Well Tuesday turned out to be rather nice day once the clouds went away and the sun came out. We headed to town and spent a couple hours; eating, shopping and book reviewing. It was short sleeve weather and perfect for hiking the mountain later in the afternoon. We are highly anticipating the arrival of our daughter Amy her husband Tyler and our grand children Ava and Sam. They will be with us until Sunday.
The morning was much the usual except for the late wake up which was closer to 8 than 7. After our cups of hot tea and coffee, quiet times and then a lite breakfast of oatmeal I headed out to do some garden work. I decided it was time to see it the sweet taters produced and they did but nothing like I was hoping for. There were a couple large enough to bake but mostly they were skinny and elongated with some looking like intestinal organs. I may have a total of 5 pounds from 2 rows of plants so I don't think I will waste my time on growing them again unless the taste is superb. We will have to peel and cook them like white taters.
I then took down all of the deer fencing and stored it as it was quite an eyesore and really didn't make all that much difference. Nancy hung a couple loads of laundry outside and then we decided to head to Sparta around 11. We headed to the library to pick up new reads and to order another book in The New River series by Lorraine Snelling that Nancy is into. We then headed to Brown's Restaurant for a chef salad and wow it was all we could do to finish that bowl and it held us all evening. It was loaded with ham, turkey, and tons of cheese, eggs and veggies. It was all most to much put we managed.
We then headed to the new meat store that just opened and their prices and quality of meat looked great. We loaded up on a bone-in pork roast, ground meat, blocks of cheese and bananas. Luckily I brought the cooler as we had more errands to run. We then walked up the main street to the backwoods coffee shoppe where we had ordered a couple loaves of homemade breads. They looked awesome and we visited with Becca the owner for quite awhile. I was speaking with some out of towners from Long Island New York and mentioned we were from the St.Petersburg area and Becca picked up on that conversation and we found out she is from there as well and graduated from Pinellas Park High School.
We then headed to the 2 grocery stores in town to take advantage of some weekly specials before heading back to the cabin. After stowing our goodies we headed off to the top of the mountain for our daily hike. It was quiet and lonely on top of the mountain as we saw no one. The sun was delicious so I sat on the deck reading until it was time to get ready to head out for some pickle ball at 6. Gerald picked me up and we headed to Cornerstone for some 2 plus hours of play. There was a total of 7 players with 3 new players and it turned out great. We had some great rallies and I think we have 3 new converts to the game as we(they) made plans to play again on Thursday at the same place.
Well it was around 9 or so when we got home so it was a hot shower and then a glass of vino before heading off for some reading and then lights out for me around 10:30. The temps had started to drop and by this morning it was 47 when we awakened. I lite the gas heater to take the chill off and I can see some sunlight in the tree tops so if it holds this is what the Ross family is looking forward to with this visit. The tree colors gets a little brighter each day and peak will be here in the next week or so, LATER
