Hi Darlin’,
A late night last night, but I finally got to sleep, waking up a bit late, but so what? Got the horses fed and chores done, had breakfast, then, since it was still a bit chilly to go riding, decided to drive over to the Flying Eagle Reserve, which was supposed to be my next stop. Good thing I went, too! The GPS took me down a bunch of WRONG backroads, which would have been nearly impossible with my trailer, and then I finally found the right route, and even THAT would be almost impossible with my trailer! Very narrow, too sandy, too many overhangs, there is just NO WAY I want to attempt this with my trailer! Once I got there, it wasn’t bad, though there’s only one water spigot at the entrance, and the horse camp itself would be pretty nice, but there’s no way I could get back there, not without serious risk. So change of plan, I subsequently canceled my reservation for the Flying Eagle and extended my reservation for Lake Panasoffkee, especially since my ride here turned out to be quite nice! After scouting out Flying Eagle, and a quick stop at Winn Dixie liquor for a very bad bottle of Jim Beam Honey Bourbon (okay, it’s a holiday, I know, but it’s still poison!), and Big Lots for a replacement clock since the one in my living area died, I finally got back to camp and saddled up Flash and got out on the trail about 1:00. By now it was finally warm (lows near or below 40 last night!), so the delay was perfect. We headed out for my first exploratory ride, which took us all the way down to the south end of the park, about 14+ miles round trip. It was an interesting variety, from wide open fields and sand roads to deep, dark swampland and grass roads, with plenty of opportunities for paces of every speed. We all had a great ride, including Lola. We saw beautiful white wading birds and a couple of speedy armadillos, and one quick snake that looked like a black racer to me. Very enjoyable ride! We got back around 4:00, so it wasn’t long before feeding time, then I joined my neighbors by their campfire for a bit before dinner, did my Snowy River for them, then headed into the trailer for supper and to settle down for the evening. It’s after 9:00 now and I’m waiting for Pistol and her crew to arrive, they’re on their way. I’ve been tippling some of that honey bourbon so I’m feeling no pain (I hope I’m saying the same thing in the morning!), but I wanted to do my writing and my French lesson while I’m waiting. Hopefully, it won’t be long! Once they arrive I’ll be doing my usual shower and bed, so I’ll just say good night now, sweetheart! Love you!

Hi Sweetie,
Woke up to a chilly, windy morning, even though it was sunny, so instead of freezing my butt off riding, I decided to get all my shopping done. I ended up going to half a dozen different places to get some of the stuff I needed, including a new one of those expandable willow trellises that I can use to keep Lola off the dining room bench, and a new dog tag for her, hers broke a couple of days ago. The metal is so thin on the part that connects to the collar on those expensive ones you get at the pet store (which I had to do last time because I couldn’t find one of those vending machines like they used to have in all the Walmarts), but I finally found one up near the Villages. So Ace Hardware for propane, Home Depot for trellis, Tractor Supply for horse feed, and two Walmarts for Thanksgiving shopping, it was a long and busy day of errands! It was still windy all day, cool enough to not even take off the horses’ winter blankets which I had put on last night. Finally settled down, binge-watched some more Burn Notice, had a nice grilled burger for dinner, now I’m ready to an early bedtime, since it’s supposed to be down to about 38 degrees tonight, brrr! Supposed to warm up for the rest of the week, though, so I’m planning on a long ride tomorrow, since Pistol and her crew are due to join me tomorrow evening. So, off to the showers I go! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Darlin’!
Despite the 20+ mile ride yesterday, Lola was restless again last night, and I had to get up twice to let her out and in. Finally got to sleep after midnight. After chores and breakfast I got busy with laundry, it was a partly sunny and windy day, so perfect for outdoor drying. Put a few things away, not much because it’s such a short trip tomorrow, and mostly had a quiet day after that. The group invited me over for dinner, so I joined them around 5:00, and just as we were getting ready to build up the bonfire some rain started coming in, and the radar showed a lot coming so we abandoned it. Came back to the trailer and binge-watched some more Burn Notice episodes, now I’m ready for shower and bed. Since it is such a short trip tomorrow, so no need to get up at the crack of dawn! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hey Babe,
It was raining when I went to bed, so the earplugs went in, but then I woke up around 5:00, and looked out the window at the longest lunar eclipse since Feb. 18, 1440! Can you imagine, fifty two years before Columbus discovered America, a hundred and twenty-four years before Shakespeare and Galileo were born! It was a bit cloudy, but it cleared up just enough for me to see the crescent starting to appear on the waning side. Remarkable! There won’t be another one like it until Feb. 8, 2669, imagine what the world will be like by then! I was lucky to even see that for a few minutes with all the clouds! Went back to sleep, woke up with the alarm because I had made arrangements to pick up some hay at 8:30 just 15 minutes up the road. Turned out to be really nice hay, too, Tifton 44, heavy and well packed, for just $8 a bale! Bought one for my neighbor, she was impressed with the quality, too. When I got back, I spent some time researching this ice-maker tubing thing to see if there’s something I’m missing in the repair, but eventually I just got to it, and put it back together again. I hope I’ve finally got it right, I sure don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night with a flood! I’m going to turn the pump off, just in case. Then I started getting involved with doing some work on the OTL mailing list, but the whole thing is being stymied by the fact they STILL don’t have a website up and running, so it’s hard to communicate with folks when I can’t send them anyplace for information. Working on it, though! Put a notice out on my Facebook page and the OTL page and have gotten some response already. I had hoped to ride today, but got so involved the time slipped by, so I’m vowing to take a long ride tomorrow to make up for it. Had dinner, visited around the campfire for a couple of hours, now I’m ready for a shower and bed. Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hi Darlin’!
Last night got off to a rocky start. Just before I was getting ready to take my shower, I heard a funning whoosh sound near the refrigerator, and the water pump starting running non-stop. I quick stopped the pump, suspecting what happened, went outside to the back of the refrigerator, and sure enough, the newly-installed fitting on my ice-maker had popped off. The only reason I can think of this time is that maybe I put too much teflon tape on it, and then it didn’t screw all the way on. Not sure, but can’t think of anything else! So I had to turn off the valve leading to the ice-maker so I could put the pump back on. Then I took my shower and was just crawling into bed to read at midnight when I heard the sound of thundering hooves outside my window. I put on my down jacket and went outside the check on the horses, and they were fine, quiet, and just munching on hay. When I stepped around the back corner of the trailer, I found my neighbor’s horse casually grazing. Well, I couldn’t leave him there, not knowing where he might go off to by morning, so I put a halter on him and walked him back to his electric paddock. The top tape was down a bit, but otherwise the fence looked fine. I put him away, checked to make sure the juice was on and finally make it back to bed, where I read for a long time before feeling sleeping. Got up at the usual time, did chores, breakfast etc., and looked a bit closer at the ice-maker repair. I tried to reuse the fitting but it didn’t work, so now another trip to a hardware store was in order! First, though, I got the three packages, returns to Amazon, ready, then I headed down to the UPS store in Zephyr Hills to send those off, then across the street to Lowes to pick up more fittings (this time I bought three, figuring I’ll need at least one spare!), then finally headed of to our friend Cherryl’s, who fed me lunch and we spent the afternoon chatting. I left about 4:30, picked up fuel, then headed back to camp in time to feed the horses and settle down for the evening, grilling some chicken. Since it was cloudy all day, I had to run the generator for a little over an hour, this is the first time I’ve needed it this week, so I’m happy I’ve made it this far without burning any propane for anything other than cooking and the fridge. Had to switch over to my second tank early, though, but I have three more full ones, so I’m not worried yet. Binge-watched a few episodes of Burn Notice, now I’m ready for shower and bed, I have an early morning, have to go pick up some hay first thing in the morning, so alarm will be set! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hey Darlin’,
A very chilly morning, about 37 degrees when I first woke up at 7:30! Not what I came to Florida for! I’m told it’s unusual, just like 95 in Michigan this summer was unusual, seems all my best laid plans don’t work because I keep running into “unusual” weather! Anyway, I’m partially solving that problem by moving 175 miles south, where it’s nearly 10 degrees warmer at night, thank goodness! It’s nice when I don’t have any highline or fence to take down and no cleanup to do, so even though I didn’t start moving until 8:30, had breakfast, finished packing and said good-bye to Sheila and Linda, I still managed to get out at 10:00, which was perfect, I got to miss a lot of the traffic. It was a thankfully uneventful three hour drive, arriving right around 1:00, though it took a bit to figure out the weird lock they have on their gate! But I managed, and arrived at Ashley Camp, surprised to see that it was about half full! So rare to see that many people on a Monday, and about half had horses as well. The camping loop had a pretty sharp turn on one side of it, well, the giant live oaks on the corners were really the problem, so rather than go deep into the campground, I selected a spot near the entrance, and it wasn’t too bad getting into. Impressed a couple of old guys watching, at any rate! Got unhooked, got the horses out, put a fence up (though I have trees to highline, I thought I’d try the fence), but I’m a bit worried because the ground is so soft here, I’m figuring Apollo will probably pull the posts out at some point, and he’ll be wandering around the yard before I know it! Have to keep an eye on him, and keep them fully stocked with hay. Got everything all set up and was sitting in my chair relaxing by 3:30. I dismantled the long, crappy hose I had, took all the useable repair parts out, I’m going to be throwing the rest of it away, now that I have these two 50′ Zero G hoses. They worked like a charm for filling the horse buckets! There are spigots at every site, so water is not a problem here (though it’s listed as non-potable), and I’m close to the vault toilet if I want to keep my blackwater use to a minimum, which I should do since I’ll be going primitive for quite a while in the coming weeks. Got my solar panel out, looks like I should be able to glean a bit of energy from that, since the forecast is all sunny for the foreseeable future here in the Sunshine State. Grilled a burger, watched a little TV, took Lola for a walk, now it’s time for shower and bed! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Woke up in a rare mood to get a lot of things done today, so I took advantage of it, BIGTIME! Of course there were the usual chores and breakfast, then I started putting some stuff away, getting the hay squared away, doing a bit of cleaning, then decided to look for this ongoing water leak that I have, and finally found it! It’s another little dribble from the ice-maker, except it was on the outside, so it was literally dripping back into the trailer along the base of the refrigerator, which is why it kept presenting itself down by the water heater under the refrigerator. First, I tried to seal it, but of course that didn’t work, then I realized I had a whole length of exactly the right tubing that I need, but needed a couple of ends, so I ran into Lowes and got two, came back and installed them, and it worked! At least for a bit, anyway. I made the tube a little long in case I needed something to work with later, and it ended up being to close to something in the back of the fridge that was really hot, and melted a little, so I had another flood, but I turned off the water valve at the ice-maker to stop it, and now I know exactly what I need to do to fix it. Didn’t feel like making another trip out, I’ll just pick up another end (I knew I should have gotten three!), and fix it next week. I did a couple of loads of laundry, cleaned the bed mattress with some upholstery cleaner, triple-flushed the black water tank since I’m on septic here and won’t have it again for awhile, and then put away all of the outside stuff, including the awning. Miraculously, at about 3:45, a woman pulled into the yard announcing she had my packages!! OMG!! I never imagined I would get a delivery today, but there it was! I bought two Zero G hoses, which are sort of like the shrinking collapsible ones except they can stay under pressure and don’t shrink, per se, they just flatten, and are really lightweight. I had already packed my other hoses away, so now I have a job next week of reducing the number of big hoses I carry, especially the 125 foot one that has at least 6 or 7 repairs in it. I’m going to take out all the repair hardware and then chuck it. I also got some lug covers for the truck, I’ve lost more than half a dozen, now they’ve been replaced and it makes the truck look much better! The little things make such a big difference. Well, now that I don’t have to stake out the Post Office for my packages, I can get up at my leisure tomorrow morning, since it’s only a little over three hours, and I won’t have to rush. Once my package came, I even got the truck hooked up, though I haven’t put weight on it yet. I should be able to get out fairly early in any event. So about six steps forward and only one back, so it was net positive progress today! Went over to the house and played a couple of games of Farkle (though I lost them both this time, still happy I won three this week!), came back to the trailer and discovered Lola up in the bedroom. I hadn’t completely closed the partition, and she took advantage! Fortunately I hadn’t put my clean sheets on yet, not even the mattress cover since I had cleaned it earlier, so no harm done, but I had to yell at her to let her know she had done a bad thing, and that wasn’t pleasant. Anyway, I’ll be making tea and heading off for the shower and bed here shortly! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Babe,
Well, after a slow morning, having a hard time getting much energy up for some unknown reason, at ten minutes to twelve and no sign of my package (which was originally scheduled for Thursday, then Friday, then today), I called the post office where they confirmed they hadn’t received it yet. Tracking has it leaving Jax at 4:30 this morning, so who knows where it might be! Of course, unless they miraculously deliver it tomorrow (not likely), I’ll be sitting in the post office lobby trying to catch it when it comes in and before it gets put in a carrier vehicle. I don’t really want to haul the trailer into town, so I’m just not going to hook up until I get back, which means a late start to my next destination. Well, it’s only 170+ miles, mostly freeway, so I should make it in around three hours, so not too bad. Then I started trying to figure out how the wireless fence works, starting with getting the training option working, and discovered that it makes a noise and vibrates, but doesn’t shock. I contacted Amazon and they agreed to replace it, I’m hoping that it also solves the inconsistent placement of the signal as well. Not sure I’ll ever need the shock part of the collar on her anyway, she comes running when she just hears it beep! That’s a good thing, so I might have to disable the shock part anyway! Spent most of the day reading, just couldn’t get any mojo going, until 6:30 when I went it to play some Farkle. Miraculously, I won the first game again! That’s three out of four now! Then we played a second game and I came in third, but, hey, that’s still best of 3 out of 5! Just got back to the trailer, put some laundry away, and am settling down for a short evening before shower and bed. Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Woke up to the sound of David pounding limestone rock into the wheel divots right under my bedroom, but it was close to 8:00, so I didn’t mind. After chores and breakfast, we hooked up the truck and pushed the trailer back far enough so he could do the same with the trailer tires, which had sunk down enough to make the trailer pretty unlevel, so much so I was rolling to one side of my bed during the night! After he filled them in with more shell rock, we tried putting my leveling boards down, but that ended up being too high, even with one board, so we just pulled in onto the shell rock and it was just about perfect! Looking forward to a level night sleep tonight! Then I went up on the roof to take a look at where I think the leak is coming in around the refrigerator vent, took the cover off (which looked fine), and cleaned around the old seal really well. Because of the cover, I had never really put another layer down, and it does look like it needs replenishing, so that will be my job tomorrow afternoon, assuming my delivery of lap sealant arrives on time. After that, I headed out with a borrowed shovel to hunt down some chaney root. This is an island plant I learned about last year, high in iron and good for just about whatever ails you, native to the Caribbean but now widely spread throughout the South. I started drinking homemade chaney root tea last winter and my cholesterol dropped 30 points in less than 3 months, so I’m doing my best to keep that up! Well, the first few roots I dug up were pretty small, then I started looking for bigger and taller vines (it’s essentially a bramble), and that led me to some bigger roots, until the last one I dug up was HUGE! Well, certainly the biggest I’ve ever seen, but David was saying he dug one up once that literally filled a wheelbarrow. One root! Well, in less than an hour I dug up about 10 pounds of roots, which should be more than I need for my annual supply! A happy harvest today! Then some friends of my hosts came over and we sat on the porch and chatted for awhile, snacking a bit on sandwiches and sides, then after they left, we eventually all got back together for another game of Farkle, well, two games, and I actually won the second game! Considering how poorly I’d been doing in previous games, that was a relief! I have to say, I do better with games that require some skill, this one is 99 percent based on the throw of the dice, so not much skill involved, but it’s nice to have the camaraderie. Had another serving of ice cream and cherry wine, then finally got back to the trailer about 9:00. I’ll soon be heading off to shower and bed again! So good night, babe! Love you!