I started the day with a good cry.  Because of the link my husband posted in response to "Good morning, son."   He sat patiently next to me on the couch in silence while I cried.  The coffee between us quietly steaming.  I tried to blog about these morning tears, the why of them.  I've been told fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and still in my life I have rushed.   But I see now, I can't articulate it any better than Ben Folds.  I do love these quirky shy creative strong men in my life.   Like few others, if the truth be known.

Today we are Thanksgiving shopping, cleaning linens, thinking about silver service and center pieces.  And I'm doing all this for my children.  For their sense of connectedness to tradition.  Its really not the meal which grounds us, so much as all the ritual preparation.  The rhythm of it, the subtle way the house will warm and open to the beginning of winter with these celebrations, and coziness overtakes us.  These holidays are a fine good hearted way to end the year.  And I know I'd never go to such efforts without the force of tradition.  So every year I'm surprised to relearn the meaning, the blessing, and the connection of it all.

Last weekend we tucked the garden into sleep under deep leafy blankets and thick plats of straw.   The yard is raked and mostly pruned.  The chicken's house thoroughly gone through and refreshed with new shavings.  I love to find eggs in pristine egg boxes, a downy feather here and there.   The hens are molting and cutting back on their laying which is natural.  But we are still getting precious two eggs a day which I have carefully horded.

I need nine of them to make our new favorite cake, named for my son in honor of his 13th birthday.  Nine eggs!  Its a lemon pound cake beyond all reason and gone to an ancient wonderful place mostly long forgotten.  I actually don't like pound cake, or more specifically, modern pound cake.  But he wanted lemon pound cake and I found a recipe in the American Heritage Cookbook.  Like I said, its a whole 'nother thing unto itself.   And our new family tradition for the fall-idays.   Nine free ranged grass grazed bug filled chicken eggs make a cake the color of the first penetrating rays of sun hitting Pan's elemental flute as he pipes in the swaying fall reeds.   Seriously y'all, this cake, like the holidays kept in perspective, is totally worth it all.