Thanksgiving would be much different this year. My two daughters and my son-in-law were now living in Tennessee, my oldest son had to work for the entire holiday and through out the weekend, my middle son was headed to Michigan to spend time with our cousins and my youngest son was with his Grandparents. This left us home alone. Our friend Jim had just delivered his son to the dorms of St. Edwards University and found himself alone as well.
We decided to head out to west Texas to try Thanksgiving on our land. Stephen and Jim discussed building a kitchen on the property with the materials from one of Jim's shops. So we loaded it up along with enough food to feed an army. Stephen's mom came with us. She was excited because she had purchased twenty-two acres beside us but this would be her first time seeing it.
Once we arrived, we set up camp and I gathered wood. During a previous visit to our property we had assigned each other names. I mentioned before that one of my sons was nicknamed Billyjack- well, I had earned the name "Gatherer of Wood".
The night was beautiful but freezing cold. We could not get close enough to the fire and Stephen's mom, Virginia, was freezing to death. We gave her a ton of blankets but sleeping in the tent was not going to work for her. Jim made her a bed by the fire and she survived the night. Stephen and I slept in the truck, starting it every hour or so to get warm. The following morning the temperature gage in my truck read seven degrees. The Sake (Japanese wine) had frozen solid... now that's cold!
That morning we put the coffee on. It was the best coffee I had in a long time, maybe because it was hot and I was cold. We then put the turkey on and allowed it to cook all day. It was very tender with a nice smoke flavor. We also had a big pot of beans, Jim's homemade pickles, and some kind of greens. The guys had spent the day working on the outside kitchen. They ran into several problems but never gave up and by nightfall there was a structure that we could sleep in. Stephen and I still ended up in the truck because it was just that cold! We were later joined by Virginia and Jim slept in a chair almost in the camp fire.
The following morning, just before packing up, we all talked about the things we wanted to do. We decided to come out again in a week or so to start working on improvements to the land. We went over some of the things we had discussed previously; one being the name of the ranch. I still was in disagreement but had been outvoted by the males.... The property was to be called "El Chupacabra Ranch". Jim wanted us to vote against having Llamas on the property. We refused and said anyone who wants them can have them. Of course, we didn't want Llamas either but it was funny watching Jim squirm over the idea of them being on the property. He hates the things.
