Monday

Well summer is back in full force with temp's in the 80's and high humidity and its still in the month of February, yikes. The morning started with big mouth next door at 5:07 crowing but I managed to tune him out until the alarm sounded at 6 so the new day began. After my quiet time and a bowl of oatmeal I pedalled out to the rec for 2 plus hours of pickle ball. There was a large crowd once again and the play was continuous and fast with some long rallies and lots of wet shirts. Afterwards I stopped by the library for a couple reads before heading home.

Amy brought Sam by while she ran some errands so he and I stayed out in the back yard where he played with Chester and looked for buggies. He is such a cute boy and just loves to play in the dirt. We stayed outside until it got really humid and hot even in the shade of the big oak. I then read to him until it was lunch time when Amy and Ava showed up. Sam loves his big sister and she plays with him as well. They are best buds at times and so cute together until he tells her she is in "time out", then she shows her feelings. He is a stinker at times!

After lunch Nancy drew a dinosaur on paper and hopes to be able to transfer it to the top of a cake she baking for his birthday. Sam wants a dinosaur cake for his birthday which is Saturday. He will be 2 and its Nancy's birthday as well; she will be 55, yikes where did the time go? All of a sudden the kids are fascinated by dino's, seems the little boy across the street is into them and has tons of the stuffed toys and now our kids are into them as well; fads at the this age! Oh well it should be interesting to see how this cake turns out; pictures to follow.

After they left I read and napped until it was time to vacuum the house and get ready for supper. Nancy went to pick up GG and I cut Swiss chard to sauteed. The nematodes have moved in on the chard and this maybe the last big mess as I pulled up 3 plants to see why they were dying and found the roots looks like knots. The microscopic worms suck the life out of the plants and cause the leaves and stems to shrivel up and eventually die. The only natural preventive is marigolds and I have them around my tomato plants but you have to treat the soil with a liquid killer that is no longer on the market to really kill them. Anyhow we had a nice long stretch of good eatin from the row of chard and I'm going to replace it with kale as its going wild this year. The best kale I've ever grown and its so succulent and green, eventually the heat will get everything especially if it stays this hot as it is now. Nancy also made a nice turnip casserole with bread crumbs on top; much like scalloped potato's, very tasty to go along with meatloaf and chard. I had picked some fresh broccoli which are very small heads that sprout up on the stalks where the main head has been harvested to add to the supper.

Betsy came by and polished off the turnip casserole as well as had a plate of the meatloaf and then gave GG a ride home. We just chilled watching FOX News until it was race time then I headed into the bedroom to read and watch the Daytona 500 Race. I must have dozed off and on but did awaken to where a race car struck the back of a truck carrying jet fuel which caught on fire, wow what a unique occurrence never before seen at a major sporting event. I shut the lights out after 10 PM and will read about it this morning in the paper(on the Internet). LATER