Hi Sweetie,
Another busy day today! Up with an early alarm, on the road by 8:15, down at Yvette's by 8:30, and spent the day doing more tractor work, whatever needed done, but most importantly, getting the fence posts around the walker in. I left around 3:30, came home and started boiling eggs for the deviled eggs I promised for the pot luck tomorrow after the Trail Work Half Day. It wasn't long before I left to drive down to Forest HQ for their Christmas party, a huge pot luck where I ate much more than I needed. I'm pretty used to gaining 7 or 8 pounds during the holidays, and it doesn't look like this year will be any different! Just need to get on track to lose it again. Got back home just before 8:30, finished my deviled eggs, watched a quick Farscape, didn't even take the time to take a hot tub tonight! It's just getting too late, so I'll be off to my shower and bed here very soon. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Darlin',
Woke up two minutes before my alarm, got right out of bed, and was very glad I didn't have to deal with finding lost horses this morning! Managed to get everything done, happy that my tractor started in this freezing weather (literally, 32 degrees this morning), filled it with fuel and was on my way out when I got stopped by a camper, chatted with them for a few minutes before I finally headed down the road. Arrived at Yvette's second house and was met by the couple that were going to put in a horse walker for her. An interesting couple, originally from South Africa, and we got along immediately. It took a bit of figuring to take off the bush hog and get on the post hole digger, I haven't used it in awhile and it was a bit stiff on the PTO shaft, but we managed to engineer a solution. I then drove it down to Yvette's first house, and we got busy. There were many chores that my tractor made easier, including digging post holes, pulling out old posts, and holding up the arms of the walker while it was put together. We worked all morning until he set some cement for the middle motor, then we went to Willards for lunch. Came back and worked until the end of dusk, before coming back to camp, feeding the horses, blanketing them again, sweeping the bathrooms, and finally mixing a drink and taking my hot tub. I am really loving that last item! Took my shower, watched a few more Farscapes (I have to finish them before my free trial runs out!), ready for bed! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Woke up to lots of rain, as predicted, and after doing my usual chores, and letting Apollo off the highline for the day, I had every intention of doing some housework, but ended up not in the mood. Other than a load of laundry, I pretty much had a relaxing day, mostly reading or on the computer. I'm having dinner a lot earlier now, and I had just finished when someone came up and called me out, asking if I had lost a couple of horses. Sure enough, somehow Apollo had once again broken through the fence, and with Flash in tow, apparently ended up along the road! This lady was kind enough to drive me up the road about a quarter mile, where there was a whole crowd of people, so evidently they'd been wandering for a while. There was several cars, including a law enforcement car with lights flashing, and a woman with a horse trailer who had already loaded up my boys into it. I got there in the nick of time before I guess she was going to take them home until the owner was found. She kindly drove me back to camp and we unloaded them. Of course, now being close to dinnertime, they were cooperative while I fed them and fixed the fence, once again hitching Apollo to the highline, where he is going to stay until I get the fence working again. I love this neighborhood! So many people came out to help! They even had listed it on the local FB group, and I was able to thank everyone there. So grateful for understanding, equestrian neighbors! Well, by then it was growing dark, so had my hot tub (where my chemical balance is now near perfect!) and my shower and settled down for the rest of the evening, though I got a call from Yvette, she wants to use my tractor for a job tomorrow, so I'm going to have to bundle up (it's supposed to get down to nearly freezing in the morning) and drive my tractor down to her place early. Heading to bed soon! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hiya Darlin',
I'm pretty sure my hot tub is contributing to my sleeping, because I had another great night sleep last night. I was reading in bed, though, when someone came to my door and told me I had loose horses. I quickly got dressed (though not panicked, since I figured they weren't going to go far at breakfast-time) and not surprisingly, found them standing in their paddock, even though the fence was almost completely down. Evidently, Apollo got a bit hungry or determined or something, because he actually broke a couple of posts on his way out of the fence, and it was down enough for Flash to follow, which is highly unusual. But since they were back in and waiting, I simply fed them and rebuilt the fence. I spent a little time trying, once again, to figure out why the charger seems to be working but the fence isn't. Still can't figure it out. Anyway, I finally got that straightened out, had my breakfast, chatted with Rick for a couple of minutes when he stopped by, then headed out of camp for a bit shopping day. Went to the post office to send off a letter to the UK, then went to Tractor Supply for a big order of horse feed, then Publix to pick up my favorite ice cream, eggnog, picking up the very last carton which was way in the back, almost like someone was trying to hide it. I had brought my cooler along with ice in it, hoping that would keep it from melting too much, but I had some delays, so it was a bit soft by the time I put it in the freezer. Oh well, it will hopefully harden up again. Then to Walmart for diesel and shopping, then to the hay place to pick up some more hay. I've been going through almost a bale a day, just trying to keep the guys busy so they WON'T break through the fence, guess I shorted them last night or something. A quick stop at the dollar store, though they didn't have what I wanted, finally home! By the time I got everything put away it was after 4:00, and almost dark by the time I put the hay away. I still have the bags of feed left, but I decided to do them later. I was starving, so I made dinner and watched an hour of the last season of Farscape, having waited to get a 7-day free trial so I could finish it off since it wasn't available on Prime anymore. Then went back to my new schedule, dinner/feed the horses/take a hot tub/take my shower/clean the kitchen/watch a movie (though because of the time frame, watching two more hours of Farscape before doing my blog, taking my Spanish lesson and going to bed! I'm well on my way with that schedule now! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Had a good night sleep, but for some reason, just couldn't get my act together to do much today. I was going to go back to Tidewater and mark the purple trail, but I had a few aches and pains and decided against it. Instead I worked on some overdue paperwork on my computer, then had a movie day with popcorn in the afternoon. After feeding the horses, I finally took my first dunk in my new hot tub! Despite getting down to 32 degrees last night, the tub had heated up to a fabulous 104 degrees, and though it doesn't have super strong jets, there were so many outlets making bubbles (over 100!), it did give me an excellent experience. I did feel relaxed by the time it shut off. I wasn't sure if it had a timer, but it did go off after about 25 minutes, though I'll have to confirm that next time. I tried to start the bubbles again but it wouldn't let me, so I guess there's a set time before you can start it again. Things I'll have to learn, since it didn't have anything in the manual about that! Regardless, it was wonderful to finally add one of the things I have missed about our house, our hot tub! Anyway, it was a quiet, enjoyable day, and I'll have plenty of energy for tomorrow. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Babe!
Well, today's accomplishments made up for yesterdays incompletions. Though it took until 11:00 to get the first load of sand dumps, I was able to make short work of flattening it all out with my little tractor. I'm so glad I have that now! Rick brought two loads of sand and a load of gravel so that I can fix some of the potholes that periodically appear on the roads around the campground. The second load of sand I'll use to fill in some sand holes, and I put a couple of scoops down on my new patio to level it out as well. Once I got fairly straightened out, I moved the trailer over, which took awhile because it was really finicky and I wanted to get it just right, not to mention I had to move all the hay under the gooseneck and essentially put most everything away before I could pull in the slide and move it, but eventually, I got it in exactly where I wanted it. Of course, the sand will have to settle a bit, but I'm so glad that my porch isn't on gravel anymore! I know I'll have to move it again when I take it up to the trailer shop for repairs, but I finally feel like I've made a real start on moving in. Finally settled in for my usual evening, looking forward to a good night sleep! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hiya Sweetheart,
Woke up too early this morning, but did spend some time working on my shoulder (yes, it's still not quite right), and after chores and breakfast, I hooked up the little horse trailer and moved it closer to the big trailer in order to finish filling up the tires. Before I finished, Rick came by and said he had hoped to bring me my loads of sand for my little patio today, so I abandoned my plan of riding down at Tidewater in favor of getting my site finished. I finished filling the tires, then parked it once again, drove Rick down to HQ to pick up the equipment, and shuttled him back and forth until he had both the dump truck and the loader out at the sand pit. After quite awhile, he finally arrived back at camp, but instead of a dump truck full of sand, he was driving the loader! Turns out he got the dump truck stuck at the bottom of the sand pit (it's deep with sugar sand), and he couldn't call me to come get him because he had lost his phone somewhere. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon driving back and forth to get the guys and equipment we needed to pull the truck out, it ended up taking a bulldozer to do it. We looked for his phone, with no luck, until I remembered reading something about Google now having an automatic Find Your Phone feature, so I looked that up, and we managed to get the app to work, and voila! His phone was back at HQ! Not sure how it got left there, but at least we found it, which he was understandably glad about. Anyway, by the time we got the truck out and Rick drove it back to HQ, then brought the loader back over to Black Prong, it was nearly 5:00, so a long day with very little accomplished. Hoping to get more done tomorrow, though riding will still not be on the menu. Guess that will have to be the next day! Fortunately, the long range forecast is for nice weather, not quite so cold, so it will be good riding weather. Finally settled down to dinner and a movie, next up, a shower and bed! Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hey Darlin'!
Another lovely flannel night and chilly morning, though it didn't feel as bad as I thought it would. A couple of guys from the trailer place came by to double check on a measurement for the axles that I thought were already ordered. Guess they're not, but they're getting close. I was going to move my truck for them in case they had to get a jack out (which they didn't), but my truck wouldn't start. Ended up putting the charger on it for the day. I'm afraid new batteries are in order, mine are over five years old now, and they've been getting sluggish for awhile now. Just as I was finishing breakfast, Ranger Rick came by, which was unexpected because they were doing some prescribed burns today and he thought he was going to have to be on those, but evidently they gave him a reprieve, so instead, I joined him and we went out to check the trails at Apex for an event going on this weekend. Turned out the trails being used were all in good shape, and the only issues were two downed trees we tried but couldn't reach by truck, so Rick brought me back to camp, then went off to get a tractor to move the trees. I discovered I could drop pins on the Avenza app, so I did that for him on his phone so he knew where to find them. Back at camp, I did some more yard work, which included a little bit of a bonfire to get rid of a pile of windrow leftover from when they cleared the site for the camp host. That didn't take long. Then I spent some time in the afternoon researching more pack trips (hopefully, my adventure for next year!), and also some world cruises for when I'm much older and less mobile. Eventually I headed over to Willards for our first Taste of Goethe meeting (not to mention, Taco Tuesday, except they had run out of tacos by the time we got there 🙁 ), before getting back to camp around 8:30. Too late to do much but finish my diary entry, my chai tea, take my shower and go to bed with a new Mercy Kilpatrick novel! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hiya Babe!
Last night I put my new flannel sheets on my bed, and wow! It was warm and wonderful! Made me think of the first time we slept on flannel sheets, when we were guests of the parents of one of your Interlochen stars up in Iowa. Lovely! Needless to say, I slept well, even when the temps dipped down to freezing! Supposed to be even colder tonight. My electric fireplace is barely keeping up, but at least I have electric! Otherwise, I'd have gone through several tanks of propane this week trying to run the furnace! Anyway, once it warmed up, I spent the morning bush hogging a little patch of long weeds behind the trailer, as well as the horses' paddock to clear out the manure, which didn't take too long. A little restroom cleaning, and then a mostly quiet day. I discovered the air in the tires of the little horse trailer was low as well, and tried to fill them up using one of the little compressors, managed to get one tire done before it quit. I decided I'd just wait until it was hooked up later this week and back it up close to the trailer so I can use the big compressor on it, that will be much easier and faster. That will probably be Wednesday, since tomorrow is likely to be too cold to ride! Spent the afternoon looking at outfitters at Yellowstone and the Tetons, planning on my next vacation. At least I won't have to wait 15 months for this one, I don't think! Watched a fun movie called The Miracle of East Texas, now I'm ready for shower and bed! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hi Sweetie,
A good night sleep, no horse or dog emergencies, and I even stayed in bed a little longer because the temps were at about 30 degrees! Finally got up, fed the horses and had my breakfast, then got busy. I'm so grateful I can choose the days when I feel like working. Yesterday I took the day off, and today, I was energetic because of it. I did some deep cleaning, including the refrigerator and the washing machine, did a couple of loads of laundry, and did a lot of housekeeping. At 2:00, I went to do Yvette's and drove my tractor back, though I had to put air in the tires before I did. I hadn't looked at that when I was bush hogging the other day, and I was sorry I hadn't checked it, especially when I discovered just how low they all were! Fortunately, I had the inflator to fix that problem, of course. I finally left there right at 3:00 and was back in camp by 3:35, better than I had expected. Jo was kind enough to come pick me up a little after 5:00 and take me back to my truck, so it was a good job done! I also sanded down a picnic table that had some graffiti on it, and swept the restroom before feeding the horses and settling down for the evening. A very busy and productive day. So glad to have my tractor to hand! Can't wait to get started with the work I need to do with it! But that will start tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm making the bed up with my new flannel sheets, because the temps for the next few days are in the 30's and even 20's, so I figure there's no time like the present to use them! Needless to say, I've had the electric fireplace running nearly nonstop for the last few days! Heading for bed shortly, glad to be getting back on a good sleep rhythm. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!