Well the old song is quite right when you sing "nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning". Whew what a busy day on Monday after a rather ho hum day on Sunday as far as being busy. I started out around a 6'ish roll out to such quietness and natural beauty as I look out the windows from where I make this post in the cabin. The front windows show such different shades of green with the different trees that surround the place and then the side windows exhibit rabbits, wild turkeys an and occasional coyote. The back windows allow you to see deep into the back woods several hundred feet as well as a view of the gardens. Such serene beauty surround our cabin in the woods. Soon we will see hundreds of wild flowers in bloom that are spaced around the cabin itself and the many beds throughout the yards. The brilliance of their various color are breathtaking when looking at where they are in the deep woods. WOW!!!
We were having our first guests for this summer at what we once called "Black Bear Ridge". There have many a meal eaten on these grounds but the one we had last evening was right up there in taste as we shared it with a new friend and brother of our dear friends from Florida and fellow house church members Patrick and Kathryn. Howard(brother) is from the Tucson Arizona area and the ambiance is quite startling to say the least especially if your not use to the vibrant greens that come from such vegetation. While the deserts are beautiful in their own unique habitat the largeness of the flora is almost surreal in comparison and that's mainly due to the availability of rainfall throughout the year.
I put some baby back ribs on around 11 in the smoker with some hickory woods and let that work for 3 hours while I headed down the drive to weed whack the driveway and the overhanging trees and bushes. I went ahead and did the rest of the yards as well which kept me busy for another couple hours. Around 2 PM I took the ribs and made a boat of tin foil for the adding of some beer. I let the ribs cook in the beer in the smoker for another 2 hours. While that was going on I fired up the riding lawn mower and mowed all of the yards which kept me busy for the next 2 hours or close to 4 o'clock. I took the ribs out of the beer boil and laid them on the racks slathered in Sonny's barbeque sauce for the next hour with more hickory smoke.
Our quests arrived around 4:30'ish and some of us had a glass of my homemade vino from last years vintage. It was quite nice with not much kick which made it palatable. Nancy had oven taters slathered with fresh parsley, rosemary and olive oil browning in the oven along with a quart of home canned 1/2 runner green beans, homemade applesauce, a fresh salad with homemade Greek dressing and a black iron skillet of corn bread. Yeow this was a memorable feed as the meat from the ribs fell off the bone into your mouth. This method of doing the ribs I learned from my friend Dan in Seminole as he got a new smoker this past year and his ribs were awesome as well. I had no apple juice which he used in the boat so I used about a half can of beer for the 2 boats. Remember if you want to try this recipe of the 3-2-1 method it's 3 on the smoker, 2 in the boat(sealed tin foil) and 1 with the sauce back on the smoker. Fabulous!!!
After many napkins we roll ourselves away from table and decided since the nice rain shower cooled things down; Howard being a soul from the desert and the high heat grabbed a light jacket as we made ready for a nice long hour or so hike to the top of the mountain. The woods were awesome in their smells and the views down off the top were almost indescribable. The fog and clouds were rising from the hollows and some of the mountains in the distance were barely visible. Just a beautiful setting and oh was the air so fresh and clean. We stopped and visited with Zeke at the Browning residence as he received many hands ruffing up his hair which smelled as if he just had a bath. We saw no one else as we made a way around several of the places for sale. About half or more are for sale as many of the owners have passed on leaving their places for sale to the highest bidder. The owners come and go but views from the top never change as they are magnificent.
We came back and I built a nice fire and we sat around and talked then the gals brought out the cheesecake with fresh blueberry topping, yeow what a fitting but fattening way to end the feasting for the evening. We did notice a few fireflies but not nearly the multitude seen over at the Tracy's cabin on the other side of Sparta. They headed out around 9 and we settled in to cleaning up the dishes as well as a hot shower. By 11, I was in the horizontal lab position, LATER
