Thanksgiving was a sweetly blessed time this year.  Dear friends of ours invited us to their home for to celebrate Thanksgiving with them for the first time in their new home.


The table was lovingly set with china passed down from her grandmother's collection.


All the abundance of food for our family included the traditional Thanksgiving favorites.  She made homemade sourdough rolls, and fresh homemade butter too!



A true feast of thanksgiving, with happily stuffed bellies!


But I think the one who enjoyed the meal most was our friends' daughter who upon finishing all the food on her plate, thought she could do better by licking the plate clean.


Is there any better thanks for a Thanksgiving meal than this? {smiles}


After dinner we went outside to stretch our legs and do a little practice shooting at their outdoor shooting range.  All of us got to try our hand at the target practice!  Afterwards we came back inside for hot cocoa or tea around their cozily blazing wood fire, and we enjoyed a lovely evening of good fellowship, and a blessed time together.


Since I cooked the turkey for the meal, after carving it I placed the bones back in my grandmother's roaster, and added a couple of teaspoons of apple cider vinegar, and slowly simmered the bones covered in water for about 24 hours on the stove top.


16 cups of rich turkey bone broth ready to go into bottles.


This amazing bone broth is full of flavor, and packed with nutrients.  My family has made bone broth long before it became popular to do so.  I remember my mother using this same roasting pan and cooking the bones in water overnight and then making soup out of the bones.  Amazing isn't it, how family traditions that our family always enjoyed and never even realized the health benefits to it!  Now that it has become quite popular to make bone broth (visit this website here to read more about the benefits of bone broth), I take joy in continuing in the tradition that that our family has been doing for many, many years.


One of our family's favorite meals after Thanksgiving is turkey soup, made with this bone broth.


It is just a simple soup, chock full of potatoes, carrots, corn, and broccoli with just a bit of salt and pepper needed to round out the flavor.  Served up with a platter of my iron skillet biscuits,  the joy of Thanksgiving continues to bless our tummies for another meal or two!

November is a transition month, where it is not quite fall, and not quite winter, and while the glorious colors of October have faded, there is one time of day in November when you can find a vibrancy of color that might just cause the beauty of October to take step off the stage.

Bleak skies, nippy winds, and drippy rainy days are just the perfect time to settle in around the table to enjoy comfort food at its finest.


These Southern-Style Momma's Chicken -n- Dumplings are the most requested comfort dish known to my family.

This past weekend, I went on a long stroll with Annie-girl.  She and I spend wonderful times in the Lord together, and as we walk, I talk with the Lord.  My heart is encouraged and refreshed as I look upward and around me.


Simple things bring me great joy.  The sun was settling itself comfortably down for the night, and its gentle rays bathed my neighbor's horse in golden light.


Trails of fire splashed through the air as my sweet friend gazed once at me, and then went back to the business of grazing.


As the sun's rays feathered her in radiance, my heart rested in the beauty of her contentment.


The wide expanse of the skies above me, were once again the theater for the evening show.


Gentle fog rising in the valley as the warmth departed from the skies.


As the earth around me was being wrapped in the shadows of nightfall, I looked up, up, upward to the skies.


Up, above, and beyond the shadows of the world around me.


Ever pressing onward, the shadows around me darkening... yet the brilliance in the skies caused me to ever look up, and press onward.



At times the shadows around me were brightened with splashes of the last light from the skies.


My gaze was lifted upward, and my heart was stilled in the midst of the shadows.



And then... it happened... this!  This was what I was waiting for, the grand finale in the theater of the skies.  And I knew, yes I knew.  The Master Painter and Creator... did it for me... and anyone who cared to lift their eyes and see.  His glory spilled from His hand into the skies, and joy, sweet joy rested in me.


No, we cannot know what tomorrow holds, or the next day or the next... why, we can't even know what the next moment holds for us!
 

But we can trust in the ONE who does know it all.


And while the evening shadows fall around us, and storms do come with their fury...


And at times we wonder ..


Lord, do you care? Are you there?  What will be of it all?


I tell you with calm assurance that our magnificent Lord who holds the world in the palm of His hand... has us gently in His great care.



The Lord has given me great peace and contentment in these days when division and fear seem to abound on every hand.  Our Lord is in control, no matter what direction the world around us seems to be taking.  So, my dear, dear friends... do not be discouraged, and do not fret.

Just look up... and you will know.

All is well.. In HIM!