Hey Babe,
Woke up with the dawn again, regardless of the clocks turning back, but stayed in bed and fell back asleep again anyway. Did my chores, a couple of loads of laundry, the tiniest bit of housework, finished a book, and really had to twist my own arm to not find other things to do, like wash my vehicles. I really needed the rest, though, my body is aching all over! There’s another tropical storm possibly heading our way, so tomorrow will be my only chance to get some more posts out before we get flooded again, so I’m going to try to get a bunch in tomorrow, so I figured I needed to my rest today. Nice day of reading and binge TV. Ready for shower and bed now, though! Good night, my sweet! Love you!

Hey Darlin’,
A good night sleep, got my chores and breakfast done, then made arrangements to move my bush hog over to the barn and out of the carport so it’s out of the way. Did some research as to how (and whether) to sharpen my bush hog blades, as well as some maintenance that should be done regularly (which I’ve never done, so I guess that’s on my list of things to do now!). It wasn’t much, but by the time I was finished, I was feeling tired for some reason. Did some reading but kept falling asleep in my chair until I finally decided to go back up into bad, where I kept nodding off for several hours. Finally got up again, but didn’t do much else for the rest of the day. Guess I finally tuckered out after all the physical labor I did this week! Already ready to finish my Spanish lesson, take my shower and go to bed, and it’s barely 8:30! May take a ride tomorrow, though it is the first general gun hunting season out here, which always make me a bit nervous, but I really need to condition Flash for the cattle drive, so I may go anyway. Need to wash my vehicles, too, but just didn’t have the energy today. As early as it is, I’m heading to shower and bed! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Babe,
Had a good night sleep, got up and going pretty early, and after chores and breakfast I got the Buick started. It wanted to stall out on me at idle a few time, but I kept it running. The computer will just have to re-balance everything for awhile. It sounded pretty iffy, and I was worried about the tires, afraid that one was too low to drive on, and now that I don’t have a compressor, I thought it might be a problem, but it was still in the mid-20’s psi, so I headed out, slowly. Pretty rough sounding, but it got me to the post office, where one of the gals there started wheeling out my tires even before I came inside! Considering she hadn’t ever seen me in that vehicle, that was pretty amazing! Love those gals! Got them loaded in the trunk and headed over to Western Auto, where the mechanic there said he was working on another job so it would be a while. Stepped into the famous Cracker Cafe and drank coffee and read for an hour, then when I came back, he was on the very last tire/ Such speedy service! Left there and went to brother Glenn’s to service his pool, delighted that most of the front end vibration problem seems to have been solved with the new tires, though it was still running pretty rough. Then on the way back stopped at the Shell station, filled up with their highest octane fuel (93) plus a bottle of Lucas high mileage fuel injection cleaner, and headed back toward camp. It was slowly improving as the gas started getting through the system. I bypassed the camp and drove all the way to the lake before turning around. I did some sprints along the way, and it was definitely improving as we went along, so I’m hoping that once it’s had some mileage through the system, the roughness will finally working its way out of it, and she’ll run like the Panther she is! Spent the afternoon working on the latest draft of the map James is working on, and updated the equestrian reservation database so I can get a better picture of who and when to expect the horse campers in the upcoming weeks. Not as busy as I thought so far, but I’m sure that will change. Settled down for the evening, my latest binge are old Hart to Hart episodes, I always liked that series. I remember watching that when I was young, hoping I’d have a relationship like theirs. Little did I know at the time that I would, with you! Not the wealthy part, of course, but the rest of the banter was just like us! So I’m enjoying that, even though it’s very retro. Heading off for shower and bed shortly, so glad our Black Panther is back on the road! Hope she stays reliable, gas is $2.00 a gallon cheaper than diesel right now, so I should be making my money back before long! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie,
Well, even though I went to bed early, I ended up having to get up at 12:30 because someone was still running a generator, so I had to go out and knock on their door. I could tell the guy knew he wasn’t supposed to be doing it, but was hoping to get away with it. NOT MY JOB ANYMORE! Or at least, it’s not supposed to be, Grrr! Still managed to get up fairly early, and after chores and breakfast, I managed to get some more spraying done, at least until I ran out of mix. James sought me out to have a talk with me (not unexpected), then I moved a picnic table out of the barn so that I could have one at my site as well as make room for my tractor in the barn. Had just enough time to shower and get to my occasional euchre game in Stuart, then shopping at Walmart, then back to camp, where I ran into a woman who had been here a while back, with a friend, and they invited me back to their campfire later on. I had my dinner, then headed back there, and we had a lovely evening chatting. Now it’s bedtime, just like that! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hey Darlin’,
Another busy, busy day, alone again, naturally! Started out early working on clearing the rest of the paddocks. The stretch in front of my trailer was the worst, and a few by the barn, but the ones along the road had very little in them, as there are few palm trees there. Piled them all up in two places, the firepit in front of me, and the one in front of Barn One that I used before. Then I fixed a gate on one of the paddocks out by the road, long overdue but I finally managed it. I had been waiting to get some help, but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle of asking anyone, so I figured out a way to do it on my own. Then I resumed some weed pulling and spraying, it seems my first coat did a pretty good job in some of the paddocks, mostly only new plants had grown. Burned the pile by the barn, then worked on spraying until about 4:00 when I ran out of time, because I wanted to burn the other pile near me. It started raining off and on during the afternoon, and old James came by with fuel for me as well. Took a while for my second pile to start burning well because it had gotten wet in the rain, but took that time to play with Lola while I finally sat down for a bit. Showered, had dinner and settled down for the evening. Still trying to figure out what to do tomorrow, though I want to finish the spraying. Thinking about going in for euchre and shopping and checking on Glenn’s pool (he got released from the hospital today, will be hanging out in his motorhome until he gets cleared to go home), but recreation James is also supposed to be coming over, not sure when. Heading to bed early, all this physical labor is catching up to me. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hiya Babe,
Well, sad to say, today didn’t work out as planned. I was hoping to start work on the paddocks by about 9:00, but my first two volunteers didn’t show up until past 9:30, and the other two a bit after that. I soon figured out that leaving people to their own devices made for a lot of extra work, so eventually I got everyone on board with a system that should have made short work of the job, but after just an hour, the two women effectively stopped working, the other guy stopped a half hour after that, and the final guy, who was doing nothing except mind the fire (which didn’t really need minding, but that’s another story) quit about the same time, though he came back later for another 30 minutes with promises from them all to return later, but never did. So all in all, the ten man hours of work that I figured we could do (and be done by mid-afternoon), turned into about four man hours accomplished with five people, and the remaining six hours with just one person, me. Worked my ass off, by myself, until 6:00. Managed to get all the paddocks behind the barn cleared, but that leaves another 25 paddocks to be done, though they aren’t anywhere near as bad as the ones I did today. I just don’t get people anymore. When I ask for help to do “a job”, I expect them to help until either the job is finished or the boss says that’s enough for the day. I don’t expect them to work for an hour or two and just disappear when the job is hardly started. Seriously, I did more than 80 percent of the work today, which is NOT why I asked four other people for help. It was the new camp host the was manning the fire, and he said he’d be back and never showed, so I then had another half an hour of work burning everything, which I didn’t expect to have to do. Grrrr! Very disappointing. Not to mention it was a dirty job, I was black from head to toe, and exhausted to boot, from having to get up and down off the tractor picking up stuff, dragging it to the fire, etc. Once I finally finished, I had a Guinness, played with Lola for a bit, as she had been cooped up all day, saw a lovely rainbow with a partial double rainbow (perhaps a reminder that life is still good, even if the day was crappy?), took a hot shower and finally settled down with a late dinner. I am SO ready for bed, though I may have to take some aspirin tonight so I don’t wake up in pain in a few hours. I guess the good news is that I did manage to mostly clear all the paddocks in the back, and the front paddocks aren’t in as bad a shape, so hopefully, tomorrow I can finish the job. It rained a little today, hopefully not enough to keep the place from drying out, as I’m hoping to get some posts in later this week. Exhausted, but not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel for the moment! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Busier and more tiring day than planned, but no complaints! After chores and breakfast and starting some laundry, I saddled up Flash and headed out to recon the trails on which I have the most work left to do, just to see if they’re tractor ready or still too deep. It was a lot drier than I expected, and if we don’t have any rain for the next couple of days, I shouldn’t have a problem getting the majority of the work done. Except I’m thinking that maybe I should mow some of it first, there are several areas that are desperately in need of mowing, and if I did that first, at least riders would be able to find there way around. Only problem with that is having to switch out implements on the tractor, but with the new camp hosts, at least I’ll have some help with that. Either way, I’m going to wait a few days, since I want to get a good jump on the paddocks tomorrow. With the hosts (the Jenkins) and the two additional campers who have volunteered, we should be able to get a lot done, and I’d like to finish that hurricane cleanup first. Regardless, I have my sights on getting everything completed in the next two weeks, well in advance of Thanksgiving, when this place will be packed. That will also give me some time to get ready for the cattle drive and the Goethe Endurance Benefit, which is going to take a little prep work to do. Flash was brilliant on the trail today, mostly just walking for the first seven or eight miles, which is good practice for the cattle drive. He only started to speed up when we were heading back to camp, and we had some wonderful canters and largos. There is one water crossing on the white trail that I won’t be able to make on the tractor, which is impossible even during a drought, and a second that’s still a bit deep but I might be able to make, if I have to. Not sure exactly where the new posts will be going in relation to that, but I’ll be doing that figuring shortly. The rest was quite passable. Got back to camp around 2:30, then headed over to Glenn’s to work on the pool, actually wore my bathing suit and got into the pool in order to do a more thorough brushing of the algae that keeps growing. Chlorine levels are still low despite everything I’ve thrown in there, but at least it looks a lot cleaner. It took a couple of hours, then I added more chemicals and came back to camp at about dinner time, did some more laundry as well. A long and busy day which I hadn’t exactly planned on, but I got a lot done. I’m hoping at least one day soon I’ll have a day where I do absolutely nothing! Seems like a long time since I’ve had one of those! I’m bushed for sure, so it’s shower and bedtime for me! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hey Darlin’!
Slept in a little this morning so I got a late start, but finished up chores and breakfast just before my mechanic camper came along, and proceed to start diagnosing. Didn’t take him ten minutes to figure out that the cam sensor had been disconnect and not reconnected (I have a vague memory of my brother doing that, but I also think I knew about it, but forgot). He connected it, and it started, yay! But it was running really rough, and he said the cam sensor was shot anyway, and fortunately, I had already bought one, so I asked him to put it in for me (I paid him, of course!), and it wasn’t long before it was done, and we had the Buick up and running! I drove it around the campground loop a couple of times, and it was still running a little rough, but he adjusted the idle a bit so it wouldn’t stall out when I took my foot off the gas, which has been a problem, and it sounded a bit better after I turned it off and back on again, so evidently the computer adjusted everything a bit. I’m also sure there is a lot of gunk in the fuel line, and I bought some cleaner for it, but I want to wait until I get a full tank of gas, I’m afraid the sludge will be too thick on half a tank. But at least Panther is running! The tires are shot, though, the front ones especially, they’ve been going flat since I filled them last week. Our new camp host Ron brought out his compressor and filled them up for me before I did my loops, and I could feel the shakiness of the tires, and I don’t want to take any chances. Figure it will be worth it if I can use the Buick for my running around, even if I have to use higher octane fuel, it’s still cheaper than the diesel right now! I also finally registered for the Great Florida Cattle Drive, the deadline is Nov. 1, and I’ve decided to do it again. I’ll miss having you along, of course, but being that it’s in December, I’m hoping for better weather than when we went in 2016! Should be easier with only one horse to worry about, and not having to do double duty on chores because you were fighting a chill and shortness of breath most of that week. I just hope Flash behaves himself better than on the Cracker Ride, though this will be much looser, and no road riding, so that will make both of us much happier, I’m sure! Had yet another problem with the “new” bath house, the only working shower wouldn’t shut off, and it didn’t have a valve, so we had to close down the entire bath house and divert everyone to the old bath house. Fun, fun, fun! Ridiculous that we can’t get a five year old bath house to function properly. Classic lowest bidder project evidently. Anyway, finally got that squared away and settled down for the evening, ready for shower and bed. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Babe,
I had sort of planned on doing some final hurricane cleanup today, but all my help had other things to do, so I put it off, which was probably a good thing because I was feeling pretty physically tired after all the work I’ve been doing lately. Spent some time on the computer finishing up the certificates and did all the followup work from the Workshop in Phoenix, spent some time with the new hosts to acclimate them to the job, discovered I have a camper who is a mechanic that said he’d help me try to get my Buick started. I spent a little time on that today, too, flushed some gas through the fuel line out the Schrader valve, but still couldn’t get it started yet. We were going to take a look at it today, but they had some shopping to do, so now it’s scheduled for tomorrow. Ran into town to drop off my package, and picked up one as well. I ordered some noise cancelling headphones so I won’t lose any more of my hearing while I’m on my tractor and Glenn’s mower. I’ve noticed I’m starting to lose some range in my hearing, and I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time, but you know how it is, always a delay. Found some nice 35 dB ones that seem like they’ll be comfortable, looking forward to trying them out. Also bought Lola a new Kong frisbee, she left her good orange one in the road and it was crushed before I had a chance to retrieve it, and another one of her flimsier ones got left on the lawn and the mowers ran right over it, chewing it into a thousand pieces. She seems to really like this new one, though, she tossed it around by herself after I threw it a few times, so hopefully she’ll take better care of this one. Finally settled down for the evening, now I’m ready for shower and bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!