Memphis Democrat
December 5, 2002

Thanksgiving was lovely. Sandhill Farm hosted dinner this year. As usual, we began with a land walk and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Dinner was overwhelmingly good and abundant. There seemed to be about twice as much of everything as anyone could eat. Tony made pumpkin pie and Susan Wright made sweet potato pie. Sandhill provided blueberry and peach pie. Tamar and Susan Brown made tofu from scratch and then made a "tofurkey" complete with stuffing and gravy. Delicious!

Gigi's sister Monique was visiting her over at Sandhill. Susan was talking with her over dinner and discovered they both attended Bryn Mawr together and were even in the same class once. Small world! If that isn't enough evidence that the world is tiny, they just figured out that Susan's brother and Tom's brother work on the same air craft carrier.

Jacque Funk was down from Chicago visiting her parents in Huntsville and came to visit us for a few days. After she graduates in December, she is taking a job in the Kirksville schools. We're excited that she'll be living so close by and we'll get to see her more often.

Even though it was a holiday, that didn't stop Bob from digging a bunch of four foot deep holes for the piers of the porch they are building in front of Skyhouse. Susan and Tom finished putting the siding on the attic of Bella Ciao. That little house has improved so much in the last year! Tamar has been fighting the aphids on her salad greens with a spray bottle and some soapy water. Early reports look positive.

Tamar studied in Tanzania in Africa while she was in college. She took lots of pictures while she was there and gave us a tour through her handmade photo album the other night. It was very interesting and we can't wait to see the rest of the pictures, when she gets around to finishing the album.

Pete Goldman, professor from Truman State University, visited to help me set up a route for a bird monitoring study. I plan to census the birds on different parts of our land regularly for years so we can see if the habitat improvement we are doing is having any effect. If you want an outside opinion, you can ask him about the tofurkey. He got to sample the leftovers.

Back to list of Memphis Democrat Columns