Archives for 2020

Friday, May 15, 2020 – Travel Day to Natchez Trace State Park

Hi Darlin',
Well, once again the forecaster have gone bonkers. Last night when I went to bed, the rain wasn't coming in until 4:00 pm. When I woke up this morning, it suddenly moved up to noon! I decided skip breakfast and just get packed up and go, and it's a good thing. When I stepped out of the trailer, my neighbors were just getting ready to ride off (it was barely 8:00!), and I needed help with the slide that sticks, so I managed to get one of them to help me before they rode off. I had done so much work getting ready yesterday that I finished packing up in no time, and was heading to the dump just after 8:30, and driving out of the park just after 9:00. It was only a little over an hour drive, so I arrived at my new campsite before 10:30! There were three people on lawnmowers in the campground just finishing up (that's the problem with state parks, they always seem to be mowing the lawn!), but I found my site, #10, which turned out to be just perfect! There was a bit of an incline, but once I unhooked I managed to level it off just fine (though the work in the basement may have to wait, as there's no room to crawl underneath anymore), the horses are comfortable on a highline I strung between one of their posts and a tree, and before I even finished getting them settled in, a rider came by and we had a nice chat for quite a while, very friendly and welcoming. I don't want to say that the people at Chickasaw were unfriendly, but they certainly weren't very hospitable, not like I've been used to at horse camps in the past. Turns out this rider, Carol, lives nearby, she recognized my name, and she even has a copy of my book! Whoo-hoo! I invited her to come by later after her ride, and she took my number and friended me on Facebook, texted me to ask if I needed anything as she was going shopping, and when she came back for happy hour, she even brought me a bottle of wine! Now that's what I call hospitable! I spent most of the afternoon sitting the screen room getting caught up on something I discovered on my new horse camps supplement, apparently all of the work I had done last summer disappeared when my computer crashed and my Carbonite had neglected to back up for several month, grrrrr, so I started to rebuild that file by downloading it from my Facebook Book page. I managed to get that mostly caught up when Carol came back around 4:00, and we ended up chatting until nearly 7:00. We arranged to go riding in the morning, weather permitting, but who can tell? It never rained at all today, the storm that was over Arkansas petered out. Tomorrow they're calling for rain about 1:00, but I really have my doubts about all weather forecasts these days. We'll see what happens in the morning. Anyway, my site is really nice, and I think I'm really going to enjoy it here, even though there isn't an accurate trail map (what else is new?), and Carol has warned me that some of the trails are in really rough shape because of rain, and trees down from storms a few weeks ago, but again, what else is new? Anyway, it was a fairly relaxing day, an uneventful drive and setup, and it looks like a good place to spend a couple of weeks. And now it's time for shower and bed! Love you, darlin'! Good night!

Thursday, May 14, 2020 – Prep for Departure Day

Hiya Babe,
Well, no floods today inside the trailer, but there’s still a leak of some kind in the basement, so I guess one of my first chores after I’ve settled in at Natchez Trace is going to be removing the basement covers and seeing exactly what is going on down there. Be a good chance to fix a bunch of stuff, I guess, maybe even adjusting the slide so that it closes properly, if I can figure out how to do that. Thank goodness for the internet! Meanwhile, I spent the day breaking everything down and putting stuff away. I also moved the horses over to a highline next door so I could try to clean up the area that I fenced in, but it’s so muddy there wasn’t a whole lot I could do except scatter manure around and try to step down some of the worst divots. There’s no special footing under the highlines and with all the rain, it’s just a big area of sloppy mud. I paced myself, so it ended up taking up most of the day, but I even hooked up the truck so I should be able to get out pretty early. Of course I’ll have to divert to the RV dump first, but I should still arrive plenty early enough to get things set up, unless it starts to rain. Naturally, one of the reasons I decided to travel tomorrow was because earlier in the week the forecast was for a sunny day, but that has since changed, first 10%, then 20%, now it’s up to 50% chance of rain, but they are still saying in the afternoon, so hopefully I can be fairly settled in before that happens. The whole weekend is supposed to be wet, but next week is looking a lot better, if you believe the forecast… Anyway, I finally settled down for the evening after taking Lola for her last walk, and I’m heading off to shower and bed! Good night, my love!

Wednesday, May 13, 2020 – Shopping, Repairs and Another Flood

Hi Sweetie,
After another night of occasional rain, it was cloudy this morning and cool again, though not below the 40's, thank goodness. After doing some computer work in the morning, I headed out to the town of Henderson, went to a hardware store to get the parts I needed to fix the leak in the ice-maker tubing, picked up a few more bales at the feed store for the horses (the price had inexplicably dropped from $7.75 to $6 a bale), and went to the local Piggly Wiggly to pick up a few essentials like dog food and milk. One of the pieces of the repair hardware turned out not to be the right part, but I managed to recover it from the old part and made it work. I read for awhile, and the clouds went away and the sun came out and the temperatures warmed up, so I decided to take Lola for a walk. There's a long wooden bridge that goes all the way across the lake they have here, and a nice trail around the perimeter of the lake, and since Lola isn't being let out on her own anymore, I thought a long walk would do us both good, so I hooked her up and off we went. What a luxury! To be able to just spontaneously decide to do something, without having a long list of necessary chores waiting for me, and feeling guilty about not doing something! It felt like the start of summer vacation back in my school days. It was a lovely walk, there wasn't very many people about, and it really turned into a beautiful afternoon. We even sat in a bench swing on the edge of the water for awhile and just hung out there, reading a bit, enjoying the scenery. Finally we headed back to camp. Just as we got settled in, I heard a loud pop and heard water rushing, and thought my repair had failed, but discovered that the repair on the ice-maker tubing on the OUTSIDE of the trailer that I had done some weeks ago had popped. The water pressure here is very high, and I've adjusted it down a couple of times, but evidently not enough! I managed to jury-rig a repair on that as well, though I had to modify a part to do so, so I don't know how long it will last. One thing I knew, I had to get the water pressure down, so I dug out the restricter that I had, but that slowed the pressure down so much it was practically nonexistent, so I took it back off and readjusted the pressure at the outlet again till I got it at a safe level, I hope! I also did the long-overdue job of changing the water filter in the hose, what a mess that was! And not just the filter, but the inside of the filter casing was covered with algae and grunge, it's a wonder it hasn't made me sick! Well, I do generally boil it when I'm using it for coffee or tea, but it was truly awful! But I cleaned it all out with some bleach gel, scrubbed it really well before putting in the new filter, so now it's good to go. So far, the two repairs seem to be holding, I just hope I don't wake up in the night or morning to a new flood, I'm truly getting tired of sopping water up with towels! Anyway, things are moving along, I'm managing to get this stuff repaired as it happens, without having to procrastinate or have ten things of higher priority to worry about first. That in itself is a luxury I have to admit I'm enjoying. I took my shower early since I got soaked doing the repair, watched a couple of DS9's and now I'm ready for bed. I hope Lola stays quiet, she didn't get too much exercise today (and she's still in the doghouse as far as I'm concerned), so it will be a miracle if she sleeps through the night. Clear skies, though, no rain forecast until late Friday afternoon, at which time I should long be settled into my new site at the Wranglers Campground at Natchez Trace State Park. It's only about an hour drive on Friday, so that should be easy. Hopefully it's a site I can get into easily enough! Anyway, time for bed and reading. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Tuesday, May 12, 2020 – An Uneventful Rainy Day

Hey Babe,
Well, the rain came in on schedule overnight and continued off and on all day. After feeding the horses, all I did today was try to fix the leak in the ice-maker hose (oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the start of a small flood in the kitchen last night when I discovered the leak in the usual place) but the fix didn’t work because I need a new fitting, the old one didn’t hold up well to me removing it, so that’s on my shopping list for tomorrow. After that I did a little work updating my bookkeeping so I can get around to doing my taxes on the next rainy day when I have time. Lola was confined to her quarters or on a leash after her misbehavior yesterday, so we went for a couple of walks around the baseball field that’s next to the horse camp, which is all the running around she’s going be allowed for awhile. I spent part of the afternoon shopping online, buying a couple of decent rainsheets for the horses. One of the old ones has completely been ripped apart, and the $5.00 one I bought at the tack shop is in even worse shape. I figure since these guys are going to be spending a lot of time out in the elements from now on, they deserve a decent rainsheet, so I ordered a couple that had good reviews online. I also managed to find a set of those foldable loppers like the one I used to clear out trails during the Goethe endurance race. They turned out to be hard to find, as they had discontinued the model I was looking for, but then I think I found a newer model at a decent price and ordered those, too. I finally got the back-pay from Social Security, it’s taken months for them to get everything processed, but it looks like we’re on track with that now, should be getting a monthly deposit. Still haven’t heard from the British system, don’t know if I’ll be getting anything from them or not. I also went ahead and made reservations for several of my upcoming stays at horse camps for the next month or so, hopefully all will go according to plan and I won’t lose any money on canceled reservations. Spent over an hour on the phone with my friend Nancy from high school, talked so long the battery on my phone died! We’re tentatively scheduling a camping trip at Watkins Glen for next 4th of July, figured since I was spending the summer in Michigan this year I can spend next summer in NY. Otherwise a really quiet and slow day and evening. I’m going to take Lola for one quick last walk before my shower and bed, so off I go! Good night, my love!

Monday, May 11, 2020 – A Group Ride on Flash

Hiya Sweetie,
Riding with a group is always a double-edged sword, as you know, but today the little voice in my head said I should try it. There are several trailers in a group on the other side of the road from me that arrived on Friday. I assumed they were only here for the weekend, but it turns out they're staying through this coming Saturday. Another couple showed up, apparently friends of theirs, and one woman introduced herself, Mary, and asked if I wanted to join their ride. They looked like they were leaving pretty quick, so I told them not to wait for me, but as it turned out, they waited quite awhile for the other ladies, and were just leaving the campground when I finished everything I had to do, so I saddled up Flash as fast as I could, and followed them up the trail I saw them leave on. I had a hard time persuading Lola to come along, evidently three days on the trail is too much for her, but she finally followed. I was only a few minutes before I caught up with them, you know how quick Flash can be when I ask him. We startled the drag horse who had a little fit for a few minutes but eventually settled down. I would have preferred to stay in the back with Lola following, but instead got put in the middle. We kind of stayed in two groups, and for awhile I was at the back of the first group with Lola right behind me, but she got skittish with so many horses, and tired I think, and disappeared, though I knew she'd go back to camp. Anyway, the trails were poorly marked (or not marked at all except a few survey tapes hanging from the occasional limb,) and once again, much of it was straight up and down hills, but at least we never had to go along any roads, which was good because I was in such a hurry I didn't put Flash's boots on. We rode for less than two miles before the group stopped at a downed tree for lunch (yeah, I know, I know), and we were there for half an hour before heading off again, circling back on a mostly different series of trails as we headed back to camp. Some of them looked familiar, and sure enough, when I lined them up with previous rides, there was a lot of duplication. Meanwhile, we got back to camp, and Lola was not in the screen room sleeping, where I had expected to find her. Of course, I soon found her up near the playground, playing fetch with part of the landscape crew that was out mowing lawns today. I had to go and bring her back, and that didn't last long, she ran off to play with some kids on the playground shortly afterward. She's been wandering off farther and farther, which is not good. She finally completely lost her privileges when I let her out about 9:30 for the final time, and ended up getting a phone call from a ranger, she had wandered all the way up the road to the restaurant. He was nice enough to bring her back (he was worried about her being on the road), but that's it. She stays on a cable or a leash from now on. Anyway, at least Flash got some exercise, and this is the last sunny day forecast until Thursday, which I'll probably spend most of packing up anyway, so I'm glad we got one more ride in. Less than five miles, but it's better than nothing. Settled in for the evening, did a couple of loads of laundry, had my shower, so now I'm off to bed. Good night, baby! Love you!

Saturday, May 9, 2020 – Another Ride on Flash

Hi Sweetie!
Had a wonderful night sleep last night, so quiet even though I had a couple of neighbors move in last night, not a peep! Probably too cold, it was forecast to go down to the 30's but I'm not sure it got that low. Lots of sunshine this morning, and even though I thought it might be too cold to ride today, by noon it was into the 60's so I thought I'd better make hay while the sun shines, as they say! After a late breakfast and some more computer work in the morning, I saddled up Flash. I had come up with a route that would follow most of the perimeter of the park, and off we went! Other than the climb out of camp, of which there are half a dozen ways to go, they all end up on a road at the top of the hill and everything goes off from there. Since the only map I have is of the roads here (no horse trail map at all!), I did follow mostly roads, which were predominantly gravel and dirt. Sometimes there was enough of an easement along the side to get off the road, but most of the time there wasn't. Flash wasn't happy about the footing, and kept trying to get off the gravel, even though he had boots on. Every road looks pretty much the same here, and there are no special destinations like waterfalls or caves or overlooks, pretty boring actually. I finally did find a trail that was nice for a while, a double track along the edge of a newly growing forest, but eventually that turned into practically a swamp, and all torn up by the ATV's, a real mess. That came to a stop when I reached a creek in a deep ravine where the bridge had completely collapsed. I can't believe this park is so poorly maintained! No crossing the bridge, not even as a pedestrian. I tried to find a way around it, but had to turn back, then I went to the left of the bridge and about 30 yards down I found what looked like it might work as a horse crossing, but it was a pretty steep drop into a narrow ravine, a quick turn, then up the other side. It reminded me of how we used to get into Hungryland before they built the landbridge there, only much narrower. Anyway, it took some persuading to get Flash to go down there, he was not very willing, but finally he went down, turned, and climbed the other side. See, the original four-wheel drive! It was pretty swampy on the other side, too, but we eventually got back on the trail and it ended up on the road, as I knew it eventually would. We came across a big tree across the road after that, and I thought Flash would just step over it, but at the last second he decided to leap it from a standstill! Fortunately, even though I wasn't really ready, I managed to stay on. It wasn't long after that we got back to camp. My original plan was for about 7.5 miles, but it ended up being closer to 13.5 because I made a mistake on my plan, but no big deal, longer is better for Flash anyway. We still managed to do it in about 3 hours, so a good ride. Of course, Lola came along, and she got good and muddy, as did Flash, and, too, frankly. I let the horses graze on the clover outside their electric fence for awhile while I downloaded my GPS info, did a Facebook video (something I've started just for fun, don't know if anybody's interested, but I thought I'd give it a try), then read my Kindle book while the I kept an eye on the horses. After almost two hours, it started getting chilly, so I put the horses back on the highline and fed them, did the rest of the chores, showered early, watched a couple of DS9s, and now I'm heading to bed. It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow so I'll probably take Apollo out for a bit, then we have rain coming in on Monday, naturally! That's okay, time to do some indoor chores, like maybe doing my taxes! Btw, my eye was much better this morning, and by the end of the day it felt almost back to normal. I hate those eye cuts, they hurt like a bandit, but they do tend to heal fast! Well, that's all the news, so good night, my love!

Friday, May 8, 2020 – Rainy Day of Planning

Hi Baby,
SO glad I took advantage of the nice weather yesterday, because rain came in overnight along with colder temps. They’re even talking about patchy frost tomorrow morning!! I can’t believe that at this time of the year it’s so chilly! Anyway, I had a fantastic night sleep for a change, I guess Lola got enough exercise to sleep through the night because she never bothered me, even with the storms that came in. Also, I had put in my earplugs, which helped, and I took a couple of painkillers because somewhere along the way yesterday I got a leaf cut on one of my eyes, and that was hurting pretty bad, so some Bufferin helped with that. It was still raining when I got up after 10 hours of sleep, but stopped shortly afterward, so I got the horses fed before too long, but it’s a soggy mess under their highline. I’d move them again but they’re all like that so there’s no point. I spent a large part of the day figuring out my schedule for the next few months. I just got it confirmed that the Shore-to-Shore ride in Michigan has been cancelled, so that freed my schedule up enormously, though I’m rather sorry about it, I was really looking forward to it. The governor of Michigan is being slow to open things up with the coronavirus lockdown, and apparently the Federal lands along the route are still closed too, despite mounting evidence that the virus doesn’t survive very well outside, it thrives inside, which is why we have so many more cases than many other countries that aren’t doing a lockdown. Anyway, I’m putting together a route to stay two weeks at a series of camps to get me to Lansing for the job that’s scheduled for the end of July, including doing Memorial Day at Loretta Lynn’s for their June organized ride. I think I’ll be meeting up with Callie again, you remember the girl we met there a few years ago that went riding with me on Clio? She stays in touch, and they’re going to be there, so I thought it might be nice to hook up with them again. I’ve got a pretty good plan, the only thing that might get in the way is if the job in Vegas gets rescheduled during that time. I mean, I hope it does, since I could use the work, but I’ll have to be flexible to make it work, like always. The good news is I’ve been lucky on my timing of investing the house proceeds on the stock market, it’s been up significantly every day this week, so it looks like I’ll be recouping the losses from the virus shutdown, and then some before too long. Spent the rest of the day watching DS9s, except I needed a change for the evening so I watched a romantic comedy about Valentines Day, which confirmed all the reasons why I was glad you and I never really celebrated Hallmark Holidays like that one! Too much pressure! A nice break, though, it did make me laugh a bit. Now it’s time for shower and bed, hope I sleep well tonight, too! Good night, babe. Love you!

Thursday, May 7, 2020 – Double Ride Day At Chickasaw

Hello, darlin’!
Finally, a nice day! It’s been the strangest weather lately! We’ve had wet weather and cold weather, and nothing like the kind of weather you’d expect in May in Tennessee, so unpredictable! But today was wonderful! It started out cool but warmed up nicely, and since more rain is forecast overnight and cold temps to follow, I figured I better take the absolute best chance of riding this week and making the most of it! So after breakfast, I saddled up Apollo first, since he’s my go-to trail horse, and we headed out. Like Brookfield in NYS, the only way out of camp is uphill, so that’s where we started. I decided to try to follow the stable’s horse trail ride, but before long we got off track somewhere. I was glad to have my GPS and a map one of the ladies from last Sunday gave me, it had some hand-made markings of where some horse trails are. This place is really nuts, I have no idea how they get away with it! There are miles of trails interweaving in the wood, yet none of them are marked, nor is there a map that identifies them. The only maps just show the main roads, and though they delineate between a “dirt” road and a “gravel” road, frankly, I couldn’t tell the difference. Apollo didn’t much like being on the gravel, so I ended up following the edge and getting smacked with a lot of branches, including one where I think I got a leaf cut in my eye, so that’s all red and hurts now. We did almost six miles, about half on gravel and the other half on a not too bad single-track trail. The only saving grace was that I could figure out a general direction every time I came to a road intersection, but even then I had to figure out how to read the signs. Apollo was great, though, he’s such a sure-footed old guy I had not trouble letting him pick his way up and down hills. Once we got back to camp, I put him away with a flake of hay and saddled up Flash. I put boots on him because I expected to be on more of the roads, and had GPS’ed a track out to Lake Loop, which also passed by the Owen Cemetery, where I met a caretaker that I spoke to for a few minutes. Flash loved being out on the road, but even with boots, he wasn’t too thrilled with the footing. We got turned around a couple of times, just trying to explore a bit, so now I have a better feel for the place. We passed one group of day riders, but other than that, it was super quiet out here. Lola came with me on both trips, I sincerely hope she’s tuckered out tonight, she woke me up a dozen times last night with her scratching and restless, so much so I’m considering putting her back in the truck so I can get a good night sleep! Since there are storms forecast for tonight, I might just give here a pill to be on the safe side, but we’ll see. She’s been pretty knocked out since we’ve been home. Anyway, it was a really great day, I feel better than I have in a long time. Just something about being on the back of a horse in the wilderness that’s just good for the soul! Both horses seemed to enjoy themselves, small wonder, it’s gotta be better than standing on a highline all way, hay or not! I put their rainsheets on because of the rain coming in, and it’s supposed to get colder so this might be my last chance this week. There was one campsite that was supposed to be reserved for today, but no one came is, maybe the weather scared them off and I’ll see them tomorrow. Anyway, this is the start of a new rhythm in my life, it’s going to take some getting used to, that’s for sure! Meanwhile, another DS9, another shower, and off to bed, hopefully to get a better night sleep than I have been lately! Good night, my love!

Wednesday, May 6, 2020 – Slow Day

Hey Sweetie!
The best laid plans…! I did my chores this morning, including moving the highline to a different set of posts because the ones the horses were on were at kind of a low spot that had turned pretty muddy, so I put them on slightly higher ground. I had every intention of going riding today, but the temperatures, unbelievably, hardly reached 60 today, and that was late in the afternoon. I decided it was too cold to go riding, in fact, I’ve made a new rule. If it’s too cold to sit in the screen porch, it’s too cold to go riding! Instead, I did some bookkeeping on my computer. My previous bookkeeping program expired, and they changed their method from being on my computer as a permanent program to being a subscription in the cloud. I waited around for their offer of a discount to get better, and finally they got down to 25 percent off, so I went ahead and ordered in. That meant some housekeeping to get it all working again properly, so I spend part of the afternnon doing that. I also did some reading for a while, and generally had a pretty lazy day. What a luxury! It won’t last, I know, but at least I can take advantage of it while it’s here. I noticed a leak coming out under the basement, so I took a quick peak at that, but the only way to see it is going to be to take the basement panels off. The good news is, contrary to thinking it was all one piece, it’s actually in about 3-4 foot sections, so I should be able to get into without too much trouble. The bad news is, all the screws are those crazy 8 point stars, which I’ve read can be turned with a 4 point square, but the last time I tried that I had dubious results. Considering that many of them are rusted, it’s not likely to be an easy task. I may just have to replace all the screws with something sensible. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY knows about these weird screws except the people in the RV building business! But that’s a chore for another day. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer, and I really have to get the horses out, they’ve been standing there for days with no relief, and the ground has been too soft to even let them roam in the fenced in area, they would just tear it up in no time, and I don’t need to make any enemies while I’m here. Lola and I took a short walk around the campground, and there’s a few posts with reservation cards on them, so it looks like I’ll have a little company this weekend, which wouldn’t be a bad thing. Not sure I want to go riding with anyone, though, because it seems like every time I do I end up not particularly enjoying myself for any variety of reasons. I guess I’ve been on my own riding for so long I’m kind of stuck in my ways. Anyway, it was a pretty lazy day, and now it’s time to put it to bed. Off I go! Good night, baby! Love you!

Tuesday, May 5, 2020 – Busy Productive Day

Hi Darlin’!
Just as I had planned it was a busy day! Great night sleep for both me and Lola, then after chores and breakfast we headed out for shopping. Unfortunately the Tractor Supply in Henderson didn’t have anything I was looking for so I ended up driving to the north end of Jackson to another Tractor Supply, where I at least got feed for Flash. Another quick stop at Lowes to pick up the fitting I needed to finish the ice-maker repair, a full shopping at Walmart, and a quick stop at the Farmers Coop in Henderson for 10 bales of Bermuda hay for the horses. Big bales, but light, not too well packed, but it seems pretty find so hopefully they’ll like it. Got back mid-afternoon, unloaded everything, then after a short break for Lola playtime I finished the job on the ice-maker, which only took a few minutes and worked brilliantly, no leaks! Then I cleaned under all the cupboards in preparation for returning all the pots and pans in there, and found a bunch of dead roaches, yay! I sprayed around the edges again, just to set up a border that will hopefully keep them out for a while, and put everything except the plastics back in the cupboards. I want to go through those again and cut down on them, I have way more than I need. Of course, once I got started on cleaning, you know me, I started to get carried away, and scrubbed down the entire floor just for the heck of it. It was cloudy all day until late in the afternoon, then it cleared up beautifully, though a bit cooler, and once I scrubbed the floor we sat out in the screen room for a while, me reading and enjoying a bit of wine and Lola standing guard and getting excited at a passing big bird every once in a while. Before I knew it, it was dinner time, so I fed us all and settled down for the evening. Got a lot done today! I’m hoping to take a ride, maybe even two, tomorrow, these horses have really been patient standing around on a highline for the last couple of days! I really hope I can get them out tomorrow. Meanwhile, it’s that time again, for shower and bed! Good night, my love!