Thinking Through Thankfulness

There isn't a morning that goes by that I don't look at the sky and say thanks.  The world around us is magical, beautiful. Everything in it is amazing.  Yes, everything.  Including the mud wasps making their homes on the side of my bricks and the feral cat trying to stay cozy in the weeds of the wild flower meadow where the songbirds are picking on the seed heads of summer's finished growth. Those poor birds have no idea what's lurking under them.  It's all magnificent.  I say this to thank my family too for putting up with my food "interests" all these years.  I can't say it's been easy, but I trudge on with these peculiarities (to them) wondering if the day will ever come that someone in my family will grasp my food ways and join me.  Hubby is coming very close and I'm proud of him.  He's eating much less meat these days and has always steered away from cheese.   The holidays are difficult for me every year and this year seems harder.  Maybe it's because I've been "fighting" it all these years and for some reason, this year, I'm tired.  But I won't give in, and will not dine on the traditional holiday turkey.  I continue to feel sorry for the birds and for the treatment they endure in commercial agriculture production.  My family has learned of the turkey industry through me, but I'm told "I must have fell off the high chair when I was a baby."  They are farmers, meat eaters.  I'd rather not have a dead bird carcass in my kitchen, but I love my family.  Hubby, especially, I love dearly.  His economical thoughts go straight to the $.74 a pound birds and my thoughts go to how that poor bird was raised and tortured during it's short existence. I convinced hubby to allow me to purchase a free-range bird one year, but I never lived the $54.00 price tag down. And now being retired, he found the cheap birds especially attractive.  I can make a lentil loaf with mushroom gravy for a fraction of the cost of that cheap bird.    But I'm outnumbered.  For both Thanksgiving and Christmas, the inexpensive (and subsequently tortured) dead bird will prevail in our home and my hubby and family will engage in festive frolicking and food consumption.  They will be happy.  I continue to be thankful.

Thank you Farm Sanctuary for saving turkeys.
Thank you Ellen DeGeneres for asking people to adopt a turkey rather than eat one.
Thank you facebook friend Amy Vegan-Decker for your wonderful posts on saving animals