Happy Belated Thanksgiving, dear readers!
Side note…how is it that December will be here by Friday!? It feels like just yesterday I was anxiously awaiting my trip to Ireland. I barely got my grocery shopping done before the crowds descended! This all seems to be just how it is now. Gone are the days of our youth when we had all the time in the world to wait on things to come upon us.
ANYWAY. I digress, as per usual.
I hope you had a wonderful time however you choose to celebrate it if you choose to celebrate it!
We had a week full of family and food at our special place, the farm. We made a lot of new foods and some staples…like pumpkin bread!
We used to have two big family celebrations every year. One in town and one out at the farm. Between families growing exponentially and the results of covid, the new tradition has become a slightly less loud and chaotic one at the farm with only my immediate family (which is a lot). I have mixed feelings about the new tradition, but I will never ever complain about more time at the farm with my horses and my Merley Bob.
I had nine glorious days out there and now I am still doing laundry while I enjoy my morning coffee. I am not allowing myself to get my Christmas tree until the laundry is finished and put away. No small feet, I grant you.
Merle and I got there the Friday before Thanksgiving with all my groceries is tow. We were able to enjoy the calm before the storm with a nice ride Saturday morning. Our time. Just my boys and me. Where is Merle you ask? He was off running somewhere. Probably in the direction that Lito is looking. Lito loves to keep track of the Merle and use him as an extra set of eyes.
We did not do too terribly much, just relaxed and meandered around. We did a little trotting, We did a little loping. We did a little grazing.
I did lose my hat at one point and I blame one of the heifers. She was acting like she wanted to chase us while we were trotting so we turned around to tell her that was not acceptable. Well, the wind caught my hat while we were turning and landed it at the heifer’s hooves. We stood there for a while while I decided if it was worth me dismounting to get my hat to then have to mount back up. 16.3+ hh is a long way up there in a flat meadow. I opted to leave the hat for when we were finished in that pasture. I have a somewhat crooked hat now thanks to that heifer! It could have been worse and there are worse things! The hat still goes on my head and does its job.
We have been listening to a playlist on Spotify called ‘Outdoor Zen’ and it is zenfull.
Look, there is the Merle! Enjoying a mud bath!
I had lots of help feeding the horses through the week. Feeding seems to be the kids’ favorite part.
I normally do not keep the horses in their stalls for anything but feeding, but since they were kept up for the whole week and the kids were always running around, I put them all in their stalls for a few hours morning and night to enjoy their hay and rest alone before feeding. Have their quiet time, if you will. This kept everyone relaxed and made the routine a little easier. It created more work with more mucking and dealing with water buckets, but it was worth it.
We enjoyed many gorgeous sunsets and sunrises that photos do not do justice to.
We had all the traditional Thanksgiving favorites for an early dinner as opposed to lunch, We had most everything prepared by the day before so we could take the whole day to leisurely enjoy a snacking lunch with mimosas and setting the table and doing crafts with the kids.
Y’all know I love to do a special dessert and this year was no different, even if it was a little more simple than in years past. I made a chocolate gingerbread tart. A new type of dessert for me, but it was really really good. There are some changes I would make to improve it (to the crust mainly…you can see it does not look quite right), but it was a good first effort! Very elegant I think. It was a big hit. I used two different recipes as go inspiration go bys to create it (recipe 1 and recipe 2…I can not find…it was a chocolate amaretto tart). Sister A also made a pumpkin tres leches that was amazing. Pops really likes pumpkin desserts so we had to include one!
You can not by any means skip the pomegranate seeds. Gosh. Those really were the finishing touch. These are not the best pics, but trust me, it is worth repeating!
The great thing about giving everyone quiet time in their stalls is I always catch at least someone having a nap. I love to watch them nap!
On Friday I took my Lito to our friend M’s house for a body work session. He felt good and really seemed to be thankful for it! It was cold and windy, but he relaxed into it. I did not catch all the yawning and releasing on the camera, but there were many! We are going to look into getting him set up with the chiro to be adjusted soon. M thinks that will help his two spots of soreness.
I was blessed to have to make a quick run back out to the farm Monday afternoon thanks to Pops leaving a gate open. I got the gate closed, checked all the animals, and did some fence work before I took some time to hang out with the horses a bit. It was cold, but it was a pretty day. Almost as pretty as my queen Cheetah. She will be 20 in May and I am having a hard time that. She is still the spicy four year old I met all those years ago despite the gray hairs and effects of arthritis.
It has been a busy week catching up after Thanksgiving, but I would not have it any other way.
How was your Thanksgiving? What did you do? What did you cook? Check back soon for riding and Santa Fe adventure updates!
Walk in love, dear readers, and continue to give thanks!
