Hey Babe,
It was raining when I went to bed, so the earplugs went in, but then I woke up around 5:00, and looked out the window at the longest lunar eclipse since Feb. 18, 1440! Can you imagine, fifty two years before Columbus discovered America, a hundred and twenty-four years before Shakespeare and Galileo were born! It was a bit cloudy, but it cleared up just enough for me to see the crescent starting to appear on the waning side. Remarkable! There won’t be another one like it until Feb. 8, 2669, imagine what the world will be like by then! I was lucky to even see that for a few minutes with all the clouds! Went back to sleep, woke up with the alarm because I had made arrangements to pick up some hay at 8:30 just 15 minutes up the road. Turned out to be really nice hay, too, Tifton 44, heavy and well packed, for just $8 a bale! Bought one for my neighbor, she was impressed with the quality, too. When I got back, I spent some time researching this ice-maker tubing thing to see if there’s something I’m missing in the repair, but eventually I just got to it, and put it back together again. I hope I’ve finally got it right, I sure don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night with a flood! I’m going to turn the pump off, just in case. Then I started getting involved with doing some work on the OTL mailing list, but the whole thing is being stymied by the fact they STILL don’t have a website up and running, so it’s hard to communicate with folks when I can’t send them anyplace for information. Working on it, though! Put a notice out on my Facebook page and the OTL page and have gotten some response already. I had hoped to ride today, but got so involved the time slipped by, so I’m vowing to take a long ride tomorrow to make up for it. Had dinner, visited around the campfire for a couple of hours, now I’m ready for a shower and bed. Good night, my darlin’! Love you!
Archives for November 2021
Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021 – Some Errands, Then A Visit With Friend
Hi Darlin’!
Last night got off to a rocky start. Just before I was getting ready to take my shower, I heard a funning whoosh sound near the refrigerator, and the water pump starting running non-stop. I quick stopped the pump, suspecting what happened, went outside to the back of the refrigerator, and sure enough, the newly-installed fitting on my ice-maker had popped off. The only reason I can think of this time is that maybe I put too much teflon tape on it, and then it didn’t screw all the way on. Not sure, but can’t think of anything else! So I had to turn off the valve leading to the ice-maker so I could put the pump back on. Then I took my shower and was just crawling into bed to read at midnight when I heard the sound of thundering hooves outside my window. I put on my down jacket and went outside the check on the horses, and they were fine, quiet, and just munching on hay. When I stepped around the back corner of the trailer, I found my neighbor’s horse casually grazing. Well, I couldn’t leave him there, not knowing where he might go off to by morning, so I put a halter on him and walked him back to his electric paddock. The top tape was down a bit, but otherwise the fence looked fine. I put him away, checked to make sure the juice was on and finally make it back to bed, where I read for a long time before feeling sleeping. Got up at the usual time, did chores, breakfast etc., and looked a bit closer at the ice-maker repair. I tried to reuse the fitting but it didn’t work, so now another trip to a hardware store was in order! First, though, I got the three packages, returns to Amazon, ready, then I headed down to the UPS store in Zephyr Hills to send those off, then across the street to Lowes to pick up more fittings (this time I bought three, figuring I’ll need at least one spare!), then finally headed of to our friend Cherryl’s, who fed me lunch and we spent the afternoon chatting. I left about 4:30, picked up fuel, then headed back to camp in time to feed the horses and settle down for the evening, grilling some chicken. Since it was cloudy all day, I had to run the generator for a little over an hour, this is the first time I’ve needed it this week, so I’m happy I’ve made it this far without burning any propane for anything other than cooking and the fridge. Had to switch over to my second tank early, though, but I have three more full ones, so I’m not worried yet. Binge-watched a few episodes of Burn Notice, now I’m ready for shower and bed, I have an early morning, have to go pick up some hay first thing in the morning, so alarm will be set! Good night, sweetie! Love you!
Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021 – A Few Chores, Ride on Apollo, Campfire Group
Hi Sweetie!
Had a great night sleep, perfect temps in the mid-50’s, very comfortable! Woke up to a beautiful morning, and after chores and breakfast got busy on my list of puttering jobs. First on the list was to finish the ice-maker hose repair, and all I can say is that I’m glad I bought two new fittings because I ruined the first one trying to make it too tight a fit, but the second one worked just right! Learned the hard way, but at least I learned! Looks perfect now, no more leaks, so no more intermittent pump running. Next I tackled mending Flash’s winter blanket. It had gotten a few more tears in it, so I thought I had a couple of rips to sew, but as I started working on it, I found more like 8-10 rips, so it took a lot longer than I thought. It was noon by the time I finished. I didn’t want to wait too late to ride, so I abandoned my jobs list at that point (that’s okay, I needed something to do in the morning tomorrow anyway), and saddled up Apollo for his ride. I had planned about a five mile ride, just something to stretch his legs, and learned a few more things about the map here, inasmuch as on the map certain trails are marked like it’s a road, so I included them in my planning, only to discover that it’s really the Florida Trail for hikers only, so I had to make some changes on the fly. No worries, I’ve got the basic layout of the place now, so it still ended up being a little over five miles, and I did a lot of jogging, so we were back in a couple of hours. Got involved with some reading, so didn’t get any more jobs done, then had dinner and fed the horses, then went down to join the group at the campfire. I don’t think it’s an actual club, but they all seem to know each other, mostly locals plus one woman who used to live here but now lives up in Jamestown, TN at the Big South Fork area. They were all very nice, educated and intelligent folks, mostly transplants from up north, and we all got along just fine. I pointed out the Space Station flyover, which many of them said they’d never seen before, and even had an opportunity to do my Snowy River, to one of the most attentive and largest audiences I’ve ever had, which was nice. We all broke up around 8:30, now I’m ready for eggnog ice cream, sleepytime tea, shower and bed! Tomorrow I go see Cherryl and pick up my deliveries, and it’s supposed to rain, so no riding tomorrow (jobs in the morning, right?) Love you, babe! Good night!
Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021 – Trip to Post Office and Home Depot, Then a 16.5 Mile Speed Ride!
Hey Babe!
Had a good night sleep, though it was pretty cool in the morning, albeit a lot warmer than it was up north yesterday morning! Forty seven vs. thirty seven, I’ll take any day! After chores and breakfast, and took a run into town, I got a priority book order last night and wanted to get that out asap. I also diverted to Home Depot to pick up the fitting I needed to finish off the ice-maker repair, and a quick run into Walmart for two things, didn’t have one and the other was not really what I wanted, but this is one of those little stores with a very limited inventory. No matter. I got back to camp about noon and promptly started saddling up Flash. We took off shortly after that, though I couldn’t exactly find a trailhead, I did end up eventually finding the trail I had my GPS set to follow. This is a pretty typical Florida trail ride, with lots of pines, palms, sand and water. Most of the riding was either on a shell-rock sand road or a grassy stretch next to a sandy road that had apparently just been dug up, like it was at Goethe Forest last December. Couldn’t walk on it, but it had a wide swath of grass beside it, which helped. Then, I got temporarily misplaced. My GPS plan indicated a trail which wasn’t out there, and I was a quarter mile up past where I thought I was supposed to be before I realized it. So I went back, only to find there was no turn-off, so I had to do the same trail again. That took me to an intersection where I came in earlier, but I turned west to try to pick up the missing trail, and eventually found my way back to camp. Then I check on the maps that I had used, and discover it must have been an older map that I used to plan, because the newer map didn’t have that trail on it. Weird! Usually they add trails, not subtract them! In any event, we made it back. Flash was so ready to go today! He insisted on doing between 6-8 mph the entire trip. I don’t know if our little speed trip last Friday got him worked up, or if he thought that’s what I wanted to do (I didn’t ask him, he just went!), but after the first half mile, he cranked it up and kept going almost every mile at either a medium or fast gait, almost no walking. We were back before 4:00, so sixteen miles in just over three hours is a pretty good clip. Gave him a nice rinse off before putting him in the paddock with Apollo. I had gotten a request from Sheila and some other folks about how to find and make chaney root tea, so I spent a little bit writing an article on how to find it, harvest it and make it into tea. Got that uploaded, now I have to spread the word a bit. Then I fed the horses, grilled myself a nice thick steak, watched a little TV (my solar panel charged me up to 12.6 volts, so I haven’t even had to put my generator on today!), and won’t be long out of bed tonight! A perfect weather day, a great ride, couldn’t ask for a better start to my visit at Green Swamp! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!
Monday, Nov. 15, 2021 – Travel Day to Green Swamp
Hey Darlin’,
A very chilly morning, about 37 degrees when I first woke up at 7:30! Not what I came to Florida for! I’m told it’s unusual, just like 95 in Michigan this summer was unusual, seems all my best laid plans don’t work because I keep running into “unusual” weather! Anyway, I’m partially solving that problem by moving 175 miles south, where it’s nearly 10 degrees warmer at night, thank goodness! It’s nice when I don’t have any highline or fence to take down and no cleanup to do, so even though I didn’t start moving until 8:30, had breakfast, finished packing and said good-bye to Sheila and Linda, I still managed to get out at 10:00, which was perfect, I got to miss a lot of the traffic. It was a thankfully uneventful three hour drive, arriving right around 1:00, though it took a bit to figure out the weird lock they have on their gate! But I managed, and arrived at Ashley Camp, surprised to see that it was about half full! So rare to see that many people on a Monday, and about half had horses as well. The camping loop had a pretty sharp turn on one side of it, well, the giant live oaks on the corners were really the problem, so rather than go deep into the campground, I selected a spot near the entrance, and it wasn’t too bad getting into. Impressed a couple of old guys watching, at any rate! Got unhooked, got the horses out, put a fence up (though I have trees to highline, I thought I’d try the fence), but I’m a bit worried because the ground is so soft here, I’m figuring Apollo will probably pull the posts out at some point, and he’ll be wandering around the yard before I know it! Have to keep an eye on him, and keep them fully stocked with hay. Got everything all set up and was sitting in my chair relaxing by 3:30. I dismantled the long, crappy hose I had, took all the useable repair parts out, I’m going to be throwing the rest of it away, now that I have these two 50′ Zero G hoses. They worked like a charm for filling the horse buckets! There are spigots at every site, so water is not a problem here (though it’s listed as non-potable), and I’m close to the vault toilet if I want to keep my blackwater use to a minimum, which I should do since I’ll be going primitive for quite a while in the coming weeks. Got my solar panel out, looks like I should be able to glean a bit of energy from that, since the forecast is all sunny for the foreseeable future here in the Sunshine State. Grilled a burger, watched a little TV, took Lola for a walk, now it’s time for shower and bed! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!
Sunday, Nov. 14, 2021 – Busy, Mostly Productive AND PACKAGE CAME TODAY!!
Hi Sweetie!
Woke up in a rare mood to get a lot of things done today, so I took advantage of it, BIGTIME! Of course there were the usual chores and breakfast, then I started putting some stuff away, getting the hay squared away, doing a bit of cleaning, then decided to look for this ongoing water leak that I have, and finally found it! It’s another little dribble from the ice-maker, except it was on the outside, so it was literally dripping back into the trailer along the base of the refrigerator, which is why it kept presenting itself down by the water heater under the refrigerator. First, I tried to seal it, but of course that didn’t work, then I realized I had a whole length of exactly the right tubing that I need, but needed a couple of ends, so I ran into Lowes and got two, came back and installed them, and it worked! At least for a bit, anyway. I made the tube a little long in case I needed something to work with later, and it ended up being to close to something in the back of the fridge that was really hot, and melted a little, so I had another flood, but I turned off the water valve at the ice-maker to stop it, and now I know exactly what I need to do to fix it. Didn’t feel like making another trip out, I’ll just pick up another end (I knew I should have gotten three!), and fix it next week. I did a couple of loads of laundry, cleaned the bed mattress with some upholstery cleaner, triple-flushed the black water tank since I’m on septic here and won’t have it again for awhile, and then put away all of the outside stuff, including the awning. Miraculously, at about 3:45, a woman pulled into the yard announcing she had my packages!! OMG!! I never imagined I would get a delivery today, but there it was! I bought two Zero G hoses, which are sort of like the shrinking collapsible ones except they can stay under pressure and don’t shrink, per se, they just flatten, and are really lightweight. I had already packed my other hoses away, so now I have a job next week of reducing the number of big hoses I carry, especially the 125 foot one that has at least 6 or 7 repairs in it. I’m going to take out all the repair hardware and then chuck it. I also got some lug covers for the truck, I’ve lost more than half a dozen, now they’ve been replaced and it makes the truck look much better! The little things make such a big difference. Well, now that I don’t have to stake out the Post Office for my packages, I can get up at my leisure tomorrow morning, since it’s only a little over three hours, and I won’t have to rush. Once my package came, I even got the truck hooked up, though I haven’t put weight on it yet. I should be able to get out fairly early in any event. So about six steps forward and only one back, so it was net positive progress today! Went over to the house and played a couple of games of Farkle (though I lost them both this time, still happy I won three this week!), came back to the trailer and discovered Lola up in the bedroom. I hadn’t completely closed the partition, and she took advantage! Fortunately I hadn’t put my clean sheets on yet, not even the mattress cover since I had cleaned it earlier, so no harm done, but I had to yell at her to let her know she had done a bad thing, and that wasn’t pleasant. Anyway, I’ll be making tea and heading off for the shower and bed here shortly! Good night, babe! Love you!
Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021 – No Package Today, Darn It!
Hey Babe,
Well, after a slow morning, having a hard time getting much energy up for some unknown reason, at ten minutes to twelve and no sign of my package (which was originally scheduled for Thursday, then Friday, then today), I called the post office where they confirmed they hadn’t received it yet. Tracking has it leaving Jax at 4:30 this morning, so who knows where it might be! Of course, unless they miraculously deliver it tomorrow (not likely), I’ll be sitting in the post office lobby trying to catch it when it comes in and before it gets put in a carrier vehicle. I don’t really want to haul the trailer into town, so I’m just not going to hook up until I get back, which means a late start to my next destination. Well, it’s only 170+ miles, mostly freeway, so I should make it in around three hours, so not too bad. Then I started trying to figure out how the wireless fence works, starting with getting the training option working, and discovered that it makes a noise and vibrates, but doesn’t shock. I contacted Amazon and they agreed to replace it, I’m hoping that it also solves the inconsistent placement of the signal as well. Not sure I’ll ever need the shock part of the collar on her anyway, she comes running when she just hears it beep! That’s a good thing, so I might have to disable the shock part anyway! Spent most of the day reading, just couldn’t get any mojo going, until 6:30 when I went it to play some Farkle. Miraculously, I won the first game again! That’s three out of four now! Then we played a second game and I came in third, but, hey, that’s still best of 3 out of 5! Just got back to the trailer, put some laundry away, and am settling down for a short evening before shower and bed. Good night, my darlin’! Love you!
Friday, Nov. 12, 2021 – Shopping and A Speedy Ride in the Allardt Tract
Hello, my love!
A good night sleep, got my chores and breakfast done, then tried to figure out how the wireless fence thing works. Seems a bit inconsistent, seems like it moves around, but I have to do a lot more experimenting with it yet. Then Sheila told me her friend said that Green Swamp, where I am going next week, was closed because of a hunt, though I was sure I had already checked that (and I do have a reservation!), but I double-checked anyway and got it straightened out. It was wrong on the website this morning, but they changed it back, so it’s all good! I went out shopping, and went to Lowes to pick up a bunch of little flags so I can try to mark the perimeter of the invisible fence, which is the way they generally want you to train your dog, but there’s a lot of clutter in this yard so I may wait until I get to my next stop. Had a little trouble with my new credit card at Lowes, it didn’t want to accept the chip, then at Walmart it wouldn’t work at all, and I had to use a different card for my purchase, then at Publix it wouldn’t accept the chip, but did take the swipe after a couple of tries. So it looks like I’ll have to get another card, something is wrong with this one. Grrr! Of course, they can’t get it here before I leave, so I’m going to have it sent to Cherryl’s house (you remember her, from Staten Island, and we had Thanksgiving with her a few years ago here in Florida), so I can pick it up next week. Once I got back, I saddled up Flash. After so many slow rides lately, I decided we both had a need for speed, so we headed out on a long straight sandy road to the Allardt tract, averaging above 5 mph, including some cantering and fast-gaiting, with Lola having to do a lot of running with us. The Allardt tract is a bit overgrown, so we got lost a few times, and didn’t manage to follow my GPS route very well, even though we were following the trail markers for the most part. Lots of sinkholes, and I thought it was generally very pretty, just nowhere near as groomed as the rest of the trails here. Just needs a little TLC, and it would be great! We did just over 10 miles in just under 2 hours, and Flash worked up a good sweat, so I rinsed him down and put him away, both of us happy! Chatted with Sheila for awhile, then came back to the trailer for dinner, some TV, some credit card updating online, now I’m ready for shower and bed. Good night, sweetie! Love you!
Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021 – A Nice Ride at Mattair, Step Finished!
Hi Babe!
Had a good night sleep, did my chores, had breakfast and was just getting ready to saddle up Apollo for our ride over to Mattair, which is another section of trail along the Suwannee River, then it was postponed an hour because a small rain shower was supposed to come through (and did on the other side of the main road, but not here!), so it was about 11:45 when Sheila and I left. Linda couldn’t come with us because she had a vet coming out to look at Sonny, partly because of his leg burns, but mostly because she missed the expiration date on her health certificate by six days when she crossed the ag station, though surprisingly, they let her come in with a warning that she had to get it and send it to them within 7 days. It was a costly mistake, but at least she’s almost in the clear now, I just have to help her get it in the hands of the enforcers. Anyway, we trailered down to the trailhead, which was only about 10 minutes away, met her friend Chris down there, and headed off into the sandhill area down to the Suwannee River trail. Because I had been warned that Chris’ horse was pretty slow, and I already knew Sheila’s mule was slow, I brought Apollo for a change. Most of the trail went along the river, which was quite lovely, picture postcard Florida wilderness! Lots of Spanish moss hanging from trees, lot of beautiful views of the river, which is fairly high after all the rain last week. We did end up going through one brief sun shower, but it dissipated quickly. Everybody behaved well, with me in the back having to jog to catch up occasionally (Apollo can be a real slug these days!), and when we reached the trailhead on our return, we got chairs out and sat around and chatted for awhile. We finally got back home after 4:00, checked in with Linda and got the scoop on her horse, all is well, thank goodness! Just needs a couple more antibiotic shots on Sunday and he’s good to go, ride-able in 10-14 days, the vet said. I headed out to feed the horses, and barely got done with that chore when Kyle the welder showed up, ready to finish the job, which he and David did in short order! Well done, now I have a step at last! Hopefully, I won’t drag this one against any railroad tracks and it won’t get bent up again! Linda let me know that I was welcome to their dinner, so the five of us once again sat down together. I helped her for a bit getting her health certificate downloaded from GlobalVetLink while the others played a fast game of Farkle (David won in nine throws!), then we joined them for a second game (after ice cream and cherry wine), and though Sheila went out first, I had a miraculous run of 3150 points and managed to beat her on the last throw! I could hardly believe it! I won the last game I played, too, so I must be getting a string of beginners luck. Afterward I came back to the trailer to settle down for the evening. BTW, I received my new credit card FedEx today (it’s a miracle, got it overnight!), plus the new wireless pet fence, which I plugged in to charge overnight so I can start training it with Lola tomorrow. Seems like everybody else is busy tomorrow, and I also have to shop at some point, but I’m thinking about taking a long ride on Flash with Lola, she needs the exercise, maybe in the morning, but we’ll see. Anyway, a busy day, progress is made, now I’m ready for shower and bed. Good night, my darlin’! Love you!
Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021 – More Chaney Root, Ride and Step Half Welded
Hi Darlin’!
Had a good night sleep last night, then discovered a text from my credit card folks that a potentially fraudulent charge was made on my account, which I confirmed. They had to close out my account and are sending me a new card pronto. Unfortunately, I learned later on that several charges for things that I had ordered on Amazon hadn’t cleared the account, so now I may have a couple of deliveries arriving late because of it, darn it! They might still make it, but it’s not looking too good. Anyway, after that depressing call I did chores and breakfast, then went out on another chaney root hunt. My sister-in-law asked me to get some for my brother, so I went hunting again. I found a bunch of small ones, then finally dug up a couple of bigger ones, so now I have plenty for both of us. Then I got my lap sealant in the mail, so I climbed up on the roof and finished sealing around the refrigerator vent and putting the cover back on, now all I have to do is wait for the next rain to see if it solved the problem. Finally, with all my projects done, we were finally able to go for a ride, my hostess Sheila’s first on her mule Pete since she got here on Sunday. Linda rode Apollo again, so naturally I was in the lead on Flash the whole time. It was a lovely ride, pretty trails along the river, there’s just not enough of them to keep it interesting for me, so I’m looking forward to next week when I’ll be in Green Swamp, which has many more miles of trails, though tomorrow, we’re trailering over to Mattair for a ride, so that will be a nice change. After we got back, I did one last climb on the roof to put some more clear sealant along the edge of the awning, I noticed it was still dripping in a few spots during the last rain, so hopefully now, I’m completely watertight! Again, won’t know for sure until the next rain! Made myself some dinner after that, then killed some time binge-watching TV until Kyle showed up. He’s a tenant of David and Debbie’s, and he’s doing the welding on my step. He finally made it around 7:00 and managed to get about half of it done before he was stymied with a helmet problem, so he’s coming back tomorrow night to finish, hopefully. He and David worked on it together, and it seems to be working out, but for some reason, the step sticks out a bit more than the old one, even though they have it lined up perfectly with the previous studs. Oh, well, at least it will work, that’s the most important thing. Finally settled down after they left, just finishing my tea, now I’m ready for shower and bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!