Happy Thanksgiving!

My original intention was to have these beautiful shots of the farm up and posted early on Thanksgiving Day. Dad took them last weekend while hunting. They summarize in many ways what I'm thankful for.

This week I was in the mood to bake. I knew we already had plenty of desserts lined up for our Thanksgiving dinner with our church family, so I decided to try Grandma Rogers' molasses cookies for the third year in a row. This is a recipe that I remember making with my mom when I was tiny--watching her roll out the dark, spicy smelling dough and helping to cut shapes with the bright, child-safe cookie cutters we had.

My mom would tell me about when she was a little girl, how she would walk to Grandma Rogers' house on the dirt roads lined with grass that was taller than mom's little girl self.

When she would get to Grandma Rogers' house, she'd head straight for the cookie jar where Grandma kept a stash of giant molasses cookies. My mom would fill a bucket with them and grab a blanket and walk back down by the roads where the grass was so tall. She would walk deep into the grass and lay the blanket down to flatten a little place down and the tall grass would make walls all around her like a magical house. And she would play there all day long and laugh at the few cars that drove by, because they couldn't see her hidden there in her grass house.

These images of the farm belong somehow with molasses cookies, and sweet memories handed down like recipes. I'm so thankful.