Wednesday

At 7 AM the sound of rain on the tin roof woke me so I rolled over and went back to sleep for about 5 minutes. That's how long the rain lasted, bummer!! The fog rolled in so that promised to give us a little moisture but that to lasted about an hour. The sun came out but the temps stayed down into the high 60's and low 70's all day. It was a great day for being outside once I finished my quiet time. Nancy fried up a couple cackleberries(eggs) and I heated grits in the microwave. Yumm what a great tasting breakfast especially with the homemade black raspberry jam on toast.

After breakfast(its still foggy) I really thought it was going to be an inside morning with the early rain and now fog so I thought I would put together 2 batches of must(fixin's to make homemade wine). I first blended about a 1/2 gallon of home grown wine berries and started that concoction in a gallon glass jar with yeast and sugar water. I then fixed a large balloon to the top of the jug. Next I blended about a gallon and a half of hand picked wild black berries. After blending, adding yeast and sugar water I started that in a 5 gallon plastic bucket(fermenter). I had about 2 gallons of must. I left the seeds in both batches. That was a mistake for the batch I placed in the gallon jug with the balloon, after about 2 hours the co2 blew the balloon off and must went everywhere in the basement. I finally strained all the seeds, pulp and replaced the balloon. The must seems to be cooking(fermenting) O.K. now. The must in the plastic bucket has plenty of room so there is no fear of it exploding. This is only the second time I've attempted to make homemade wine from scratch(without a kit from a winery). Very interesting and who knows what it will taste like, but a great conversation topic!!!

After getting a load of laundry on the line we took off for our morning hike. Wow was it ever another great day for a hike. We made the top in only one rest stop. There was lots of fog down off the top but beautiful sunshine after the foggy morning on top. We came back and had the last of the meat loaf on a sandwich. Great sandwich with mayo, onion and tomato( I had mustard on mine, calorie counting). Yumm!! After lunch I decided I had better mow the yard as some of the weeds were over a foot tall and since we are leaving Saturday it would be another 10 days or so before I get the chance to mow again. Its been so dry the last couple of weeks that the only thing growing are weeds. Oh well!!

We took off for a visit to Eddie and Kimberly's farm around 3 PM after mowing. They recently acquired 2 new Heinz 57 female puppies. They are liter mates but have different fathers, but are sooo cute. We played and visited for a couple hours. I also collected lots of Tommy T--ds from their beautiful black quarter horse stallion for my compost pile. The fishin' worms love his droppings.

After getting back we both worked on supper; I made a garden fresh salad with my lettuce which has finally gotten big enough to eat. 5 different lettuces, beet greens, kale, green onion, basil, and oregano from my garden, cukes, red onion and green peppers from Joe's garden. Nancy made parsley spuds with new Kennebec's, Salmon patties and canned peas. Man is that good ole' country cookin' and eatin'.

After supper I headed over to neighbor Ray's place to mow his yard as his mower is still broke down. I did my good deed for the day and I know they really appreciate the help. They look after my place all winter so it feels great to be able to return some appreciation. Well I mowed just in time as we got a nice 30 minute shower at dusk so maybe it will do some good overnight to the plants and grass.

It's been a great day doing lots of different things and eatin' real good.LATER