Well it's difficult to leave the cabin after such a beautiful gorgeous day as was yesterday and today Wednesday is supposed to be even nicer with temps into the middle 60's. It was a bit nippy to start the day with high 30's but by mid afternoon I was in short sleeves and was thinking about short pants but as the day grew shorter the shade areas had you wanting something on your arms.
I started the day with a 7:30 roll out for a change which seldom happens and Nancy mentioned the night before she wanted up at 6:30 as we were meeting friends for an adventure hike back to the Stone Mountain water falls, anyhow we made the scheduled meet at 10 with no problem despite it being about 20 minutes from the cabin. The morning was quite chilly and we were bundled up with three layers as we knew we would mostly be in the shade on the 2 plus mile hike one way. By the end of the hike they were shedding some jackets.
After my usual morning routines that always start with a cup of hot green tea laced with turmeric and ginger while I post this ramble then lift up several by name to my Creator for comfort and healing. All seem well as I've heard nothing to the contrary. Nancy's mom GG is still recouping from her week long stay in the hospital but with her bad heart she is hoping to just maintain at this stage which is a miracle in its self after what she went through a couple years back. We ate a breakfast of granola and oatmeal before getting ready to head out around 9:20. The other couple Meg and Jim with their two large dogs were there waiting but only for a couple of minutes as we were on time.
We took the loop trail but only for half of it as the stairs to the top of the mountain was too much for one of their older dogs but they had a great time as we let them loose from time to time on the trial. They were in the water constantly drinking and splashing but they listened quite well. Nellie the oldest dog is some where around 14 which is good for a large animal and she kept up at times with Chester a lab who was around 6, would head off into the woods on a scent. It was a little over 2 miles one way to the waterfalls which is magnificent and probably a couple hundred or more feet in height. The way back was the same which took about an hour each way. We were back to the cabin before 1 and settled into a late lunch of leftovers as we clean out the fridge as much as possible.
I headed out after lunch to dig and haul 6 or 7 loads of fill dirt and rocks for the lower part of the front yard which needed some dirt to help with leveling out for the riding mower. I have a nice pit in the back woods yard where I get all of the dirt needed plus lots of large rocks. That kept me busy for a couple hours and I soon worked up a sweat. The sun was brilliant. I then hauled a load of compost and spread that on my garden in the back yard as well as harvested by beets. I found several immature seedlings as I had sowed them closely just for the beet greens; so I will take these seedlings home for my winter garden in Florida and get a head start on sowing seeds for the greens. We love fresh beet greens in our salads.
Nancy decided she wanted to hike again which we definitely need after adding some extra pounds and inches this summer. We took off up the back steep trail through the woods and while the hike back to the waterfalls was relatively easy this hike up the back trail was anything but easy. We made several stops until we reached the top of the mountain which showed some beautiful color in the bright sunshine. We saw Dean Todd on top scrapping the the washouts on the road with his vintage tractor and chatted with him a few before heading back down to begin work on supper. I fried some fish on the grill burner which was awesome to go along with some tater tots which do not travel well in the cooler and canned spinach. After supper it was such a beautiful evening with warm temps in the high 50's and no wind I decided we should have at least one more camp fire.
The fire was beautiful and as night settled its warmth was welcoming. We sat out by it for a good 2 hours before heading in to hit the showers. Afterwards I watched a little of the Lightning hockey game on the internet and they were winning 5-3 over the New Jersey team. It wasn't long after 9:30 I decided to read until 10'ish then it was lights out for me, LATER
