I really feel as a farmer that we really come close to my definition of a real thanksgiving. Let me explain: Thanksgiving to me has always been about food and giving thanks…Yes I am aware of the whole Pilgrim/Indian thing.

Thanksgiving in our family has always had a lot of meaning. Not just about giving thanks, but sort of a survivors meeting.  We just spent almost and entire year prepping for the biggest couple months of the year. September rolls around and we are prepping hard for harvest which starts in October.

October brings almost the entire family together to work like we have never worked before.  All relationships outside of harvest are cut off, any fun outings saved for other months, and dinners become a thing of convenience. We spend hours upon hours working with each other all for the same goal, and some how, every year, we end up pulling off what seems like the impossible ….Harvest.

By the time our last shipment of nuts are sent in and we are putting the machines away for a well deserved rest, we are as exhausted as can be. I myself take that first week after harvest to be as lazy as a mom can possibly be.

And then comes Thanksgiving….We all come together with homemade food from the heart. We sit around the table and remember what it was like and bask in the glory of accomplishment and good food. I sincerely feel thankful that day..For the land my family worked many years on before me, for the food that grows from our own soil by means of hard work and caring attention, and for the family we have who by working together made it all happen. Yes, we fought, we cried, but we made it through and accomplished together. For that I am thankful. Onward.