Rain, Neighbors, Food and Problem Mats

Thursday & Friday September 24 & 25, 2015              Most Recent Post:
Lewis Mountain Campground                                        Celebrating the Autumnal Equinox – What a Day!
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

 

 

THURSDAY

We’ve sure had a lot of rain here this summer and more is predicted.  I’m so glad that it wasn’t raining on the Equinox so I could do that great hike (see link above) and that it hadn’t rained the day before so that such a rocky trail wasn’t any more wet and slippery than it was.

But today it was rain all day long.  I put the herbs out on our bear box to take advantage of the non treated water.  It definitely perked them up.

 

 

 

Not much to do in the rain but cook and eat.  This was today’s lunch, a home made hummus sandwich with spinach and tomato on whole grain flax bread, accompanied by honey crisp apples, mango and pretzels.

 

 

 

We had some visits from our neighbors.  Not sure I’ve ever seen a gray white tailed deer before.

 

They don’t seem inclined to play ladder ball or be bothered by the rain.

 

 

 

I almost didn’t remember to take this picture of the delicious home made pizza before we gobbled it all up.  Rain of course makes it feel colder inside and out so using the oven to cook the pizza helped keep us nice and toasty.   I do love my gas oven and would never want to replace it with a convection/microwave.  You’d have to have a lot of sunshine to boondock with that.  The pizza has a thin and crispy no oil spelt crust and is cooked on parchment paper so the pizza pan doesn’t have to be oiled either.  Ta Dah – an oil free pizza with tomatoes, onions, garlic, mushrooms, peppers.

 

 

 

In the evening, our neighbors returned in greater numbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FRIDAY

More rain again today but it did clear up in the late after noon.  This morning we warmed up the coach with some chocolate chip pancakes with a mixed fruit topping of bananas, strawberries, blackberries and blueberries.  We love our griddle that fits over the back two burners of our gas stove top.  No need for electricity in order to have pancakes.

 

 

 

Different Neighbors – one of Winnona’s relatives.  Slightly older than she.

 

 

We’re really glad to see these Braves that seem to be in great shape despite their age.

 

 

These are the problem mats referred to in the title.  In January of 2014 we went to Beasley Manufacturing in Center Hill Florida to buy some outdoor mats like the ones so highly recommended to us by several friends.  Their experience was that these mats do not blow up, do not kill the grass and will last forever. We told the salesman  of our friends experience and that we wanted the same thing.  He confirmed the virtues of these mats several times.

We bought two of these mats so we could have a narrow or a wide patio, as we chose, that would run the length of Winnona. I really like that about them.

But we have to warn that not all the mats at Beasley behave like we were told.  We have had pretty constant troubles with these blowing up and over in wind and as you can see they definitely kill the grass beneath them.  We had this one out for a week before moving it so that the grass wouldn’t be completely dead and the area in front of Winnona a mud pit.   We took the mats up later today to give the area some sun and dry the mats off in what sun there was.

On the plus side, they do seem to have held up well and show no signs of wear but in our experience, you’ll have mud underneath them if you stay more than a few days.  Getting the mud off the mats is yet another chore. 

Tomorrow is predicted to be a great weather day so I’m off for a road trip to the East.