Thanksgiving Day at my brother's ranch

Thursday, November 27

Thanksgiving at my brother's is always fun!  There will more food than you can imagine and many people.  They invite anyone that does not have a place to go.  They invited Marines from the local post.  There were 12 that accepted the invitation.  Also I counted all the family members that I thought were supposed to be there including in-laws and came up with 36 people.


We saw on Facebook that they cooked 7 turkeys, 2 hams, lots of sides, lots of snack food and 41 pies. We arrived early so I could have pie for breakfast.

These pies are gluten free and only 5 of the 41 pies.

Here are 6 more pies that are gluten free.

These are some of the pies that are not gluten free.  All the pies you have seen do not include any of the chocolate pies that had to be refrigerated.  I believe there are 10 varieties of chocolate pies.  I started with buttermilk pie.  There were apple, cherry, mince, pumpkin,pecan, pecanless pecan, chocolate pecan, coconut besides chocolate.  I think I remembered all the varieties.

This is a view of the living area looking into the kitchen.  This is before many people have arrived.

This is the snack table.  There are even some healthy snacks; carrots, celery, califlower, black & green olives & homemade pickles.  In the tub next to the chips are flour tortillas filled with cream cheese and chilies.  They are wonderful!  Then there are 2 crock pots full of Grandmother's cheese dip that is probably Velveeta, rotel tomatoes & fried hamburger.

Many people have arrived now.  The 5 young men with shorter hair are 5 of the 8 marines that came.  Apparently all 12 marines did not make it.

At least 3 family friends with all their children have arrived.  Some people brought some of their family members also.  A sign-in sheet was passed around so an accurate count could be made.  The final count was 76 people counting children and one child was 2 days old.
Quite a diverse group of people.  

This table is a few of the children still eating.  As you can see there is not a line of people filling their plates so many have finished eating already.


I ate so much that I had to take a walk around the grounds.  My 7 year old grand nephew guided me.

My brother's family raises & sells goats and sheep.  Many of the animals have new babies.  Here is a goat with twins.

Here is a sheep with a baby that is only a few days old.

Here is another sheep with her baby.  It is amazing to me that this white and brown mother had a black and white baby.  All the babies are so cute!

I asked about this sheep.  It never shed all its wool.  Amazing how much wool is left.  It looks like it is just piled on the sheep.

I took another walk with these 3 kids.  The one in the middle is my nephew and the other two are friends of the family.  We found fun things to see.  This rock formation is just there.  It almost looks like steps.

The boys posed on an old abandoned riding mower they came across.

The boys thought this tree with the roots growing up all around the trunk was really unique.  
The sun was getting low so we headed back to the house.

When we got back to the house some of the marines had already left.  So I got this picture of the 4 marines still there.  We are so thankful to have people willing to sacrifice for our country.

We left at the same time the last group of marines did.  It was a great day with family and new friends.  It was almost dark and I knew the deer would be out.  Tomorrow we head to Midland and visit with my 2nd mom.