Well Wednesday was almost a total work day except for an afternoon golf cart ride during a light rain shower out to the mail box and then up to the top of the mountain. The distance views where limited due to the fog and clouds but we could see down off the mountain for several miles, absolutely splendid and so quiet. We needed some moisture to get those Zinnias seeds to sprout as well as give my garden seedlings a drink.
Well I started the day on Wednesday very early with a 4'ish wake up but managed to stay horizontal until 5 then I had to get up. I had some many things filtering through my "what to do next" list that I just couldn't sleep but I did sleep hard for 6 hours which was great and I felt ready to go. Nancy was sleeping hard and did stay in the sack until around 8:30. She stays up at night especially with her RFD channel which has lots of horse shows. We do not get the channel in Florida with Wow. I had my cup of green tea laced with turmeric and fresh ginger while I posted this ramble then spent some quiet time with my Creator in thanksgiving and lifting up several by name, later in the afternoon we did get a call into Paw Paw who sounded in good spirits as he had been visiting one of his lady friends during the day. He now lives with his middle daughter, Pat who lives in Wardensville, W.Va. Paw Paw is my uncle who raised me and is 92 and who I consider a father figure as I still to this day do not know who was the sperm donor which resulted in me, oh well.
After posting this ramble and checking all of the news channels on the internet such as the Drudge Report, Fox News and then FaceBook(now that i'm no longer banned) I headed out to check on the gardens and give a walk around the mowed areas of the property. No deer damage overnight but they had been busy chowing down on all of the flowers before we arrived. Three of the flower beds were eaten down so bad and taken over by grass we decided to turn them back into the yard which required just moving the rocks from the borders of the beds. We did weed one of our usually most beautiful flower beds off the front porch and it too was decimated over the winter. Last year we noticed there was no acorns in the forests so the deer had nothing to eat except the browse from the woods and the gardens and yards. I learned this was not only unusual for us but every one suffered the same fate in the county.
I did another hour or so of weed whacking, gave the seedling a hand drink and then worked up a huge pine tree limb that had broken off during either the wind or ice storm over the winter. It was down in the far corner of the mowed area in the back woods yard. It didn't take long with the chain saw to work it up and haul it off with the golf cart to my burn pile. I do not know what I would do with out the golf cart and the bed on the back; it saves me so many steps and is like a mini truck. It is one of the best investments ever for here in the mountains. It runs on gas and we use it for nearly everything. It was going on 9'ish when I saw the figure of Nancy walking out on the porch to see where I was. She did her morning routines and then she fixed another mountain breakfast with berry pancakes and eggs and a brat. I also added a cut up jalapeno pepper to my brat. Well that held us until supper except for a sliced apple and a spoon of peanut butter in the late afternoon.
We had two fellers come out and look at the upstairs bathroom project and the news they gave us wasn't as promising as we hoped for. We have another feller coming today which has given us an idea of what a major undertaking this is going to be. No matter who we pick I'm going to have to tear up the oak flooring in the bathroom and remove the inside wall boards but hopefully not the wall. We made a serious mistake when we allowed the builder to talk us out of the shower/tub combo when he made a now we know mistake while constructing the bump out/dormer where the bathroom is located, oh well that was over 20 + years ago. We wanted to add the shower to aid in having our guests not shower down stairs or in the basement where we have a shower in each location and just the vanity and commode upstairs. We also want it completed by the first week in July as family comes for a week or so. We may have to put this project on hold unless this tile/plumber feller can assure us it will be completed by then, oh well. It's a difficult job adding on post construction and little did we think of this issue back when.
I fired up the mower again to go over some areas that required three mowing as the grass was so high but the grass had lots of seed heads which is a good thing unless its in the flower beds, reseeding the yards especially the backwoods yards which has a tendency to grow green moss choking out the grass. It going on 5 years or so since I took out several huge trees, dug out the stumps by hand and burned a couple out as well. The area still has some huge oaks which gives off a park like atmosphere. They say it takes about 7 years to get an established yard of grass where the woods once stood. I have use lots of pelletized lime and fertilizer and need to do that again as well on another day.
Well we did get a light rain that outlined the truck body on the gravel but nothing to keep us inside or on the porches; it what we call "settled the dust". Our road into the cabin is a dirt road with rock gravel and it does get dusty at times. We who live on the road are responsible for its maintenance so I'm always cutting over hanging branches and one neighbor has a tractor who he lets me borrow for the scraping and heavy work; but mostly I use hand tools to fill in the pot holes when the heavy rains wash out the road or on our steep driveway. There is always something to do here even on a down day. I broiled cod fillets in the grill and Nancy had beets and a fresh salad for our supper around 6'ish after a glass of "fruit of the vine". After the cloudy skies from earlier in the day the sun came out and we walked up the steep back trail to the small logging road above our property but not to the top. I had to remove several down tree limbs on the way from the winter. Now this trail will kick your cardio into place and since I'm use to playing pickle ball daily which gets your respirations into gear I did O.K. but Nancy has to get her mountain legs again.
We came back and I picked up several smaller limbs and twigs in the yards and started a fire. There is always tons of camp fire limbs and I soon had a nice fire going. I also use what is called "lighter knot" which we used on the farm to start fires. I always keep a bucket of it around. It petrified pine tree limb joints which smell like turpentine when split. I find them in the woods and keep a pile around. I split them into fine pieces and just with a match they burn like you use a lighter fluid. Well we came in the cabin around dark and I check the Ray's game with the Tigers and they finally got back to their winning ways with 4-0 shutout. It wasn't long until it was shower time and then some horizontal lab, LATER
