Let Us Be Thankful

On this cold, snowy Thanksgiving morning with a soft, gray daylight illuminating the hillside, I take pause to consider everything I am grateful for. Let me share a few thoughts.

I am thankful for...my three children, who are a living legacy of fine, sturdy, competent, intelligent, caring, responsible individuals. They represent all my best qualities, and all the years of devotion and energy I put into raising them. No matter what I ever do with my life it pales in comparison to the accomplishment of producing my kids - Eric, Mia and AJ.

I am thankful for...my two grandchildren, Hannah and Luke. They are as different as night and day and are the product of two incredibly talented and capable parents. They are as adorable as can be, and are smart, compassionate and complex. Two walking miracles who are the wonderment of my life. It is an amazing and incredible thing for my DNA to be continued times 2 with such precocious humans.

I am thankful for...my farm. It is a daily challenge which sometimes rips my guts out but it is a symbol of my strength and abilities and proves to me how tough I am. My farm is larger than life. My barn is the best one around, with a good metal roof that keeps me and my animals safe and dry in the worst of weather. I won't live long enough to do what needs to be done with my farm, but it is the quest that is important. So many years of work and tears have contributed to the history of my farm and I am keeping that legacy of dreams alive. Lydia, the Founding Farmer, who is buried across the field, is proud of me. In the worst of times I know her spirit is with me and telling me not to give up.

I am thankful for...my job. It was a miracle I got it, just a month after I was dropped off here with my flock, my trailer and a garden hose. I work with people who are fun and funny in all their complexities and I know they care about me. I have an opportunity to make a positive impression on young people who have not had the advantages I've had, and to convince them to keep trying and that education is the answer.

I am thankful...that AJ is happy in seminary in Yonkers, where he is protected from the wreckless politics of an incompetent president, and where his spirituality and sensitivity can be nurtured and grow. He is sequestered there for another two years and won't be killed in a senseless war. I am also thankful that our country finally woke up and elected someone who is thoughtful, intelligent and capable.

I am thankful...for Mia's success in her chosen profession. This sweet little soft spoken girl who was too shy to say boo, and who I have never heard raise her voice in anger, channeled all she could muster into her academics and got herself into a field where she can exercise all her intelligence, sweetness and creativity to help others.

I am thankful...for Eric's new position in the Boy Scouts. His natural leadership qualities can be put to good use as second in command of a new council in California. He always loved California. Now he can live near the ocean he adores and enjoy it with his ever-faithful adoring wife, Annie, and his beautiful little family.

I am thankful...for these two hands which I use for making functional and lovely things that people buy so I can keep my farm going, and for the wood stove that is heating up this apartment within this giant barn, and the food in the larder, and the coffee in the pot - all of which I am going to enjoy right now!

P.S. I have just been reminded by a dear old friend that I forgot to be thankful for my husband, Matthew Redmond. I have not managed to run him off in ten years, although I have done my best to do just that. When I bought this farm and told him I'm going, you can come too if you want, he came! He doesn't mind that I am older - he says he likes being with someone who lived in the sixties era, and the fact that I had "previous relationships" doesn't bother him a bit. It adds to my Curriculum Vitae. I drive him crazy, but he tells me I am the first woman who he didn't get bored with after a year or two. I know I have "father issues," after growing up with a cold, remote father, and put every man to the test to see if he will measure up. Matt seems to be test-proof. I warned him that I am looking for a Big Daddy. My previous husband complained all the time that he didn't want to be the father-figure who would spoil me and dote on me, that he hated the Knight in Shining Armour image I was always trying to foist on him. Matt says it's no problem for him. He loves being my Big Daddy. He's got big enough shoulders to carry the weight. Fortunately, I've grown out of the need for a doting father figure, and I don't need to be spoiled anymore. The farm has helped with that. I think more in terms of filling my barn up with hay, or a few dozen bales of fence dropping out of the sky...