Thanksgiving

I realize that it is probably considered old news this week, but gosh, did I enjoy Thanksgiving this year. First of all, the 2025 farm year officially ended on Wednesday at 2 pm when we sold the last turkey, and then the festive food preparation began. Creamed onions is an old Rawson tradition which I have kept alive, and I used the many hours of peeling the smallest onions to catch up by phone with my four siblings and a couple of our kids. What a treat! We put the turkey into the wood oven at 7:30 Wednesday night, just after baking the creamed onions (feel free to write for the recipe), and by the next morning at 5 it was all done and the oven was free for all the other dishes that would be arriving with the 28 Kittredges. Steven’s family arrived at 11 and jumped right into helping prepare, so that by 2 on the button when we served it up after Felipe’s traditional welcoming, all was prepared and ready to eat. Cream and butter seemed to be the theme of the day. It wasn’t until after I had received the usual lauding of the turkey that I told everyone that we had eaten a year-old turkey from the freezer (what with our supply being so short this year). Games of Oh Hell, and Spot It, and the annual walk down Sheldon Road were later features, and we were lucky enough to be able to host two families overnight, extending the whole affair until 11 am on Friday. I love this 50-year-old Kittredge tradition that we have been honored to host for about the last 46 years. If you find yourself with nowhere to celebrate next year, give us a call. No one should have to spend Thanksgiving alone.

I may have shouted out about Marj already this year, because since she arrived in June life has gotten so much easier on the farm. The outstanding things that she is managing in present time have to do with marked marketing improvements, upgrading and updating systems on the website, and making it easier to buy from the farm and support the Sustainability Center. She is a double treat though because she is an excellent and fast farmer who has lots of opinions which she shares without expectation. As Marj and Justin and I did the graveyard shift on Wednesday on the farm I realized how insanely lucky that we are to work with Marj, for this her third iteration on the farm.

It is all online and available for you to reserve your share for 2026. We are presently looking for a location and coordinator for a Shrewsbury site, but the others are all in place. Let’s hear it for Deidre and Michael, our first folks to sign up for 2026.

The fall share 

Hooray, it is over! And not a minute too soon. The weather is shutting the farm down, but didn’t close the door on us until last week. My head is full of ideas for how to make the fall share more varied and wonderful next Noverber – my favorite vegetable month of the year, perhaps because it is by far the most challenging to pull off!

Please be sure to fill out the survey –

Who Tamed Cats?

by Jack Kittredge

Last week I spotted our cat Beba, long assumed killed since running off to seek her fortune last Spring, upstairs in our barn – the same spot where she bore previous litters. I was struck with wonder at how animals repeat, salmon-like, their own life story. When a little snooping found her 3 barely-born kittens in an inaccessible box in the barn attic, cat behavior became the subject of our Thanksgiving meal. I vowed to do a little research into felines and their long relationship with man.

Domestic cats (Felis catus) originated from the African wildcat (Felis lybica lybica) currently spread over North Africa and the Near East. Beyond that fact there is a surprising amount of controversy surrounding the furry beasts. The traditional view is that cats were first tamed (if that is what you can call their seeming willingness to allow themselves to be fed and made much of by humans) in Pharaonic Egypt some 3500 years ago. This view is strengthened by writings from about 2800 BCE of a cult of worshippers of Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of fertility and health, who was originally portrayed with the head of a lion but by the first millennium BCE was increasingly depicted with the head of a cat. This cult devotion to cats led, according to historians, to the building of catteries to raise hundreds of thousands of them for sacrifice and sale in mummified form.

But recent research based on excavation of a 9500-year-old site in Cyprus — where cat bones were found buried accompanying a human skeleton — along with many other finds of cat remains in ancient European and Mediterranean farming villages, suggest they were tamed 4000 years before Egypt even existed. Confirmation comes from DNA work. Their mitochondrial genome was of a haplogroup characteristic of domesticated cats and their immediate precursors. This work has since been challenged, however, so it seems we have yet to learn exactly when cats became our friends.

What is clearer, though, is how it happened. As opposed to dog domestication, which was deliberate by humans to embed certain useful traits in the critters, it is believed that cats pretty much tamed themselves. As agriculture developed, humans kept sizeable stockpiles of grain for seed and feed. Mice and rats feasted on it and proliferated. Wild cats were drawn to prey upon these rodents and those which were effective hunters and not fearful about humans thrived under these conditions. Over time this group dominated and passed on the traits which made them successful to their young.

Most of us now keep cats for reasons other than to protect our family grain supply. But we in the small-scale farming business value that very much and would have a more difficult time of it without these fuzzy allies. Though we here feed our cats well, almost every new litter is accompanied by the sudden appearance nearby of a dead songbird or half-eaten mouse, testimony to the mother’s commitment to that contract assumed so many thousands of years ago.

 I didn’t cook a meal but was grateful to receive legs and wings from a bird to take home with me to make this delicious post-Thanksgiving Turkey, Fennel and Pumpkin soup.  Here it is

This post-Thanksgiving soup brings all three. Turkey provides grounding protein and replenishes Ojas, which is often depleted by travel, overstimulation, or irregular meals. Leeks and fennel support the gut and calm Vata without aggravating Pitta, while pumpkin and carrot bring the sweet rasa that comforts the nervous system and nourishes hormonal balance during perimenopause. Cilantro and thyme add clarity, lightness, and subtle digestive fire — reminding us that healing doesn’t need to be complicated. Sometimes it’s just one pot, slow heat, and the willingness to listen to what the body asks for next.

Oh, it is going to be good, At the River, O Magnum Mysterium, Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair, Seal Lullaby, Mary Did You Know?, Java Jive, Regina Coeli, White Christmas, and Irish Prayer. Some of the best composers are represented in this docket – Aaron Copland, Morten Lauridson, Eric Whitacre, The Pentatonix, The Manhattan Transfer, Wolfgang Mozart, and Irving Berlin, to name a few.

Don’t miss it! Want to join in January for the Spring season, give me a call at 978-257-1192.

• Lard (1qt) – last year’s for a discounted price of $15
• Pork stock (1qt) – discounted to $5
• Garlic powder (2oz) – going fast – $12
• Comfrey, calendula and hemp salve (2oz) – $10
• Bitters tincture (4oz) – $20
• Holy basil tincture (2oz) – $12
• Dried grape seed and skin (2oz) – $10
• Frozen peaches (2lbs) – $12  – cut and sliced
• Cuts of organic pork  – 
  • Ground breakfast sausage, roasts, country style ribs, regular style ribs, pork chops – all $16/lb.
  • Hams – around 4 lbs. each at $21/lb.
  • 1 lb. packages of bacon – $23
• 1 discounted Turkey from 2024 – 23 lbs. for $100