PLOUGHMAN'S LUNCH .013: THANKSGIVING

The Fourth Annual Thanksgiving Reader Round-Up

I wrote last week about abundance and the deep gratitude I feel for all that which I have in my life. I suppose that’s appropriate for this time of year; we celebrated yesterday a literal “Thanks Giving.”

As I write nearly every year on this Friday, Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I love it for the food, of course, but more so because it’s a reminder: “give thanks.” It’s so easy to spiral into despair — the world is ending, trust is eroding, integrity and intelligence are wasting away. But, there’s so much more — look around!

Jesus proclaimed that “the eye is the lamp of the body… if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light” and that “if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness;” Marcus Aurelius, that “the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” The things you take in when you look, when you listen, when you think — these become what you are and how you live. It’s cliched to say “you are what you eat,” but indeed you become what you consume — and that doesn’t stop with food. As the Chinese proverb goes: “A wise man always eats well.”

So, in this last flicker of the year, this season of thanks, I try to cast away the darkness, light the lamps with optimism and gratitude — eat well and fill my belly and soul with nourishment. Yesterday, I was filled to content¹ — a contentedness I will continue to stoke and sustain.

To carry that sentiment forward, here’s the fourth annual Cow We Doin’ Thanksgiving Reader Round-Up — now streamlined into our thirteenth Ploughman’s Lunch. We’ll start with gratitude, move to what we’re eating, and finish with some observations.

However you’re spending your last days of November, I hope you spend them with eyes shining bright.

We’ll see you back here next week with another lighter post, our annual gift guide.

This post may be too long for your email, so if it’s cut off, please open the link at the title to view in your browser — you don’t want to miss the Reader Thanksgiving Spreads!

I. THANKSGIVING

My own:

1. Mrs. CWD for last night suggesting “maybe tomorrow we make the sausage” — and everything else.

2. The Monkey for the way he curls against my me when I pick him up; The Warthog, for his wicked smile; Kiddo, for never letting me leave her room without one last story.

3. My family, for the support and likes and comments; the love from near and far, seen and unseen, always felt.

4. My friends for the calls they’ve taken, deer they’ve dragged, and stories they’ve helped tell.

5. Full freezers for the meals and memories from out of them I pull.

6. BONUS: Doggie CWD for the way she still curls underneath the blankets, at my feet, each night.

Mrs. CWD:

1. Family

2. Friends

3. Full Freezers

4. Health

5. Living in a state where women’s rights are protected.

I also asked some writers I enjoy to share theirs:

John Thompson — LIVE A LITTLE

1. I’m thankful for my family. That we are healthy and able to travel freely and do activities when all together.

2. I’m thankful to be able to come back to the house I grew up in way out in Peculiar, Missouri. Out in country where the air is clean and the nights are quiet.

3. I’m thankful for Huckberry, where I’m inspired daily and the work I create has meaning in helping guys find their best and most confident self.

4. I’m thankful for Substack. The community of independent writers and thinkers who support each other. The LIVE A LITTLE guys who help reinforce my core life idea that we should always strive to be curious, and to seek out discomfort and adventure.

5. I’m thankful for my Friday morning coffee club. Where I can have fellowship with a group of guys who are all seeking to better themselves while living a true and honest life.

Stacy Boone — Crooked Roots

1. Grandma Maples, the sisters I tender a daily witness that feels much like discovery, living memorials to longevity, history, and continuous change.

2. Moments, not long ones, but the casual flushes of time to simply be, literally breathing in the presence of a non-human dominated space.

3. Exploratory projects that feel purposeful, intentional. Grounding in a way that offers a pathway to do and be better.

4. Homegrown food. The hours spent toiling in the soil, sowing seeds, anticipating sprouts, observing blossoms, waiting for ripening, harvesting in enthusiasm, and processing for months of eating.

5. Vacuums of space filled with friends and acquaintances. Cups of tea, plates of scones or cookies, bowls of soup, walks, telephone calls, texts, handwritten notes. Laughs, tears, and memories.

Patrick B. Whalen — Adam's Curse

1. Pferd chainsaw sharpeners. Depth gauge and tooth all in one fell swoop...and it fits next to the tourniquet in the truck door. What’s not to like?

2. Wool base layers. Warm, dry, not plastic, not stinky.

3. The physicality of sacraments. Because we have bodies and souls so they do too.

4. Transmission. Of poems, songs, recipes, faith, and life.

5. Kin. And those whose work and example teach us how to live into kinship.

Deborah Lee Luskin

1. Forty years of marriage.

2. The privilege of Living in Place at a time of unprecedented displacement to climate and political disruption.

3. All of Vermont’s seasons: winter, mud, spring, summer, foliage, & stick.

4. Reviving Artemis and her readers.

5. Grandchildren.

Kyle Shepard — Resilient Mental State

My anchors — the people throughout my life that have provided various forms of support, perspective, and purpose.

People can be anchors as they offer ways to gradually connect us to the world and our function within it. These anchors may only temporarily enter our lives, maybe even for one interaction. Each time support is offered, however, the perceptual tethers we possess can be strengthened. Stability and security are enhanced by the collective mass of our anchors. Confidence to endure our metaphorical storms can be derived from knowing we have resources to utilize as necessary.

I am firmly grounded in my life thanks to the anchors who remind me I’m not alone. This wisdom encourages me to keep sailing regardless of known or unknown conditions on the horizon.

Jeff Lund — From the 49th

1. My grandmother lost her mom when she was 3 and lived in a train car at some point when she was a kid during the Great Depression. Whenever I want to be overwhelmed, I remember the grit and tenacity that has been passed down to me and I’m thankful.

2. I’m thankful for my first rejection letter from Field and Stream. Not that I was rejected so much as that i submitted work that was rejected but didn’t stop. I got that first No out of the way so I was free from that fear.

3. Friends who do. Having creative friends who take pride in their work and approach life with vigor has profoundly impacted my direction and satisfaction

4. My wife is not only supportive but she’s a doer. She wants to get into the woods, tag a deer and bring it back home herself. But she doesn’t sacrifice tenderness or femininity. She just loves adventure.

5. I’m worried for my daughter’s future, but people had kids during World War II. The Plague. There will be challenges but I’m thankful we will be able to raise Haleigh in Alaska where outdoor skills, resources and ecosystems aren’t abstract ideas. She will walk through them, use them and learn to conserve them.

Joshua Ross — Front Porch Journal

You kindly asked if I’d be willing to share three to five things for which I’m grateful this holiday. So, let’s start with rivers, because why not. I live right near the longest undammed free flowing river in the country outside of Alaska. As rivers go, the Yellowstone river is probably around 15,000 years old. It’s a young river compared to some, like Australia’s Finke River, which some say is 360 million years old. It’s funny that we don’t think of rivers as alive, but then a lot of things we don’t think are funny.

Friends. I’d be nowhere without them. I have a handful who’d throw themselves over grenades for me, and I for them. I mean family too, of course, but friends simply make life sing.

Lastly, modern medicine. There is not a day that passes in which I don’t thank the heavens for the powers of organic chemistry. Without the pill I take every night before bed, I would be dead. That’s no exaggeration. It troubles me sometimes because it feels so unreliable. But here I am, a man living and thriving with a blood disorder that twenty years ago was a hopeless diagnosis. No chances to write, no more books, no more mountains to climb, no more hugs.

II. FEASTING

Roommate CWD, MPP — “Most Excited to Make the Round Up”

Runner up: "Most Stuffed Bird"

Roommate CWD, MD — “(Second Consecutive) Most Ham”

I can tell that somebody took their job of massaging the kale seriously.

Beeba, Papa, & Auntie CWD, eMD — “Most Dessert”

And not a coconut cream pie to be seen!

Cousins CWD — “Most Dogs”

“You guys done with that plate?”

Kyle Shepard — “Most Anchored”

"The spread my wife created for our family. Cooking at scale isn’t easy and this year she did it while keeping everything gluten and egg free. For countless reasons, I couldn’t have dreamed of a better anchor in my life than my wife."

Reader Charlie — “Most You Should Have Seen the One I Didn’t Get a Photo Of!”

Charlie swears he did a “really good one” last week.

Jeff Lund — “Most Alaskan”

Fresh caught King Crab — which goes for $100/lb here and Jeff is just taunting us by making it into a dip.

John Gonter — “Most Radical”

"Not much in the way of traditional dishes this year. Top to bottom: whitetail pie filling with slow cooked round, onions, garlic, meat stock, raw milk, seasonings. Finished pie with local yogurt mashed potatoes [local potatoes and butter too.] Slice of pie. Whitetail liver mousse, with raw cream, butter shallots. Served with birch syrup [not shown], pistachios and traditional 3 day pumpernickel"

Reader Altman — “Least Turkey”

Runner Up: "Most Innovative Brussels Sprouts"

Elisabet Juan Roca — “Most Artfully Staged”

The CWD Family (Courtesy of Tio and Tia CWD) — “Most Raviolis”²

Only one person ate the venison roast thinking it was beef!

III. OBSERVING

Sources³

1. I perhaps ate too much, though that’s not surprising.

2. Runner up: “Least Sharp Knives”

3. First and last excerpts from Philip Pullman’s The Rose Field; “Form of living” quote from a conversation between Elias Cairo of Olympia Provisions and Jesse Griffiths for Modern Hunstman; excerpt on animal points of view from The Perceptions of the Environment by Tim Ingold (via John Gonter); remaining photos from my photo roll.