Monday

The morning started with a wake up around 7:30 and then our quiet times and afterwards a lite breakfast. Nancy with her usual boring bowl of oatmeal and I had a bowl of Cheerios with blueberries. After breakfast I headed out to check on the gardens and flowers beds as well as the new seedlings. I noticed I have several Swiss chard seedlings popping through as well as 2 kinds of lettuce. These are cool weather plants and with the cool nights they should do well especially if we get warm afternoons. I transplanted 5 Basil seedlings that I started from seed. This herb doesn't like cool weather so I will keep them in pots and move them into the basement at nights when it gets a little cooler.

I noticed the spaghetti squash was turning a nice lite yellow so I thought today would be a good day to harvest it. I have another one almost as large as this one and at least 4 more in various sizes. I like the taste of this squash and you can add most anything to enhance its flavor. Tonight I cut it in half and placed it cut side down on a cookie sheet and baked it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes after scraping the seeds out of the middle. After it baked I took a fork and dug the meat out which looked just like cooked spaghetti. We buttered it and added to taste on our plates various spices and even Parmesan cheese. We tried ginger, nutmeg and just plain butter and it was all good. I had half of it left over and we can add spaghetti sauce or whatever to it at a later date. This squash will become a favorite and its not mushy; although fried yellow squash is a great favorite.

We decided to take off on our first hike of the day around 11 to the top of the mountain. We saw nary a soul so we headed on back down for a bite of lunch. We had one of our favorites; sardines, onions and mustard on a saltine, yikes is that ever good for you and dewisheous. After lunch I sharpened the chain saw then headed out to the backwoods yard where I took down a large oak that was starting to die. It had a large limb that was bare of leaves and partially rotten. That took me a couple hours by the time I sawed it up in stove wood length, piled the brush, stacked and then raked the area. Nancy came out at the end and helped with piling the brush but mainly she sat in the golf cart talking with Amy.

Today was our oldest grand daughter Ava's, first day of kindergarten. She went a 1/2 day today but starts with a full day from now on. Sam will be lost without Ava to play with. After the tree work we rode out to the mailbox on the golf cart as it was going on 5 PM. Nancy put a couple chicken breasts on to boil and then made Jasmine rice in the chicken broth, yikes along with spaghetti squash we had a bland supper which was just what Nancy's tummy needed. Yesterday she suffered from a tummy ache after eating spicy the past couple days.

After supper and the cleanup we decided to take another hike so down the road we went to the creek and then walked up the back trail along the creek which was our first time doing that this year. We tromped through the woods and came out across from our friend Daisy's property. We then walked on the road up past the old Todd Place to the road behind our property and then down the trail through our woods. Yikes was that ever a good hike and just what we needed to help work on this tummy fat. We milled around in the yard gathering beetles and listening to them crunch under my boot.

Well that was about it for the day as we are now watching the Little League World Series playoffs. Enclosed are a couple pictures of the spaghetti squash, LATER