Friday

It was a chilly morning with temps down into the high 30's, yikes it's winter time if we were in Florida. The morning was a little breezy but soon gave way to bright blue skies and sunshine. I headed out after a boring bowl of oatmeal with blue berries and a banana. I carted my seedlings out from beneath the back porch into the sunlight and gave them a little drink with my spray bottle. I had made plans the night before to help out our senior mountain buddy Norman with getting in his winter wood. I had sawed the oak trees down in July and now they had dried out and are now ready for the fireplace. Another neighbor Joe, also uses wood to help heat his place as well so he came down with Norman to help get the wood back up the mountain on Normans trailer.

Well we had a little difficulty getting the trailer out of the woods as the trailer was wider than my golf cart trail so we had to pull a couple large stumps out of the way. That probably took more time than actually loading the wood. We took 3 trailer loads out and stacked it under his porch out of the weather and had enough to give Joe about a chord of wood as well. Both were extremely grateful for my wood and help hauling it back to their places. I found the job rewarding knowing I was helping out a couple fellows who are not in the best of health. That kind of physical work is recreation to me.

We finished around 3PM then Nancy and I took a ride over to a young couple who bought an acre of property just down the road from us a couple years back. They hail from Charleston, S.C. and they have a large motor home they camp out in and they brought several friends with them who are also camping out; but in tents. Brr its going to be a nippy night but all their kids will just love the experience, especially since we told them of the recent bear sighting this week just about 1/2 mile down the road. Dave and Melissa now have twins girls which happened along since we last saw them; to go along with their 4 year old Cooper.

We rode around in the golf cart looking for the black bear but saw no trace of the critter. We got ready to head to Sparta for a benefit barbecue dinner at the high school. After eating we rode around Allegheny County looking at some of the last of the Fall colors and it appears peak has passed this area. The back yard is covered once again with fallen leaves. I did manage to fill all the flower beds with top soil the past couple days.

Well it was a good evening for a large bon fire after getting back to the cabin just before dusk. I burned a couple large bags of trash as well. We saw the temp's dropping down into the low 50's as we made our way home from Sparta. The forecast is for frost tonight so I covered all of my volunteer tomato plants and moved my seedlings into the basement; but tomorrow and Sunday the temps are supposed to climb to the high 60's with no rain until Monday. LATER