Thanksgiving Blessings

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 

Sending out good wishes to everyone who celebrates this day of gratefulness. I hope you have much to celebrate. It always seems a little trite, and almost a cliche, to say one is most thankful for family, but I am. I have the most amazing children, grandchildren and extended family, and that was proven so dramatically at my big birthday bash last summer. Coming on a close second are all my wonderful friends. They, along with my family, have been so supportive of me in the last year as I changed residence; the previous three years as I did battle with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome; and in the past five years since my husband died. 

I could not have done it without all of you, so Thank You on this day of Thankfulness.

Now, I’ll let Slim Randles share some of what he, and his friends at the Mule Barn Truck Stop are thankful for. Enjoy…

“You see that sunset last night?” Steve said. “Now that was a honey.”

“I’ll say,” said Doc. “You know, with Thanksgiving on us, I have to tell you I’m very thankful for sunsets like that one.”

Those of us who don’t live in the big cities tend to be thankful for different things than those who may live in stucco cliff dwellings. We tend to look at the natural blessings more than the man-made ones.

Our gratitude extends past not having our teenager go to jail, or for the raise we just got at the factory. Our favorite ball team can win or lose on its own without our having to look for Divine Intervention, usually.

We tend to be grateful for other things, like calves in the spring, and how clean they look before they discover mud. We are deeply grateful that tasty rabbits arrive in large litters, and bears don’t. When we think about it, we are thankful that we get eggs from hens and not from rattlesnakes, as checking the rattler house each morning could get ‘way too exciting.

When you consider that porcupines have quills, and not deer, it gives us pause for praise, and we’re happy that it’s skunks who carry scent glands and not squirrels.

We are thankful, too, that hurricanes and tornadoes only happen in warm weather. It’s bad enough to lose the barn without being chill-factored to death while it’s happening.

“Turkeys,” Dud said, sipping his coffee.

“What?”

“I’m thankful turkeys are stupid. Ever looked in a turkey’s eyes? Not only is no one home, but there was a mass evacuation sometime during the Eisenhower Administration. A turkey has just enough brains to operate his heart and lungs.”

“You’re thankful for that?” Doc said.

“Sure,” said Dud. “If turkeys had been given the rudimentary intelligence of a garden snail, we might be forced to eat sheep on Thanksgiving.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Check out Slim’s latest book, A Fly Fisherman’s Bucket List, a comprehensive look at the best places for fly-fishing across the country. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~

Check out all of Slim’s award-winning books at www.slimrandles.com, and in better bookstores and bunkhouses throughout the free world.

All of the posts here are from his syndicated column, Home Country that is read in hundreds of newspapers across the country. I am always happy to have him share his wit and wisdom here.

Slim Randles is a veteran newspaperman, hunting guide, cowboy and dog musher. He was a feature writer and columnist for The Anchorage Daily News for 10 years and guided hunters in the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. A resident of New Mexico now for more than 30 years, Randles is the prize-winning author of a dozen books, and is host of two podcasts and a television program.