farm houses, hospitality and Thanksgiving...


There are many things for which I am thankful.  Faith, Family and Friends seem like such broad and common categories, but they do cover the "biggies" so to speak.   If I could add one more, it would be farmhouses. Specifically the one at my #bestsummerjobever.   The one that holds my favorite cook stove and pantry.  The one with the white picket fence around the yard and the red barn across the way.  The one with the softly glowing lanterns in the windows in the evenings and the deer tracks in the frozen fields in the mornings.

It is in this house this fall that I have learned the fine art of napkin folding, dessert table lay out and the fact that I love hooded wool cloaks.  And it is in this house that I have decided that paper plates (no matter how pretty) just will not do for Thanksgiving Dinner.  

We usually have a few friends over for Thanksgiving and I usually cook a fairly large bird because we love leftovers.  For the last few years, one of our guests has been a spirited lady who could very likely walk into my favorite farmhouse and run it like a pro....not because she has spent any time researching rural Iowa farm life, but because she has lived it.  Complete with wood stove, out house, kerosene lanterns, white picket fence, scrub boards for washing and horses in the red barn across the way.  She can frequently be found gently laughing and shaking her head at me as I delight in all things 1900 farm style.....something about how I should probably live  in the present and be thankful for electricity and indoor plumbing. But she indulges me and my excitement, so this year I decided to "up my game" in the hospitality area and use the good china because that is what you would have done in the era of rural farm life...put your best foot forward for company

I still have a bit to learn, but this was my attempt this past Thanksgiving.   Good china, table center organized and "dessert table" ready to go.   I thought that I was all set and ready for our gracious company. 

And then she out-did me ....1900's style.

Her hostess gift made me cry.   A hand-embroided flour sack dish towel with farm scenes that look like they came straight off the 1900 Farm site.

So there you have it. 
My china, turkey and dessert table happily upstaged by a beautiful hand-made gift commemorating her childhood and my new-found career.

Together we shared our thanks for Faith, Family, Friends and Farm....

'cause WE didn't miss the class on that :)