Early Fall Activities and Munchkin Visitors

All of a sudden, the season that we all love has arrived. We've had a few chilly mornings here in Virginia, and the gorgeous 70's temps are telling us the calendar page has turned to delightful October.

Hannah has been in the garden picking the last of the black-eyed peas, and we've been enjoying them for lunch...just today, in fact!

Someone told us last week that we hadn't posted many garden pictures this season, so here you go...a photo of Trinidad Scorpion peppers growing in our garden:

There's a story behind this particular peck of peppers...my fault, actually. Hannah sent me to the nursery for some hot pepper plants...I unknowingly went to the extreme, heh, heh.

So she planted them anyway, and Jonathan has a co-worker who wanted to take them off our hands and dry them into chili powder. Interesting how many peppers those four plants produced....dozens and dozens! This is just one small batch.

With the garden winding down, Hannah has been knee-deep in soap making, labeling, packaging, and boxing up hundreds of soaps lately for a big order. Here she is meticulously adding toppings to the soaps:

Granny likes to watch her work, and here's Hannah showing her one of her boxed gift sets:

Hannah often packages her soaps in Granny's room to keep Granny company:

Speaking of Granny...continue to pray, please. Most days are very hard for her. Here's Tom sitting and talking with her a few nights ago:

This summer Tom has been quite occupied in his workshop building a dining room table:

He's staining the legs now, and next up is staining the top and apron. A big project finally nearing completion!

In other news, part of our family joined other adventurous ones in our church group recently and hiked the Blue Ridge Tunnel Trail near Afton Mountain one Saturday morning. I thought this was an interesting photo of the dark tunnel:

Munchkin Time!  Eric, Sarah, and children came to visit a couple of weekends ago on their way back home to Georgia from another trip.

It was a short stopover here, but these grandparents will take anything they can get! Always love having them visit, even when this Little Miss was scared of us at first!

Jonathan made sure to get in a brotherly hug with Sarah:

Here are the four cuties all ready to travel back home. Bye Bye, kiddies: 

Well, we sent them off and started prepping for our next guest to arrive a few days later....my friend, Carol from Texas, whom I've known for over 40 years. She was headed home after traveling for a few weeks and stopped by the Mountain Musings B & B.

Carol is an avid hymnologist and was here years ago to teach a class to friends who gathered in our living room.

She brought a bag of favorite hymnals with her, and we sang around the dining table that evening. Very entertaining and enjoyable:

It was fun to catch up with each other's lives.Thanks, Carol, for coming to visit!

So she wrote in our guest book, we took a final photo, and she was on her way back to Texas.

I'll close up this post with something for you to think about:

~Deb

Comments

[Rhonda]

I always love the Mountain Musings updates. Your little piece of heaven is very special indeed. Give our love to Granny especially!

[Shelia]

That very verse woke me up this morning. Thank you.

[Tammy]

Thanks for an update .Looks like everyone has been busy with visitors or visiting family.

Tunnel walk looks fun but still not sure if I would ever do that.

Please tell Granny I say hi and a hug from me.

[Jill]

I always love your blog posts. The dining room table is beautiful! Tom is so talented. How exciting that Hannah has so many soap orders. I ordered myself and really enjoyed them. Prayers are going up for Granny! She looks well and I pray she feels as good as she looks. Blessings to you on this beautiful fall morning.

[victoria]

Busy times at your house. Continuing to pray for Granny!

[Erica]

Praying for all y’all; please keep our family in y’all’s prayers too. The Lord our God is such a good, gentle Father.