July 1st through 14th 2008

July 1st Tuesday: Temp: 76 high/57 low: Worked on July 1st in the evening. Now it is cool out, we had to run the ceramic heater. I got a dehydrator for food and I am trying it out with the blueberries we got. It makes a bit of noise, although not as much as the AC does, but it does generate a bit of heat. So we decided to do it outside rather than in the camper.

We had it going during the night and the next morning we had dried berries. They were really dried out, probably should have just done it for 12 hours rather than 16 hours. But you live and you learn, right?

July 2nd Wednesday: Temp 83 hi/61 low.  Tried out some of the berries, most were really dried out, which is fine. Also, I changed around some of the storage containers so that we now have no plastic bag containers. I got rid of the pasta boxes and we now have everything in storage containers. I did that because I am worried about ants. We seem to get them at the drop of a hat, so the less that is lying about, the better. I worked today, but before I went to work, I played in the garden, getting the tomato plants to go up the trellis a bit more, plus I am getting good pickings of basil, chives, and the flowers of nasturtium. I am starting to see flowers for some of the other plants, like the zucchini and squash, and tomatoes. I will have pictures up in a couple of days so you can see what the garden is looking like now.

July 3rd Thursday: Temp 89 hi/562 low - my one day off this week. I used the time to go to the post office in Dumfries, go to the library there as well, and went to Aldi's. Whenever I go to Aldi's, it really is for "Provisions" to get stuff that we will use later, not right now. 

Got a bunch of books, including a book club book that I had reserved: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. See the right column. Plus a couple of environmental books including the Live Earth Global Warming Survival Book - a fun read especially in the back. I would recommend going to your library to get the book. I'm reading a couple of different books at the same time, The Short History, Three Cups of Tea, The Hot Topic,

July 4th Friday: Temp 79 hi/68 low - Happy Independence Day!  Unfortunately, the day turned out to be quite rainy. I do not think they did the fire works around town today because of the rain. I worked a slightly strange shift - from 10 am to 6 pm, part of the time was busy, part of the time not so busy because of the rain.   Just found out they did do the fireworks as it was not raining when it was time to do them, but it was very foggy out.

I needed to get out, I think because of a few things, including the weather. And since we really could not cook up anything on the grill because of the rain, we went out to Applebee's restaurant. Had me a nice steak, Sasha had Oriental Chicken Salad, and we had appetizers and dessert.

July 5th Saturday: Temp 83 hi/68 low drizzle and rain - early day for me for work.

July 6th Sunday: Temp 81 hi/65 low, drizzle, rain, and fog - BUT we still went for a hike up to Mill Mountain and Wolk Gap area. It was only a 1.6 mile round trip hike but it really showed us how out of shape we had gotten. The elevation change was approximately 600 feet, which is not much, but we were slow, it took about 30 minutes to go 0.8 miles and 600 feet change in elevation. We should have been able to do that a lot faster. We took a look around (pictures coming soon! Plus a video) could not see anything but fog, and then started to head down. I heard rain on the leaves above us, and so we really tried to get down fast. We got down in about 15 minutes. I had not brought a change in clothes (Sasha brought a different shirt, so my shirt was a bit wet.

We then took the long way back going in a round about way back to the campground. There were two wineries that I wanted to check out, but it seems as though both of them have bellied up. Could not even find one of them, and the other was closed. Of course there were signs saying wineries, but obviously the state has not yet taken the signs down.

We then got a pizza to take back to the camper, before I headed back to work at 2 pm. Got to work a little before 2 pm, always good to get there a few minutes before, so that I can find out any news about people coming in, or things of that nature.

July 7th Monday: hi 87/low 66 with some rain:

July 8th Tuesday: hi 90/low 65:

July 9th Wednesday: In Winchester: hi 86/low 72 (hardly any change between day and night) But we were in Fairfax, visiting Sasha's sister and her kids (two of the three) Kristina and Ally, and Ally's friend Lauren.

July 10th Thursday: In Winchester: hi 83/low 64

July 11th Friday: In Winchester: hi 87/low 59: Because of a slight scheduling snafu, I got the day off. Did not realize it until about 11:30 am when I got the call from work. Seems I was supposed to work at 8 am not 1 pm like it was on the schedule. Anyway, I was headed to the post office in Dumfries and when I found out I did not have to work, I got the mail and headed over to Jo Jo's - an ice cream place to get some shakes for Yvonne and the kiddies.

Then I headed back to Yvonne's for the rest of the day. We did the pool thing and even got Yvonne in there for a while, then had an awesome lunch by the pool.  After lunch we went back in the pool for a while, then played on the Wii for a couple of rounds before heading up to the club so that Kristina could get her swim team practice in at 5 pm. Yvonne and I played beach volleyball with some of the older kids and adults at the club (OMG! I am totally out of shape when I comes to playing that game, and to think I did that in college (for a couple of seasons anyway!))

July 12th Saturday: hi 91/low 64 and humid in the evening. Worked that morning and after I got off, had lunch, took a snooze and then worked a little in the garden. I had not seen the garden since Tuesday and drum roll please:
I had a Zucchini which I plucked (will have a picture soon - before we eat it!), several squashes are forming now, a cucumber is about 3 inches, the basil and chives are looking great, the tomatoes have flowers, the peppers have flowers, but I have pulled up the radishes, they did not get a root, just the leaves came up. Oh, and the arugula is doing great. The carrots are sprouting the leaves right now, so hopefully the carrots will form.

I also, when I came into the garden, saw a bunny rabbit. Don't know how he got in, but I as I was throwing some of the leaves over to the side, they must have hit him, because he ran away. I guess I am going to have to rip out some more of the overgrowth so that these types of creatures have no cover and hopefully do not come in.

July 13th Sunday: hi 91/low possible showers later. I have to work today, but we went to the pool first, got about 20 laps in (one way 25 m) of breaststroke and freestyle. It was nice, not too hot yet. It is supposed to Thundershower later today, hopefully will happen after I do the garden. I plan to go to the garden after work, get some arugula for dinner.

July 14th Monday:

Expenses: July Can we have low expenses?

Check out Next Month: August, a couple of birthdays, More Berry picking (and hopefully some veggies from the garden) and hot weather!