Tuesday

Well it was another warm morning with temps in the middle 60's but the humidity had left so even though it reached the low 80's it was really quite pleasant. After our usual routine of quiet times and an outside check for deer and slug damage I microwaved a couple leftover buckwheat cakes for breakfast while Nancy had her bowl of oatmeal with blueberries. We had made arrangements to head to Virginia and pick black raspberries so we got ready to do that and then decided while we were near Galax to go ahead and shop for Amy and Tylers visit this Friday. The farm we picked berries at is just absolutely beautiful and is for sale for about 1/2 million or so as the husband passed away last year and its just to much for the wife to care for. This place was built by the husband as he was a general contractor and its top of the line with just gorgeous views, gardens and overall great landscaping with several acres and another guest house on the property, oh well.

After picking berries we headed to Walmart for some shopping and stocked up on grand baby goodies and groceries. The kids will be here on Friday and will stay for about a week. We hope to head to Winchester, Va. on Monday for a couple days to see my family and to introduce our grand babies to them.

We got back around 1:30 and had a salad for lunch then we headed out for our first hike of the day around 2:30. Afterwards we did a couple loads of laundry and I headed down to give neighbor Gerald a hand before doing a little garden work. We decided to go visit Grant and Shirley another neighbor who is up for a week at their cabin. We made plans to play Sequence on Thursday night with the group so it looks like about 10 players, should be a raucous time.

Nancy fixed a great penne pasta with butter, garlic, fresh oregano and basil to go with grilled salmon smothered in fresh dill and I sauteed fresh Swiss chard(out of my garden) with garlic in olive oil. YUMMM, what a supper!!! I hand watered the garden after supper until it was time for our second hike of the day around 7 PM. Wow was it ever beautiful and visibility on top was great. We could see Pilot Mountain and the area towards Mt.Airy. It was a great hike and the evening shadows were evident when we got back to the cabin so we cranked up the golf cart and took a ride over to visit with another neighbor we hadn't seen for a couple weeks. It turned out to be a great day seeing folks we hadn't seen in awhile, seeing some unbelievably beautiful country and eating good. LATER