After dealing with a pig or two and a cow (technically: a steer) this year, going and getting our own turkey for Thanksgiving seemed like the natural thing to do. Last year, under circumstances I can't really recall, I entered into a bargain with a co-habitant of our little New England village. He would give me one of the turkeys from his flock for Thanksgiving, and I would in return give him a Christmas ham. It was barter in the best spirit of Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall's Dorset. This year, John and I struck our bargain early. I had told him about both our beef and our cheese making efforts, and he was up for pretty much anything. I, on the other hand, am eyeing an aging population of chickens in my backyard, thinking that what's left of the original batch are aimed for the pot in the next six months or so. (For these survivors of fox, hawks - one of which invaded their chicken coop - it may seem like a rather sad end. But their egg-laying days start dwindling after their second full year, and other than one or two favorite 'personalities' that I'll keep around to retire gracefully with the younger birds, the lot of them will end life nobly gracing our table in the most delicious way we can arrange). Problem is, I've never killed a chicken before. And I admit, I'm a little nervous about trying to figure out how to do it on my own, even with all the resources of the internet at my fingertips. So I asked John if I could join him for the turkey harvest this year as a part of our bargain. I'd help process, if he wouldn't mind imparting a little bit of wisdom and practical experience along the way. And I'd throw in some beef to sweeten the deal. I left work a few minutes early on a crisp Monday-before-Thanksgiving evening to get home and change into something a bit more Turkey-slaughter appropriate. (which was a guess. I had a somewhat un-defined mental image of what I was about to do, but I figured pinstripes and loafers weren't called for.) When I was thus properly attired and I hollered out to the household that I was off, the Critter scrambled out of whatever hole she had been hiding in, and asked to go along. I was a little surprised, and explained again that unlike the trip to pick up our pig and cow, these turkeys would still be alive when we pulled up. She shrugged and nodded, and hopped in the truck. OK. Well, then. Off we go. When I pulled up, they were most of the way through killing the half-dozen birds from his 20 or so that he'd be harvesting pre-Thanksgiving. (John, the flock-raiser, is on the left. The other guy is Kevin, one of our local volunteer fire-fighters, and the guy that plows my driveway in the winter. It's a seriously small town.) The prep went fairly quickly. Scald the bird in hot water to loosen the feathers. Throw it in the 'de-plucker' (a device remarkably like a washing machine tub that spun the bird around in a big bucket with springy plastic 'fingers' on the sides, under constant streams of water), tug out the remaining 10% or so of feathers that remained by hand, and plop them up on the board to complete the dressing. This is the point I sort of hesitatingly picked up a sharp knife and looked expectantly at John for direction. (Kevin had to scoot as he had company coming in for dinner). Note the Critter calmly doing her Madlibs next to the carcasses. She wasn't quite as 'hands-on' as she had been with the beef, but didn't seem terribly bothered by any of this. That's my sweet, pragmatic omnivore for you. John grabbed a second knife, and the both of us pulled a bird in front of us. Take off the feet first (at the knee joint', then head (somewhere near the top of the neck). Then the 'preening gland'. "There's a little nubby gland sits at the base of the turkey's tail, and you don't want to eat it," says John, as he pokes a bit at the turkey's rear. Hmm. I closer take a look at my own turkey and spot a little protrusion on the top of the tail that looks kind of like a nipple, if turkey tails had nipples. "Is this it?" I ask. John looked over and nodded. "Yeah, I think so." Um. You think so? "Hey John, out of curiosity, how many times have you done this before?" "Just the once last year. I didn't re-read the book again, but I'm pretty sure that's it." My confidence in this venture started to fall a bit. But then I realized, if John had figured this out from a book, he and I could coach each other through it. At the very least, we could cheer each other on through our screw-ups. So with a renewed enthusiasm, I snipped out what I was sincerely hoping was not really a nipple, and moved on. Trim the skin off the neck, and snip it off with pruning shears. Now flip the bird back over, and get a closer look at, to put it delicately, its nether-naughties. "This is the vent," says John. "The 'vent'? You mean the asshole." I replied. "That's it. They call it the 'vent' in politer company," says my coach. "Well, my bird's 'vent' is dribbling crap." "That's odd," John said, taking a look over at my bird, "I cut their food off yesterday so that they'd be fairly empty. Guess you're just lucky." I got lucky twice that evening. Two out of three of the birds - and the only two out of the six we managed - shared their last meal with me along the way. Lucky me. I smelled like turkey crap for hours. I should buy more lottery tickets. Last steps. Cut a circle around the 'vent', then a three inch slit beneath the rib cage. Reach in and tug out pretty much everything that's not nailed down. At some point during the process, the turkey had turned from from "bird" to "meat," and that had made the process more clinical and less bothersome. But sticking my hand in that first bird was still a little squeamish for me. It was warm, and full of odd shapes. The gizzard is rock hard, for one thing. I can't figure that out. I'm hoping that none of my gutty-parts feel like that (although I've had some experiences after eating a particularly adventurous menu of Indian food that left me in doubt). But if you do it right, one or two good tugs, and the whole of the non-edible mass comes out in a single piece. Or so John showed me. I never managed to do it quite right, and usually ended up scooping the last bits out in a couple of messier handfuls. Ah well. Less style points for me. In the end, we wrapped these birds up, selected a pretty decent bird for our Thanksgiving repast (around thirteen pounds), and took the now-obligatory shot of the Critter holding a bag of meat. Thanksgiving for us this year is quiet affair, just-us-family, a quiet day, a good bottle of wine and a lovely meal. I have plenty to be thankful for. This year has been happily productive, and we all are healthy and content. We've seen and made good friends, and for the first time in a very long time, have played hosts to my parents, my brother and his wife and their newly adopted daughter. We've settled into the New England rhythms of the seasons, and are eagerly anticipating the first snow - a long way from where our Georgia-California upbringings had left us our first holiday season in our house-become-home. Mostly, I'm just thankful that we're together to celebrate another holiday season, and enjoy the very delicious fruits of our labor.

The past month has flown by, full of ups, downs and in-betweens. October is always a special month for me. Number one, it's my birthday month. (If you didn't sing, feel free to do so now.) It also marks the beginning of my favorite season, when the long hot days turn crisp and chill, and I wake up one day and the leaves have turned a million shades of red and gold. This was one of the things that I really missed when we lived in California, where there are only four kinds of trees (palm, redwood, oak, and that other one), none of which really turn colors due to the broken thermostat that is San Francisco weather. It feels like New England has been working overtime to make up for all those lost autumns, and have put a class-full of kindergartners a fistful of oil paint and a twelve pack of Jolt cola, and told them that they were in charge of the leaves this year. In short: it's beautiful. And you're never getting me to move back to California. It was our second annual Bring-Your-Own-Jug cider pressing party. I took lots of brilliant photos of the kids helping press cider, on a not-snowy day (unlike last October), unfortunately, I forgot to have a disk in the camera. So no pictures. Silly me. There are, however, more than 30 lovely gallons now fermenting away in my basement for hard cider. About twice as much as last year, and another successful friends & neighbor event. It's also the anniversary of my father, the surgeon's death. This year marks nineteen years. It would also have been his ninety-third birthday this month. I found myself looking through old photograph albums given to me by my mother, and picking out pictures of he and I together, trying to see what I will look like in a not so very distant future. I think I was about 4 in that picture. And man, if I could find that kickin' suit my dad was wearing, I think I could totally pull that off. This year, it was also the month that my grandmother, the Critter's namesake, passed away. We also were no relation to each other. Eleanor T. White was a remarkable woman. A librarian and elementary school teacher. A story teller and an independent woman who buried two husbands, one an alcoholic, and remained upbeat and optimistic throughout. She taught me both the love of reading and the love of animals. I never knew her not to have at least a couple of pets until she conceded to the fact that she could no longer live on her own. Even then, she convinced the nursing home that the cat outside her garden door was 'just visiting on a regular basis'. And I never saw her house in a state other than stacked high with books on every flat surface, spilling out of the shelves, and holding up a chair or two with a wobbly tendency. We made each others' acquaintance when I was about 6 years old. Nanny (we called both my grandmothers 'Nanny') was my mother's first husband's mother. (get that? I'll wait here while you go back and read it again. OK, good.). This made her my (half-)brother and (half-)sister's grandmother, but technically, not really related to me. And while we started out kind of eyeing each other across the breakfast table, quietly sizing one another up, we figured out that we had found a kindred spirit in one another well before the end of the day. And we never let the messiness of our familial ties stand in the way. Nanny W. was, in many ways, the polar opposite of everything that Nanny P. was. My mother's mother was a consummate cook, who taught me what a beautiful work of art a fried pork chop could be. Nanny W. could burn water. Nanny P. kept a quiet, old fashioned housekeeping in the same house for 50 years. Nanny W. moved every few years, and her house was piled to the rafters with clutter. Nanny P. was content to move from her garden to the grocery store to the kitchen to the garden again. Nanny W. would shuffle me into the car, where we'd drive over to pick up one of her other octogenarian church companions, and the we'd to tootling over the Blue Ridge mountains, just a 4th grade and two old ladies, "exploring" until we stumbled across the Dahlonega, Georgia gold mine, or the Etowah indian mounds. Growing up, I'd spend half my summer with Nanny P, and be surrounded by love and comfort and all I could eat biscuits and gravy. I'd spend the other half with Nanny W., and be laughing from the time we got up (not too early) to the time we dropped of Ms. Callahan, Ms. Lela, or one of the other adventuring companions in their driveways in the last drippings of north Georgia dusk. Usually only so late because we gotten lost on the way home. It was with these memories, and a thousand more, that I would later ask my bride if we could name our daughter after my grandmother. (in a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story, it wasn't until several years later, and after I introduced our son to Nanny that she reminded me that her little brother was named Sam, the same as our new son. She was free-spirited in a gentle, perversely stubborn and kind-hearted way. She taught me that the way to capture someone's attention was to tell them a story. I still have the "little pig that wouldn't go over the fence and I shan't get home tonight" story mostly memorized. And she was pragmatic in a way that does not grow often outside of pre-War Appalachia. Over the last few years, I'd swing through Tennessee on my way to and from California. (Or pretty much to and from anywhere that put me vaguely over that part of the globe). I'd bring her a couple of salty country ham biscuits to provide some relief from the nursing home food. She was 90 years old, and when I met her doctor on one of my visits, he and I just shrugged together, and agreed that a little flavor couldn't do any harm at this point. I'd bring my banjo, and play badly for her. The last time I did so, she smiled and told me that I "played badly better than you used to," - perhaps the best compliment I've ever received about my musical efforts. And then we'd sit and talk for hours about most anything. Her mind remained sharp well after her body started deteriorating, and she'd still make me laugh until my sides hurt. In the last five years, her knees had crumpled to the point that walking was difficult. For the last two years, her eyesight had gone to the point that the only way she could still read was to get books on tape. She had the satisfaction of seeing a Democrat re-take the White House, and being able to laugh at her grandson's forlorn expression at the fact. She told me she was pretty much ready to die. Others seemed to have a harder time with that than I did. But at 90 years, she had seen, done, and lived more than most anyone I know. I figured I should trust her judgement. She was always a hell of a lot wiser than I was. She was content with what she had accomplished, satisfied with the choices she had made, and happy with the love that she had passed on. That's a pretty hard record to beat. I can only hope that our little Eleanor grow up to be as classy and strong, with as much hope and patience, and that I can show her just a little bit of the adventure in life that you showed me, Nanny. We love you.