Archives for 2024

Hiya Babe!
Can't believe it's October already, though it has been a busy year! Once again spent the day doing some more deep cleaning, gradually working my way back through all the cupboards. Just taking my time, a little bit here and there, and getting down to toothbrush and Q-tip territory. Made the decision to get back to Goethe the week of Nov. 11, but still not clear on where I'm going next week! Been keeping so busy, I haven't taken the time to think about it. Provided a little help to a volunteer convoy that's taking supplies up the NC for the hurricane victims, connected a haymaker willing to donate to a woman willing to transport it. Lots of folks sending stuff, which is apparently really needed up there. So another busy day all around. Settled down for my usual evening, enjoying a rather drily humorous British TV film called Stalag Luft, hoping to get to bed early. Linda and I have plans to ride tomorrow, and Lola seems to be feeling well enough that I think I'll take her with me. She's been doing a lot more wandering around the farm, so she's getting her strength back, and she needs the exercise. Meanwhile, I'm continuing my nightly Spanish lessons (I'm over 850 days in a row!), drinking my Sleepytime tea, taking my shower and heading to bed, as usual! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Darlin!
Had a good night sleep, and am slowly getting back to a more reasonable circadian cycle, going to bed and then getting up a little earlier, though not much. Started the day mending a new bottom on Apollo's feed bag. He keeps chewing through it! The last time I put a sturdy vinyl with backing on it, he ended up chewing up the vinyl! I used the same material again, but put the cloth side up this time, we'll see if it helps. Once that was done, I started cleaning a few more cupboards, and decided I needed to put down some shelf liner, which I'm surprised I hadn't done before in this trailer. To do that, I needed to go shopping, which I needed to do anyway, so Lola and I headed out, first to Tractor Supply for some horse feed and propane, then on to Walmart for the rest of it. Got back around 4:00, put the groceries away, then got busy installing the shelf liner and putting everything away. Finally settled down to a nice chicken alfredo dinner and salad, a few Farscapes, some Sleepytime tea, and soon off to bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie,
Had a good night sleep, then started on laundry and some more deep cleaning. Still very cloudy and we had a few more showers today, but I think tonight it's finally working its way out of the area. This storm has been very slow moving, and the devastation is hard to imagine. They had over two feet of rain in a lot of mountainous areas, which means the flash flooding has been horrific. So many homes, farms and business completely destroyed, countless livestock, including horses have died, and so far 64 deaths of people are confirmed, with hundreds still missing. Two million people are still without power. We got off easy here, thank goodness. I saw pictures of McCulley Farms, and they've been flattened. Whereas last year's hurricane took off the roofs of some of the buildings, this year's took most of the buildings. At my friend Sheila's house in Live Oak, where I helped out cleaning up after the hurricane last year, they had a big old tree land on the roof of the house, though I'm not sure it is went all the way through into the house or not. What a mess all over! Going to take a long time to recover. I-40 and I-26 both have long sections that are closed because of landslides and collapsed bridges. Linda said she even saw a news report where ducks were drowning, caught up the flotsam of bridges and unable to escape! Very bad storm. Apparently there was another hurricane in 1958 named Helene that was also a Cat 4 that did a lot of damage. You'd think they would retire names of hurricanes when that happens, wouldn't you? On a happier note, Lola is definitely feeling and moving a lot better, playing with Ivy and running after the side-by-side when Linda and I drove across the field to help her husband Richard with a gate that was stuck. I did some more work on the kitchen cupboards, so I'm still making progress. Not much else to do on a cloudy, wet day, figured it's worthwhile to do more deep cleaning. Finally settled down for my usual evening. Love you, babe! Good night!

Hey Babe,
Couldn't fall asleep last night, which always happens when I have a day of inactivity, so I ended up sleeping way too late this morning. I already promised myself that I would do some deep cleaning today, best thing to do on a rainy day, right? Did all the lower cupboards in the kitchen, cleaning and rearranging so now I'm a little bit more organized. That actually took most of the afternoon, until it was time to settle down for the evening. I had dinner early, figuring that might help my sleeping pattern, and will work to get to bed earlier in the hopes of straightening out this late to bed, late to rise sleep cycle I'm apparently in now. Lola's been playing more with Linda's dog Ivy, so she's been getting some exercise, which I'm very glad about. Horses are doing fine, they were at the gate today so I gave them some feed. They've been staying way out in the back of the field for the most part. Anyway, a pleasant evening, about to have tea, shower and bed! Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hi Darlin',
Had a good night sleep, with earplugs to drown out the constant sound of rain, rain and more rain. Fortunately it wasn't accompanied by a lot of wind during the night, but wind did come up considerably during the day. Other than having to re-repair my ice-maker connection (I think I tightened it too much and the plastic ferring popped off, so I had to do it again), and cleaning up the flood that caused and putting all those towels in the dryer for about the fourth time, I spent the day reading and watching movies. It was the perfect day for that. I'm happy to report that Lola went out to play with Linda's dog Ivy during a break in the rain, so she's obviously feeling better with her new arthritis treatment, yay! Otherwise, a pretty uneventful day, waiting for the tropical storm to pass. Off to bed soon! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie,
Slept better last night, thank goodness, then did a few chores this morning. Finished fixing the leak in my ice maker line first, put some tape on my awning topper, but that's clearly not going to fix the problem, so I ordered a new one. I decided to stay on here at Linda's for a bit, she has some more trail clearing rides in store, so I can help with that before I need to get down to Sandhills, and I can get some things delivered here that I need. The rain from a tropical storm arrived around 2:00 and it's been raining steadily every since. No wind, thank goodness, just lots of much needed rain, they've been in a drought here for some time. Perfect movie day! I cooked up some popcorn and was watching a movie when I got a call from an old friend of ours, TA, whom I haven't spoken to in years! It was nice to get caught up, and we're going to try to get together once I get to Florida. She and her partner Barry evidently still talk about us, would you believe! Anyway, spent the rest of the day listening to the rain and watching TV, glad to finally have a day off (mostly) after the busy two weeks I've had. Shower and bed soon! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Was very late when I finally got to sleep last night, got up and found a flood on the floor again. After breakfast, I started tracing it down, and was afraid it was a big water pipe that would be very hard to reach, but with further investigation, I found it once again to be the ice-maker hose springing a leak in the outside compartment, but eventually dripping back inside. I turned the water off, then just isolated the icemaker and started to make the repair. Turned out I didn't have everything that I needed, so I had to run into town to get some things. Filled up with fuel as well, then came back and went to work on that. It wasn't long before I realized I needed something else. Meanwhile, I found what I thought would be the right brakes in Illinois, so I gave the number to Russell and Truck and Trailer USA and asked him to speak with Paul there and see what they could work out. Took a second trip into town to get the rest of the parts I needed, dropped a book off at the post office, and stopped at the vet's to pick up Lola's medication for the next two months. BTW, she was feeling a lot better this morning, the pills seems to be working well for the time being. She was quite frisky and able to jump into the truck a couple of times without my help, though by the end of the day I did need to help her. I finally heard from Russell, and he had a long chat with Paul and they determined he didn't have the right parts, so we're back to needing new axles. Only problem is, according to Russell, I have some kind of hybrid axle, and we can't seem to locate the serial number, which is usually on a metal plate somewhere. He had looked for it yesterday, and I crawled under and looked again this evening, but no luck finding it. I seem to recall there had once been a sticker under there, but it's long gone. So, I think my only option at this point is to make an appointment with the folks in Florida and have them order the axles after they measure it, apparently it may take some custom fabrication. Sigh... Now I have to look at my schedule and see when I can get down there, when I can make an appointment, and make arrangements for somewhere to stay while they do the job, assuming it will take more than a day, though who knows, maybe not. Anyway, finally settled down to dinner and a quirky little movie with Simon Pegg about a talking mongoose. It rained several times during the day, and that's not even part of the tropical storm that's on it's way, so its a rainy forecast. May be a good time to do some deep cleaning, if I wake up in the mood. Of course, I have to finish with my icemaker repair first. But that's tomorrow. Tonight, it's good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Darlin'!
Late last night I discovered I had voicemails. I don't know what's up with that, but ever since I got this new phone, it doesn't seem to notify me very well about voicemails. Anyway, I had one from the trailer place in Chattanooga from Friday, saying they were ready for my trailer either Monday or Tuesday! I thought it would be another week. I wasn't sure what to do, but I woke up around 5:30 and decided I should take it down this morning, so I texted them to let them know I was coming, and got up early to pack up and got. We got caught in rush hour traffic, naturally, but made it down about 8:15. I was hoping for a simple solution, but alas, that was not to be. I waited around for a couple of hours until I got the first bad news. They had to replace everything. Not just the brake assembly, but the hubs and backing plates, essentially everything that fit on the axle, to the tune of about $3100. Not what I wanted to hear. Since they were getting parts in later, I unhooked because I had made an appointment for Lola at Linda's vet to see what could be done about her back leg. I came back to Linda's first since I had some time, and I'm happy to say that it didn't take long to find Flash's lost fly mask, tucked away under a small copse of trees. I killed some time until her appointment, then ran down there for our 2:00. Dr. Lee had to take a couple more x-rays, but clarified that it was, indeed, arthritis that is catching up to her. He told me about a relatively new monthly injection that he thought would be helpful, so he gave her her first monthly shot, and will have more to give me tomorrow, along with some pills to take until the injection kicked in in a couple of weeks. After that, we went to a little Indian restaurant in Cleveland, Naan House, which was more of a take-out place, though there were tables, but it didn't have any charm at all. The food was good, though, and I had enough leftover for another meal. Just after I ordered, I got a call from the trailer place, talked to a new guy that is apparently their Dexter axle expert, and got even more bad news. They tried three different places and none of the parts they had fit, so we're back to the idea that if I want to get my brakes fixed, I have to completely replace the entire axle, and he wasn't even sure if he could get the parts to fit properly. All this time I though I had 7000 lb. axles, turns out they're 8000, so different animal altogether apparently. They evidently used to make a conversion kit, but they don't anymore, it's not available anywhere. I've been doing a little research and will talk to the guy, Russell, again tomorrow, he's going to call Harmar to see if he can get any more info on the specs. Of course, if I need new axles, how were talking $6000 for parts and who knows how much for labor, and it will take 3-4 weeks to get the parts. As it was, he was kind enough to only charge me for an hour of labor, still almost $150, and they put it back together so I could bring it back to Linda's. At least I'll be in my own bed tonight. It's been a frustrating day on many fronts, but who knows? Maybe it will all work out in the end. At least if we can narrow down what we need, if we can't get the parts in time, I should be able to have the trailer place in Florida order them and have them for when I get down there. It's always something. Speaking of, I discovered a leak under my refrigerator, something I fixed awhile back, but is leaking again, so that's another chore on my to do list! Always something! Anyway, after not getting enough sleep last night, I'm ready for an early night, so good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hey Sweetie!
Took a long time to get to sleep again, I thought for sure my body would shut down, but it still didn't. Probably because it's so bloody hot here right now. Slept late to make up for it, I guess. Spent the day doing laundry and getting caught up on my bookkeeping, which took me much longer than I figured, but I got well and truly caught up, balancing accounts and reconciling everything, and if I keep that up, doing my taxes next year will be a breeze, hopefully! After dinner, I went to give the horses an apple and some mints, and I discovered Flash had lost his brand new fly mask, which I deliberately left on because it's a smaller size and I was sure he wouldn't lose it. So much for THAT idea! I drove around with Linda's utility vehicle in a grid pattern, but haven't found it before it got too dark. I'll look again in the morning. I sure hope I find it, but from now on, it's not going on in a five acre field, only when he's in close quarters! It was another very hot day, in the mid-90's, and I tried to run the AC off the 15 amp power but it didn't work. I ran every other fan I could just to keep the air moving, it was still barely tolerable. Came south too early, obviously! Anyway, didn't get the rest I was hoping for, but did get some less physical things accomplished, so I guess that's something. Heading for a cold shower and early bedtime, too late for a movie after running around the field until dark! Good night, baby! Love you!