The Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes races were just held across my roof. Fuzzy Butt won by a tail. What a commotion these squirrels make when they get to chasing one another up there. They come up the Dogwood trees on the front of the house and go back down through the Pussy Willow tree beside the back door. They used to jump from the roof to a branch from the Poplar tree but I cut that back out of reach  which was quite a suprise to one of them the morning after I did it and it made the jump and barely caught itself on the edge of the branch.

The bluejays have been putting up their own commotion this morning too. It might have had to do with the fact that the yellow cat came through the yard again this morning. It stopped at the poplar tree, checked for squirrels to chase and went on its merry way. That cat needs to come back here and catch that darn vole' that runs across my patio. But, it leaves my birds alone and only chases the squirrels. We had a hawk fly in yesterday and snatch up a small bird of some kind and sit thre on a braancj and eat every morsel of it.

My chore for the day is to take the truck to have the servicing done. It has been a long time since I did that. I don't drive it a lot so it can go a year between servicing and still not reach recommended mileage. I probably don't really need a truck but you can't haul a lot of mulch  or furniture in the back of a Cadillac. Besides, I'm making my last truck payment this month and it only has about 35,000 miles on it and is in perfect condition. I doubt I will ever have to buy another one.

Ms. Kate fixed fried chicken yesterday for lunch. She makes the second best fried chicken that I've ever eaten. Her mama's was better somehow; or maybe it is the memory of her doing it for us that adds to the taste. The first meal Ms. Kate ever cooked for me when we were dating was fried chicken. Gosh, that has been probably 53 years ago. My mother made terrible fried chicken, but then there wasn't much that she cooked that I ever thought was very good. For whatever reason she never got the skin on the chicken crisp. Maybe it was because my father liked it that way; who knows. But, --- a good indication of how my mother cooked is demonstrated by the fact that when we had pot luck dinners at church, she was only ever asked to bring a salad or dessert. At one time she made good salads and also made a really good apple pie.

Speaking of apple pies and such. We went to the orchard last week and picked up a buschel of peaches to put up. They aren't quite ripe just yet but we will be putting them in the freezer by the week end. And --- the folks at the orchard told us that "U-pick" apples may be coming on in another three weeks or so. That means apple pie, and I love me some apple pie. Ms. Kate uses no less than six or eight apples in a pie depending on size. If they are small, she'll use ten. So, we'll go out and pick a couple of buschel at a time. It makes me hungry to just think about it. When I was a kid, our next door neighbor always thought that he had to put a slice of chedder cheese on his apple pie. He was famous for saying; "Apple pie without some cheese, is like a kiss without a squeeze."

I've set here long enough and I must get busy. Besides that, I've made myself hungry. I hope you have a blessed day.