Archives for July 2025

Hi Babe!
Had a fitful night sleep, until I pulled out my extra throw blanket! I was too cold to be comfortable, even with my wool cap on, until I did that! I slept fine after that. It's so shady here, it's hard to get up at the crack of dawn, so it was more like 8:30 when I finally got moving, though I did do some PT exercises and read for awhile. Spent some time taking apart my camcorder to see if I could fix it, not sure it's doable. I'm missing a screw on the door spring hinge, and don't have one to replace it handy, though I think tomorrow I might pull out one of my many old laptops and see if I can find one that fits. There might also be some damage to the electronics band that moves with that hinge, which is keeping the monitor from working. I can actually record video, which I tested from the SD card, but not photos, apparently, and the monitor is blank, so I may have more problems that that, but I'll try anyway! I'd really rather have a separate camcorder rather than do everything with my phone, so I may have to buy another one. Oh, well! Finally saddled up Flash and hit the trails about 12:20, on a gorgeous day! A bit cool in the woods, but finally warmed up by late in the afternoon. Had to wear my Red Rock denim jacket to stay warm! I decided to do the Blueberry Trail clockwise (so far, I've only done it counterclockwise once before), and it is truly a stunning ride. We took Fletcher Trail, Florence Pond Trail, Crooked Creek Trail (we had two creek crossings), then picked up Blueberry after a short stint on a road. We came across signs for Trailside Restaurant which didn't look like they were that old, so I thought maybe they had reopened it (I had heard they shut it down), and Google said they were open, so we took a detour just to see for ourselves. Sorry to say, Google had it very wrong, not open, empty, and looks like it has been for a long while. I think they shut down during Covid and never reopened. Anyway, we headed back, took a wrong turn and ended up meandering along a lot of private roads until we finally had to just about go cross country to get back on track. No worries, Flash is a bulldozer! We ended up going over 14.6 miles, and we cantered the last couple of miles, except one stop to let a couple of kids say hello, though Flash had his adrenaline up so he wasn't standing as calmly as usual. As soon as we finished there, we took off again. What a rush! Love that horse! Got back to camp, put him away, then went to visit with the gals at the end again, who then came down and had a tour of the trailer and bought a book. Went back to chat for a bit, then got a text from Karen that she had my special order Sweigels white hots (six pounds!) and a package, so I ran down there and got that, came back and had dinner and settled down for the evening. Got involved with trying to solve my camcorder problem again, there's still a couple of things I want to try tomorrow. Anyway, tea time, shower and bed soon! Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Darlin',
A cool morning, down in the low 50's, a refreshing change from the heat wave we've been having! Decided to run my couple of errands this morning to let it warm up, so I drove down to town, dropped off another return to Amazon, picked up a bag of All Stages (which the Tractor Supply was finally able to get in from another store, as they didn't have any, despite their website saying they had forty bags! Not a very well managed store!), then got back to camp just after 11:00. Had Flash saddled and out on the trail before 11:30. I decided to follow the trails where I might find the missing halter one of the ladies from the parade had lost, down Icicle and Erie Canal, but no luck. Ran into Carol and her friend, they hadn't seen it either. We reached the river and crossed it, then headed west on Eatonville Trail, crossed over Otter Creek and too the trail of the same name, then turned north on another loop and left the forest to go along a road until we picked up Hiawatha trail back to camp, just under fourteen miles in all. I had forgotten how rocky it was on some of those trails, not to mention the gravel roads, and felt bad that I hadn't brought Flash's boots along, but one is so stretched it keeps falling off, and the new one I ordered isn't due until next week, so there wasn't much I could do. I'll check his feet tomorrow and make sure there isn't any (or much) stone bruising. He'll get a couple of days off anyway. Today was absolutely gorgeous, perfect weather once it warmed up a bit, and it was a fantastic ride, as always here at Otter Creek. Got the horses settled, and even played a little fetch with Lola. I've been giving her Cosequin since Tennessee, and it seems to be working, she's moving around better, though she only retrieved the ball a couple of times. Still, I'm happy to see any improvement at her age! Had myself dinner and a little TV, won't be long out of bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Babe,
I keep waking up at the crack of dawn, and when I'm lucky, manage to fall asleep for a little bit longer, though not too much this morning. That's okay, I had a busy day. After chores and breakfast, I saddled up Apollo, and Lola and I headed out for a short ride. Apollo was stumbling a bit for awhile, but eventually loosened up enough to do a little jogging. I took him on mostly flat trails at first to get him warmed up, which I think helped. We did cut it shorter than I had planned, though, because Lola seemed to be struggling a bit. We ended up going just over three miles. At least the big guy is still moving! Once I got him put away, Lola and I headed into town to do a bunch of errands. I'm returning some pants I ordered from Amazon, dropped of the final check to the Yellowstone outfitter, got fuel at the ridiculous price of $4.19/gallon, picked up some joint stuff for Apollo and propane at Tractor Supply, but once again disappointed in the management there. Their website said they had 40 bags of the All Stages that I feed Flash, but they actually had NONE. Now we're back to getting some sent over from another store IF they have someone available to do that! Very poorly managed. Then to Walmart for some of my usual items, then a stop at Millers Meat Market for some garlic cheese curds (my new favorite snack whenever I'm up here), and a last stop at Mary's Dairy Bar, where they have superb frozen custard, which I've been looking forward to ever since I crossed the Mason/Dixon line, but haven't been able to find yet. A small twist cone (chocolate and vanilla swirled) was all I needed, and I called that dinner. Well, except for a couple of slice of bacon and a few cheese curds later, anyway. Had some visitors come by, a lady named Carol whom I had met several times previously around different horse camps in NYS, including Sugar Hill and Phillips Point, and we had a lovely chat along with another of her friends. Small world! Finally fed the horses and settled down for the evening, later than usual, but still daylight! Headed to bed shortly. Love you darlin'! Good night!

Hey Darlin',
Not a bad night sleep, but did wake up pretty early. Did my chores, had breakfast, then saddled up Flash for our first Otter Creek ride of the year. As always, it was a beautiful ride! We did about 11.5 miles, went down a couple of spur trails that I had never actually been down before, and generally just had a wonderful ride. Flash seemed to be raring to go, we did a lot of gaiting and even some cantering, though I lost my can of bug spray somewhere along the line. Seems to me I did that here another time long ago! Beautiful day! Once we got back, I spent some time in the chat room of Verizon trying to solve a problem, and eventually got out and put up a highline for the boys. Not supposed to, but it's just not right to keep my guys in a standing stall for two weeks! They seemed a lot happier, of course. Just before 6:00, Karen and two of her friends came by and picked me up, and we got into Lowville just in time for the parade marking the opening of their county fair, which is apparently the second oldest fair in the nation. She had already set up chairs, so we had front row seats to the voluminous number of fire departments from throughout the area, a couple of marching bands, horses and wagons, elected officials and, of course, plenty of tractors and business using the opportunity to be a slow moving billboard, not to mention most floats throwing out candy all over the street, getting swept up by kids and grownups alike. After about 90 minutes, we hauled the chairs back to the car, then walked down to the fair to wander and munch on a little junk food and walk through the animal barns. I kept the junk food to a minimum, hoping I didn't eat more than I burned today! Finally got back to camp just before 10:00 (we didn't stay for the fireworks, I think we'd all seen enough of those in our lifetimes!), gave the boys another flake of hay, walked Lola (one other camper came in just as I was leaving), and now am settling down for a cup of tea, a shower, and bed! Hoping I can sleep a little later tomorrow, getting tired of waking up before 6:00! Anyway, it was a lovely and different kind of day, and I was very glad to get back into the saddle. Good news, I haven't taken any pain killers for over a week now, mainly because I haven't been doing anything, but even with the ride and all the walking this evening, I still don't feel the need! Yippee! Hope I feel the same way in the morning! Good night, sweetie! Love you!