Thursday

Well the rain finally stopped after 5 straight days of rain, fog and overcast. We saw the sun which was quite hot and bright in the late afternoon for the first time in days. It actually got into the low 80's as the day wore on. Next week we are looking at lows in the 40's and highs only to the upper 60's. Today is probably going to be the last hot day of this year, yikes is that ever hard to believe.

We started the day around 7:30 then after our quiet times Nancy had oatmeal with fruit for breakfast and I ate a couple leftover buckwheat cakes slathered with real butter and molasses. We got ready and headed out to the big city of Galax to do some shopping. I gassed up at $3.57 up from $3.42 from last week at the same station then we headed to Wal-Mart. We had to finish buying birthday gifts for our youngest grandson Gabe who will be 2 on the 18th of this month. We just need to box them up and get them in the mail tomorrow. We loaded up on a few groceries then headed home. We were nearly creamed by a large buck who just missed us as he ran across the parkway in front of us on the way to town and we saw a doe and 2 fawns standing along the parkway on the way home. Must be the day for deer to be seen in public.

It was close to 2 PM before we finally had a bite of lunch after getting home and putting away our goodies. After eating I did a few garden chores then attempted to make a fire in the pit so I could burn 6 bags of accumulated garbage. The cans and bottles I drop off at a dumpster and the rest I burn in the fire pit. Well all of my kindling was soaked from the past several days of rain but eventually I got a good fire going and burned the trash. We then took off on our daily hike to the top of the mountain. The woods were still quite wet as was the grass and weeds that lined the paths. We saw Joe and Jetta and sat around on their front porch visiting until we had cooled down from our hike. I brought them a spaghetti squash from my garden and that will be a first for them to try. It looked like it was going to rain so we took off for the cabin and we did a have a minor rain shower for just a few minutes on the way down. The rain cooled things down just a bit and felt wonderful as it really was quite warm today.

It was nearly 5 PM so we decided to make fajitas out of the smoked leftover chicken. Nancy cut up and sauteed a bunch of green peppers, onions and fresh mushrooms while I got some corn on the cob ready for the microwave. Yikes the fajitas were great and made good eatin' with a little red pepper diced on top with sour cream. The corn was magnificent as well with a little butter and salt; these ears came from the corn patch on top the coon was tearing up. Once again the animal cage was empty; but I left it set in the garden just in casre the coon came back. After supper I piddled around with the fire cleaning up more down sticks in the backwoods yard and getting them to burn.

Well it was a rather warm day but as evening is upon us the temps have dropped a little and the night insects are loud. Wow is it ever pitch black outside at a little after 8PM, LATER