2024: Ten Reasons I'm Thankful This Thanksgiving Day

As we take an autumn drive down our valley a couple of days before Thanksgiving, a few Trump flags still flutter from flagpoles, while the homes that supported the other team show no signs of packing their bags and heading to Canada, as was threatened. We (both of us lean toward a “pox on both houses”) are merely out for a jaunt, taking in the scenery. Deer graze in a pasture on the right side of the road as a man sits in a deer stand on the left. Newborn calves kick up their heels with delight in the cool evening air. Summer gardens have been plowed under next to old tobacco barns, where they await quietly potato planting time come February or March. Little has really changed, for which we are truly thankful.

Which brings me to my annual exercise, now of over 25 years—sharing with you those things for which I give thanks:

• That the Great Pandemic home-and-land buying spree has drawn to a close, giving our valley a respite and a slim chance to escape the further encroachments of the Machine.

• That this lovely bit of land is ours, if only for the blink of our lifetimes. She has exhibited patience with our mistakes, and communicated with lessons that we are only just beginning to learn and comprehend.

• My companion in this journey of the past 40 years. It has taken all of those years just to arrive at the beginning of a language with which to articulate the nature of love, only to discover that it cannot be spoken with words.

• That my beloved and I sleep and wake on slightly different schedules. My early rising gives me two hours of quiet time to read and write. That my early bedtime gives her the same two hours at night.

• That the difference between dominion and domination is at once vast and close. Even when the partnership with an animal ends with a knife drawn and blood on the straw, there is room for both thanks and compassion.

• That the men in my family will once again gather in fellowship this December. A weekend to sit around, take hikes, eat good food, smoke a few cigars, and share conversation is a good way to honor the man who taught us all that it is better to rub shoulders than to throw elbows.

• And, books. My goodness, how grateful I am for books, and plenty of time each day to read.

• The kind emails, from England to Australia, Oregon to Germany—all of them from people who have reached out to tell me how much they enjoyed and appreciate my book. Also, a nod of appreciation to Front Porch Republic for publishing it.

• The drought over much of the past year. Nothing sharpens and challenges my commitment to be grateful like the things I’d prefer not to experience. The dry pastures have also helped me focus on how to make our farm more resilient, and, of course, to be a better steward of this land.

• Nighttime walks under a full moon with the smell of cattle and sheep in the air, the sounds of pigs shifting their bulk while slumbering, the wheeze of a hen on a roost, the bark of a fox across another ridge (but not nearby), the lights of a neighbor’s house through the trees in the woods.

Have a most pleasant Thanksgiving Day.