Treasure Island

December 11, 2022
Owl Feather Farm, San Juan Island

Everybody knows what Thanksgiving is about: roast turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes with gravy, dinner rolls.
Not at Owl Feather Farm. Not quite.
We had roast duck, lingonberries, root vegetables—parsnips, potatoes, beets, carrots—horseradish and cornbread. And everything on the table came from our farm or our island, the latter being the duck from our superb local farmer, Lori Ann David. Even the salt! We grew the vegetables and dug them that day; dried the corn, ground it and baked it in an ancient cast-iron skillet; harvested the lingonberries, which are more intensely flavored than cranberries, and honor Eric’s Swedish heritage. It was all superb, and everybody in our household took great delight in the day. Even Blue. (Especially Blue—duck is his caviar.)
Treasure Island

A table of island treasure

This year brought a big kerfuffle over the origins of Thanksgiving four centuries ago, but harvest celebrations have been part of human life for many thousands of years. One need not subject “history” to a microscope to honor the land, sea, water, air and sky that sustain us, no matter who or where we are… the return of seed time and harvest, the increase of the ground and the gathering in of fruits, as an old Anglican blessing puts it.
Treasure Island

Bleu has his eye on the duck

Owl Feather Farm and its home, San Juan Island, are unusually blessed with these foundations of human life. Our island’s a treasure, but so is yours. These gifts of the universe are everywhere on this beautiful world, and giving thanks is a page in human history that reads as well now as ever. Perhaps we can read this page every single day.

—Eric Lucas

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