Where has this month gone??? Well Wednesday was another busy day that found me outside for most of the day except for the mid afternoon when it got rather warm so I sat on the back porch and read for a couple hours. It was 82 in the shade but rather humid for a change but by late afternoon a nice gentle breeze enveloped us and once again made it pleasant to be outside.
The morning started with my wake up a little before 6 and then a roll out to start the day with my usual routines of a few quiet moments, the posting of this ramble and a lite breakfast before heading out on safari to squash slugs and now we have Japanese beetles back into the picture. Seems they show up around the first of July each year but are early due to the heat index this year being so high. They are notorious eaters of all of my veggies but especially like rose blooms. I did away with several of both slugs and beetles as I did my walk around the gardens.
I wanted to clean out and redo the rock in the one flower garden in the backwoods yard which seemed to be going down hill with the flower and plant production. I had Fall Daisy's planted there for years but since I cut down a couple trees last year that were within the plot the daisy's haven't done well. I tore out all of the rocks, added a couple loads of dirt that I dug from my backwoods quarry and then pulled out all of the grasses before sowing Zinnia seeds and giving the planter a good watering.
We took off on our daily hike before lunch as the heat was starting to show up on top of the mountain. The distant views were already being affected by the haze and mist in the air from the heat. We stopped and chatted with Shirley Cottle as they were up for the day. John was off spraying weeds somewhere down below. He is undergoing chemo for prostrate and bladder cancer and must take chemo for the rest of his life. He seemed in good shape and spirits the last time we saw them about 2 weeks ago. He is another person who is quite active despite his new health concerns.
We saw no one at the Browning's then headed on down the back road which was so much cooler in the shade of the tall trees. What a real difference in the temps when you get off the open road across the top of the mountain and back into the shade. We settled into a lunch of fresh garden salad and crackers on the back porch picnic table. Wow what a setting for enjoying a delicious lunch with a nice breeze and the temps still in the high 70's. After lunch I headed back out to my dirt quarry and loaded the golf cart up 3 more times to fill in some low places in the backwoods yards. It was starting to get rather hot out so I decided to head for the basement and cool off in the 50 degree settings.
We chilled until it was time to eat an early supper as I had pickle ball at 6:30. We finished the leftover meatballs that Nancy had frozen and she made a gravy over Jasmine rice with Brussel Sprouts for supper, yeow was that ever delicious. I headed out about 6 for the court and we had 5 players which allowed for a small break every fourth game. After an hour and a half my shirt was dripping as was everyone else's but I decided since I had hiked earlier that I would let these 4 younger guys wear each other out for the duration. These guys have really become good players and we had some tremendous rallies and decide the inside pickle ball worked better on this non skid surface than the outside ball. It was nearly 8:30 before I got back to the cabin and we still lots of sunlight for piddling around outside. The temperature had dropped back into the 70's for the evening.
Well it was time for a hot shower around 9:30 and then I settled into Abbott's book on the Civil War until 10:30 and then it was lights out, LATER
