Hiya Darlin',
Had a good night sleep, woke up to beautiful weather, did my usual chores and breakfast, then sat out in the screen room and started doing some bookkeeping. Ever since I lost my credit card back in September, I haven't been able to download my account to my bookkeeping program, and it's been a nightmare trying to fix it. I did a workaround, but it needed some help, and neither my savings account (for some unfathomable reason), nor my credit card account was balancing properly, so I had to go way back and research things, make a few adjustments, until finally I was able to get everything balanced. Whew! Then I got caught up on all the transactions since September with receipts, until finally, I was done getting caught up. During the afternoon, I heard from one of the organizers of the big Hokey Pokey ride this weekend, Tom, and he stopped by to drop off some 100 gallon water tanks and to arrange for my help to refill the water tanks along the trail. Evidently the forest service is too short-handed (or they're just passing it off to me, since I'm here anyway), so do that. Only problem is I can't drive their water truck, so I'll have to take mine with my 110 gallon tank, and Tom has another tank about the same size I can use, so hopefully it won't take too many trips. Should be an interesting day on Saturday! Meanwhile, we put the tanks out here, and I spent the next two-plus hours filling them up, as well as scrubbing the usual galvanized tank here at the trailhead just for giggles, so we're set here, except for cordoning off the crew and vet check area, which I'll have to do first thing Saturday morning, or late Friday night, more likely. Finally settled down for dinner and a little TV, a glass of wine, a shower and soon to bed! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hey Babe,
Got up to an alarm this morning in anticipation of going out with Ranger Rick and repairing a section of Geomat, a plastic webbing they put down in creekbeds to reduce erosion, that had been torn up and was all clumped up and, to my mind, hazardous for horses and needed to de-clumped somehow. We hadn't set a time, but I wanted to be ready. It turned out to be a bit later than I thought, but that was fine. I met him down at Tidewater trailhead, after stopping by Jo's and picking up a pair of her husband's waders, and we ventured out. I wasn't sure how difficult it would be to get there, though I had dropped a pin on it so I knew where it was, but none of the road maps indicated how we could get there, but it turned out to be right on Ten Mile Road, which was also part of the yellow trail, and was suitable for his truck with no problem! Once we got there, it only took about 15-20 minutes to cut out the worst of it, and it was much improved! Took a detour to look at the old Red Lodge, something that should have been preserved as a landmark but instead has been let go to the point of it being way too dilapidated to repair at this point. They should rebuild a new one, but I doubt that will happen. Anyway, it was a job well done, and glad of it! Got back to Tidewater, then drove into town to do a little shopping, then back to camp by 4:30. Settled down for the evening, looking forward to a good night sleep! Love you, sweetheart! Good night!

Hiya Babe,
Can't believe I didn't wake up until 10:00 this morning! Even though I was in bed fairly early last night, and I only woke up once during the night for a short time, I must still be recovering from my hangover, or more likely, this cold weather is making me go into hibernation mode. Anyway, I finally got moving (though if I didn't have to get up to feed the horses, I probably would have stayed in bed even longer!), and got busy with my day. Did a couple of loads of laundry, did some housekeeping, then eventually went over to Jo's where her husband Jeff had made a lovely bean soup, chatted for a while about map-making, then got home just before 8:00. Settled down to a quick episode of Eureka and a cup of Sleepytime tea before calling it a night. Have a ride on the yellow trail down in Tidewater planned for tomorrow, it's finally starting to warm up, with 80's forecast by mid-week! That's more like it! Love you, sweetie! Good night!

Heya Sweetie,
Woke up a bit hung over from all the white Russians I drank with Jo last night, finally got up and fed the horses, dogs and me, then crawled back into bed for awhile to read. Didn't really do too much else today, except a bit of work on my Quicken program, though I still have a ways to go. Watched an interesting movie call The Circle with Tom Hanks, sort of a modern day version of 1984, and not a real stretch from what today's technology can do. Supposed to be going down into the high 20's overnight, so I'm certainly getting the opportunity to experience some winter-like conditions! Normally I'd be further south at this time of year, so it's an interesting change, but I'm not bothered. It's actually kind of nice to have at least a little seasonal change. In a few days it will be back up in the 80's, so it doesn't last long here! I put the outdoor faucets to the bathhouse and the pavilion with a little drip just to prevent any freezing. I think the other spigots will be okay, pretty sure whatever subfreezing temps we have won't last long enough to do any real damage, fingers crossed! Anyway, heading to shower and bed shortly. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
Cold this morning! Just above the freezing point when I first woke up, then the temp dropped to 32 during the next hour! Even with the fireplace on all night, it was a bit chilly getting out of bed this morning. Finally managed to make it outside, where I'm sure my hungry horses were glad to have their blankets on. Did my chores and breakfast, then Ranger Rick came by to confirm the layout of my site. He expects he can get the first crew out here on Tuesday to take the necessary trees down, and doesn't seem to think the rest will take much time. They're really going like gangbusters on the project, surprisingly spry for a bureaucracy! After that I typed up the inventory list from the volunteer closet I did yesterday, and then spent some time trying to figure out how to fix my Quicken program. Spent nearly an hour chatting with someone named Douglas who said he could help me better if he called me, and said he would do so in a couple of minutes. He ended the chat and I never heard from him again, surprise, surprise. I kept working through the possibilities, and I think I may have figured out a way to fix it, but it will take a bunch of time. I tried it once and it made things worse, so I'll have to do it again, hopefully with less mistakes, and eventually, maybe, get it right, but it is definitely going to be time consuming. Can't understand why it's such a problem, I've never had this much trouble doing the exact same thing that I've done several times before. Sigh... Anyway, settled down for the evening to a movie about geriatric romance (something I'm still too young for!), and will be finishing up the evening here shortly. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Darlin',
Woke up several times during to night, mostly to noisy rain showers until I put in my earplugs, then slept solidly until after 9:00! Met Rick and Jerry shortly thereafter, the latter being the one who's going to be clearing the area for my new host site. We did some walking around and discussing until we found a good spot, not really far from where I am, just a bit further away from the pavilion, but still uphill from the septic field. They'll have to move the gate I'm behind, but that didn't seem to faze them at all. If I keep the horses where they are, they'll actually be visible from my screen room, which will be a nice addition. Took advantage of the rainy weather to go down to headquarters and do a cleanup and inventory on the "volunteer" closet, found an amazing amount of stuff in there, tools, educational and giveaway items, trail marking and maintenance equipment, and a bunch of boxes of old permits, some of which I'm pretty sure are too old to be hanging on to, though I asked the manager, Logan, how far back we had to keep, and he's checking on it. Should be able to throw out a couple of boxes, though. Surprised myself by getting the whole thing done by a little after 3:00, I thought I'd have to come back tomorrow, but I don't! I will be putting the list on my computer for distribution in the morning. Got back to camp, then used ribbons we found to mark off the site we selected so it will be ready when they come with the equipment to do the job. They seem very eager to get it done, so I want don't want to do anything to delay it! They seemed quite happy to let me just pick the spot! Got the horses fed, then blanketed them, Flash with a heavy blanket, Apollo with a lighter blanket. It's still really warm and humid, so I felt kind of bad covering them, but it's clearing overnight and the temps will be dropping around midnight, and the low in the morning is supposed to be below freezing, so I just had to do it! Settled down for the evening to a cute little country romance movie, heading to bed early, hopefully, I'd really like to get back on a normal sleep schedule, which seems to be eluding me at the moment. Anyway, love you, babe! Good night!

Hiya Sweetie,
Had a good night sleep, woke up to cold temps again, and very grateful I had my fireplace on all night last night so at least the bungalow was warm getting up this morning! I had hoped to ride today, but it remained cloudy and didn't really warm up until it was too late to ride. The forecast for this week is screwy, it's either cold and sunny or warm and rainy! I'm looking forward to a day when it's warm AND sunny! Ended up working some more on the trail planning, doing several loads of laundry, and trying to figure out how to update my Quicken program, which has refused to merge my new credit card account with my old one, though I know there must be a way. I FINALLY figured out how to download the last two years of transactions into a new account, but I need to merge the transactions from the previous account to the new one. All this just because I had to replace the credit card! Grrr! It's taken me hours over weeks and months to get this far. The last conversation I had with Quicken support was that it was my problem and I'll just have to enter the transactions manually! Yeah, thanks. Oh, well, it's been nice and cozy in front of the fireplace, just doing my usual routine. Watched a great movie with an all-star cast about Napa wines beating out the French in a blind taste test, lots of fun! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Darlin',
Spent a good part of the day working on trail planning on my computer, the second section of the forest I'm working on is quite tricky, and I've still got a ways to go to get it right. I went out to pick up some hay, hoping that the parts to fix my electric would come in and all I'd have to do is swing by and get them, but that didn't work out. Instead I brought the hay home and got it stored (he threw in two extra bales because he said some of them were too light!), then did the preparation on the electrical cord so that it would be a "simple" matter to just replace the end. Just as I was wrapping that up, Jo's husband Jeff called to say the packages were arriving, so I jumped in the truck and ran to get them. Of course, it took me three times longer to do the job than I figured, and by the time it was done and the horses were fed, it was well past dark, but ultimately, it worked, and I now have electric again! Barely soon enough, the temps dropped fast today and even though the fireplace has been going for nearly two hours now, I'm wearing a wool cap and I had a cup of hot cocoa, I'm still feeling a bit of a chill! Looking forward to a hot shower and a warm bed! Hoping to get a ride in tomorrow, but not sure if it's going to get warm early enough, but we'll see. I've been getting a little spoiled by having water and electric, reverting to generator and inverter yesterday was a throwback that was a reminder of my usual travel life, and I was glad to get back to having electric again. Anyway, a good, productive day, looking forward to a good night sleep. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Started the day with just a spring of rain, nothing like the doomsday scenario the weather people were predicting, surprise, surprise. Although it was a mostly typical morning, I suddenly lost electricity, and further inspection revealed that I have completely fried the far end of my 50 amp cord, the adapter that went from 50 to 15, and the 15 amp cord that went into the outlet. I had put a bucket it over it to protect it from the rain, but neglected to raise it off the ground, which I'm guessing is the problem, and it shorted and burned everything out. After multiple phone calls, it became clear that the replacement I needed wasn't available in nearby Dunnellon, so I ended up ordering all the parts off Amazon with a delivery for tomorrow. No worries, I still have a generator, so I can get power when I need it. Fortunately, it's very warm today, in the mid 70's, so I won't need the fireplace, but it's supposed to cool down tomorrow and for the following few days, so obviously I need to get it fixed in a hurry. I parked the little trailer and headed into town anyway, picked up horse feed at Tractor Supply, then on to Walmart for more basics. In addition to buying some plastic containers I'm going to try to use to protect the plugs, I also thing I may have solved another long-standing problem, how to get the horses access to a salt block. I bought one last time I shopped, and put it in an old plastic dog bowl and put in on the ground near the water buckets, but they quickly crushed that and spread bits of salt all around, though before that it was obvious they had been licking on it (well, at least one of them had). I've been trying to figure out a way to hang one on the highline, without having to use one of those Himalayan type salt-on-a-rope deals, which I find only get half chewed before they fall off the rope. When I was in Tractor Supply, I happened by the bird food section and saw something they called a suet holder. It was made of metal and seemed like it might serve the purpose, except that it was too small. So I got online to look for a larger one, and did find one, but when I went into Walmart, I stopped first at the garden center, and discovered they had large ones there! Amazing. It's the perfect fit for the small mineral bar, and I was able to tie it on the highline very easily. Flash was sniffing at it moments after it was up, but we'll have to wait and see if they really lick on it. Seems like the perfect solution, but you never know! It was after 4:00 by the time I got back, put everything away, chatted with Bev for a few minutes, then settle down to a quiet evening of dinner and a movie. Very warm and humid, but I'm not complaining, the weather in my hometown in upstate NY is running between 15 and 30 degrees, so I'm still a happy camper! Just have my shower and bed left! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie,
Had some trouble getting to sleep last night, but managed to get up at a decent hour, got my chores done, worked a bit on the trail marking system on the computer now that I had the go ahead from the powers-that-be here. My friend Bev from Jax showed up just before noon, and we chatted for a bit while they got settled in. Didn't do much else but computer work and a little TV today, so I'll be heading to bed soon. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!