Monday

Today was rather a boring day after all the excitement on Sunday but we did find the time to visit with the Browning's (Joe and Jetta) after lunch. Actually Jetta is quite a seamstress as we learned last year when she altered some of Nancy's clothing and she has offered to do the same this year. We took a dress up so she can shorten it and take in the sides as Nancy has dropped a few pounds and thus a couple inches.

The morning started out with the usual wake-up around 6 :30 and roll out around 7 to 58 degrees. It was a little warmer than the past week or so but was still a big difference from the 75 degrees in Seminole which has been reaching into the 90's by the afternoon and with the high humidity its almost unbearable to be outside. Anyhow after my cup of tea and my quiet time I headed out to check on the gardens. I found 4 more hills of sweet corn up and a couple more hills of 1/2 runners as well. The red potatoes are up as well as the beets are showing second and third leaves. We are looking forward to adding beet greens to our salads which are the best along with fresh kale. I had 3 seedlings of kale that lived and are now thriving to some extent as kale is mainly a cold weather plant but it does well in Florida in the heat and we added it to our soups, especially Zuppa soup and to our salads as well.

After the walk around I headed in to have a leftover buckwheat cake with molasses for breakfast. After eating I headed down into the basement as the Pinot Noir must has just about finished fermenting, so I cleaned up my buckets and siphoned the must out of the fermenter into them and discarded the oak and grape sediments. I then transferred the must back into the clean fermenter and set the air lock once again. I checked the specific gravity of the must with my hydrometer and found it to be where its supposed to be at this stage of turning the grape juice into wine. I will let it set in the basement where the temp is a constant 60-65 degree range and perfect for aging the must. That took me a couple hours as you must sterilize any part that comes in contact with the must. The color of the must is a combination of purple and red and it tastes pretty good as well. The wine will be ready to bottle around the middle of July. The next step is to clear or defuse the must and then age it in glass carboys or large glass jugs.

We headed off to town to renew once of Nancy's prescriptions and headed to the Mustard Seed dinner for lunch, yikes to they ever have a great lunch. I had the combo of a bowl of French onion soup with a Robin wrap that come with a Clauson pickle as well and Nancy had the Robin wraps plate(2) that comes with pasta salad and a pickle, Dewisheous (as grand daughter Annsley would say). We stopped at Lowes grocery on the way out of town and got back to the cabin around 1:30. Nancy loaded up her dress and shoes and we drove the golf cart to the top of the mountain to meet with Jetta so she could measure Nancy for the dress alteration and we stayed and visited with them afterwards watching the Hatfield/McCoy documentary that we missed after watching 3 nights of that saga. The 30 minute or so documentary was very helpful as well and true to what Joe knew the feud was about from his family. It was sprinkling so we didn't want to get caught in a downpour so we headed back down to the cabin after a delightful visit with them. Joe lent me Bill O'Reilly's best seller KILLING LINCOLN as that was a book I've been intending to read. I just finished The HUNGER GAMES book 2 and I must say I'm not a science fiction lover as this was a combination of that and individual survival which I love. At times I found it to be juvenile but it held my interest to the end.

We later took a hike after the threat of rain went away and I seemed to aggravate the hyper-extended left knee somewhat again so I soaked it in a tub of hot water as well as gave it an ultrasound treatment. This tilted land is tough on the healing process for that knee, oh well. We had left over spinach casserole, a salad and a burger for supper, once again dewisheous. We stayed in and watched the tube and it was after 9 and I could still see the off the porch and into the woods. I got involved in a journal on the Internet from the Crazyguyonabike.com website about a trip from Florida to Alaska on a bike so it was nearly 10:30 and I had forgot to write this post. The pictures are awesome these riders post with their journals. This is my favorite all time website. My eye lids were heavy so I decided to post this on Tuesday morning. I did read the first chapter in KILLING LINCOLN that's going to be a fantastic read before lights out, LATER