Well Thursday started out with being a work day and then we had a large gang here for supper and games which lasted close to 10 PM. The food was awesome as I smoked 2 large chickens and the gang brought the side dishes except for The Pioneer Woman's (Ree Drummond's) twice baked tater's Nancy prepared. The games of corn toss ended with darkness but Balderdash lasted until there was a winner who was Kaitlyn by a hair. What a raucous gang of players.
I started the day with a 6'ish roll out to temps down into the low 50's and it may have even been the high 40's, yikes was it ever great for working outside as the humidity was non-existent. After my usual routine(s) of a cup of hot green tea to wash down a handful of vitamins and supplements, a few quiet moments for those who are in dire need of some special considerations and to just give thanks and then the posting of this daily ramble I ate a bowl of oatmeal with fresh picked wine berries from our patch along with some wild huckle berries, cinnamon and honey for breakfast. Yeow was that ever tasty.
I headed out to check on the gardens and flower beds for deer damage and found no new eatin' by those critters; so I loaded up the golf cart with my digging iron, shovel, ax, post hole diggers and headed for the backwoods yard and the recently felled black pine tree. I had the dirt dug out from around the stump to about a depth of a foot and half deep in just a couple hours. Pine trees have a small root system compared to the oak stumps and so much easier to dig out and around and the root system is much shallower and with nearly as many roots. I did work up a good sweat though and plan on burning it out on Friday morning.
We never did get to do our hike for the day as I put a couple whole chickens filled with fresh rosemary and thyme set on a half full can of beer in the smoker loaded with hickory wood and later some peach wood that neighbor Carl brought me about mid morning. He had cut down his dying peach tree and shared some of the wood with me for my smoker. Nancy was busy cleaning house and preparing the baked taters as well as making a cinnamon sugar cake. Our total number of guests was 14 for supper and there was very little leftover. I did grill a couple dozen hot dogs just in case the younger teens wanted something different. The chicken was gone and one dog remained as well as one tater and a spoon full of green beans. Everyone raved about the chicken and I pulled the meat off the bones as it was that tender and moist. I had never used peach wood but heard any fruit tree was great for smoking and it was awesome as well is any fruit bearing tree along with hickory.
We played several games of corn hole(toss) and Gerald(Mechelle's dad) was the big winner for most of the time with who ever was his partner. He and I got into playing singles and I managed to squeak one win out of 5 games against him. He and his son in law Andy seldom ever lose when they team up together and constantly together are the big winners in all of the competition around these parts. They even go down off the mountain to compete in tournaments and usually come back with the big prize money. A couple folks left early after eating, so Gerald and I sat on the porch after it got to dark to toss the corn bag and talked. There were 10 players at the table playing Balderdash and the laughter noise was loud until the game ended with Kaitlyn winning in a squeaker over Nancy.
It was around 10'ish when the last folks left and then we cleaned up the dishes and it wasn't long before it was a hot shower for me and then some horizontal lab with a book until lights out at 11, LATER
Just an update on Eddie he is now showing some much improvement with breathing finally on his own and he was able to take some nourishment through the mouth albeit was liquid. This is surely miraculous in and of itself. Still keep him and Kimberly in your thoughts and prayers as he has a long road ahead to attaining any semblance of his old self.
