Thankfully...

...they are all safely in bed now. But we'll get to that in a moment. For now, this is a short essay on "What I Did for My Thanksgiving Break." Yeah. You guessed it. It does include thankfulness that they are all safely in bed....

While most people enjoy big gatherings of family and friends around a big turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, I had agreed to housesit alone in the quiet east mountains (eastern side of the Albuquerque Sandia range). For company, I had two horses, two dogs and two cats. And I was ready with my stuffed "Tofurky" (vegetarian tofu that tastes much like turkey to my meatless tastebuds), some potatoes, onions and carrots. I was ready for a peaceful, tranquil retreat and to calmly give thanks for the year's bounty.

The house was very nice and had a spectacular view of the desert looking eastward. Juniper, some scattered cacti lingering in bloom, crows flying low enough to hear the w-h-o-o-s-h w-h-o-o-s-h of their wings, no neighbors in sight. Ahhh. It was even warm enough on Thanksgiving Day that I enjoyed a late November sun bathing session, sans clothing.

In the evening, with a full stomach and all the animals cared for, I stepped outside to view the glittering starlit sky. That's when tranquility turned to tension. Quickly.

Merlin, one of the horses had escaped his stall and was out feeding freely in the unfenced yard. To my dismay, I discovered that, yes, I had latched the stall, but I had not clipped it properly. Now Merlin was out roaming with no halter and was spirited at that!!! A moment of panic.

Fortunately, I was able to lure him back inside the stall with the promise of food. This time (and every time afterwards, for that matter), I double, then triple checked the latch.

Relieved, I went back inside the house to resume my Thanksgiving relaxation. Instead, I discovered that now one of the cats was missing! He had not returned from his afternoon promenade outside.

A glance again at the note left on the table by the owners offered no assurance.

"PLEASE do not let cats outside before sunrise or after sunset. The coyotes will eat them!"

It was after sunset.

I could hear coyotes yipping and howling in the not-so-far distance. I don't speak coyote, but I'm pretty certain that among the yips and howls that I heard at least one pining, "What about my Thanksgiving dinner? What will you feed me?" Quickly I decided that, in order to protect the cat, I would let the dogs out. Maybe they could scare away the coyotes. Strands of "I Know an Old Lady" began singing in my head. This was unappreciated, but sadly seemed to fit the unfolding circumstances.

Three uneasy hours later--the cat did return. Whew!

One of the dogs did not. Aagghhhh!

Even eating Tofurky, I still seemed doomed to sacrifice some animal this Thanksgiving holiday. I prayed that the owners might still have some spirit of thanks to give to me for housesitting. Oh sure they would return to a home minus one of their animals. But, hey, five out of six isn't that bad, is it? Eighty-three percent survival is still something to give thanks for, right? Right?

Finally--at 3 AM--the dog did return home. Without coyote teeth marks, thank you very much.

All in all, another typical Thanksgiving for me. What'd you do?

(BTW...two days later, snow covered the ground and the wind whipped through the juniper in gusts up to 35 miles an hour.)