Country Walk, Puttering and Enjoying Father's Day Together

The Ridge

It’s funny but at my age, I’m always ready and happy to go to bed at night. Our bed is so inviting, usually because I can’t possibly stay up any longer. That pleasant feeling while curling up under the covers with Clemson at my back lasts mere minutes before I am off to sleep. A good night is when I don’t recall moving or waking at all and this morning, Sunday, June 16^th, that first wakefulness came at 5:15. It felt later because I’d slept so well, with many dreams.

Last night's sky

and sunset

Bill was stirring and got up soon after 5:30 but I held off, stretching and resting until closer to 6. When the sunshine greeted me and there was no breeze to speak of, my answer to Bill’s ‘want your tea?’ was ‘no, thanks, I’m going for my walk.’ No question. It was 47F/8C and so I needed a hoody, my puffy vest, safety cover and gloves but it was a beautiful walk. No traffic yet, it was too early for the locals to be up and about.

This morning's wake up call

When I got back, I took a couple of pictures of my garden finds and checked out where Mrs. Turtle was trying to nest yesterday. I just see a little hole in the dirt so she was obviously unsuccessful. I haven’t seen any more than 3 doing this so they are confused with the turn of this season as well. I hope to see more of them here on in. Get laying, Mommas!  Bill finished his coffee and went down to the Hangar while I sat with my tea and read blogs.

Beauty day for a walk with my shadow

The temperature was rising and by 9:30 it was a nice 59F/15C already. Some clouds were skimming across the sky but we’re hoping to reach 71F today. 

My garage sale finds

Is it true?

I made breakfast and called Bill in for around 10 and after dishes, he went back out to his plane. I had a coffee and then took the can of paint down to put a second coat of gray on the sign. Hopefully tomorrow, I can start the lettering. Oh! I don’t have any white paint. Hmm, maybe the letters will be black. I texted Donna to forewarn her. 😃

Quite a bit lighter than the original gray

Bill came up from the Hangar just after Patrick called at 1. He was getting calls from his girls too. By the end of the day, all 4 had contacted him and so did my 2. That makes his day complete! 

Bill, doing what he loves on Father's Day

We took the mulch and landscape screen around to a few of the trees. Bill wanted to cover the area around their trunks so it would be easier to cut and trim the grass. He cut the material until we ran out and I covered them with mulch. A few trees got done and then I used mulch around my new gardens. 

We are pleased with the efforts today
things look much nicer

We both had a cold diet soda and since a bag of Lay’s plain chips fell into his Costco cart yesterday, we had a handful of those too. Tsk tsk. They were good, it has been a long time since they’ve crossed our tongues. A savory salty snack. Then it was snooze time and Bill stretched out in his recliner. Clemson wanted upstairs, so after lifting him up, I stretched out on the sofa with my book. I needed to get deeper into it, at least past Chapter 2!

our beautiful peonies

 I read 3 or 4 chapters before laying the book down and closing my eyes too. Sleeping in the afternoon doesn’t bother my nighttime sleeping, at least so far it never has. That lasted all of 15 minutes and I was awake again. When Bill woke up, half hour later and went outside, Clemson came down and settled at my feet, in his own bed. He realized that I was ignoring his pleas for a 3:30 supper and next thing I knew, he was sleeping.

I slipped outside for a walk down the lane and then took my book and chair down to sit outside the Hangar. The clouds had moved off and it was incredibly warm at 66F/19C. Really, a perfect day. At 5 I came back inside and made myself a cup of creamy tea. Later than my normal ‘tea time’ but I enjoyed it. Now, I hope THAT doesn’t keep me awake tonight!

I think he has forgotten all about supper

For supper, instead of barbecuing, I’d thawed some ground beef so planned to make lasagna in Madame IP. That will give us leftovers for another night at least and we can use Weber Q tomorrow. I found a recipe that indicated a much faster cooking time than the hour and a half it usually takes in an oven. That shortened time includes browning the beef. Sounds good to me! Clemson got his supper at 4:45 and I jotted more on my post.

Chippy was watching me

And I was watching this turtle

Clem and I sat outside for a few minutes and the sun was hot. I had changed into shorts and a tank top and it felt wonderful. In the shade, it was a little too cool dressed this way. I read for a while and then realized that time had slipped by.

 It was 5:45 when I moved inside to start supper. After browning the ground beef with onions, chives and spices, I added mushrooms and sauce. In the inner pot, I layered the noodles, meat sauce and cheese until it was full.

this guy was watching me paint

22 minutes on Manual, natural release for 10 minutes and supper will be served. It isn’t the normal size of a pan but it will be deeper and servings will be smaller. Also it sure beats the hour cooking time. At 7, we were eating an absolutely awesome meal of lasagna. Bill isn’t one of those people who comments on my meals. He has always been that way and I’ve grown used to it. No matter how much time I put into making an awesome dinner, I still have to ask ‘how is it?’ to get ‘it’s good’.

These are my geraniums on the fence line near the road
If you can look closely, you might see the busy bees pollinating

Since Madame IP entered our life, I hear “this is good, dear”, “this is really nice” and tonight “we haven’t had a bad meal in the IP once”. Okay, you can tell from that that we have no regrets about buying this appliance. There is enough left over for at least one more night, maybe two if I make salad as well. We discussed having one tonight but decided we didn’t need it. 

Oh Madame IP, we love you!

This has been a really nice day. Some things got done around the property. Bill got started on the tail assembly of the Telemaster and Clemson caught up on his sleep. I hope yours was a wonderful day too! More on the way!

Sunset started out like this

Then turned into this

 Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there and to 2 special Dads in heaven.

And before it was done
sorry for the blur
Good night from the Ridge!

Thank you for visiting us today.