Wednesday

Well it was another HOT and Humid day here in the mountains which doesn't happen often but when it does its miserable; actually when it got close to 90 this afternoon we headed for the basement for an hour until we actually got too cool. The morning started with a 6:30 roll out with temps in the middle 60's. After my quiet time and a bowl of Cheerios with a banana, blue berries and a peach I headed out to check on the gardens, so far the deer have stayed away overnight but yesterday after lunch 2 deer in broad daylight were looking at the flowers in the circle drive. Nancy walked out on the porch and they snorted causing her to jump which alerted the deer so down the driveway they went all the way to the bottom.

We headed out about 9 AM for Helen's place to pick wild blackberries, wow it didn't take long for the heat to show and by the time we called it enough we had picked about a gallon and a 1/2 of berries. We headed home and I was soaking with sweat and Nancy was red faced as she doesn't perspire. We cooled off down stairs then had a bite of left overs for lunch. After lunch we got ready to make a batch of jam so I turned the berries into a liquid then separated the seeds while Nancy got the sugar and Surgel ready as well as the jars. We are a team and it only took us about and hour and half to make 10 jars of jam and to have enough berry juice for another 10 jar batch as we didn't have enough lids for the jars for another batch so we froze that liquid. We have to go to Sparta tomorrow for a few items we forgot yesterday in Galax so we will pick up more lids. After the clean up we headed back down to the basement where we read and cooled off again.

There was thunder in the distance and it got cloudy which dropped the temps back into the low 80's. I grilled a couple bone-in pork chops as well as 2 fresh Zucchini's from the garden and Nancy fried up a couple spuds with onions for supper. My was that ever good eatin' and the Zucchini was superb. Well after the clean up I hand watered the gardens before we headed out on our daily hike to the top. I worked up a good sweat once again. We stopped and talked with Joe and Jetta Browning then worked our way back to the cabin. The sun was starting to set and it was a huge red ball in the west as it slid behind Bull Head Mountain.

I just got off the phone with oldest sister, Josie who was giving me the latest up date on Paw Paw(dad). Seems he was walking with a walker today up and down the hallway as well as eating and drinking table food. He expects to be there awhile longer but is progressing nicely, thanks be to GOD. Well better get out of here as its time for a cool shower, LATER Here are a few pics of our friend Kimberly's foal which had become an orphan as her mother suddenly died last week. They are feeding him from a bucket.