I did my usual routine(s) after rolling out; a handful of vitamins and supplements washed down with a cup of hot green tea, a few quiet minutes and then the posting of this ramble before a bowl of Cheerios for a change with a banana and a peach. After breakfast I ventured out to check for deer and slug damage. It seems the yellow "do not enter" tape Joe Browning gave me that I strung around the yards and gardens made a difference for at least a couple nights or these are highly educated deer that can read. Oh well!!
I decided to work on the two remaining stumps with a hammer and a small digging iron. I realized from the last burn that loosening the dirt and rocks from beneath the stumps will help immensely; so I was on my hands and knees working the dirt out from under these last 2 stumps. Well I worked up a good sweat but got the job done by early afternoon. Now I'm excited to put the fire beneath these 2 huge remaining eye sores in my backwoods yard and I'm contemplating taking out an ugly large pine tree and stump later this summer. Pines had rather shallow and much smaller root system; nothing like these mighty oaks.
After a cooling off period I loaded up the bean sprayer with a little miracle grow and fed all of the porch plants and my leafy green veggies. I noticed the okra has put on a new leaf so that's a good sign we will have some pods later this summer as long as the deer continue to obey the tape. For some reason they love okra when it's small. I noticed I may have to use a little Seven dust on my cabbages as they are starting to show some insect damage despite not seeing any worms. I try to grow without pesticides but may have to break the rule as the butterflies are in such abundance here and we know the damage they can do when they lay their eggs on a leafy plant like cabbage and kale, oh well!
Nancy was making a potato salad to take with us when we meet up with the Dalton's at the farm around 6'ish for supper and games. We got cleaned up and headed off the mountain for Sparta around 4:30 as we had several errands to run. We made a stop at the library for some new reads as I'm about finish with the Nickolas Sparks tear jerker. We then stopped by the Backwoods Bean coffee shop and picked up some replacement steaks left there for the Browning's and us from Grayson County, Va. Seems last year we ordered some range fed aged beef and they were shoe leather tough and not aged so they voluntary replaced the meat this year. I will have to do business with these folks again if these replacements are what they are purported to be; aged, range(grass) fed and organic beef(no hormones).
Well Andy had a nice deer roast as well as home grown beef in the form of burgers on the grille and my were they ever tasty especially the marinated deer. We cleaned the platter as usual along with Nancy' tater salad. Kay had made a delicious peach and berry cobbler of which I had to sample. We wobbled away from table and sat on the back porch while the gals cleaned up. Caleb and his buddy Ethan and Kallie's beau Juan entertained us with their shooting skills. What a beautiful evening as we gazed out over their pasture with horses and black Angus cattle in the distance. The sunset over the mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway made for easy viewing and the serenity was priceless as evening shadows fell. The full moon was just gorgeous as it toppled the mountains and the fireflies making their grand entrance as they added to the surroundings.
We headed in to play the best of 5 games in Sequence and the gals destroyed us so much I'm not sure we will ever recover; 5 to zip was the score despite Juan making a valiant effort as he made most of the scoring. We still haven't been able to catch the gals cheating but they did catch us a couple times as we inadvertently played the wrong card, oh well!! It was close to 10 PM when we finally headed for the cabin and by now the moon was mesmerizing with its orange glow in the clean night air. WOW, it was like 3-D as you wanted to reach out and grab it. Well it wasn't long after a hot shower and a little reading before some horizontal lab took over, LATER
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