Archives for March 2020

Hey Sweetie,
Busy day of hard work today. I started out rinsing out the pool filters and pressure washing the deck, which has become my morning ritual, then I finished pressure washing the water tank in the truck, then I washed the truck, then after lunch, I carried the pressure washer up to the roof of the Open Range and took most of the afternoon washing the outside of that. Hard work, but it looked great afterward. The only problem was that the slide topper on one side of the living room has come loose, and I think it may have to be replaced because I don’t think I have any way to fix it, but you know me, I’m liable to try! Just have to do some research to figure out if I can. Meanwhile, I signed the contract to sell the house, so hopefully that will be closed next month and I’ll be officially “homeless,” but it a good way! I’m focusing on trying to move on later this week, but I just remembered that the horses health passport expired last month, so I have to get that renewed before I can go. Unfortunately, there’s only one vet within 50 miles that is part of that digital network that issues the Equine Extended CVI, and he’s located in Loxahatchee, so I messaged them to set up an appointment. I got a call from him around 9:00 tonight saying I can come by any time after 11:00 tomorrow (he works on Sunday!), I get the impression he works out of house, but then, so did our Jupiter vet, so what’s the difference? Anyway, we had another family gathering at the pool, another habit we’ve gotten into while Glenn’s been here, but they’re apparently heading out on Monday now, since virtually everything has closed down here, all the restaurants, bars, even the beaches for Spring break! Crazy. Though apparently it’s the same in Austin, but I guess he has stuff he can do at home. So it’s going to get quieter here soon, and even quieter when I leave, whenever that will be. Thinking maybe Friday if I can get everything done. I have a place to stay the first night, with a woman in met on the OTL who lives just north of Jacksonville, a perfect stopover point. I’ll probably spend the weekend, as she’s next to a preserve and I haven’t had much of a chance to ride lately with all the stuff I’ve been doing. Maybe I’ll try to get to get a ride in this week, but it’s going to be so hot, I may just wait until I get to North Florida, where it’s likely to be cooler. Anyway, time for my shower and bed. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hiya Babe,
Well, it looks like I might have a buyer for the house. The realtor who listed it last year has kept working on it, despite a lapse in the listing agreement, and some folks that have looked at it a couple of times have come back with a pretty decent offer, so it looks like I might finally have that burden taken off my shoulders. Of course, they want to close in mid-April, which means I’m going to have to get up there and finish clearing the house out before then, though they seem to be fairly flexible about letting me leave stuff there until I can do something, but frankly, I’d rather get it out of the way so that once we close, I’ll be footloose and free, and homeless, I suppose! I can live with that! The job I was supposed to fly out for at the end of the month has been postponed due to all this corona virus panic, so now instead of Vegas in the springtime, it’s going to be Vegas in the summer, so happy 115 degrees! Never mind, I’ll be in the hotel the whole time anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. So now since I don’t have to hang around here for that (which I was only doing so my brother can look after the critters while I went west), there’s no reason for me to stay any longer, and since the weather forecast is getting hot, hot, hot, it’s time to moving north anyway. Naturally, that means my focus has turned to getting ready to pull out of here. I treated and painted the top corner of the front of the trailer, which was showing rust spots, and now it looks fantastic, I pressure washed the water tank in the truck (though, of course, I ended up breaking a hose connection, so I had to fix that in the process, but it’s all better now, I ran up to Ranch Feed and stocked up on grain and hay so I can be ready when the time comes, and started doing a bunch of other things to prepare for departure. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but the starter went bad on the tractor a while back, and we finally got a new one that Jeff picked up yesterday, so I put that on today and got the tractor emptied out and moved out of the way. Did a little shopping for essentials as well, then got back in time to sit by the pool with the family for a bit before it was horse feeding time. Settled down for the evening and fell asleep watching TV, so I took my shower, now I’m heading off the bed. Good night, my love!

Hi Sweetie!
Happy what would have been your 86th Birthday! I got a letter from your daughter Kim yesterday, she evidently didn’t get my email back in January, but I filled her in and she wrote me a long letter in return. I spent most of the day doing computer work, writing proposals and agreements for future work in the morning, then spent most of the afternoon watching webcasts from my broker about retirement, which didn’t really help me much, it was pretty basic. The market went down again today, to numbers where it was before 2016, so we have quite a long way to make up, but I’m sure it will once this corona virus scare straightens itself out. Had happy hour out at the pool with the family again, though Audrey flew back to Austin today. Her flights apparently only had about 30 people on them, on a plane that seats 170, just to give you an idea how crazy it’s become. It’s like living through a plague! Except everyone is aware of it, and is practicing what they’re calling “social distancing,” i.e. all the restaurants have been closed or kept down to 50 percent occupancy, they even closed down the beaches for spring break! Anyway, we all shared some of the ribs Glenn cooked on Saturday, with leftover salads on the side. By then it was evening, so I watched a little TV, and now I’m headed off for a shower and bed. Good night! Love you, babe!

Hey Babe,
After a morning of putting more stuff from the party away in the morning, I packed up the old GoDogGo machine and headed out the driveway on my way to the Post Office, and the UPS was just arriving to drop off a package, so I gave him mine to take. My first stop was the Publix, trying to find some toilet paper. I know that sounds weird, but with the corona virus mania, it’s been flying off the shelves and is getting ridiculously hard to find. They didn’t have any, though they were stocking shelves with paper towels, which has been another hard to find item (along with hand sanitizer and alcohol, though I understand the need for that!), so I kept going down the road looking for some. Just before I left the Publix I had checked the Walmart app on my phone, and when I looked up toilet paper, it showed some out of stock, some limited stock and some IN STOCK so I headed straight there. As soon as I walked in the door I saw several people pushing carts that had nothing in them except one package of toilet paper, so I immediately asked where they had got it and was told there was a line at the back of the store. A line? I suddenly felt like I was in Russia during the Moscow on the Hudson days! I got back to the designated spot, and there were a couple of people lined up, and several people opening cartons and handing out packs of tp and paper towels. Crazy! I was lucky they had Charmin, which is what Jeff uses anyway, though I mostly saw Scott, which you know I hate, it’s so rough. I took a roll of paper towels, too, because I wasn’t sure if anybody needed any, and I didn’t want to take any chances. I felt like I had scored some kind of victory by just getting my hands on the stuff! That’s how insane it’s become! Anyway, after Walmart I went to the Post Office, Michelle had accidentally left her makeup kit behind and asked if I could sent it to here, so I did. After that I came back home, changed into my bathing suit, inflated my new pool float (the other one had deflated during the party, but there was a patch kit with the new one so I fixed the old one, so now I have two), and proceeded to float around for awhile getting some nice sun. Lola played with her machine until she knocked it over (the fuzzy ball started getting stuck going down the ramp, so she was trying to get it to move), then she brought me the chucker and I threw some by hand while I was still on the float. Now THAT’S the way to play fetch! After about an hour, I got out and made myself some dinner, and was eating just about the time the family came home from boating. Once again we sat by the pool for awhile until the mosquitos came out, though we fed the horses early so we didn’t get bitten up. I retired back to the trailer, except I came out to watch a great space station flyover, spent the evening mostly watching TV but also following up on some texts from our realtor. Seems I might actually get a bonafide offer on the house, at a much better price than has been previously offered, though not as much as we had hoped. I guess this is the best time of year to do this, though, but it means I’ll probably have to stay up there (in the trailer) until I can finish clearing the house out. I just don’t know what to do with some of that stuff! Guess I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. But once that job is done, I’ll truly be footloose and free, going wherever I want, whenever I want, except for jobs, of course. This pandemic has been playing havoc with the stock market, it’s lost nearly 8000 points in the last two weeks, though it finally did go up today, so you can imagine what our portfolio looks like. That’s a concern, but I have doubt it will come roaring back. If the house sells, I’ll have a little breathing room, and some more money to invest to secure my “retirement”. That’s enough for today, I’m up too late, so I’m off to bed. Good night, Babe, love you!

Hello my darling!
Well, after a busy day yesterday, it will come as no surprise that I took the day off to recover.
Had a wonderful night sleep last night, the best I’ve had in a long time. Other than doing a little rearranging of where the leftovers needed to be stored and putting a few dishes back in the cupboards where they belong, I spent the day relaxing, watching some TV and generally vegging out. Much needed! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Well, I think we’re almost ready for your Celebration of Life tomorrow. We FINALLY managed to move that old wreck of a Winnebago out of the front yard late yesterday, at least getting it out of the line sight anyway, behind that big bush where we had parked the small horse trailer last year. Today I made deviled eggs, baked cookies, put together the cold cut trays, swept out the pool and cleaned the pool filters again, found Jeff’s electric weed whacker (stored in his bedroom for some incomprehensible reason) and trimmed around the pool and our trailer and a bit around the house just to tidy it up. I even managed to pressure wash around the pool again, though in no time at all Lola and spread her muddy footprints around again, so it will need to be done tomorrow. Audrey flew in this morning, she’s staying through next Wednesday, though they’ve actually extended Spring break by a week because of the Corona virus that’s got everyone going nuts. You can’t buy hand sanitizer, alcohol or, for some odd reason, toilet paper. Glenn said Publix was very low on bread when he stopped in today, and unfortunately I still need some, so I’m thinking an early trip to Publix for whatever else I need will be in order tomorrow morning. I think everything else is covered. I’ll put a tarp over that old hot tub, just to get it out of sight. I also went through all our boxes of pictures yesterday and made out some albums for people to look at, and selected a couple of DVD’s to play on the living room TV during the day. I picked the Darrow you did at the Dubose Center, and two Galileo’s I can’t decide between. One was our World Premiere at Theatre-Round-The-Corner in Huntsville, which I like because it’s a lot of wide shots, but the sound is a little weak though understandable, and the other from Principia College, which has good sound but are mostly close-ups, which also works, though it kind of weakens the flow of movement around the set. I’ll probably use them both during the day, we’ll see how it goes. Anyway, it’s been a busy couple of days, but I’ve tried to pace myself so I don’t get too exhausted, which is why I’m going to bed early tonight. Already had my shower, just going to finish off an episode of SHIELD then head off the bed. Looking forward to tomorrow, and being with so many friends and family. BTW, they postponed the Gator Nationals, so my plan to have Jeff out of the house for this has gone out the window. At least he’ll get to go, either later this year or next year. You wouldn’t believe how crazy it’s gotten over this Corona virus! They’ve shut down March Madness, the PGA, delayed the start of the baseball season, all because of a virus that only killed about 40 people, most of whom were in a senior’s home in Washington state. Compare that to the usual 60,000 people who die of the flu every year, and scratch your head. I know I’ve been! Anyway, off to bed! Love you darling!

Hello Darlin’,
Had trouble getting to sleep last night, and just before turning the lights out I heard a lot of whooshing noise and realized that I hadn’t reset the time on the pool, and water was pouring out of the release valve opening because I had broken it and was waiting on a new part for it and forgot about it. Got pretty wet before I was able to stop it, not exactly what I needed at 1:00 in the morning, but hey, what are you going to do? Finally managed to get back to sleep, thank goodness. So this morning, my first excursion was out to Jupiter Hardware to pick up the part I needed as soon as their parts house delivered it, while also dropping off some mail, including a book order, then came back and put in the part and reset the timer. The little walker started on its way around the pool, so I’m hoping the day that it missed won’t be noticeable by the weekend. I drove up to Ranch Feed for horse feed, then over to the Kane center for euchre only to discover they had canceled all the activities because of the corona virus scare, which is really getting out of hand. People are going crazy, there’s no hand sanitizer, alcohol or (for some strange reason) toilet papers left in the stores. The stock market has plummeted over 5000 points in the last week, so our investment portfolio has taken a hit, but I have no doubt it will come bouncing back in the next few months, especially when people realize most of this has been hyped up by an insane media. Seriously, over 60,000 people die in the U.S. every year from the flu, but everyone’s getting excited about the 25 people, average age 80 years old, who have died from the corona virus. Anyway, I went straight to Walmart and did most of the shopping for the Celebration on Saturday, glad I have an extra refrigerator in the old trailer to store some of this stuff. Then at just before 8:00 brother Glenn showed up in his brand new motor home, which he did nothing but complain about all the things that didn’t work in it. We plan on putting him back by the barn where we were last year to get him out of the way and to give him some privacy, not to mention not having him blocking everything in front of the house. It didn’t take long to get him set up, as I managed to persuade him to get a 50 amp splitter, which made it easy to get him electricity, but he was railing that having to pull forward enough to plug in meant he couldn’t get a satellite signal through the trees, yada, yada, yada. Anyway, he brought a lot of stress with him, maybe he’ll be better tomorrow after a good night sleep. And maybe I can help him solve some of his electrical problems, I suspect that there may just be some switches he’s not familiar with, he’s just freaking out because it’s different from his last motor home. Sigh. Took my shower early, watched a couple of SHIELDS, now I’m off to bed, with a good book, as soon as Lola gets back from her walkabout. Love you, darling! Good night!

Hey Babe,
Another day of cleaning up the house, did my best to try to get through all the layers of dust in the living room and gunk in the kitchen, managed to at least make it reasonable. Can’t really do much more until I have Jeff around to tell me where he wants to move some stuff. Good news is he was able to finish putting the motor in his van and actually got it running by the end of the day. It seemed to overheat a bit, was leaking water, but I think he got it solved, though it was after dark, so I guess we’ll find out for sure tomorrow morning. It was way late before we got the horses done, though part of that is because with daylight savings, everything seems to be happening later. Not sure I like it, actually! Though I’m sure I’ll feel differently when I’m in a horse camp rather than sitting in his back yard. Anyway, I’m off to shower and bed. Good night, my love!