Thursday

Wow what another beautiful Fall day after a quiet rain which awakened us around 6 AM. It rained for about an hour and half then turned blustery and the leaves began falling and blowing in the crisp 50 degree air. After our quiet time Nancy wanted a mountain breakfast so I fired up the grill and did a pan of hardwood smoked bacon while she heated up some grits, fried a couple cackleberries(eggs) and got the toast ready for some homemade blackberry jam. Wow along with a glass of V-8 with a little Tabasco sauce I was stuffed. That held me until supper time around 5:30.

I headed out with the wood splitter(sledge hammer and wedges) to the back yard where I had sawed up 2 oak trees earlier this summer. The crisp cool air made for a great time of doing some physical exercise(work). I split all but 10 chunks and stacked it for later use by my mountain buddy Norm who uses firewood to heat. Nancy yelled to me that she was ready for a hike and that I needed a break, so off we trekked up to the top of the mountain. It was unbelieveable how many leaves had dropped during the night . The trail was stacked with leaves and still falling. After the hike we headed up to the parkway to check out the Glade Creek Pond for color but much to our disappointment all of the maple trees were just about bare with no color. We did manage to see some colors in other areas and snapped a few pics. I think peak has come and gone from this area especially with the rain and wind.

I put the splitter up for the day and began to dig rocks from the back hill to line the lower yard so I could spread some dirt in the low areas. I dug 5 loads of dirt for the golf cart and then hauled it up to the yard which took me to about 4 o'clock. Time to call it a day as the arm and back muscles were starting to scream, enough. What a fun time for me as I can see progress and a sense of accomplishment.

Nancy had a pot of beef vegetable barley soup cooking and she had made 2 batches of cookies to take on our trip Saturday. I ate a couple of the broken peanut butter ones and were they ever YUMM!! We decided while we were resting that we should get another hike in to the top before eating that soup so off we went. The air was crisp and leaves were flying in the air. What a great Fall walk and the blue skies were brilliant with color. There is still a little color down off the mountain top but lots of the leaves on top were blown off the trees. Supper was yumm!! LATER