Thursday

Well Wednesday was almost a perfect day except at times Nancy was wearing a sweat shirt. The sunshine was gorgeous with bright blue skies and a gentle breeze that helped to keep the gnats at bay. We spent the biggest part of the day outdoors and it was just a delight with no rain for a change.

The morning started with us both sleeping in until after 7 as the overnight brought much cooler temps so with the extra quilt on the bed it was so cozy plus I exerted extra energy the night before on the pickle ball court. After our quiet times and a bowl of cereal with fruit I headed out to check on the neighbors chickens and the gardens. The hens are finally laying at least 2 and sometimes 3 eggs a day and wow are they ever tasty with some grits or fried taters. I once again was on safari for Japanese beetles and they were out in force on many of the plants. I collected a hundred or more and sent them to their final resting place away from my gardens.

I noticed my garlic patch was looking rather dismal so I took my pitchfork and began extracting the tall stalks. Well I learned the rain had the patch very soggy and wet and that many of the kernels had started to rot. Luckily I dug them when I did as we are fore casted for more rain the next 4 to 5 days with below average temps which makes for rot in the ground. I retrieved several nice bunches of garlic as well as plenty for starting next years crop in October. Garlic does best when planted in the Fall. I don't have as much as I harvested last year but do have enough for several months as we use a lot of garlic in our food prep. I laid the garlic bulbs out in the sun to dry before storing them in the basement.

I fired up the riding mower and did all the yards except the backwoods yard which is still wet and soggy from all the rain. I did fertilize and lime all of the yards again in hope to keep the moss from regaining a foothold. These weather conditions are perfect for moss to grow and once it gets a foothold lookout as it will take over on poor or very acid soil of which I know my soil is very acid as it's reclaimed woods soil due to all the years of laying fallow with lots of leaves from oak trees. The yards look so great with being edged, weed whacked and mowed and the smell of fresh mowed grass is just wonderful.

I stopped about half way through the mowing so we could take out daily hike to the top of the mountain. We stopped and visited briefly to Norm as I took his mail up to him and we saw Dean Todd doing some mulch work at once of the houses before heading on down to visit with Joe, Jetta and Zeke. Jetta gave us a nice mess of freshly picked 1/2 runner beans from her garden which were beautiful and oh did we enjoy them with new white taters for supper. We actually made a meal of that combo with some ham base in the pot, yeow was that ever delicious. We headed on back to the cabin as once more our visit always gets back to food and it was after 12 before we made it down to the cabin for lunch.

We decided to eat lite as we need to once more shed some of the food we ate over the week-end while sitting around doing nothing but eating more. Well we sliced up one of sister Dee's marvelous tomatoes along with a couple cukes and some olives and finished the meal off with some watermelon we forgot was in the down stairs fridge, luckily it was still good and oh so tasty and to boot it was a seedless one as well. After eating I once more fired up the mower and finished the job. It takes around an hour and 1/2 where it use to take me most of the day with 2 of us using the push mower.

We took off on the golf cart to mailbox and Nancy was chilled as the air was still in the 60's but just right for working in my opinion. I headed down to the lower gardens to try and loosen the wet soil around what's left but I'm afraid unless we get some real dry conditions the garden is nearly a total loss. I pulled up the dying from too much rain tomato plants and cut them up for compost. The only good tomato plant is the volunteer spoon tomato which is loaded with itty bitty green tomatoes. They will look good in a salad and some are starting to turn.

Supper was awesome as we just ate the fresh beans, taters and a salad. Yeow is all I can say and I could be a vegetarian at least a couple days a week with that combo. After the cleanup I headed out to piddle around the yard and gardens. I gathered another hundred or so beetles in my bowl of water and disposed of them. Nancy dead headed some flowers and we just stood in amazement at the beauty of the yard and flower gardens. I noticed some areas where a small portion of rock was protruding through the grass and discovered some very large rocks below the grass line as I pulled and dug them out. I will need to fill in these holes later with some dirt as some of the holes are basketball deep.

Well the evening

came upon us quietly and so beautiful with a chill in the air. It was in the 40's this AM(Thursday) when we awakened and with overcast skies. I tuned into the Ray's game and they pulled out a win in the bottom of the ninth over Seattle and then we watched my favorite homebody show, Duck Dynasty. It was a real hoot and sort of reminds me of another favorite show in years past, Beverly Hillbillies. Good clean family entertainment, LATER  I almost forgot to mention the doe deer we came upon on our golf cart ride. It headed into the woods and then just stopped and turned around staring at us.