Hi Sweetie,
Had another good night sleep, evidently Sleepytime tea and Lorna Doones are an effective sleep aid! Rick and his gang and their equipment were here just after 9:00, and they laid down a few more loads of gravel and leveled it off a bit more while Rick started figuring out where he was going to put his conduits for the electric and water. After trying to do a little digging by hand, he realized there were too many roots and has decided to get a trencher and tackle it tomorrow. They ended up leaving one of the pieces of equipment here because it had a flat tire, some giant piece of rock or maybe wood went right into the tread. They'll be here later in the week to fix it. Since we couldn't do anything more today, we ran out and moved the log that I tried to cut yesterday (my mini chainsaw didn't have enough juice in the batteries to finish the job), then did some work on the trail planning for the upcoming Suwannee Endurance ride next month. I settled down for the evening with a light dinner and the final episode of The Crown. turns out I have watched all the Outlanders for now, so I'll be canceling Netflix shortly. Just another day at Black Prong! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!
Monday, February 12, 2024 – Black Prong Green Trail Done!
Hiya Darlin',
Had a good night sleep, woke up refreshed enough to get up early. Started some laundry, did a little housekeeping, then saddled up Flash and was on the trail before 11:00. Today was the green trail, refurbishing stickers, adding a number of markers at intersections that were poorly marked, putting up signs that had fallen down, and general trail maintenance. Had a bit of extra exercise when, after tying Flash to a tree, I turned around and he was gone. Evidently, I forgot to stick the tail through the loop, ignoring the little voice in my head telling me to. I knew he would head for camp, so I just started walking the shortest path, more than a mile, and caught up to him just as he was approaching camp. He actually stopped for a second when I yelled whoa, but then Apollo whinnied and started up again. He hadn't even reached his hay by the time I got to him, he and Apollo were just nuzzling. After a quick break, I mounted again and headed back to where we were and finished the trail, so he didn't gain anything except a couple more miles of exercise. Surely I'll lose some weight today, still trying to get rid of the holiday five I added last month! I did a quick rasp of his front feet before putting him away, did a bit more laundry, and finally settled down to more of The Crown and dinner with an ice pack on my foot, which still aches a bit when I overwork it. A front came through with some rain, and a cold front is headed our way so temps will be cooler again this week, which is why I wanted to get that trail done today. One have the orange trail left to do! Headed for bed here shortly! Good night, babe! Love you!
Sunday, February 11, 2024 – Ride on Apollo
Hey Babe,
Despite being so tired from all the activity yesterday, I still had a lot of trouble falling asleep, so I woke up a bit tired this morning. Did my usual chores, had a breakfast that was mostly strawberries and milk with just a few bit of frosted mini-wheats thrown in, which was absolutely delicious! I watched all the campers packing up (all four spots were taken last night), read for a little bit, then finally mustered enough energy to saddle up Apollo for a ride. It's been awhile,and he's obviously getting bored, so I took him on a bit of a longer ride. He behaved himself for the most part, except one section where he refused to go, so I had to get down and walk a short ways to get him past whatever it was. The rest of the five plus miles went smoothly, but I noticed the Blue Long trail here is marked as six miles, but it's really just barely over five. We did it in under two hours, and I was happy to see the trail was in good shape, with just a couple of small things that might need attention, but not much. Once we got back, I trimmed his front feet, but I was too tired to do his back feet, I'll tackle them next time. Settled down in my recliner and started to read, but ended up falling asleep for a couple of hours! Finally woke up enough to feed the horses and settled down for the evening, continuing to binge-watch The Crown so I can finally cancel Netflix, though I think there's another season of Outlander that's come out, so I'll probably finish with that. Won't be long out of bed tonight, despite my nap this afternoon! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!
Saturday, February 10, 2024 – Busy Full Day with Jo
Hiya Sweetie!
My goodness, what a fun but exhausting day today! Got up early, did my usual chores plus the added chore of dumping my black water tank, had breakfast, then piled Lola into the truck and met at Jo's just before 9:30 so she could play around with Jo's dogs for a few minutes. Headed out soon after, first stop at the UPS store to drop off a package (returning some pants that I ordered), then to her bank, then to the tack store where I bought a new halter for Flash and a new muck bucket for water, then we went to the World Equestrian Center, and had lunch at the little Mexican restaurant there. OMG, what an incredible meal! Taco salad, which was amazing and totally different from anything else I've ever had, splurged on a margarita and had a totally decadent dulce de leche cheesecake. WAY too much food, I won't be eating again until tomorrow, probably midday! We walked around a bit through the various arenas, seemed like mostly practice, but we did managed to catch a couple of the young riders in the Level 6 Hunter Jumper competition in the main outdoor arena. Finally left there about 2:00, headed to Tractor Supply in Dunnellon where I picked up feed, which will save me a trip next week, and finally, we decided to squeeze in a quick trip to the U-Pick strawberry farm before they closed at 4:00, and just made it in time to get in and out. What fantastic strawberries!! Huge and ruby red and delicious! Yeah, I know, I was stuffed already, but I had to test one, right? I picked just under two pounds, which will be plenty for me, and Jo picked over five pounds for her and Jeff. Got back to her house around 4:30, and I finally made it back to camp about 5:15. Fed the horses, put on Flash's new halter, carried my feed into the trailer, and finally, CRASHED for the evening, exhausted! I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight! And Lola will, too, busy day for her. A wonderful day! Love you, my darlin'! Good night!
Friday, February 9, 2024 – Some Progress on Site Development Plus Setback
Hey Darlin',
Had a good night sleep at last, woke up early and refreshed, got my morning chores and breakfast done just before Rick arrived. There's been a bad leak in the well house that he's been waiting for a plumber to come and fix, but he kept not showing up, so Rick decided to do the work himself, which seems to be par for the course for the rangers around here. I gave him a hand, he used some of my tools, and after awhile we managed to get it done. In the process, though, he did something wrong on the electrical circuit board, and we ended up with no power beyond the well house. We finally pinpointed the problem to a bad circuit breaker and once that was replaced, everything worked fine again. I also dug a trench behind the bathroom to locate the pipe leading to the septic tank, then at the end of the day, we covered it up with plywood and traffic cones to hopefully keep people off it. I had hoped to go riding today, the weather was gorgeous, almost too hot by afternoon, but it was not to be today! Finished off around 3:45, too late to start anything else, so I settled down for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Jo and I have plans for tomorrow, so it will be an early morning for me tomorrow, so my plan is early to bed! Good night, baby! Love you!
Thursday, February 8, 2024 – Shopping Day
Hi Babe,
Didn't have a very good night sleep, pretty sure it's because there must be a lot of caffeine in the iced tea at Willards, since I had trouble the night before as well. Just finished feeding the horses when Rick arrived, and he spread around the last load of gravel with the tractor before they left to go cut away some trees that were blocking roads and trails. I decided to take advantage of the lack of activity on my part to get my grocery shopping done, so I headed into town and did just that. After getting back and putting all the groceries away, I sat in my recliner and, not surprisingly, almost nodded off. Kept myself awake with a little computer work, then settled down for the evening, watching several Crown episodes, but am ready to get to bed early to make up for the last two not-so-great nights of sleep. Good night, sweetheart! Love you!
Wednesday, February 7, 2024 – Site Gravel Laid
Hey Sweetie!
Spent the day in camp, perfect weather, working with the guys bringing in loads of gravel in a dump truck and leveling it off with a big tractor. What a great job! It's going very fast, more so than I had imagined, great progress! We took a break for lunch at Willards again, then did another load of gravel. We finished the day dropping one last load, but leaving the spreading until tomorrow. It's possible we might even be able to have me move over on Friday, though we might wait until next week. I'm thinking the sooner the better, but it's up to them. Logan stopped by to check on the progress as well, seemed happy with how it's going. Finally quit around 4:00, did my afternoon chores and settled down for the evening. Finished bingeing on the latest season of Heartland and got started on The Crown, which I'm two seasons behind on, but they're short seasons. Ready for shower and bed! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!
Tuesday, February 6, 2024 – Busy Day in the Forest
Hiya Darlin'!
Had a great busy and productive day today. Got up fairly early and had the morning chores and breakfast done just about the time Ranger Rick got here, and we headed to do a pretty good list of odds and ends. We went out to remove that second downed tree in Apex, checked up on Tidewater, picked up a sign for Beehive Rd. from the shop and a post from Tidewater and installed that, cut out a bunch of barbed wire along the perimeter firebreak at Buck Pond Trailhead, had lunch at Willard's, then came back to Black Prong to change a lock on the bathroom closet, put up some trail markers at a badly marked corner on the green trail, removed another downed log, and generally kept busy all day. Got a lot of little stuff done that's been hanging around, and it was thoroughly enjoyable to be working in the woods! We have a pretty busy schedule for the rest of the week working on the new camp host site, so it was nice to get out and about today. Settled down for the evening, happy I didn't have to cook or clean up dinner, watched a little RV, now I'm ready for an early night. Good night, baby! Love you!
Monday, February 5, 2024 – Tree Cutting Day
Hey Babe!
Had a good night sleep last night, woke up at a reasonable hour, read for a bit this morning, waiting for the rain to stop. The forecast said it would all be over by about noon, so I got Flash ready to go and loaded into the trailer by 11:00 and headed down to the HQ. Met with Logan about the map-making, then headed out into the forest to find a couple of downed trees that had been reported in advance of the next big equestrian event here, the Gator Run. Found them both, but was only able to remove one, the other one was just a tad too big for my little chainsaw, so I'll have to get one of the guys and a bigger chainsaw out here to take care of that. No hurry, we have almost two weeks before the ride. Unfortunately, the forecast was wrong again, and it drizzled on us until nearly 3:30, so it wasn't exactly ideal riding conditions, but we made it through, thanks to the nice, bright yellow poncho Jo gave me after her ride in December. I also picked up some restroom supplies that I needed, my storeroom is getting a little low on paper essentials. Got back to camp around 4:00, got Flash settled, then settled down myself for the evening. I've decided I want to cancel Netflix, I'm tired of their movie collection, it just seems to center on so much violence and language, I'm just going to stick with Prime, but before I go, I wanted to catch up on some of the TV series that have added seasons since I last watched, like Heartland and the Crown. Once they're done, I'm gone. Prime did raise their fees for their new category of "ad-free" (which used to be included, but now I have to pay extra), but it's worth it because I get so much more out of Prime than just the video stream. Anyway, it was a productive day, we rode over nine miles, so Lola got some exercise, too, though she was pretty reluctant to get out of the truck at first. Once she got going she was fine, it was just trying to get her moving that was the trouble. Sort of like me these days! So a productive day, a pleasant evening, and looking forward to shower and bed! Good night, Sweetheart! Love you!
Sunday, February 4, 2024 – Quiet, Rainy Laundry Day
Hiya Sweetie!
Today was a nice, quiet, rainy Sunday, just like we always used to love. I did a bunch of laundry, practiced my Morse code, read for a few hours, watched a little TV, played a few computer games, made Lola her special meatballs, and generally just had a nice relaxing day, while warm, light rain kept coming in small waves. Nothing too heavy, so it didn't really do too much to settle down the sand on the new site like we'd hoped, but it's better than nothing, I suppose. Hoping for an early night and a good night sleep! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!