Thanksgiving Monday

It was our second of three days to give thanks this fall- the first was on the last Sunday in September when many Ukrainian churches give thanks to God for the harvest with programs and fruit and vegetable decor, this was Canadian Thanksgiving Monday and near the end of November we'll celebrate the American version, which sometimes falls- as it did the year he was born on our youngest son Jonah's birthday.
Monday morning I woke up just before 3 am just in time to watch the Phillies game. They won- good news I will be able to get some sleep the rest of the week, as some of the games have started at 1 am- so when they are playing I don’t go to sleep until 3 am or get up then. It’s exciting to be able to watch my team on the new satellite system (I grew up in southern New Jersey- my 99 year-old grandfather still watches or listens to all the games.) Last year my only live coverage for the World Series was on the internet watching little squares moving on the little base path, but being able to watch the games may not be helping my recovery from this sinus cold.
Any way I cleaned up the house in the morning, as Garry and Victor were expecting a visit from the Mennonite Heritage tour group around mid-day, as maybe they would want to see the house as it is a renovated Mennonite house built in 1904. Then I made some info cards for Garry with the blog site to hand out, and printed some photos for a display of the barn building process, which I put on a poster that he tacked up in the milkhouse.
The new little heifer arrived on a trailer behind a tractor- you can see her in the photo-the son didn’t walk her over after all – it was drizzling by mid-morning- and got tied up in the barn. She is 11 months old, the one Garry bought on Sunday.
The boys did schoolwork, and I put on my jacket and went out and cut my brussel sprouts (they had lost their tops- turned out the ladies fed them to Maxim’s rabbits) in the muddy garden, and harvested the last of the peppers. Garry and Victor worked on making doors for the haymow, as you can see in the photo, out of chipboard (the only material considered suitable, they will be getting a good coat of enamel paint to weather-proof them.)
Garry and Victor did some clean-up, its easy to pull giant weeds by the driveway when it's wet, filled some holes in the barn drive with bricks- they are planning on getting some more slag to cover the rest of the driveway, the recent wet weather has mucked up what was the good part of the drive, close to the road.
Around 3 pm the bus tour arrived and toured the barn, Garry explained what his plans are, and what we are doing here. One man on the tour had a grandparent born in this village. A couple of people asked if the outhouse was operational, and even though I offered the real bathroom in the house, they used it because they didn’t want to come in with muddy feet. Soon they were on their way, and I went in to finish making our Thanksgiving dinner.
I printed out photos my daughter had uploaded of dinner at her house on Sunday and hung them in the dining room so we had everyone (except Josh who was in NJ with my parents) for dinner. Jonah pointed out that with just the four of us you hardly had to pass anything (Jess had 12 plus baby Keziah at her house for Thanksgiving.) I stuffed a little chicken, we had most of the trimmings- mashed potatoes, gravy, those brussel sprouts, creamed onions, corn frozen from the garden this summer, one of my mother’s traditional holiday dishes- carrot jello- (sorry no candied sweet potaoes) I forgot to put the jello on the table but Jonah remembered what was missing on his plate- and hot biscuits. Luckily they were too full for dessert, as I didn’t get around to making any pies.