Hiya Sweetie,
Didn't sleep that great, did my chores and breakfast, then loaded up Flash and drove down to Tidewater to put up the permanent markers on the new trails. I was a little afraid that they wouldn't be quite what I expected, and unfortunately, it was even worse than I feared. The trail that got mowed was a lot different than the trail I marked. Several areas that were used were areas that I intentionally avoided because I knew they would be a problem after they were mowed. One section where I specifically said I didn't want to knock a whole bunch of baby pines down were razed by the tractor, forcing me to do a lot of cleanup that I hadn't counted on. A bunch of areas had scrub palms that I wanted to avoid because you can never get rid of the stumps, they'll grow back, and they usually have a big hole in them, and a lot of trees I had planned to use for markers where no longer in the right place, and so on, and so on. There were a lot of markers that were obviously missed, and my instructions to "stay right of the markers" was all but ignored. I knew I should have insisted on being there, but Rick was pretty adamant that I not be there, and I didn't want to argue, but now I regret not insisting, because now, to do it right, it will take another four steps to correct, even if I can convince them to. Now I'll have to put up temp markers again, get it mowed properly, then put up permanent markers, and then take down the permanent markers that would now be on the wrong trail. Sigh... We had also decided to do another, short section of the trail to move that off the road, and I can't even begin to explain what the hell he did there. I had to look at my GPS when I got home to figure it out on Google Earth! He was supposed to just cut a new trail about 20-30 yards in from the road, paralleling it, but all he did was cut a small loop away from the trail, then backtracked and looped back into the trail closer to camp, nowhere near the road. Sigh... I took the time to mark the correct path with ribbons, though whether he'll ever fix it, I don't know. It was a very frustrating day, a lot of work that's unfinished, leaving a lot more work to do, and I'm running out of time, so it may be next season before it gets done. And then I discovered that the new phone cords I got in the mail yesterday screwed up my charging port, and now I can't seem to get my phone to charge properly. Same thing that happened with my phone a couple of years ago. I paid $8 for new cords, and I'm probably going to have to spend $175 to get a new phone. Sign... Well, enough griping, it doesn't get me anywhere. Jo had a bad day, too, her second horse Peaches failed to get vetted in, so she couldn't even ride her scheduled 25 today. A dark day in the neighborhood! Settled down to a glass of wind and a shrimp burrito, but still feeling pretty low. Looking forward to a nice shower, I got really dirty today, then bed. Grrrr. Good night, darlin'. Love you.

Hiya Darlin',
Well, my whole day had been planned around going down to help with the mowing of the new alternate purple trail, but Rick called to say it wasn't necessary and would do it without me, so my morning suddenly cleared up. I ended up just killing time until I went over to the FITS ride to crew for Jo, so I went over about 1:45, hung around until she came in, which was later than she figured, but I mostly just visited and read for the afternoon. She finally made it after 4:00, I helped until she went back on the trail, then I came home and fed the horses, had dinner, and went back around 8:00. She was doing the 65-mile today, and she was just coming in as I pulled up, she caught up to some 75-milers that knew the trail, so that energized her and Luna, and made it much easier since she didn't have to be on the lookout for markers, so she made good time. Luna passed her vet check, and I helped Jo get packed up. Got back to camp about 9:00 (I'm only two minutes away), then settled down to my Spanish lesson, blog, a glass of wine, and the last part of a Northern Exposure I didn't get to finish before I left. Won't be long out of bed, for sure! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Babe,
A good night sleep, worked on my shoulder in the morning, did a little computer work, then headed over to HQ to see if Jo's husband wanted to play Smokey the Bear at the upcoming Taste of Goethe, but he's a rather small guy and the costume is built for someone the size os Sasquatch, so that's a no. Then Rick and I headed down to Tidewater to look at the changes I want to make on the purple trail, though we didn't have time to do it today, so we'll get a start on it tomorrow. We decided to not only do the half mile section that's the worst, but that there was no reason not to do the short, 100 yard section as well. We made some plans for that, then I ran into town, got my hair cut, which it desperately needed, and did some shopping so I'll be hopefully stocked up enough to not have to shop again before heading up to Suwannee. Got back to camp around 5:00, wasn't long before I was feeding the horses and myself, and settling down for dinner. Started to watch a movie but didn't like it, so switched back to a Northern Exposure. Won't be long out of bed tonight! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hi Sweetie,
Didn't do too much today, just worked on my computer, read for a bit, met up with Jo for lunch, made arrangements with Rick to work on the new alt-Purple trail tomorrow, shopped for a few things on Amazon, picked up some aluminum cans at Helen's, then settled down for the evening to a nice little rom-com and a Northern Exposure, and now that the rain has finally come in, looking forward to a quick shower and a good night sleep! Love you, darlin'! Good night!

Hey Darlin',
Slept way too late this morning, but it felt good! I've been busy, so it was nice to have a lazy day. After chores and breakfast, I did some work on the upcoming endurance ride in Suwannee, which took a lot longer than expected because the organizer I've been trying to work with doesn't have any understanding of Google Earth or any of the techniques I use, so it was a long, hard slog, but eventually we pretty much ended up agreeing on doing it according to my original plan. By then it was pretty late in the afternoon, and I had a book order to fulfill, so I took a drive to the post office, and then down to Jo's where I was expecting the Fedex package with my new inverter control panel. I sat at the end of the driveway until he showed up at 5:30 (Jo and Jeff went out to pick up her trailer and have dinner in town), then headed back to camp. Had a nice quiet evening after this relatively quiet day, just what I needed. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hiya Babe,
Woke up in the middle of the night when the rain finally came in, after it had been forecast to come in much earlier. Kept me up for awhile, then I slept until well after 9:00. Had a busy day doing laundry, housekeeping, cleaning the camp restrooms, and working a bit on the Suwannee Ride again. Having a hard time making heads or tails out of the crude map they sent me. Why they won't just work with Google Earth is beyond me, it's so much harder doing it the way they're doing it. More rain came in around 4:00 and kept going for a couple of hours. I finally settled down for the evening with some Northern Exposures and a odd little romance movie. Ready for shower and bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Darlin',
Spent about an hour working on my shoulder with my little shiatsu massager this morning, haven't had time the last few days, and while it's definitely improving, today I felt something move closer to shifting, which meant it hurt a bit more as it's trying to stretch over whatever is blocking it from moving back to it's rightful place. Still getting closer! Had an appointment with a vet in Williston for Lola, her back legs have been really giving her some problems, and they took a couple of x-rays, might have found one little bone growth in her right hock, but nothing in particular in her left hip, which seems to me to be the worse of her two problems. Not sure I agree with the diagnosis, but figured I'd give her the prescribed anti-inflammatories and pain meds a chance to see if that helps. Stopped at the Winn-Dixie for a few items, then headed back to camp, where I met Rick just as he was coming in. We sat and chatted for awhile before he took off for the weekend. I drove over to Helen's and we had a nice visit as she explained to me her ideas about new trail markers. She offered to let me store all my stuff at her place, sweet lady! Spent the rest of the afternoon quietly, with a typical evening. Ready for bed! Love you, babe! Good night!

Hiya Babe,
Another day of intending to do one thing and ending up doing something quite different. Started out with plans to take Apollo on a little ride, thought about taking him up to Watermelon Pond, then got an email saying they were burning in that area, so then I figured we could stay closer to home, but that didn't work out either. I started doing a few little things on my computer, and one thing just led to another, and the whole day went frustratingly by. I made my reservations for the hotel in Vegas for the Red Rock Ride, though I'm astonished that the first Saturday is already sold out, so I'm either going to have to go to a different hotel or fly on Sunday, or keep my fingers crossed that a room will open up, which I have to believe will happen since we're so far out. I can't believe June is fully booked already! I spent most of my time on hold, though, trying to solve my inverter control panel problem. I've tackled this problem several times over the last few months and hadn't been able to resolve it, but today I was determined. I was on hold with Xantrex for nearly an hour before I talked to someone, who gave me the model number and price and even sent me a picture to confirm it's the right one, all in about three minutes once we hooked up. It turned out I was talking to the wrong department anyway, so she transferred me to the right department, and was given a list of name of distributors, since they don't like to sell direct to the public, as it makes their retailers mad. I contacted every name she gave me, and they all gave me a runaround about how I needed to be a retailer, or how it would take days to get a price an availability (the manufacturer already told me they had them available), and on and on. I finally got so fed up, I called the manufacturer back and begged them to sell me one, and she (the second woman I spoke to) took it up the chain of command, and within a few minutes, cleared it to have them send me one. Free. Whoo-hoo! So I wasted a lot of time, but managed to get a happy outcome. Hopefully I'll have that in a few days. It's not that the old one isn't working, but it's definitely going. Just the switches, which I really have to finagle with to get them to work, and sometimes I'm convinced they never will, then at the last minute, do. They won't one day, though, and I'd rather repair it now and not have to worry about it anymore. After that, I made some dinner, fed the horses, and rushed around to get to a Taste of Goethe meeting at 5:30 where I helped them set up a Paypal account and some other stuff. Was after 8:30 by the time that was done, so a late evening. Settling down to my tea, the last half of a Northern Exposure episode, my Lorna Doone's and soon, a shower and bed. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
A good night sleep, a fairly quiet morning, until I decided to see how my truck was doing after yesterday. While I had no trouble driving it home in the afternoon, I still didn't have gauges, and my brake controller still wasn't working properly. So I tried to start it, and I had nothing. Batteries were flat again. I forgot to unplug it from the trailer last night, so I think that may have caused it, especially if there's a short of some kind in my brake controller. So I put the charger on and let it charge all morning. Around noon, I tried again. This time I had an even weirder problem. It cranked right up, than immediately died. I tried it several times, same thing. I texted the mechanic, John, and he agreed to come out after work and take a look. I ended up spending most of the day working on the computer, doing some trail planning and writing some emails about various topics. A pretty quiet day. John arrived shortly after 5:00 and proceed to try to check the codes, but couldn't establish communication with the ECM. Then he began to check fuses, which all seemed okay, but then he started pulling them out and putting them back in again. I don't know if that knocked off some corrosion or something, but suddenly he was able to get a list of codes, and it seemed endless! Lots of little stuff, including an apparent anti-theft device that shuts off the fuel when in doubt, which seems to be the answer to what was going on this morning. Anyway, we fiddled around with it some more, and he cleared the codes, and everything except the brake controller seemed to get back to normal. Then we worked on that, couldn't exactly find what was wrong, when it suddenly began working again! Crazy! I still think there's a bad connection, but I'm not going to touch it again while it's still working. So for the moment, we're back to normal. Don't know how long it will last, but we're good for the moment! I left the charger on, hopefully that will remedy the problem. It's possible my batteries have aged out and that may be contributing, or I do have an intermittent short in my brake controller, I don't know, we'll have to wait and see. As soon as John left I fed the horses, had dinner, binge-watched a little TV, and, as usual, am ready for tea, shower and bed. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!