Open Thread - Thurs 23 Nov 2023 - Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving!
It's a holiday, whatever its origin, it's a holiday. So, I'm taking it! 
Husband is making dinner for the family. Go man, GO! We are having chicken instead of turkey. I will be happy. Dessert is pumpkin pie with whipped cream, or maybe the other way around, dunno?
A seasonal picture! Crabapples from a tree we planted about 15 or 20 years ago.
These are french crabapples. I bought the tree, called Evereste, from a local nursery. The crabapples are about an inch across, if that, and DELICIOUS eaten as jelly, jam, juice, chutney... whatever. Our Evereste tree is about 20 years old, and doing great! It produces tons of apples every year after growing beautiful flowers and nice foliage. The birds LOVE the crabapples that we don't eat, the chickens love resting under the tree, the goats would love to eat the tree, if I let them, but I don't!
What's up with you? How's your holiday going? I hope you're having good food and good company! What else is on your mind? Thanks for reading and here's the open thread - and remember, everything is interesting if you dive deep enough, so tell us about where you're diving!
Comments
Happy Thanksgiving!
Enjoy the day of turkeys, chicken, crockpot steak, white rice, pumpkin-squash pie, stuffing and cranberries. And More! Hope things are really well with everyone and their families, friends, whoever they are spending the day with. Maybe 'just' their dog (which, for me, is a lot better than some of my 'family', unfortunately).
Let's hear about what you are reading, doing, eating, etc. Even a 'burp' is good!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Happy thanksgiving...
We can be thankful there is a ceasefire in Gaza and some hostage exchange. At least there's that. Scott Ritter suggested that a sign the IDF knows they are losing.
We're off to B'ham to visit with both families. I cooked a turkey yesterday, and it is delicious. It was a bargain at $0.57/lb. My regular grocery store runs a turkey lost leader almost every year. They limit it to one turkey and require a $35 purchase in addition to the turkey. However I've already bought an extra, and if they are still available Sat, I'll buy another. The freezer is full but I think I can squeeze it in. Doesn't take much to get to a $35 purchase at the grocery. One of the cashiers said to me, "You never get out of here for less than $50", and she's right.
We still have cabbage, broccoli and such growing. The lettuce has bolted and is bitter so we did bother to cover it last night. About 36F this AM.
Enjoy the holiday and your meal!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Sounds like a nice day, and dinner!
I've gotten the loss leader turkeys before. If the rest of the family doesn't eat them, we give them away to those who will!
Scott Ritter is probably right about the IDF, they might be losing on the ground, but they've definitely lost the hearts and minds (if they ever had those) of most of the world's people. Not sure about the world's 'leaders' though.
We've still got celery, leeks, some herbs (like mint and chives) growing. We've had several hard frosts, so the lettuce is DONE. :). We've got a couple cabbages growing as 'weeds' that are still doing ok, so the 26 degree night recently didn't stop them. Yet.
Hope your day was great, and the trip to B'ham rocked!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Hey, Happy Food Celebration!
Your crab apple story reminds me of the home made cranberry chutney a friend
gave to us. His secret ingredient is brandy. Yumm!
All that is left for today is the gravy. Turkey stock in a golden roux. Silky.
Then it is off to a friends house down the street.
Best wishes all!
Q
question everything
Cranberry Chutney?
With brandy? YUM. Hope the feast at the friend's house down the street was great! Ours was pretty good here, even with the demented and autistic participants. Everyone, everyone, loves pumpkin pie here!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
swiped this comment from TAE
As the preparation for the thanksgiving meal begins please let me share some of the things i am thankful for:
I am thankful for singularity.
I am thankful for the information that created space.
I am thankful for clouds of charged potential.
I am thankful for fusion.
I am thankful for the the stars that forge the material world.
I am thankful for the curiosity and intelligence in a precious child’s eyes.
I am thankful that i am not limited to observation.
I am thankful for the greatest of human blessings, the ability to measure.
I am thankful for physics, logic and ethics.
I am thankful for a peace that exceeds understanding.
I am thankful for those things i cannot yet understand.
I am thankful for the one thing, above all others, that I cannot understand. Why is human consciousness not enough? Why is the ability to discern beauty and loving kindness not enough?
I am thankful for hope and the knowledge that light overcomes darkness.
I am thankful for all of my sisters and brothers and their children.
I am thankful that I am blessed with the ability to speak and write.
I am thankful I may say, I Love You.
tboc
question everything
Lovely list...
Personally, I would add,
I am thankful for the companionship of animals
I am thankful for the sun
I am thankful for the wind
I am thankful for the trees
and... heh, probably a bunch more too
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Good morning all. Happy National Day of Mourning (Indian).
I won't post Burroughs' T-day prayer, but maybe check it out.
By the numbers: 4 for dinner, 11 pound bird spatchcocked, roughly 90 minutes on Weber Kettle, cheap port for basting same, cheap cabernet for drip pan to make it more moist,
garlic-cheddar mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, sausage-apple dressing, homemade pie using whatever squash was in the canned "pumpkin" can (it isn't pumpkin except by producer agreement), 1 bottle Raymond cabernet sauvignon, 1 bottle Beringer Knights Valley cabernet sauvignon for back up. Whew.
Time to continue set-up and do regular morning chores.
All be well and have a wonderful whatever this day is for you.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
your menu is making me hungry
enjoy the feast!
question everything
I searched out the T-day prayer...
can't really disagree with any of it.
Your meal sounds great! I hope the food tasted great too!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Happy Thanksgiving all!
All the food listings made me hungry but glad I made to decision to go and enjoy Zion National Park. Divine order and I used to camp here and bike all over the park and eat stovetop dressing and be thankful. This year my main meal will be a stuffed Big Jim green Chile stuffed with ground turkey, wild rice, and a variety of other goodies along with a salad.
Having a bike allows you to beat the crowds, no parking issues, limitations on where you can drive. Plan to get moving and hope to go find some wild turkeys strutting around near the Zion Lodge. One thing I have noticed now that e-bikes are allowed in the park is the incredibly fast moving bike there are and people riding with no helmets sailing along. Guess it is proof that I have gotten old or maybe just don’t want to be knocked off my bike. Too old for that.
Nicest is the quiet and sounds of nature and no problematic family discussions around the table! Have a good one and be safe out there.
Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.
This ain't no dress rehearsal!
sounds like fun!
I love my e-bike. With this creaky old carcass, easier to get around.
enjoy and thanks for sharing
question everything
Sounds wonderful!
We are headed to that area in May.
Helmets are a must! We think we are hard headed, but that is bull shit.
I spotted 8 or 9 wild turkeys yesterday. Also, a rabbit, a fox, and about 50 deer. Driving last night was pretty tricky. Deer seem to want to prove they can run across the road, look back and smirk as the car goes past. The deer version of "neener neener".
Have fun, jb!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Deer are weird that way...
I read some research, and I'm afraid I don't remember where/when, that found that deer actually can't see or hear us when our cars are going faster than about 50 mph. So they don't actually, really, know there is a car coming at them. The researchers speculated the limitation has to do with the speed of something which would attack them in the wild. Most animals are simply not as fast as cars. Made me drive differently around deer, when/if I can see them at the side of the road. That's a big when/if!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Sounds fantastic JB. Enjoy yourself to the max.
be well and have a great one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Enjoying Zion National Park..
Is a great thing to do for T-day. I think hubby and I would be traveling more on the various holidays if not for our old dog and our goats. Now that my parents are too old to babysit them, we are kinda stuck.
I gotta agree about the e-bikes and helmets. They should be required! Hope you have a great stay in Zion and had a great, quiet, satisfying Thanksgiving!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Good morning sima, et. al.
We will make pizzas for dinner. Our tradition is to not follow existing traditions.
Dessert will be Mandarin oranges, a piece of white chocolate.
The concert was great last night! It was fun to get out on the dance floor with the fun crowd.
The best thing about predominantly old people crowds is that we are too old to engage in bar room brawls.
For whatever reason, I had accumulated a wallet full of dollar bills. The running joke with the bartenders was that I must hang out at male dancer bars a lot. Will I have enough dollar bills for the next trip to the pole?
Have a great day with your food, family, friends, and critters!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Pizzas sound great!
In fact, something like that was what I wanted to do, but my family didn't want that, they wanted 'traditional'. So they got it. I like the idea about old people concerts. Maybe I should try to get to some of those in Seattle.
As for the stripper's dollar bills, maybe when we were young. I bet they are 5 dollar bills now!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Turkey day
Hi all, Hi Sima,
Happy Turkey Day to all!
Those Crabapples look great Sima. I have had some that were the best apple-thingie I ever tasted. A lot of birds are fruigivores in winter and apples of any sort are favorites. You should have Varied Thrush there? One of the most beautiful bird sounds in America, and males especially are a stunning beauty too.
We have Turkey as a regular bird around our place, we hear gobbling from displaying males quite close twice a year for a month or two. The poults (this years young) stay in their flocks into winter after the female leaves them. These are the wild native Rio Grande Turkey. The type used for most of the western U.S. restocking programs after the native western subspecies was wiped out. These were the only 'western' types tough enough to make it out west. Many attempts with the eastern subspecies failed in the west. The terminal band on the tail differs in being pale white to creamy buff in western types, and more rufous or cinnamon in eastern ones.
Locals here, being Texan given to much bragging however, say these are the toughest Turkey of them all. Proven by only the breasts they say are edible. They say the drumsticks are tough as Roadrunners. Was 'fraid to ask how they knew. They also say when that herd crosses a pasture, nothing is left moving. The butcher said he pulled a baby rattler out of one once! The mighty Wild Turkey. I do have one of the fancy sculpted Turkey decanters of said spirits, empty of course.
My special thanks to all the great folks that keep Caucus 99 up and running!
Here are some poults at the patio a couple months ago, almost but not quite full grown, on their own. Vacuuming birdseed up like you never saw.
Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
your western turkeys look different
from the eastern variety
we have various flocks ruminating
in the back yard on occasion
the poults have shorter legs
and the colors are browner/grayish
enjoy your turkeys!
question everything
Loved the turkey pic!
I didn't know that about the western and eastern turkeys, that the eastern ones can't survive in the west. Makes sense. I'm sorry the original western ones have been wiped out. Humans will human, I guess
We do have Varied Thrush here! I love their song. They are not out in the open fields as much as they are in the woods, but still, we get them here and get to hear them sing!
Lately, like the last 5 to 10 years, the crowd at our bird feeders has changed. We get doves, never got them before, and under the feeder, we've got a family or two of California Quail! We have few red-winged blackbirds anymore. We used to have huge flocks of them. They seem to have been replaced by starlings
. The local population of Juncos and Chickadees is lower that it used to be, at least by the bird feeder attendance. That makes me sad!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
GM. Couldn't
possibly hope for better weather here in SoCal. Downside is it doesn't really feel like Fall, with that bracing crispness in the air and all the colorful fall leaves, but rather late Summer with a few dead brown leaves on the ground. Can't complain though. My Chinese friend is here to give another try at making a traditional American Thanksgiving Dinner, sans the turkey, as we both agree the taste is not to our liking. BBQ chicken is the substitute.
Trying to catch up on all the JFK anniversary items, very much behind in all this. Want to hear the rest of the Rob Reiner Podcast on same, where he claims to name names as to who did it. First two episodes are mostly unremarkable, but with Dick Russell helping to research the project, I hope it won't be a complete waste of my time.
I did learn elsewhere of RFK Jr's friendship w Woody Harrelson, and how he told Kennedy that his father, Charles, convicted of killing a federal judge, once told him of his role in Dallas. He was there on the grassy knoll to distribute fake SS IDs to the plotters stationed at that position, and was later photographed as one of the so-called Three Tramps being escorted away by the police shortly thereafter from the knoll. One of the other 2 "tramps" looks a good deal like E. Howard Hunt, of later Watergate fame, who made a deathbed confession about his "minor, bench warming" role.
The best evidence still points to CIA as mastermind. My only question is the LBJ angle, whether he was involved in more than just the massive cover up. I used to go no further than LBJ with foreknowledge, but now believe he might have played a key role wrt SS/motorcade arrangements, which were crucial and for which he would have been well-positioned to effect the desired outcome.
While the mainstream JFK assassination researchers are mostly strictly in the CIA camp, I've detected that a few of them no longer consider LBJ involvement in the plot as a wacky fringe theory, though most still call it a "distraction" from the CIA. Re LBJ, in addition to other factors, I find it very hard to believe that he would have been completely in the dark about major events about to happen in his home state that would so directly and immediately cause a 180 in his political fortunes. LBJ was always keenly politically tuned in, with eyes and ears everywhere.
Arrangements were being made to drop him from the 64 ticket and, more important, by the fall of 63 Lyndon too believed this. Even worse, he feared that he might go to jail for some of his nefarious activities.
So far though, while there has been some slight increased interest in all that among a few senior researchers, none to my knowledge have taken it up with the seriousness it deserves.
Wow, the rabbit holes...
you just sent me down, rock! I have not, to tell the truth, paid much attention to the JFK assassination. I always figured we will never know the real truth. However, from what you've written here, I think I might know the truth quicker than I thought.
BBQ chicken for T-day dinner sounds great!
Fall has been late to come up here in the far north. It's finally here, but it sure took longer than usual. Enjoy the weather down south, and I hope dinner rocked for you and your friend!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
No Thanksgiving holiday here in Germany, of course.
Yesterday was a holiday in Saxony, though — a Protestant religious holiday, the Day of Repentance and Prayer (Buß- und Bettag).
Traditional German Erntedankfest or “thanks-for-the-harvest festival” is the first Sunday in October.
https://germangirlinamerica.com/what-is-erntedankfest/
Erntedankfest?
Sounds like a good thing to celebrate! I might have to start doing that...
Hope you've had a good day, Thanskgiving or not!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Yup it’s just me and the Sam dawg
.
I just tested to see if the steak is nice and tender and it is and boy is it flavorful! I’m okay with not being on the island now because I will always have the memory of waking up to these 3 buffalo spending the day in my camp spot. About 30 yards away from the trailer.
They were even closer when I first opened the door. I had to use the privy because I was winterized and had to sneak past them. Fun times.
Gotta use the microwave for the potatoes because I had a mouse problem last spring and I need a new oven, but I want a new floor first and I’m just not up to dealing with all that just now. Hopefully soon.
Anyhoo hope everyone’s dinner turned out like you wanted.
Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.
That pic of the Buffalo
is great! I love the steak in the pot idea. Jaska got steak today, because it was Thanksgiving. I didn't know your oven was broken. Am sorry about that. Ours got hit by lightning a few years back. The lightning centered on the oven, started a fire in the wall and, luckily, the winds and rain of the thunderstorm put out the fire! We had to get the oven replaced, of course. So, my sympathies. Hope the oven and the floor get straightened out easily, when you are ready.
Give Sam a pet and a kiss between the ears for me! And Jaska sez Hi!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
My stepdad taught me how to cook steak in a crockpot
the first time I broke my jaw. It tastes just like it, but what’s missing is the chewing. You really don’t know how satisfying that is until you can’t do it. Ahh well…things could be worse.
I thought waking up to the buffalo on thanksgiving was quite meaningful. It was fun watching them except when I had to use the privy. Sam didn’t know what to make of them.
The oven still works but the smell that comes from it is ghastly. The mice died under the cover and probably in the back and I’m not interested in cleaning up the mess. Easier to just get a new one. If I get a break from things maybe I’ll look into getting the kitchen floor replaced and get a new oven. Hopefully I can get a gas one. Love cooking with gas in the trailer.
Hope your day was everything you wanted it to be. Scritches back to Jaska.
Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.
The pizza was fantastic!
20 minutes, start to finish.
I am so full! Bet most if not all of you are! I hope everyone spoiled themselves.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I am eating left overs!
All veggies but that's ok with me :). Spoiled for sure I'm glad the pizza rocked!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so