Monday

Yikes it was bloody cold this morning with temps down in the 20's, ice on the windshield of the truck, ice on the roof top of the cabin and the rain barrel was frozen over. I was seriously contemplating this morning a move back to warmer climates i.e. Florida. Anyhow after checking Ray's Weather.com I learned the forecast is for a warming up to nearly 70 on Wednesday. Now I can handle that. Seems the locals are very surprised and upset about the cold weather for this time of the year as well. So we will suck it up for now, but ice one more time and I'm heading south for the winter. Even the birds have figured this out.

After our quiet times and breakfast of buckwheat cakes I ventured out to check on the damage from the hard freeze. Seems all the deck flowering plants were wilted as well as the garden plants; basil, peppers and green bean plants. The kale, beets, parsley and oregano plants survived. Luckily I put the volunteer tomato seedling I transplanted from the compost pile into the basement last night. The sunshine was bright with clear blue skies and the temp's finally hit 55 by late afternoon. Actually turned out to be a super day with just a chill in the shaded areas.

Around noon we took off and picked up Helen(Mt.mom) and Joe for an adventure trip to the west side of the county. We eventually entered Virginia looking at some mountain property we were familiar with from a couple years ago when sister Dee and daughters came down thinking they may move down here after retiring from the Army. The property is still undeveloped and pristine. We checked out some property near the New River and drove by where our pastor has built a new house near Bald Knob. It seemed to us the property in the northwestern part of the county is much steeper and we wondered how the farmers managed to make it there years ago. It was sad to see the beautiful leaf colors are just about gone and most everything has turned a dull brown as well as many trees are bare from all the rain and wind this past week.

We had a fun time taking new and different winding roads; many roads went from hard surface to gravel to dirt and back to hard surface. A couple were dead ends at some hardscrabble farms or trailers. We wondered how people were able to drive around these steep roads when it snowed or when the roads iced. There were drop offs with no guardrails or shoulders that were straight down into ravines and creek bottoms. Yeow, I can't imagine how you would recover a vehicle up these steeps embankments. Maybe that's why we see so many old abandon vehicles in fields.

We got back to the cabin around 3 PM so we had a small bowl of bean soup before heading out on an extended hike. It really started warming up by then and was just a pleasure to walk in all the fallen leaves. It was cool enough to keep the flies and mosquitoes from annoying you as you walked. I know the wild animals must love this time of the year, especially the deer that attract pesky deer flies. They are such suck blood suckers that really bite. Speaking of deer while we were eating supper 2 large does(females) came out into the outback yard and ate what appeared to be acorns for 1/2 an hour. They could see movement in the cabin as we moved to the windows to watch and they would stand still and stare at us for minutes at a time. Eventually they meandered off into the woods toward the top of the back trail just as darkness fell. Their colors are really starting to change to a darker color causing them to blend in with all the fallen leaves.

Well I got to see the Angels beat the Yankees in extra innings. That was a great comeback. Well will close for now. Enclosed are a couple freeze damage plant pics and an ice picture from my rain barrel. Did you notice where I carved Nancy's name on the iced windshield on an earlier post? LATER