Well Saturday turned out to be rather hot day by late afternoon so it was sit on the porch and read after getting back from the big metropolis of Sparta where we along with the Tracy's visited several touristy type activities. There was a festival of crafts and arts going on as well as yard sales all along the major route of 21 and a farmers market at Crouse Park with some old mountain music to entertain those who sat in lawn chairs or just pulled up a piece of the grass. People were friendly along with many church's selling lunch. We met at JB's pizza for a delicious lunch of pizza and I must say that is always a winner with us as well as a lot of other folks. They were one busy place and all of the food we saw and tasted was delicious.
We started the day with a 7'ish roll out as we knew we had nothing going on except to meet at 11:30 at JB's the Tracy's. I did my usual routine(s) and then a lite breakfast of cereal with fresh wine berries on top. Afterwards I headed out to the yards and gardens to check for deer damage and seeing none I decided to hand water once again. The dry wind and lack of rainfall are starting to take it's toll on the grass in the lower yard by the shed. It's turning brown and parts of the backwoods yard is showing some brown spots as well. I've been watering daily the newly sown grass seeds where I removed the tree stumps and just since I spread some old hay over the seeds to help hold the moisture I can see some green peeping through.
We had a grand time in Sparta as we played the tourist thing. We visited the old Senators House that was one time a fancy gourmet eatery. We ate there with some friends many years ago and its now a retail outlet for baked goods, ice parlor and whatnots. The house was built in 1917 and has stayed pretty much the same both inside and out except for the addition of a large commercial kitchen on the back. The lady who was manning the place was very informative and allowed us to look around and told us of some of the local history of the place. The setting was ideal as well.
We headed down to the Crouse Park area and met up with a neat farmer from Poland who raises veggies in Independence, Va. and sells his produce here on Saturdays. We purchased a beautiful head of Bibb lettuce from him and saw another veggie called celery stock. It grow like korabi or turnip but according to another customer the French people use this in all of their soup stock. It smelled like celery and the leaves were very similar but the strength of the veggie was powerful in taste as I of course tasted it. We wondered around and Nancy purchased a children's book and the author who is from Elkin(just down off of the mountain) signed it. It's a neat story about the birth of Jesus as seen through the eyes of a mouse. She also purchased a small cream pitcher from the daughter (who is now in the pottery business) of our neighbors George and Gail Redmond. We walked around and looked at all the displays of creative arts and whatnots but Patrick and I gravitated to the music on stage by the mountain music makers. The fiddle and banjo pickers were our favorites on the stage.
We hope to head to Galax the first weekend in August for the Fiddler Convention which is a week long affair that draws thousands from all across the country to display their talent. We are saddened to learn that sister Dee and Mike are now not going to be able to come down as planned due to an unexpected visit from old friends from out of the country. We changed our plans to visit the Gravel Springs Picnic near Winchester so we could attend the convention together and now they can't attend, oh well. Patrick and Kathryn seem to enjoy that type of music and we will make an appearance as well as we are planning a couple days to visit the Va. and D.C. area a week or so later towards the middle of August. That should be fun and we are looking forward to this visit as they love the history and the landmarks of our nations capital.
Well we ate a salad and some leftovers for supper then we took off on a major hike which included the walk up the back road. Neighbor Gerald mentioned he heard someone sawing down what appeared to be several large trees on the back road earlier while we were gone to town. We decided to hike up that road and sure enough the cabin directly across from us had several large trees down on the ground around their cabin. It sure let in some sunlight as huge trees grew next to the building and porches. We continued on to the top and saw no one. I decided to burn trash and then water the gardens again before dark after our return. I watched the Ray's beat the Red Sox's again on the Internet and shortly thereafter it was shower and some horizontal lab time. Lights out around 11'ish, LATER
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