The Turkey Hunt

I found a reasonalbly priced turkey! I can't believe it. I didn't really look for one at Thanksgiving but I've been searching high and low for a good deal for the last week since the birds finally made their seasonal appearance in the local supermarkets. The first turkey that I looked at was about 15 lbs(6.8 kg) and cost 52.50 Euro!!(about $75 USD) I almost died. What if I burned the turkey? It'd be a total waste of a lot of money. The next turkey that I checked out was at a local butcher shop. I asked the butcher if he had any turkeys and if he did how much he wanted for one. Of course he had turkeys, Christmas is in a few days! Anyway, he went into his refrigerator and pulled out a turkey that was about the size of a chicken, maybe 5 lbs (2.27 kg) and said that he wanted 7.00 Euro per kg. I instantly thought that if I wanted a bigger turkey I'd end paying a fortune for it so I scratched the butcher off of my list for a turkey. The thing about the turkeys here though is that they are typically sold fresh, not frozen, so I suppose that's what enables the prices to be so high.

As fresh turkeys are probably wonderful I am perfectly happy with buying a frozen one since that is what I am accustomed to. What fun would it be if I didn't have to start thawing a bird 3 or 4 days before I can cook it? I also figured that if I found a frozen turkey it wouldn't be nearly as expensive as a fresh one. When I finally had another chance to look I checked out another store and finallly found one that is 12 lbs (5.4 kg) and was only 12.99 Euro(Just under $19.00). I can live with that!

Good morning from Greece!

What a welcome surprise! We woke up with snow this morning! Kosta returned from Milwaukee this week where they've had a lot of snow already so we thank him for bringing some along for us. The sun had barely risen before the kids threw on their coats to run outside to play in the new fallen snow. We love it!

I recently received this card from a friend back home. I laughed so hard when I got it. Thanks Bonnie!!

It's been cold and wet for the last few days. Although it's been a little uncomfortable I love how the water droplets sit on the plants like crystals. I took these photos in the garden this afternoon.

These photos were taken from the balcony of my husband's childhood home in Kozani. Although the city herself is rich in culture and there's always plenty to do, we chose to live somewhere with a little room to breathe...and park.

My favorite thing to do in there is to walk through the open market and buy fresh fruits and veggies. Actually, I like to do in any city or town here but Kozani's market takes place on Saturdays so it's more convenient for me.

Last Saturday I visited the market and I just loved the color of the tangerines. I got a great deal...1 kilo for .50 euro. They were gone by Tuesday!

Izabella's Dream Car

On our way to Kozani Saturday we passed this car on the road. Izabella LOVES ladybugs so you can imagine how excited she was to see it. She shouted, "Mom, Mom...do you have your camera? You have to take a picture!" Of course I had my camera, I always do. Anyway, the woman that was driving seemed annoyed to have her photo taken. I'm sorry, if you want to be inconspicuous maybe you shouldn't drive a car that looks like a bug; complete with antennae!

Thanksgiving

After I finished the last post I realized that I hadn't mentioned Thanksgiving. I really missed being home for the holiday and I hope that everyone that celebrates had a an enjoyable feast.

What did we do?

Well, first I want to let everyone know that I couldn't find a turkey. I didn't search high & low for one either as I haven't had any spare time. The kids were home sick from school as we've been battling horrible viruses once again. I honestly didn't think that finding a turkey would be so difficult because 12 years ago, when we lived in Drama, I did find a turkey. At that time we had a traditional Thanksgiving meal even if it was just another work day for us.
Since the kids were sick and I was exhausted I ended up making meatballs and rice for lunch. For dinner we had frozen pizza. Hey, I just wanted the kids to eat something and I knew that these foods would entice them. We did talk about the holiday and talked to several friends and family members back home. We talked about what we needed to be thankful for. I also had to explain to Iza over & over why we didn't have or couldn't find a turkey. She pointed out that our neighbor has several running around in his yard and said that maybe we could buy a turkey and put it in our yard so that we would have one next year. I didn't say anything, we just laughed. A friend of ours asked her what we were doing for Thanksgiving and she replied, " Well, um, my mom has a tablecloth with a turkey on it". That was it, the tablecloth really made the difference. So we didn't have the dinner, we had the tablecloth and all was fabulous. We enjoyed our day together even if we were all sick.

Off to the press

This week we finally had the olives picked so that we could have them pressed for oil. Originally, we were going to try to pick them ourselves with friends and family but that didn't happen as everyone in our family and extended family ended up sick. Out of our 130 trees only about 10 of them really produced this year. Legend has it that if one year the pick is light the next year the crop will be immense. I can't wait to see what we end up with next year!
I do want to mention that a few weeks ago we did hand pick the olives that we want to eat for the next year. I really enjoyed spending the time choosing the best olives that I wanted to cure. Those olives are almost ready to eat!

The stats

We ended up with 66 lbs.(30 kg )of oil from the nearly 500 lbs.(227 kg) of olives that were picked. I couldn't believe how heavy those sacks were! (yes, I helped K lift them into the trailer...) The oil was still warm from the press when Kosta came home and I just have to say that I've never tasted better olive oil in my life! It's really amazing!

I took these photos last week...much more spectacular than the previous 2.

Asphyxiation by fireplace

I'm not sure that I have ever thought about lighting a fire on a windy day. Today it was very windy. I have no means of properly measuring how strong the gusts were. I can imagine that throughout the day most of the gusts probably measured well above 40 mph. It was windy, cold and we weren't planning on going anywhere, the perfect ingredients for a nice fire; at least I thought. Well, it was so windy that the wind gusts were blowing the smoke right back down the chimney, into the living room and up the stairs. I opened a door for air and it just made things worse. The kids were whining about the smoke so I made them sit in a bedroom upstairs with Yia Yia (grandma) until we could clear the smoke. It was troublesome because I couldn't help but worry about the kids' safety. I also put Gigi in the bathroom.

In the beginning, we thought that the smoke was just the normal smoke that you get if you use a newspaper to light the fire like we did. After a few minutes we realised that we were wrong. Each time we thought that things were looking better, whoosh-another gust blew smoke down the chimney. Kosta finally decided to close the big metal doors in the fireplace and eventually the smoke cleared out. It took about an hour or so. So, we had our fire and it was warm but I'll think twice about lighting up on a windy day such as this one.

Some photos from around our property.

Our View

Night & Day

Here are some photos of our view. You're looking at Mt. Olympus .

It's breathtaking.

(I'll take a better pic of the sunset in the future...sorry it's blurry!)