Behind the scenes of Thanksgiving

I'll be honest.  This year was a rough one for me.  The first holiday without my dad.  A few tears were shed, hearts were heavy, but I'm so thankful that we will be reunited again one day.

So, while I am so very thankful for all of God's blessings in my life, I'd like to show you some behind the scenes of Thanksgiving on the farm...

First, we had a pickup load of squash and pumpkins to roast and process to be stored in the freezer.

Once again, Kiddo1 is a HUGE help on the food mill.  She'll either crank the handle or run the "strumpfer"(phonetically spelled for the Hubby's benefit, it's a great German word and the only name I know for the red thing).

From here the squash goes into freezer bags and frozen for delicious dinners and baby food for Kiddo3.

Then we had the turkeys.  Eight of them.  We have never had turkeys before and I have to say we love them!  They are very personable and make really cool sounds:  a "pop", a whistle, and a high pitched gurgle.  They always come right up when we are there to check us out.

The kids really enjoy watching them.  Here they are chowing down on squash guts and skins from the squash processing.  I had heard horror stories of turkeys chasing and pecking people, but having them in the portable range shelters is a wonderful way for the kids to enjoy them safely and the turkeys to be very healthy and safe from predators eating them.  Because we're going to.

Another chore we had to do was move the laying hens into the hoophouse (another post, another time). Again, Kiddo1 is a great help in catching an escapee.

Kiddo2 received a new hat from Grandma and when I opened up the pickup door he said, "I'm MonkeyBoy!"

And here we are, all holding hands!