Well Sunday started out with such nice temps and maybe it reached the middle 70's during the hottest part of the day. The high in the 50's started the day and the evening ended with temps dropping down into the middle 50's with it even feeling cooler in the brisk breeze about night fall. We visited our "mountain mom" Helen around 7'ish and both of them were chilled while walking around the yard in the evening air checking out all of her flowers. I thought it was just right for working.
We headed out to Cornerstone around 9:30 after our usual morning routines; of a few quiet moments, a lite breakfast and then I'm back to walking around with my cup of hot green tea while inspecting the gardens for growth and any deer damage. It's just so peaceful just after daybreak and while we don't see the sun directly as the ball is hidden by the tall trees and we are on the west side of the mountain the sun rays stream through the trees sometime around 10 o'clock or so. The shade of the trees keeps it quite cool until then.
We were greeted like celebrities by our Cornerstone family with lots of "glad your back home" and many hugs and handshakes and even a "ya'll just made by day" greeting. Many of my pickle ball buddies were there and I learned they have stayed true to form about playing at least weekly and are gearing up for my return to the court. We lost one player to a knee replacement but still have 5 or 6 others who will play weekly. They are ready for me which makes me feel wanted as it seems I set the bar since introducing them to the sport. We will be back outside on the non-skid court in the evenings under the lights weather permitting for at least weekly as of now.
We headed out to lunch at the Pizzeria after the service which was a celebration of those students who are moving on to the 9th grade and those who graduated from high school. Pastor B had a great word for them especially when inundated with academia and those who want to take away from their faith in a Creator and the principals set forth in the Bible to help them through life's challenges. His message on "what you do today will effect what happens later in life" was straight forward. The gate to destruction is wide with the worlds attitude but the gate is narrow for those who want to have a successful meaningful lifestyle. He challenged them to not be influenced by all of these "feel good" or"everyone's doing it" crowd who have that attitude.
After a lunch with our dear friends The Dalton's minus Andy who was out of town working we headed over to Food Lion to pick up one of their weekly specials. We are lucky to have two groceries in town to choose from with their weekly ads in the local paper. While there we saw our newest friends from last year Sam and Marcia Carlan who drive over from Elk Creek, Virginia weekly for church and some shopping. They have since moved onto a different local church due to us(Cornerstone) not having a Sunday School tradition, but still visit Sparta weekly. They attend church where our "mountain mom" attend and we will continue to meet afterwards for lunch at times and our house get together suppers.
Well we made a stop at the local produce stand on the way out of town for more annual flowering plants as well as some avacodas and pears. After getting back to the cabin sometime around 3'ish we set out to cleaning the upstairs and then I removed the defective washer and got ready for the new one for delivery on Monday. I transplanted a row of red leaf romaine lettuce and then set my tomato plants in the ground while still in pots to get them acclimated to the garden and to determine just where I wanted to rotate their growing this season for the best results. I remember we always planted the same plants in the same areas and often wondered why the outcome was different each year and that is because of the lack of crop rotation as some plants add to the soil and some take away.
Since we had a large lunch we skipped supper and I made some popcorn the old fashion way with olive oil in a sauce pan with kernels; wow was that ever tasty and just curbed any desire for a meal, LATER
