Christmas Dinner.

A problem at Christmas is that unusally elbaorate meals entail dragging every pot and piece of tableware into service. And so it was that I was sent to fetch the extra bucket, the one hanging on the fence. Easy said! The bucket was full of water. Frozen water. I tried shaking it and pointing the hairdryer at it but, in the end, gave up on emptying it at the barn and dragged it up the hill. I tried thawing it in the sink. No luck with that but eventually putting it in the bath worked, the iceberg floated free. Lots of straw and mud and stuff in the tub of course.

Meanwhile the chef was at work.

This is a rice, flax, jalapeno and maple syrup dish.

This is a blend of bran, molasses, Marmite, apples and what-have-you.

The dishes on the way to the dinig room.

The first serving, steaming hot. Note the elegant serving dish, the rest of the year it's a mop bucket.

Dixie ate politely on her own, ever the lady. Donkey and Austin required management to keep from stealing each others' mash.

These diners show their appreciation by the style of their eating; they went at it like Labradors.




And by the spread of the remains.

The humans didn't have any such mixtures from the fringe of gastronmy, but we didn't go hungry.

That's a politically correct goose, purchased directly from a nearby mixed farm. Very good it was too.