The day started much the usual for me with a 6'ish roll out. I had my daily handful of supplements washed down with a cup of hot green tea laced with turmeric while I posted this ramble and then spent some quiet time with Creator in thanksgiving and lifting up by name those I know and love and those who are in need of special considerations by the great healer. Nancy's Aunt Daryl is one of those who at the young age of 93 has suffered a stroke and is not taking any nourishment by mouth and maybe in her last days. It seems we maybe taking a trip to Lancaster, Pa. in the next couple of days to say good-bye as her mom(GG) fly's up from Florida for a good bye as well. Nancy spent most of the day on the phone with family regarding this issue.
After a breakfast of eggs, grits, sliced tomato and a jalapeno pepper for me I headed out to check on the gardens and do some hand watering once again as we need some rain. The temps were once again above normal for this time of the year but not unbearable. I noticed the half runner beans are climbing the fence I put up for them and "bird egg" beans are showing some good growth as well and they too send out runners for climbing. The lettuces are showing some good color and we may get a mess for salads in a week or so. The tomato's continue to ripen daily and while they are not the sandwich size they are very tasty. I'm not sure what brand they are but they are plentiful on the vine. The cucumbers are out of control with me harvesting 5-6 everyday. The upper vines are starting to show lots of brown leaves but still blooming. The okra is producing an occasional spike but not to my expectations while the egg plant never did mature or produce any fruit, oh well.
The recently transplanted tomato seedlings from the compost pile are doing fine and I will take them back to Florida when we leave on the 19th and transplant into my winter garden. We are getting excited about the trip to Florida for a couple of weeks as I have much to do there to get the gardens in shape for the winter plantings. I understand the gardens are over grown with grasses and weeds so it will take some work in that area. We are looking forward to some grand baby time as well. On our daily hike we stopped and chatted with the Cline's for a spell and then Billy the new neighbor across the road came over and we chatted him up. It seems he will go back to the east coast for awhile as he is still engaged in some work activities there and will only come to the mountains on the weekend despite making this home his full time residence. He was putting up a mailbox while we were there. We didn't see anyone else on top as we hiked across the mountain.
The first quarter of the Hokie vs the Volunteer game in Bristol was looking good from a Virginia Tech point of view as they led 14-0 but then it quickly changed on one fumble play and the Vols never looked back. It was a blow out from then on. Our friends Sam and Marcia were big VT fans and even graduates of the school so they had hats, pom poms, socks and even underwear with VT emblems. We had some good fun with picture taking, great food and laughs and saw the largest crowd ever of a college game at the Bristol Speedway. The Hokies were ahead when we left the party but by the time we got home the Vols had scored 24 unanswered points, yikes, LATER
