Friday Morning

Where has the last two weeks gone as its been a busy time of getting ready for company(and then their stay and leaving) and getting the cabin, yards and garden into shape. We took yesterday Thursday afternoon and went looking for our "mountain moms" bear which has been plaguing her for the past several days. She noticed it would come out from the woods and enter a large field below her cabin and scavenge leftover corn from last years harvest in the recently planted pumpkin field. It did that daily around 2-3 PM but it was a no show yesterday as we sat on her front porch and viewed the area with cameras waiting. After an hour or so we headed over to her brother Joe's place who had seen the bear next to his place which is just across the way from Helen's. We were hoping maybe it was down in one of the hollers and we could get a picture of it; instead we picked cherries from his tree which could be a drawing card for the bear as well.

The morning started for me around 5:30 as I wanted to "slug hunt" while the dew was still on the grass and these slimy plant eatin' critters were still out doing their dirty. I managed to squash a few inside the gardens and a few in the wet grass as they made their way to my veggies. Around 7'ish I decided to do my quiet time and eat a lite breakfast of watermelon as we ate heavy and late the night before. I headed out after posting this ramble from the bedroom which is still rather boring as I sit on the bed facing the wall with the lap top on a tray between my legs. It's not the most comfortable way to write but it will do until the new router gets here hopefully before the weekend.

I loaded up the golf cart with tools which by the way is an animal(golf cart with the bed on the back) when it comes to working these hills and has added years to my longevity and headed out to the sawed up oak tree in the backwoods yard. I had a dozen or more huge round oak blocks of wood which weighed at least a hundred pounds or more and commenced to splitting them into manageable parts. The heavy sledge and wedges were awesome with some back swing and downward force. The first split came with a price as a small piece of steel from the wedge broke off and pierced my knee cap which took me an hour or longer to stop the bleeding. Finally after pressure on the cut which wasn't that deep but about and inch or so wide, Nancy applied a patch which stopped the blood from oozing down my leg. I continued back to the area and finish splitting without incident the other chunks then loaded them onto the golf cart and after 8-10 loads of the split wood, stacked it near the fire circle.

It was lunch time so we dined on a fresh salad loaded down with sliced beets and kidney beans while sitting at the picnic table on the back porch. Wow, the view was awesome with the temps in the middle 70's. The night before when we had a house full of company some of us were eating at the same spot and observed two large adult turkeys with several little ones emerge from the backwoods yard and meander across the yard. We were hoping to get a glimpse of them again and take a picture, but they too were a no show It was just so blissful with the fresh clean breeze and warm temps and of course the view was priceless especially now that I had the downed tree removed from the area and the brush piled down below.

Well that was about it for the day as we piddled around the yard until suppertime which was some leftover smoked baby back's, canned spinach and black eyed peas while once again sitting on the back porch at the picnic table. We let that digest then took on our daily hike to the top of the mountain and spoke with no one as most were in for the evening except we did see Joe on his lawnmower pulling a load of debris from his yard. Zeke our old mountain buddy canine was in the for day as well and never came out to greet us either. We saw lots of fresh deer tracks in the road and tons of cotton tails as they scampered into the woods. There must not be many coyotes around this year as they seem to keep the rabbits in check. Nancy got a real close up picture of one in Helen's yard earlier in the day.

We stayed outside until nearly 9 o'clock as it just will not get dark before then. After a hot shower and some social media viewing it was horizontal lab for me after a couple chapters in a real life story titled FROZEN IN TIME that occurred in the 40's during WWII in Greenland and the attempt to rescue downed air crew members on the ice cap, LATER