November 28: Thanksgiving

Something metallic woke me with a start.

“Oh,” Phil mumbled. “Maybe that was the mousetrap. We found a mouse inside last night.”

All hopes for sleep vanished in that moment. All day yesterday, extracting utensils from mouse droppings and washing them, pouring slightly nibbled packages into glass jars … all day, all I could think was, “This is all going to a mouse-free environment!”

But, no. This is the country. Apparently there is no such thing as a mouse-free environment. Mouse on the lam, and no evidence to find him. (And we can only hope it's a male, and not a pregnant female. Don't think about it!)

Although it didn’t quite drive me to tears for the third time in three days, it brought me very, very close.

Life. It’s imperfect. Get over it.

(And I found out later that Phil had stayed up until 2am, cleaning up the various boxes and other debris, hoping to rid the house of mouse. All for naught.)

On this Thanksgiving Day I made six loaves of bread. Four loaves of spelt, and two of pumpkin. My in-laws found a large KitchenAid mixer at an estate sale. Much as I have loved my KitchenAid, it is the small version, capable of two loaves of bread at a time. Phil isn’t convinced two loaves is enough for a day: “I sometimes go looking for bread at night and there isn’t any.”

I’ve been looking at baking three loaves of bread each day, and the larger mixer can help me do that. They all turned out beautifully. What a great joy, to prepare food in a climate-controlled space, and bake four loaves at once in a real, sealable oven.

And then leave the door propped open to let the smell of bread baking waft through the air, spreading both warmth and tantalizing taste buds.

I have been concerned about the temperature. It dropped to about 22 degrees outside, and with only a single radiator-style space heater, it was pretty cold in the night.

Then we pulled down a second heater. Both run at full heat, 24-hours a day. Combined with the exhalations of seven people, and the solar gain on the days the sun shines, we are plenty warm, even when the night temperatures drop to 22 and the wind blows. It’s pretty amazing!

Phil cleared off the recliner chair. “I’m in heaven.”

A bit later he carried down and reassembled our kitchen table, too. We don’t have enough chairs, but a few people can sit there. Very nice! Shockingly nice, really, to have a place to sit down, a spacious place, to eat.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. Phil dressed in clothes no one has seen him in, but he used to wear regularly: collared shirt, sweater vest. That used to be normal.

We arrived home shortly before midnight.