Monday

Well another busy day with lots of different scenery. The morning started with a 6 AM wake up. The birds were singing and the dew was dripping from the bump out onto the main roof before finding its way into my flower beds. It was 60 degrees with just a little chill in the air. After my quiet time and a bowl of oatmeal with blue berries, cinnamon and a really ripe banana I headed out to check on the gardens. Luckily the deer scare fence is still working as there was no damage once again. We had planned to go to Virginia to pick black raspberries as they were in and needed picked so we headed out about 9:30.

This was our third year to pick berries at Linda's place, she is the sister of our good friends the Crouse's from Sparta. Her farm is just immaculate with berry vines that look like a vineyard. Well we picked 2 gallons in about an hour and a half then headed to Galax to do some shopping and have lunch at Subway. It was nearly 2:30 before we ever got back to the cabin. We decided since the freezer bags we used for the berries were leaking that we would just go ahead and make up 1 gallon into jam; the other gallon we divided up and froze into cobbler size bags. I think we got enough for 6 cobblers in the future. The first gallon made 21 jars of jam with a couple jars the half size. Yumm is all I can say about this special berry. Nancy also picked a pint of red raspberries for her oatmeal in the morning.

I grilled a couple bone-in pork chops along with a fresh salad and a can of peas for supper. After the cleanup we headed over to Eddie and Kimberly's farm to see their new colt that was born yesterday. He is a cutie just like the one we saw at Mechelle's farm yesterday. I also gathered up several 5 gallon cans of horse manure for my compost pile. We got back to the cabin about 8 PM then I decided to do a little work in the basement. A major thunderstorm with severe lightning and a downpour happened for about an hour. The lights popped on an off but we never lost power completely of course we had to unplug everything for fear of lightning damage. The lightning arrestor in the basement cracked and popped several times. Well I finally came up to watch the Ray's as they were on prime time T.V. and the Reds smoked them 5 to zip, bummer. Well tomorrow is another busy work day, Later. Enclosed are a few pics from today.