For the past two years, Nate and I has shoved two Thanksgiving celebrations into one day. That’s two turkey dinners, two pieces of pie and two sessions of conversing with the relatives. Thanks to a suggestion by my mom, we ended the madness this year and divided Thanksgiving into two separate occasions: one Thursday with the Eckerts and one Saturday with the Nelsons.
For me Thanksgiving began Wednesday afternoon with a trip to the grocery store. I decided to make a dessert and a salad for the Eckerts so I needed ingredients. Luckily I beat the after work rush and made it out of the store just as it was getting crowded. Later that evening Nate’s cousin Chris and her new fiancé, Jeff, arrived. Nate and I took them to a local tavern for some pre-Thanksgiving entertainment. While we were there a wrestling match ensued between a few hunters.
“They’re related,” the bartender said as she shook her head. Turns out they were fighting over what kind of pizza to order. The following day I whipped out my chef’s hat and made my contributions to Thanksgiving dinner. Both turned out pretty well, considering the dessert was a first try.
On Friday afternoon Nate and I headed to a local Christmas tree farm to cut a few for my relatives. After hearing what my mom spent on a tree last year, I promised to bring her one fresh from the farm. We also threw a second one in for my aunts since we had the room. My brother turned down a real tree in favor of a non-shedding fake one. On Saturday Mom, my sisters and I took over the kitchen while Nate kept an eye on Jacob. My grandparents and aunts also came over so it was a full house.
After dinner and a short rest to let the turkey settle, a few of my family members took Nate out into the woods to hunt the steep hills. He got the better end of the deal though; they stuck him in a tree stand and drove a doe right to him. He dropped it with one shot. After we got the deer situated for the night, Dad found two heifers calving. One had her heifer calf with no problem, but the other (flash back to last week) had twins.
Kaitlyn, who aspires to be a vet, and I dove into the problem. We found both were trying to get out at the same time. I pushed one back in while Kaitlyn tried to bring around a front foot that was folded back. After we had the first one out, a little black heifer calf, we checked on the other who now wanted to come out ears first. We pushed her back again and got her nose coming first. This one had her whole leg back. We tried to bring it forward, but eventually gave up and eased her out with no damage. The second was a heifer calf too, but with a surprise: this one was almost completely white with a couple of black specks on her. I’ve never seen a pair of twins so different in color, kind of like white meat and dark meat in a turkey.
Both were lively and ready to eat, especially the little white one. I don’t think my sisters named them yet, but something like Pumpkin and Apple would be appropriate for Thanksgiving calves, don’t you think?
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