Post Christmas/Pre New Year…
Thanksgiving for me is really the holiday of family, friends and lots of food…. leaving Christmas as a relatively quiet, subdued affair. The days leading up to the Solstice become shorter, with darkness falling well before our normal dinner time. Definitely a time for reflection on what’s happening now… what happened throughout the year…. what we can expect in the upcoming New Year. I’d like to say there’s less work around the farm…. but no…. there’s just less daylight in which to accomplish it!
Kashaya splitting wood with our oil-eating mechanical splitter…. A wet winter so far, but not horrendously cold.
Traditionally, Kashaya bakes croissants once a year…. the day AFTER Thanksgiving. In order to get there, she has to fold and roll the dough multiple times ON Thanksgiving day, and into the evening. Fortunately, she has lots of folks to help her shape the rolls. They KNOW how delicious they are! I believe that’s five (5) pounds of butter on top of the dough……
Baking rolls for various events has become quite “de rigueur” in the Emandal kitchen. The Willits Community Thanksgiving Dinner included squash rolls that we baked just for them….800 of them! I believe we’ve developed a number of tricks that make the process easier each time we do it.
And that’s why our friend, Heather, came out to the farm last week to bake a bunch of Walnut Rolls to carry on a tradition her mother had for decades… which was started by her in laws decades prior. So many of her dad’s patients, colleagues and friends look forward to the once-a-year treat generously prepared by the family. The numbers increase incrementally by leaps and bounds! She’s grown out of her own place! Years ago, we got ours parachuted from an airplane they flew over the farm! (The whole family loves to fly and most are pilots). Her niece, Shelby, joined one day to help roll and wrap.
A trip to Laytonville (19 miles north of Willits) for a Holiday Food Market outside the Feedstore, where Kashaya sells her frozen brick-oven pizza, was, for me, like a nostalgic step back in time…. more like the late 60s, early 70s, when my kids were babes. Lots of dread-headed children and parents…. toddlers with bare feet scooping up mud in the parking lot or running around in the barn on the bales of hay, dogs and cats everywhere, folks coming out of the hills with wine, sourdough sticky buns (delicious!), cheesecake, pies, tamales, salsa, acorn candles, essential oils hot out of the still, fresh veggies, kombucha (well, I didn’t know what that was when I was younger), and of course, marijuana in every form imaginable. Friendly, companionable, easy-going.
I know there are mushrooms aplenty in our hills…. these were just below our Witch-Hazel bush, about 5 days apart. They grow so rapidly!
Our fence-wire Christmas Tree showed off some new treasures this year, gleaned at our Senior Center Christmas Market. I got to help set it up and work the first day. What a labor intensive process! The amazing thing is, all that is sold there is collected throughout the year at the Senior Thrift Store….. often times, the same things that are bought at the sale, used for a bit, then re-donated! So much fun…. So much stuff! Tons of trees, gazillions of garlands, oodles of ornaments, scores of stuffed animals, millions of mugs, dozens of dishes, countless articles of clothing. Mostly the brainchild of two women…. who work diligently thoughout the year to bring joy to the community…. profit for the senior center!
Decorations from the Willits Senior Center Christmas Sale….. wreath made after Thanksgiving….. snow from Mother Nature……