The day started with me rolling out around 6'ish. I did my usual routine(s) before heading out to check on the gardens for slug and deer damage. The dry weather seems to have helped with keeping the slugs at bay as they like moist and wet weather. I could stand a good foggy day to bring back some much needed moisture. We aren't in a drought yet but the rain would sure green things up and help with me having to drag the hose down the hill to water.
I headed over to our "mountain mom" place to see if I could fix her door problems. Seems the front door has swelled for some reason and if would not close properly so I used the hand sander on the frame and solved that problem in little time and effort. I still don't know what could have caused the door to swell as it's been there for years with no problem. I headed back to the cabin to pick up Nancy and we headed over to our friends Karin and Kaithlyn's place to pick up some extra seedlings that she no longer had room for in her raised beds and to scooped up some horse droppings for the compost pile. We gathered several 5 gallon buckets as well as several feed sacks of the garden elixirs before heading back home. They have 2 cute puppies or small dogs that are hilarious and just full of energy.
After a lite lunch of sardines on crackers with mustard and onions(one of our favorites) I headed out to transplant the seedlings. The sun was off the lower gardens so I set in the ground 3 cauliflower plants, 1 large zucchini plant and 3 watermelon seedlings.
I did use several buckets of the aged manure to top dress the sugar peas and green beans. Nancy helped me to install the chicken wire on poles set at the end of their rows for these 2 vegetables plants to grow up and climb on. That makes it so much easier to harvest without breaking your back bending over. Well it got so warm and hot in the sun I decided to read on the back porch for an hour or so before we started an early supper. I was playing pickle ball at 6:30 so I wanted time to digest before the match. I grilled some marinated salmon steaks and along with fresh broccoli and a salad we had a good feed.
I picked up neighbor Gerald and we heading out to the Roaring Gap Club and along with 3 other players we played for nearly 2 hours. Gerald and I were getting tired a little after 8 so we let the younger guys continue with some cut throat play. It was a beautiful evening and the setting was awesome. Our shirts were soaked. Our combined age as a team(Gerald and I) was 134 years and we were beating teams with combined ages of less than a hundred.
Well it wasn't long after a hot shower and watching a little of the Rays on the Internet that I decided to read in the horizontal position; well that lasted about 10 pages and by 10:30 it was nighty, nighty for me, LATER Oh I almost forgot we had a somewhat welcome guest arrive slithering through the grass while reading on the back porch. We had seen one earlier in the driveway and Gerald mentioned he saw 2 different ones down by his place as well. Mr. Blackie was a rather large one; lets hope he isn't related to the one last year who would not stay away from the porch and the birds nest underneath which eventually cost him head. We branded that blackie the snake from hell.
