Well Wednesday was a combination of work in the morning and afternoon then off to the big town of Sparta for a stop at the library before ending up at the Tracy's cabin for a delicious supper and a couple games of Euchre. It was going on 10 PM before we got back to the cabin in hopes we would have received some much needed rain fall while we were gone, but the road was dry and dusty.
The day started much the usual for me with a little before 6 wake up and then a 6:30 roll out as I tried to force myself to go back to sleep. The achy muscles from the day before with hiking and then pickle ball had some stiff muscles but I couldn't force myself to sleep in, oh well! So after a cup of hot tea and my regiment of vitamins and supplements from Nutrilite I did my morning rituals or routines with a few quiet minutes and the posting of this ramble before venturing outside to check for slug and deer damage. Last night on the way back from Sparta we saw 4 different sets of deer in the road and yards along the way. That is the first time we have seen deer out and about after dark this year and my garden is usually a smorgasbord for their tastes.
We decided to have buckwheat cakes with a banana in the batter along with nutmeg and vanilla extract, yeow was that ever some fine eatin' with a couple range grown cackleberries on top. That is close to our "mountain breakfast and the only thing missing was the bacon or sausage fried outside on the grill. That held us until early afternoon when we had a fresh salad with some garden additions of beet greens, kale and lettuce. I loaded up the golf cart and headed to the backwoods yards to work around my recently transplanted red and black raspberry plants. I think of the twelve plants all but one or two will survive as I got plenty of the root system. These plants will spread throughout where ever you plant them as these are some of what I dug up from Helen's brother Joe garden last week. I also hauled a couple loads of pine needles from the large pines in the backwoods yard and mulched the berry bushes as they are an acid loving plant.
We decided to head to the top of the mountain for our daily hike and on the way saw Kathy who is the wife of Roddy. She was up for the week with another neighbor friend, Martha who is the wife of Donnie who purchased the old Ray Todd place a couple years ago. Both of their places are well kept and Kathy's is much newer and more modern in its structure. The Todd cabin is very much like our cabin in size and construction. We sat and chatted for nearly an hour before heading back down to lunch. The heat was very evident on top of the mountain in the bright sunshine but as we descended in the shade of the trees it was quite pleasant. I would say there is at least a 10 degree difference in the shade.
After lunch I did a few little garden chores and then weather stripped the small hole below the window frame that housed the bees I got into yesterday and stung me. The bleach sprayed in the hole the night before worked as the nest was dead. I wanted to rearrange the rocks that surround my compost pile as occasionally a few will slip off allowing some of the material to wash away during heavy downpours. Well it was going on 4 o'clock so it was time to get cleaned up for our trip to Sparta.
We made a stop at the library and picked up books for both ourselves before heading out to Patrick and Kathryn's beautiful rental cabin. Thankfully they have a/c as the temp in town and out where they live was 88 which was several degrees hotter than our place. Their place has no trees for the evening sun which bears down on them. We had a delicious supper that started with some guacamole and salsas while we sipped a glass from the fruit of the vine(except for Patrick) and then Kathryn served us chicken enchiladas with her special sauce along with the best tasting re-fried beans ever and Mexican rice, Yeow, what a superb meal and very colorfully arranged on the plate. It was almost too pretty to eat but we did and it was delightful. After the cleanup we got into some card playing.
Well Euchre is a new game we learned a couple years ago from our old friends the Hoffman's who visited us one summer and I love this game as there is some strategy and it's fast playing. Well the gals took it to us guys in two very close games despite us Euchreing(setback) them at least once in each game where they never made their bid, oh well it was a raucous time of play and we are glad there are no neighbors close by. We headed out around 9:30 for the 30 minute or so ride to the other side of the county and saw brilliant flashes of what turned out to be heat lightning over towards our mountain; but there was no rain. We sure could use a little of the wet stuff even if it means a "slug fest", oh well. There was a message on our recorder from one of my pickle ball buddies for invite to go fishing with him Thursday evening in a lake stocked with large trout and big mouth bass, so I could hardly sleep thinking about those trophy lunkers just waiting to attack my lure, plus the taste of fresh fried trout or bass on my plate, LATER
