Family - it's that time of year

 This is my family a few years ago but it reminded me of Thanksgiving in the Osage.  Every year there was always a lot of anticipation to the activities for the day, Thanksgiving Day.

At our house Larry Wayne and I would take out at daylight hunting quail.  There were lots of quail up and down Beaver Creek in those days.  You hardly ever saw a deer or a turkey.  Larry and I never had a bird dog or at least I never had one because I was Larry's bird dog in that I would walk up and down the rough terrain and try to jump the birds while Larry walked up on top.  One of the attractive aspects about the hunting up and down the creek is that there were small water holes where you could not cross and then sand bars every now and then where you could and I loved the beauty of Beaver Creek.  We had big red squirrels up in all the trees with nests made of leaves and twigs.  The nests were visible once the autumn leaves fell.  Another great thing is we had lots of red birds or cardinals and an occasion a Baltimore Oriel. There were lots of trees and the animal life was always bustling until they saw you and then it would quieten down for a moment until they trusted you.  Anyway we hunting up until our stomachs could wait no more and then we would head to the house (on foot, never by vehicle) to dig into a table filled with good holiday fixins.

Mom cooked ham a lot of times and turkey and dressing seemed to be standard issue.  Mom made her dressing with corn meal and sometimes with bread but it was always great.  Debbie was always in the kitchen and she was a great cook as well.  Now the ham was not the type you get today but it was from one of our hogs and smoked and put in the freezer until Mom took it out.  Those hams were huge and they were not perfectly shaped like in a can or plastic wrap.  As dad always said, "that is good eaten".  Mom liked to spoil dad and make sweet potatoes with kind of a syrupy topping and marshmallows melted on top of that.  I never did like that particular dish but I would put my mom's cranberry sauce up against anyone's.  Every year she would get out the grinder that you would attach to the side of the cabinet and grind those cranberries.  Now you would not know it but it was a hand grinder meaning it took muscle not pushing a button. If you want to go green then you should get you a manual grinder and grind your own cranberries and apples or whatever you want ground.  It is probably obvious but that was my favorite dish and it went with turkey extremely well.  I liked the dark meat more than the white.

Another great thing about Thanksgiving dinner is the home made bread.  I can smell it now!  Mom started the day before making the dough which would be set next to the fireplace so it would be warm and rise.  Probably a lot of folks don't even know about the process but there was yeast in the bread which caused it to rise and every now and then you would have to need the dough to get it back down to size as it filled up with air and got really large.  After several hours and I never knew what finally caused her stop stop letting the bread rise she would take the dough and form it into balls and place three balls of dough in each dough cup (I am not going to explain that).  But somehow she managed to always have the dough ready just in time to put it in the over and have HOT fresh bread for Thanksgiving.  Put some fresh home grown butter on that and you would think you had died and gone to heaven.  Wow!  Of course we always had home grown and canned green beans and corn taken out of the cellar or freezer depending on the year (pre-freezer bags or post  freezer bags).  This may not make sense to everyone but we had SMASHED POTATOES (white) which were fresh out of the cellar then cooked and smashed with a little salt and pepper and again a chunk of butter on top.  Incredible!

At our house pecan pie was top dog and pumpkin was second but we generally always had both.  Mom was the best at those pies!  The pecans generally came from Uncle Don Lane's pecan grove where every year we would go and pick pecans off the ground and then bring them home to crack and clean the old fashioned way, by hand.  Really outside of the turkey I think about everything came from our own hard work but it was greatly appreciated and created some of the best memories.  Oh ya, lets don't forget the iced tea made the old fashioned way, boiled and strained.

After all the eating everyone laid around and watched football, generally OU and Nebraska and or Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins or slept.  Late in the day if the football got boring it was time to go hunting some more.  I don't know why but Mom never really made Larry and I help that much with the clean  up or preparing but it made for special memories.

What do you learn from the Osage?

• Family time is more important than work but lots of work makes you appreciate family time
• Great cooks come from the Osage or live there (thepioneerwoman.com)
• When you get older, you are not going to look back and think, "I wished I spent more time working"
• Be thankful and take care of what God gave us

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com