Hey Babe,
Well, I had a full day planned today, which was supposed to include changing the oil on the truck, running into town to drop off some garbage and pick up a few groceries and maybe even a little bit more housework, but it all got pushed aside, and I ended up doing next to nothing. That's because I decided to take a dose of allergy medication for the itching and swelling from the bee stings. I figure if I took it today, by the time it wore off, most of the problem would be gone, but I didn't take it right away because I wanted to let my own immune system handle it, to keep it strong. It was a good plan, I thought, but the medication hit me so hard, I ended up falling asleep in my chair! I'd wake up and it would be an hour later, and then moments later, it was another hour! Before I knew it, it was after 3:00, too late to start anything. I ended up crawling back up to bed and sleeping some more, in between a tiny bit of reading. I was NOT expecting that kind of reaction! So I guess everything is pushed back until tomorrow, though I hate to shop on a Saturday, but I only need one or two things, so I guess I'll live. Dang, not the day I was hoping for! One thing I did do, I found a board in the barn to put over the ever increasing hole in the floor of my slide. Lola crawled back and ended up sticking her foot right through the soft spot, and needed help to get out. Did realize there was nothing else underneath it, I can now see straight to the ground. I checked it, though, and it seems to be okay outside the immediate are, so no change of my chair falling through yet, anyway. The board will hopefully keep it from getting worse. At least maybe now I can find where the leak is coming in! Anyway, I finally started feeling better at about supper time, so I had my usual evening. I just hope I'll be able to sleep tonight, after having slept so much during the day. My body rhythym is so off these days! I supposed I could use a pill as a sleeping pill, but I really hated the lethargy that came with it. Anyway, I'm going to try to get to bed and sleep during the night, and be back to normal tomorrow. Love you, darlin'! Good night!

Hiya Darlin',
Despite all the exercise yesterday, I still had a little trouble falling asleep, so late night equals late morning. Did some inquiries on where I can go next, waiting to hear back from some folks. Shared a lot of FB posts about missing people and animals. Was very excited that the gentleman I spoke with about donating a couple of big round bales of hay made a whopping contribution of 28 bales! I forgot to mention that yesterday we rode through a next of ground bees. Now ordinarily, I'm in the lead or on my own, so they never catch up to me, but yesterday I was in the back, so I got nailed big-time, with multiple stings on my ankles, hands and even on the back of my neck. They hurt for awhile but eventually the pain went away, but this morning, everything had swollen up and started itching. I toughed it out, figuring it will give my anti-bodies a workout, and it didn't really bother me too much. I wasn't in a mood to do much today, though, so I relaxed today. I did pull down my oil change stuff, since the truck is in need of an oil change, and fixed a pair of glasses, but otherwise, that was it. Just not up to doing more cleaning today. So, had a regular evening, though I baled out of one movie after half an hour, then watched a DC film that was just okay, a little too adolescent for me, so I guess I'm finally maturing :-). Heading to bed shortly! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

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!