Wednesday Morning

Well I must say Tuesday was one of those days that were like a vacation day as we did nothing but relax, ate "high on the hog" and caught up on some reading then celebrated with our Elk Creek friends Sam and Marcia's 42nd wedding anniversary(which we had no idea). They came over around 6'ish as they too were friends of Patrick and Kathryn and stayed until almost 10 o'clock as we played a couple of different games.

The day started with a 6'ish roll out for me as my internal alarm had me wide eyed as dawn approached. It's just so beautiful here in the early morning and temps had dropped overnight into the low 50's which was just fabulous. I actually had to don an extra shirt as I made my morning rounds outside after my usual routines of a few quiet moments to honor my Creator, then  a hot cup of turmeric drink which by the way Nancy is now a believer in for alleviating the pain in her aching knee joint. I'm a firm believer this herb which has been used for centuries in India for many ailments as well as in culinary dishes is for real. Lets hope it stays true in its natural form and not diluted with fillers. It's not the best tasting drink so maybe that will keep its popularity under control. It's also found in all of your mustards and there is nothing like mustard, onions and relish on a good Nathan hot dog.

We leisurely spent the early morning hours with the Tracy's sleeping in, me on the internet and then after posting my blog I headed out to walk the yards and also work up an appetite. Just walking up and down these hills is a work out. The gardens look good despite the lack of rainfall and rather warm breezy temps for the last week or so. I have been hand watering the herb gardens and the patch of leaf lettuce is looking good which is almost big enough to harvest and add to our store bought lettuces. I'm really disappointed in the Bib lettuce seedlings as they never got much past the transplant stage into the 9 packs. Maybe its my compost soil or possibly the heat but they pretty much all died in the packs. The kale is also somewhat suspect with it growth in the 9 packs as well. The okra is finally pushing through in the packs and will need to be put in the ground in the next couple of days.

The egg plant seedlings don't look all that great as well for some reason and although I don't notice any insects on the leaves they are dotted with little holes. Maybe I need to spray them but I'm not a big user of any insecticides except maybe a little Sevin dust once in a blue moon. The tomatoes aren't growing as well as I would have liked them to be. Our "mountain mom" Helen's tomato plants  had fruit set on her plants and to think I repotted her plants with my compost. So I don't think the compost soil is the culprit for the new seedlings, oh well. The two different types of green beans are doing OK with what appears to be about a 90% germination. I must say the two pepper plants I brought from my Florida garden which had been in the ground there for months is doing quite well except for a little wilting in the late afternoon sun. The Jalapeno has a dozen new fruits and they are big enough to use as I write. They are one of my favorite and it was such a large plant that I hated to leave it to die in the hot Florida sun. It was so tall it was bent over in the back of the truck as we hauled it with us and then re planted it as soon as we got here.

Nancy's flower beds are looking so good with lots of flower heads opening daily and the new Zinnia bed is showing lots of green as well. We will have to rotor till it again this Fall as some of the clover and grass is showing up with the hand watering. I'm excited the Morning Glories seedlings are growing and hopefully will begin to vine shortly up the rail fences and arbor along with the Honey Suckle. That's about all the update on the gardens as we could use a little rain. I finished a John Irving book THE LAST NIGHT IN TWISTED RIVER and it's a good read with lots of separate story lines. I like the way he writes. About noon I loaded up the smoker with apple and hickory wood and then two slabs of baby back pork ribs slathered in a brown sugar rub and we smelled that awesome smoke and aroma for the next 6 hours, yeow were they ever delicious and we licked the platter clean, literally!!!

Marcia and Sam brought a lasagna and a salad to accompany the ribs, crusty bread and ice cream pie for dessert. It was another grand evening for dining outside on the side deck. Afterwards we played a new game called "deer in the headlights" The Carlan's brought. It was a game of chance with no real strategy except for the luck of the dice and Kathryn won big time. We think she loaded the dice somehow. Oh well!!!We then played an old card game called 5 Crowns which uses some strategy and it was close to 10 before we finally finished. It was a close finish with me barely edging out Marcia by just a few points; of course it was mentioned the score keeper won and I was the score keeper, oh well there are some perks to keeping score!!!

It wasn't long after the dishes were done and showers were taken that I hit the sack somewhere around 11:30 which was way past my bed time but that made no difference to the internal alarm as I was wide awake before 6 this morning. We are heading down the parkway today for a visit at Moses Cone Park down near Grandfather Mountain and then into Blowing Rock/Boone area for an early supper or late lunch. The Tracy's have never been there so it will be a new adventure for them and many years since we were last there, LATER