The early morning was much the usual with a 6'ish roll out for me, my routines of a few quiet moments, a lite breakfast and the posting of the day before activities on this ramble. I saw my first deer and it was a very large buck in the backwoods yard as I looked out the kitchen window upon awaking. I've seen lots of tracks this summer and the evidence of their presence in my recently transplanted red raspberry bushes but this was the first time I actually saw one in person in the yard and he was a big one. We have seen his tracks in the soft soil all over the mountain with the dew claws visible which indicates a large animal as well as his scat(droppings) which is totally different from does and smaller animals. This was a big deer and I can now envision steaks sizzling on the grill from this well fed animal. I mentioned once before if I could get venison on a regular basis I would forgo beef forever as it's that nutritious and delicious.
We met up with one of Bobby's schoolmates Sammi Martin (Ashley) at her recently opened Harvest Cafe in Jefferson for lunch. It's a quaint place to relax for a quick lunch with sandwiches, wraps, hot soup of the day, coffees, and some bakery items. They make up their menu the first thing in the mornings so you don't have to stand in or wait to be waited on. We each had a different sandwich or wrap with a cup of soup which happened to be corn chowder. I found the food was delicious and when we first arrived there was but a couple other patrons and very soon thereafter the place filled up with a lunch crowd. She along with 3 other helpers were filling to go orders and getting customers through the line as you ordered at the front. There were all types of clientel from teenagers to the blue hairs and we had one youngster who entertained us with his violin playing at the age of 7. He was very good with an assortment of tunes from Blue Grass to love songs. The motif for the cafe had a Christian influence with a prayer wall and several scriptures displayed.
Well after lunch we headed on over to West Jefferson which was just down the road and stopped at the cheese factory. We ventured into the viewing room and saw part of the production of making cheese. Each of the 3 huge tables hold 20,000 pounds of milk and eventually that turns into about 2, 000 pounds of cheese that is formed and placed into these rings we saw on the first table. What a process as it goes through aging and then the flavors are added. We sampled several in the show room and then purchased some to bring back with us. I especially love the 5 year aged sharp cheddar, yeow was that ever delicious!!! I had brought a cooler with ice which kept everything fresh and cool. We stopped at the super Wal Mart just down the road for a few needed items before heading back. We decided since we drove down the Blue Ridge Parkway that we would head back a different way so off we went on a new road none of us had ever been on before which eventually brought us back to the parkway. Wow the scenery was just magnificent and we still wonder how the old timers ever got their horses and buggies back in these hills and scrapped out a living.
We ended up back on the parkway then headed for Helen's to drop them off. It was still in the high 60's with bright sunshine and just a beautiful day. After reading for awhile neighbor Gerald who was down for the day from Blacksburg stopped by for a visit. After he left we made a smoked chicken fajitas for supper an after the clean up we took off on our daily hike to the top of the mountain. This time I decided to hoof it with Nancy and the knee held up rather well. It seems going down hill aches it more than going up. It did well and swelling didn't seem to reoccur, thankfully.
Well Jetta Browning our neighbor on top blessed us each with a piece of coconut cream pie and a muffin which despite our not wanting to eat dessert or breads we could not turn down one of our favorites. They both were delicious as we devoured them when we got back to the cabin while watching the world series with Pennsylvania playing Texas. It was a close game until the last inning when the Keystone state won and will now play in the finals this weekend and the team from Taipei also came back and won in extra innings. We have really enjoyed watching these little guys play ball and this has become one our our favorite things to watch this time of the year on TV, LATER
Here are a few pictures from yesterday!!
