I prepare the turkey breast and throw it in the oven.  Chop up potatoes and sweet potatoes and onions and garlic and spread them around the base.  Baste the turkey and prepare the stuffing.  Baste the turkey and throw the stuffing in the oven.   Baste the turkey....

...and Mark comes in next to frantic.  Half an inch of rain last night and the creek has risen to mid calf.  The golf cart is mysteriously ill, the footbridge treacherous.  How will my family make it in to enjoy our feast?

I look at him with soapy hands, three different side dishes yet to be begun running through my head.  I don't know.  Can they wear boots and wade through the water?

Baste the turkey and turn on the hot water heater.  Baste the turkey and wash up the dishes.  Baste the turkey and get an email from my family that they're on their way.

Mark returns again with boots out of the barn.  He's installed stepping stones, but both of us will need to be there to steady them as they leap from block to block.  Okay, I say.  They'll be here in an hour.

Baste the turkey and put away the dry dishes.  Baste the turkey and pull pies out of the fridge to go on the counter.  Baste the turkey and hop in the shower.  Turn off the turkey and pull crab rangoon out of the freezer (thank you, Rose Nell and Jayne!), pull out the last few frozen vegetables to finish thawing.  Pull on our own boots and clomp out through the mud just as their car pulls up. 

Somehow, they all make it across Mark's stepping stones.  No one gets wet.  No one falls in.  As they walk the long, safe way up to the trailer, I take the slippery short cut and turn on the oven to bake the appetizers, pull out the home made cider.

Laughter.  The family who braves the creek is worthy of our feast of homegrown goodies.  As they eat appetizers, I throw the last few veggies on the stove, and then we eat, and eat, and eat.  After some recreational wood chopping, people are still too stuffed to eat more than a few slivers of pie, so I send them home with a basketful.  Success!

Merry Christmas everyone!  (Or happy major winter holiday of your choice!)

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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