Richard has been doing the cooking since Elinor got sick, and he's gotten quite good at it.  Even though it was his first attempt at dumplings, they came out great (with a little supervision from Terry.)  

His soup, with a cream base, had lots of goodies besides just chicken, and was definitely a hit with everyone.  

I was surprised, but definitely pleased, with how much Hilda ate - and in a most timely fashion.  Most meals take an hour (or more) for her. 

Dan had sent an assortment of veggies from his garden.  He definitely has a green thumb; just look at the size of that mega onion!

Her sisters had also brought Terry a glass octopus from Santa Fe 

since she hadn't been able to join them on this trip ~

As expected we did eat late, finishing up dessert (another big hit, naturally) at 10:00.  There had been some discussion about the effects of heavy rain, and the fact that it had possibly washed away some of my trail work. Since Mark goes up for his daily morning swim quite early, when it's still dark (and eshews a flashlight), I decided to check before heading to bed.  But I have no issues with using a flashlight!

My berm had held, so the trail had remained "pristine".

Before Richard & Elinor left, Terry let them know that they "had" to come for dinner the next three nights since Monday will be Mark's last evening, Tuesday mine (when she will be making an early birthday celebration for me, with chocolate cake on the dessert menu), and Wednesday Karen's.

It's (almost) always a dinner party here!

Later this morning I'll venture over to see how my second project, still under construction, fared.

I didn't sleep as well last night as I have been since I got here, 

so we'll see what my energy level is later.