Two things to share this morning:

First Monday back at the ranch since June 1st and back to my morning workout. I built this gym way back when to diminish excuses to not work-out to just plain laziness. It worked quite well; as long as I stayed home. But now that we go to the cottage for the months of Jun. Jul., Aug. and most of September the gym doesn't see my reflection often, if at all.

Oh, to be sure I still get some exercise; paddling, walking and hiking, but it just isn't the same.

This morning I Googled, "how long does it take to break a habit." You'll interested to note that all the references were about how long it takes to break a bad habit. the consensus is somewhere between 21 days and 6 weeks.

Since no Google article addressed it I'd like to opine that to break a good habit (exercise) takes no longer than 2 weeks. And as many of you can attest, getting back into the exercise habit can take weeks, months, even years.

Today I started strength training again; damn I hate this starting over, but I'm back and I'm glad!

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We hired some projects done here at the homestead to be done while we were at camp. If you follow Koffeebean's blog you've been able to keep up with the bathroom remodeling from start to finish.

The walk-way project, phase two of the patio project from last year, is well on it's way to completion. Today the man with the jack-hammer is coming to breakout the cement porch slab and then Tues. Don and Tom can finish the project. Below is the progress so far. We are supremely pleased with the results !

We even have our own Eiffel Tower image included in the walk way. Neat huh?

Pulling back from the river's edge.

It's that bitter sweet time of the year again: close up camp, move back home, and put the garden to bed. There are a number of clues that occur, with increasing frequency, signaling our need to migrate. First, our landlords are anxious to get the building buttoned-up, and the water turned off so they can depart for Texas. Second, as we inch toward the first day of autumn, the days shorten and the daybreak temps hover near 40 degrees the air inside the camp is 50degrees. We huddle around the coffee pot wrapping our fingers around our coffee cups to take away the chill in our fingers. Reason enough to trigger the move home.

So it was yesterday. We packed up the Trailblazer with the first load of the many to follow, and motored home. We were greeted by the sight of our yard torn up; Don and Tom had started digging out the planned new walkway from the patio to the porch. While they were busy with rocks, stones and concrete removal, D. and I proceeded to the garden patch to harvest both veggies and the out-of-control weeds. The veggies to feed us and the weeds fed the compost pile.

After starting a wash and putting the clothes I had brought home back in there proper places I exited the house to find D. giving a garden tour to a couple of passer-bys and their great dane. It turns out that Dave and Barb and the dog, Winter, have been including a walk past our gardens all summer. They were very complimentary and in fact yesterday they had purposely brought along Dave's Cannon G10 with the specific intent to photograph one of our gigantic Cabbages. In the tete a tete that followed we shared back ground info and gardening histories. Dave took the photos of the cabbages as displayed with Barb, D., and myself. I'd show you but the pics are on Dave's camera not mine. It turns out that Dave works for Cannon so he and D. shared praises of their respective Cannons.

Dave shared a story about a cabbage and ham dinner that was spurred by a farmer's market purchase in Canada a few years ago when his sister was impressed with the size of the cabbage and the fact that Dave "the big spender" paid all of one dollar for it. There-in the reason for taking the photo of our cabbages; the pictures of which have probably already been emailed to his sister. To cap the story; we gave the cabbage along with some freshly harvested carrots, peppers and hot peppers to Dave and Barb so they could fix a ham and cabbage dinner last night. Gardening has always been a friend maker for us.