Happy Election Day!  The providing of flu vaccine at no cost to residents on Election Day is a Mendota tradition.   I met my girlfriend Helene (aka Dr. Helene Holbrook) down at the Community Center at 7 am this morning. She had managed to locate a small amount of flu vaccine and although she could not vaccinate everyone, she could get to a few as they came in to vote. We are so grateful to Helene, Patti Vanhook and our friends at ETSU for taking such good care of us. There are folks here who would not otherwise get the vaccine if this effort was not made.  Hopefully if more becomes available, more folks can be vaccinated.

Election Day is also  a fun day to catch up. I got to give everyone’s friend Bubby a hug as he soon will be joining me in a special club. He’ll be a “senior citizen” in a few weeks. We’ll be AARP buddies! Notice Bubby is wearing cammo…did he really think he could hide from Helene and that needle?   He’s thinking about the needle in this picture…he’s sort of tense!   However…she got him! He’s all vaccinated.  He was so brave…said he barely felt it.

Another tradition that I love in Mendota is the food that is brought by the ladies working the voting table. I had quiche and nibbled on a biscuit.

Here’s another friend, Curtis, who stopped stuffing his face for a minute so I could take his picture. Curtis lived in Texas and had friends living in Mendota. Over a few visits, he got infected with that Poor Valley mud on his feet and had to move here. There’s no known cure…you  just cave to the desire to live in Poor Valley. He’s a talented woodworker.

I was home by 10 am and felt like I’d been gone all day. There was still much to do! If you read this blog regularly, you know we’ve got a Farm to Table dinner on Saturday at the Kiser’s RiverMyst Farm.  (See more about that here. )

Last night Molly Kiser called needing local apples for Saturday’s dinner so I delivered 1/2 bushel of our Red Delicious apples. They have been refrigerated since we picked them. They’re starting to shrivel just a tiny bit. Here’s a couple of the apples…all fancy and excited about being part of the salad that will be served Saturday.

So I got back from RiverMyst and decided to work on a chalkboard project. You can see where this project was going…it was going to be so awesome. The wreath that you see is not the one I’ll use at Christmas. I’m making a wreath out of boxwood that I’ve stolen from every neighbor with boxwoods in Mendota, but my boxwood stolen booty is “being preserved” in a magic potion in the garage. I’ll be blogging about preserving boxwood if it works. With my luck..it’ll be a dismal failure.

So I had this on its way and was feeling pretty smug when I realized the chalkboard hanger was on the bottom. If I leave it as it is, it would be upside down.

Drat!