Thursday

Well once again I was awake at 5 AM but managed to stay in bed until 6 before getting to cool crisp morning at 60 degrees. There was such stillness at that hour except for the dew dripping off the roof and the lonely call of a crow in the distant. Nancy was still in bed but I had lots planned for the day and I wanted to get an early start before the high temps took over. After my quiet time I mic'd a couple poached home grown eggs from the Dalton Ranch and stirred them into a bowl of instant grits and then heated a couple pieces of leftover ham from supper last night and I had plenty of calories to get through half the day. I loaded up the chainsaw on the golf cart and headed to Ms. Helen's to finish the job I started yesterday when the saw malfunctioned.

I cut up about a chord of firewood and stacked it for my friend Andy as he has a large water heater that uses wood to heat water for his house. Helen and I had a brush fire going as we burned the smaller branches and twigs plus we cleaned up a lot of brush that was in her way for mowing. Nancy came over about 10AM and helped us haul and stack the wood for Andy. Afterwards we headed over to Joe's to visit and see his beautiful flower gardens. We dug up some Larkspur as he had it growing everywhere as well as pulled 1/2 dozen green onions. After leaving Joe's, Nancy dropped me off at Helen's to retrieve the golf cart before heading home to plant the Larkspur in the flower beds.

We had ham sandwiches with the leftover potato salad for lunch which happened to be the best she had ever made. After lunch I got out the bean sprayer and loaded it with full strength bleach and sprayed the front porch side of the cabin as well as the back porch side to kill the black mildew. I will still need to climb the ladder and spray both sides of the cabin as well as the bump out. Where I sprayed the wood exterior looks new. It was too hot to continue as most of what I sprayed was in the shade under the porch roofs. It was down right hot in the sun.

The shade finally got into the lower garden so I headed down to dig dirt up and around the potato's and to transplant about 2 dozen sun flower seedlings into larger pots. Nancy fried up 3 large yellow squash for supper and we had doctored them up with basil, thyme, red pepper and cilantro. That along with cantaloupe made up our supper. After eating I jumped on the riding mower and mowed all the yards except the backwoods yard. After mowing it was still light enough so we took off on our hike for the day. We stopped and visited with Norm before heading back down. The gnats were bothersome this evening so I built a fire when we got back to the cabin and burned trash. That seemed to help a little as it drove the bugs away. I hand watered the gardens just before dark as we have had no rain for about a week.

Well there was a request on the phone recorder for help in the hayfield tomorrow evening so that will be our daily good deed for the day. LATER