Early Thanksgiving morning, I found Rustic Russ busy unloading 60 bales of hay, from the previous day’s trip to “Juniors”, our hay supplier an hour’s drive from home.
Raz always likes a new delivery of hay to show up. Just look at that fat boy.
Nauish looking on.
Chores first, then we can think about us on this Thanksgiving day.
Rustic Russ realizes I have camera in hand so he jumps into a pose from the likes of Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”.
I let out a scream, realizing he took his hat off. He remedied that situation pronto. Hat was back on for the duration.
Our trusty grill won’t be lit today. Rustic Russ, dubbed “The Grillmaster” from his days training dogs with Jim Warren at his Sled Dog Lodge, produces culinary delights. But not today.
For the first time, Rustic Russ and I are parting ways on Thanksgiving.
He, with tobacco in hand, along with an early Christmas present for his sister, heads downstate with family ~ Amish style ~ together in a van.
I head up north to Petoskey. First stop ~ my brother Craig’s and sister-in-law Carla’s at Walloon Lake. They live a couple miles from Walloon, with property spilling into the Bear River.
Earlier in the morning, Craig was floating the icy cold river in his sturdy canoe. He started further up river and floated home.
A Chickadee came to see what I was doing on the deck. Hear his sound here. (Click on sound.)
My Mom, Jackie, at the restaurant (Stafford’s Bay View Inn). We decided to forgo cooking and clean up this year.
(Check the green grass outside the window. No grass south, at our place. Believe me when I tell you Mancelona is a snow-belt area.)
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Our small family (Woodwoman behind the lens.). Carla, Craig and Mom.
It’s California fattened turkeys for my two sons and families.
My niece Lauren, student at CMU, working at the restaurant while home, shows her Dad, Craig, to our table.
Lauren’s brother, my nephew Steve, (stay with me now…) boarded an airplane today from his mission home in Hawaii for an outreach trip to Israel, for a month of ministry work. He is a member of Surfing the Nation. (Click on name.) He will return to the U.S. on Christmas Eve and spend the holidays in California with my son, Charlie and family, before heading back to Hawaii to resume his ministry.
Another Thanksgiving for the record books.
But in the end, whether you eat at home or eat out at a restaurant, the results are the same. That good ‘ole Tryptophan kicks in and reduces us all to the same level.
Mellow.
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Woodswoman
