Thursday

Well the morning started out on a grey skies note with lots of moisture in the air. I rolled out around 7 AM, did my quiet time with a cup of hot strong green tea. Afterwards Nancy fixed some egg sandwiches with sliced tomatoes, dill pickle, onion,lettuce and mayo on toast. Man is that good eatin' and what a way to start the day along with a glass of O.J.

I did a walk around in the gardens and everything looked good. I picked a couple cucumbers and a zucchini squash. We have enough to make a zucchini pie tomorrow for supper. I found a volunteer tomato plant growing in one of the flower gardens a week ago so I transplanted and this morning I moved it into the topsy turvy planter; thats a container where you grow the tomato plant upside down. If it makes I'll take a picture. I didn't use it last year as the year before the plant died because of the hot dry weather.

We headed out on our morning walk and ran into Sarah walking Penny along the top then Gracy the boxer came running to greet us after breaking her chain on the porch. We met her owners Dan and Karen after knocking on their door to let them know Gracy was about to follow us. It seemed they were still in bed at 11 AM as it took them some time to get the dog, Oh well.

We made it back around noon and had a light lunch of leftover cold chicken breast and some raw veggies and dip. After lunch I decided to make the back yard a little bigger as I had one area that was covered in galax. Galax is a native plant used in floral displays and grows abundant here in the mountains. It has a round green leaf and is good ground cover. The area where I left it a couple years ago just doesn't go with the rest of my yard, plus it makes it difficult to mow that area so I took a grubbing hoe, rake, shovel and cutters and began digging this area up. The dirt I shoveled into the golf cart and nourished several flower beds; the galax, roots and other vegetation I pitched down over the bank into a gully where I will burn it when I'm all done. I worked at that until nearly 3:30 when the skies darkened and it began to thunder all around. Boy was I soaked with sweat. Finally it rained and did the skies ever open up. It was a gully washer for about 15 minutes then a nice soft rain for about a half hour.

Prior to the rain I had dug 2 hills of new potatoes. Nancy started supper by frying a couple yellow squash which we doctored up with chipolte pepper spice. Yeow does that give it a smokey favor plus some heat. Next she boiled up a ham bone to make a broth to cook the home grown 'taters and green beans in. YUMM!! After eatin' I washed the dishes and she dried. It looked like more rain but held off for now. There are rumblings of thunder in the distant. The night critters love this weather with the tree frogs, crickets , katydids and cicadas serenading us as I write. Its pitch black out whereas a couple weeks ago I could still see outside at 9:30. I suppose fall is on the way. LATER