My husband and I have been up to the cabin for a week. As usual, it seems we managed to be running up there in the rain. Before we had been on the road forth-five minutes, the rain started coming in. Sometimes it rained steadily, but most of the time it was just a fine mist. We really needed the rain. Things had been dry up here. That is not unusual for this time of year.
It was rainy and cool most of the time we were at the cabin. Temperatures were in the mostly highs in the mid to upper 60s Fahrenheit( approximately 18 - 19 C.) with lows around the mid-50s F. (12 -13 C.) It was definitely weather for a jacket. A couple of nights we had lows in the upper 40s (approximately 8 - 9 C.). We did not start up the wood stove while we were there, but on two nights we did turn on the oil filled radiator heaters. That kept us comfortable snuggled up under warm blankets. It was not windy until the last couple of days we were up there. Generally, we were fairly fogged in with a drizzly mist. On Thursday, the cold front pushed through and it did get windy. That blew away the clouds and gave us a couple of sunny days.
As always, there is work to be done at the cabin. Sticks needed to be picked up. The grass needed mowing. This may be the last time we have to mow grass this year; or perhaps once more. It depends on whether it warms up again up there. After mowing, we could see that leaves were starting to drop. Everything is still green up there, but the leaves on the locust trees are turning golden. There are faint tinges of red on some of the sugar maples. It won't be long before autumn is under way and the leaves are falling. I expect we will be raking leaves from the yard on our next trip up.
This trip up my husband was working on the floor in the attic. It is a work in progress. The old under-layment was crumbling. We had concerns that someone walking up there might eventually go through the ceiling. We replaced the particle board with plywood. A bonus of replacing that sub-floor was that he was able to vacuum up all the dead mice and mouse droppings that were in between the joists. If you have a cabin, you will know that mice are a problem. Sixty years of mice running through the ceiling are a big problem. My husband is an absolute hero for taking on the task of cleaning all that up. Aside from droppings, it was also a mouse graveyard. Saturated insulation was replaced. The cabin smells a lot better now. I spent some porch sitting time working on handmade Christmas presents. In my last blog post I showed a couple of the wool felt needle keepers I was making. I was still working on the pear shaped ones. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack the small box that held the "seeds" so I was not able to work on anything but the back sections of each pear. I also worked on the back section of some of the apple shaped needle keepers.
Our neighbor had a big cook out on Saturday. They brought up a big barbecue smoker and proceeded to cook. They cooked ten pork butts and about twenty pounds of chicken. They also had ribs, clams, oysters, macaroni and cheese, and collard greens. I made a Mississippi Cornbread Salad, and my husband made some fresh bread cooked on the grill. There were other salads and side dishes as well. Many people came despite the uncertain weather. Some stayed in the houses, and some camped out in tents. It was a great party. Most people came for Saturday and left on Sunday morning. There was so much food left over that those of us who stayed over had a feast again on Sunday night. Young and older, we all had a good time. Even the dogs enjoyed the party.
Note: people shown in photos gave permission for their pictures to appear on my blog.
Along with the cookout, they decided to make some apple butter. Some apples that received a lot of sun were ready for picking. Apples trees with more shade have two or three weeks before they are ready to pick. I expect that many of the apples in our yard will be on the ground when we come up next trip. However, there should still be plenty on the tree for picking. I plan on making some apple desserts when I go up next time. Hmmmm......apple sauce, fried apples, apple butter, apple bread, apple cake, apple pie. My mouth is watering just thinking about the good foods to come.
We did make a trip down the mountain to take trash to the dump. While we were on the road we decided to check out a couple of state parks in the area. It used to be that we spent every minute that we were up at the cabin working on repairs. The last few trips up we have taken more time to explore some of the places nearby. This time we stopped by two state parks. They were nice parks with lakes. At Stonehouse park you could take a motor boat out on the lake. At the other park, Thrasher park, no motors were allowed, only non-motorized equipment was allowed. You could fish at the parks provided you had a fishing license.
Thrasher park had a lot of ducks. I believe that most of these were migrating ducks. There was one lone duck that was not with the rest. It was obvious that she was a different type of duck from the rest. She came over in hopes of finding some treats from us. The rest of the ducks showed no interest in us at all. 
Each park had a levee built many feet back from the front of the lake. I don't think I have a picture of it but there was a twelve foot tall (approximately 3.66 meters) flood gauge about eight to ten feet (2.4 to 3.4 meters) up on the side of the levee. There was a sign next to the flood gauge saying not to touch or move the gauge because if the water reached that gauge, it was time to declare an emergency. If the levee were to break, it would send a huge amount of water washing down into the valley below. That is a very scary thought that the water in that lake had the potential to raise that high. Even scarier because there is a hurricane possibly heading toward that area right now, and it could potentially come near that area and dump lots of rain.I have run out of space for posting photos, so I will post some photos from the parks on my next blog post.
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