Well Friday started out real early with a 4:30 AM rollout to see Bobby and family off for Florida which by the way they made it home safely and thanks for all the prayers for traveling mercies. The kiddos handled the trip without any complaints; they slept and watched movies most of the way. I tried to go back to sleep but that was a farce to say the least, anyhow I had chores I wanted to do now that we had a week to ourselves as well as put up things left out for the kiddos to entertain themselves with. It was a quiet day here after the last week of total activities before the next folks arrive.
I did my usual morning routines, quiet times and catching up on the news and social media comments. I have a couple friends who are dem. libs and we get into a running dialog of which this Potus Trump is constantly defeating their sarcastic criticism of him and his policies. They loved the last potus and Hillary who are being found out about and they never watch the real news networks. They are CNN and MSNBC junkies who constantly elevate the libs and the dems and denigrate our duly elected potus. It's sad to think there are folks so totally blind to reality and fail to see the corruption within the dem party, the last potus and his administration and the anti-Americans in the congress.
I headed out to check on the gardens and did notice several small cukes starting to mature as well as blooms now on the upper gardens tomato plants. I'll need to harvest some lettuces, Swiss shard to add to the salads as well as some radishes. The worms tore up my kale but they are coming back albeit slowly and the collards are coming along as well. The what we thought was a perennial Jasmine vining plants that our "mountain mom" gave us turned out to be 4 o'clock flowers and they are about to bloom and the one Heavenly Blue morning glory seed that germinated is now climbing up the rail fence. Nancy's flower beds are doing well and the hydrangeas have added lots of new growth along the front porch. The circle drive bed which is loaded with Zinnias is doing O.K.but they don't have much height as I would have liked them to have, oh well.
I fired up the weed whacker and did the whole property even the backwoods trail when it began acting up and then I discovered a pin hole leak in one of the gas lines. It had rotted through after all these years so I'll have to have new lines installed and I'll have someone who knows how to do this as last time on the leaf blower I ruined that attempt. I'll drop it off in Sparta on Wednesday as we head over to W.Jefferson to meet our old pastor friend and his wife for lunch. After a lite lunch of leftovers I fired up the riding mower and for the next couple hours mowed the yards. The place looks so nice mowed and edged. Nancy was busy doing laundry, stripping beds, vacuuming and hanging some clothes outside as it was a perfect day for drying on the clothesline. None of my kids use the clotheslines and I do not know why because in Florida they will dry almost by the time you hang the last item, plus it saves tons of money and the environment, oh well.
We cleaned up the last of one batch of taters and the last of the smoked ribs for supper . Gabriel just loved the cooked parsley buttered taters and now he wants that for his birthday supper when we celebrate it in November. I'm thankful I do not have to make a special trip back to Florida for birthdays in September. I got notice that my 55th class reunion is in August in Winchester, Va. It's hard to believe it's been that long ago and several of my class of 1964 have passed on from this earth. I've been extremely fortunate to still have lots of vitality and energy and I think that's comes back to growing up on a farm where we grew most everything, ate the meat we actually butchered and preserved as well as I drank whole milk straight from the cow and well as churned our own butter and raised our fresh eggs. We had no running water in the old farm house so no bathroom until after I left home to never return except for a visit. Farm life was demanding twice a day everyday but the rewards that I'm now receiving later in life is priceless. I love physical work and except for Florida when I don't have the acres to manicure I'm totally never sitting around here in the mountains in the fresh air and sweet cold water from the ground, LATER
