Monday, October 11, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving

We are having a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend (minus the cold Ella and I have caught).  Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous.  We had our turkey yesterday, since that is Daddy's day 'off' -meaning only 3ish hours of barn work.  We had a very quiet Thanksgiving.  Only the family and Grandma came.  Grandma and Grandpa Fletcher stayed home so as not to infect Grandma Fletcher before her hip surgery.  I was feeling a little homesick this year because I found out that Great-Grandma was having 18 to supper.  It's been a long time since the Johnson family Thanksgiving had that many.  It's just like the 'old days' when I was a kid.  

I do the traditional supper for Thanksgiving, though scaled back this year.  Roast turkey and dressing and gravy, baked potatoes (Ella's current favourite way), carrots and apple crisp (instead of pie).   Daddy's not a fan of cooked apples so I made him brownies with York peppermint patties in the middle -yum!  The carrots and potatoes came out of Ella's garden.


Ella's potatoes grew so well this year.  Daddy says she's going to be in charge of the potato growing next year.   All these potatoes came out of just 4 little pieces of potato.  There are some really good 'french fry' sized potatoes in the wheelbarrow -much to Daddy's happiness  :)  We grow the potatoes with straw/hay mulch, not earth hills.  They are much easier to harvest and seem to grow better.

I've often thought it odd that the Americans have Thanksgiving so late in the year, the start of the Christmas season really.   It's supposed to be a Thanksgiving for the harvest, so wouldn't it make more sense to have it during the harvest?  I know the Canadian date didn't become October until after WW1, but I still think it's a better time of year.

By the way, did you know who really celebrated the first Thanksgiving in North America?  Nope, it wasn't the Pilgrims.  It was "Canadians".   In 1578, Martin Frobisher celebrated a Thanksgiving in Newfoundland for their safe return from searching for the Northwest Passage.


One other interesting Pilgrim-related fact.  There is a small community in Newfoundland called Ferryland.  It has been inhabited for a long time.  In fact, the Pilgrims stopped in Ferryland for water and supplies before heading on to Plymouth.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Back then the US/Canadian boundary did not exist...And I know you knew this one....It wasn't ole' Chris that "discovered" America... Leif Ericson landed in Canada way back before Chris's time AND Columbus didn't even land in North America on that fateful day in 1492!!!

Paula said...

Yeah, that's why I put 'Canadians' in quotation marks. The people in Newfoundland would have considered themselves loyal British citizens. I know all about the Vikings. When we went to Nfld, it was the 1000th anniversary of the Viking landing at L'ans aux Meadows. We didn't have time to go up there, which was very disappointing.

John Cabot landed in Bonavista, Newfoundland in 1497. But Chris get's all the glory.