17 C).  

Wow! Heat wave! We’re expecting a high today of 6 F.

 Because the roads and highways looked like this yesterday everything pretty much ground to a halt.  I went in to work in the  morning, and while I was there two whole customers came in the door.   So when I called in today the boss said, “Nothing in your in-box, see you after Thanksgiving on Monday.”

We did some last minute grocery shopping yesterday and the short walk across the parking lot was like staggering into frozen knives (okay not quite that bad, but you get the idea).

 This morning the wind has stopped,

 but the frigid temperatures decorated this window on the north side of our house…

…like this.  It’s a window we haven’t replaced with double panes 

to insulate the house against this kind of arctic weather 

(thank you very much, Canada for sharing).

I didn’t expect to have an extra day to get ready for the feast tomorrow.  So I took a few minutes to update my blog and tell you people out there in warmer places to give thanks for your weather, and to send my condolences to U.S. Midwest where that brutal storm has moved on to add even more hassle to holiday travel.

It is SO COLD that:

1.      We’re eating Thanksgiving dinner with plastic cutlery.  Metal ones would stick to our tongues.

2.      The eye doctors are giving away free ice scrapers for our glasses.

3.      We stayed up late last night because our pajamas weren’t thawed out yet..

 4.      Squirrels in the park were bribing the alley cats for a snuggle.

5.      We chopped up the piano for firewood, but we only got two chords.

Sorry about that last one.  It was really bad.  Have a good one and be safe!

BIRDS, WEATHER & FOOD (three favorite subjects in ONE post!)

"I don't care.  NEXT WINTER we're going south."

Our plum tree ten days ago.

Our plum tree this afternoon.

Tonight the wind is howling.  Snow is drifting and schools are closed.

* * * * * * * *

Sarah at Circles of Rain posted a recipe for Fig and Cinnamon Cake. 

 There were no figs at our grocery so I substituted chopped dates and raisins.  

 I didn't have Madeira so I used cranberry juice.

  And I added some peeled chopped apples. 

 And I didn't know what quark soft cheese was so I made a cream cheese frosting.

  And chances of finding kumquats were zero so I didn't even look.

 And I baked it in a bundt cake pan.  

So essentially the cake was nothing like Sarah's recipe. 

 But it was really, really good. 

This is the only photo I got before it disappeared.

Things are going to get real crazy around here for the next few days 

so I'm putting blogging on the back burner and pies and turkey in the oven.

THANK YOU to everyone who reads and comments on this goofy little blog.

Travel safe and eat, drink and be merry!

NO BONES ABOUT IT

Deep in a clear, cold lake in Montana live fat rainbow and brown trout.  

When they get big as your arm, my Dear Hubby and his fishing friends

 lure them from their lair and bring them home.

...So fresh you can still see the surprise in their eyes.

 Then DH sharpens his fillet knife

 and prepares their salmon-colored meat for cooking and freezing.

The head comes off.

…A slice down the back.

 The meat is skillfully separated from bone.

These fish feed on tiny fresh water shrimp 

which gives the flesh the bright color and delicate flavor

The fillet on the other side comes off the same way.

 Then the meat is sliced away from the skin.

 In a very short time you have fresh trout feelays.  

You can grill it, broil it, bake it, sauté it.  There’s trout kabobs,

 pan fried, breaded and deep fried, trout cakes, 

lemon trout, pepper trout, trout and potatoes…that’s about it.