Fog Setting the Ridge Line

Every direction. Whichever porch you've chosen for the evening. You'll see the fog roll in from the mountains. On rainy days like yesterday the fog starts out as tendrils of steam rising from behind a line off beyond the low pastures. Like a stalagmite rising from a cave floor. Wisping and twisting up to touch the clouds above. Then another will start to move, and another. And then there are sheets of the stuff rising from the ridges and roiling in over the pasture to envelop the valley.

The fog is just starting to retreat over the fields and back up to the creases and folds in the ridge line above the house as I type this. We watched it roll in last night after dinner with bourbon in hand and we're watching it stream away into the daylight with coffee and a quick check of the outside world on the 'puter.

I'm at the farm for a week and will get that view several more times. I'll also have my camera out for some meals I'm sure. I just couldn't be bothered last night, the first at the farm this year and beginning of the first week I've taken here since at least 20 years ago.

I awoke this morning with no alarms, no clack-clack-clack, no snooze buttons, and no purpose other than a cup of coffee and a laptop until the other guests rose to the mountain morning and we settled in to fix breakfast. After that there may be a trip to town, or I may begin to put the grill together, or mom and I may dig up a few of the grass patches over larger stones to see what kind of 'wall making stones' we have. I'll keep you posted. I'll likely be writing as the fog rolls in over the fields and chases the deer as they wander up from the creek in the evening. Or maybe I won't get around to writing again until the morning with fresh cup of coffee.

Last night it was lamb burgers and some of the homemade mint jelly mom made last year with a few Brandywine tomato slices. Her tomatoes are a week away, so there came to us from Elkins via Kentucky. But there will be Mortgage Lifters and German Stripeys and Cherokee Purples soon.  The Mortgage Lifters may reach a pound. The cherries are ready to eat now. I picked eight or ten green peppers yesterday afternoon and ate the last pea that the pea vines were giving up.

The potato salad was a mix of Yukon Golds and 'a russet that I needed to use' and had an orange hue because the eggs mom gets from her neighbor are that fresh and the yolks that bright. The cucumbers from the garden were bathed in cilantro with a slight bite from red onion. More cucumbers are probably ready today.

A few ears of corn were consumed as a second course and we debated whether they were the advertised "Bi-Color" or instead a variety like "Peaches & Cream." We believe the Elkins store at which the corn was purchased has likely mislabeled this batch (not that it stopped us from eating much corn). I didn't even put butter on mine. Mom's is a late start. But she'll have fresh corn for a Labor Day barbeque, and that's not bad timing.