Dear Friends and Family,

November has brought the usual wind-down of farm activity. Paul took the last of our pigs to Fairplay Meat Processors on Halloween. Now when I walk past their pen from my house to the new place to check on the poultry I don't have to come up with "treats" for five snorting pigs. They were irresistable to me. As soon as one of them heard me his head would shoot up. In the next second they were running over to the fence as a unit, dancing back and forth, five bright faces fixed on me until I delivered overripe bananas, vegetable peelings, apples, corn, or some other treat in sufficient quantity to satisfy them.

Farther on were the Heritage turkeys, gobbling as soon as I approached. I really was counting the days until they were due at SS Meat Processors. At 5 am on the Monday before Thanksgiving I met Paul and Robin to help load them into the van . It was dark and cold. We worked by flashlight. Paul and Robin pushed each of the five tractors close to the van. Paul climbed into the tractor to pluck them off their roosts. Each time he grabbed one there would be this great shriek of alarm and the flapping of huge wings. Some got down off the roosts shrieking and tried to hide in the corners of the cage. Feathers flew in all directions. As the the last tractor was pushed toward the van, I looked up. There perched on the peak of the roof was one of our "hat" chickens, a living weathervane. She seemed quite determined to hold her safe place high above the ground. Once the turkeys were safely packed in the van, Paul and Robin and the children left for a very long day: 5 hours at the processing plant, then 2 hours to Nashville to deliver the freshly killed turkeys. Fortunately the delivery is organized at the home of one of their shareholders. So they make only the one stop there and have a good supper before they return home.

Just a few days earlier, Bluebell dropped a beautiful brown heifer. When we bought her last spring, the owner told us she was not pregnant. So we put her with a neighbor's bull. . Over the past few months as her belly grew, we'd begun to anticipate an earlier arrival. Then her udder, which had been swelling, suddenly seemed to expand beyond belief. We knew the birth was imminent. Once again our good neighbors were also keeping an eye out. Brad and Bernadette, dairy farmers, came by on Thanksgiving day to assist with cleansing her afterbirth. Others have come by just to admire the calf. The owner of said bull wants us to credit his animal for the unusually short gestation!

On the morning she was born I looked out to check on Bluebell. I thought one of our sheep was grazing close to her flank. Then the little creature began to cavort on long legs with her tail high in the air. I knew then this was no sheep. I have loved watching her. She tears around the pasture on those long legs. Sometimes it seems the legs are taking her for a run rather than vice-versa. The sheep, on the other hand, are not amused. As soon as she gets going they cower in a bunch trying to stay out of range. Now when I see them running I look for the heifer somewhere behind. In the past few days she has managed to touch noses with one or two of the braver ones.

Phoebe and Rob and John all arrived late Tuesday night for Thanksgiving. The first entertainment on Wednesday morning was Paul and family arriving to milk Bluebell. We all had to watch that miraculous process. The milk is so rich and creamy it looks pale yellow. The cream separated out looks more orangey. At the moment we are saving the cream so Robin can make butter. We understand a gallon of cream will make about one pound. Later that day Phoebe made pies, apple crumb and pumpkin, from local apples and our own pumpkins. I helped Robin set the tables in the main room of the "new" house.

Paul and Robin have worked diligently to get it ready for our Thanksgiving feast, filling two commercial size dumpsters with trash, mudding the concrete block walls, painting them, as well as installing a handsome wood stove. Their effort has been blessed by generous help from neighbors Mel, on the mudding project, and Tim, with endless clearing of brush and weeds as well as general mowing, and Allison, our multi-talented intern, who helped with everything. Even so, there were times when we thought we'd have to give up our dream of Thanksgiving in the new place.

What a joy, then, to sit down to our Thanksgiving meal at a long table borrowed from the farm pavilion, set with dishes and flatware from Robin's family. We savored our own turkey and pork and all the trimmings. The south wall of the room is almost all windows so we needed only candles on the table to augument the long November twilight.

We are profoundly blessed.

Love, Louise