Archives for May 2020

Hiya Sweetie!
A good night sleep, followed by a quiet morning of computer work (which included filing a complaint about the realtor that so messed up the sale of the house) and searching for hay. I was down to 1 ½ bales, but even the local coop and feed stores didn't have any. It's been such a wet spring hardly anyone's been able to bale anything, but I finally managed to find some on Marketplace that was about an hour away. The guy baled it for his own use last year and had just enough bales left over to sell me and one other person in order to clear out a barn he wants to do something with. Anyway, it's a bit coarse but still looks and smells okay, and at this point, beggars can't be choosers! I got 14 bales which should last me partway through my next stop, and hopefully by then we'll have some nice weather and there will be some hay around, though I suspect the first cut will also be a bit coarse since it's getting so late in the Spring. I took a slight detour on the way home, it seems there was an old iron furnace from the 1830's just up the road from where I picked up the hay, so I went down there just for the historical aspect of it. Very interesting! Particularly about how it worked and how they got shut down because Federal troops were firing cannons at them during the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression as the locals like to refer to it) from the nearby Tennessee River. Anyway, that took up most of my day. It's suppose to rain tomorrow, so I'm thinking about doing my taxes, one of the few jobs still hanging over my head, so I'd like to get that over with even though the deadline's been delayed until July 15 because of the coronavirus. Things are starting to open up though, and the stock market went up wildly today, making up for a couple of bad days last week and then some! Glad to see I got into it at the right time, at least it will be if it keeps heading in the same direction. Well, enough said, time for shower and bed. Love you, darlin'! Good night!

Hi Darlin',
Well, once again the forecaster have gone bonkers. Last night when I went to bed, the rain wasn't coming in until 4:00 pm. When I woke up this morning, it suddenly moved up to noon! I decided skip breakfast and just get packed up and go, and it's a good thing. When I stepped out of the trailer, my neighbors were just getting ready to ride off (it was barely 8:00!), and I needed help with the slide that sticks, so I managed to get one of them to help me before they rode off. I had done so much work getting ready yesterday that I finished packing up in no time, and was heading to the dump just after 8:30, and driving out of the park just after 9:00. It was only a little over an hour drive, so I arrived at my new campsite before 10:30! There were three people on lawnmowers in the campground just finishing up (that's the problem with state parks, they always seem to be mowing the lawn!), but I found my site, #10, which turned out to be just perfect! There was a bit of an incline, but once I unhooked I managed to level it off just fine (though the work in the basement may have to wait, as there's no room to crawl underneath anymore), the horses are comfortable on a highline I strung between one of their posts and a tree, and before I even finished getting them settled in, a rider came by and we had a nice chat for quite a while, very friendly and welcoming. I don't want to say that the people at Chickasaw were unfriendly, but they certainly weren't very hospitable, not like I've been used to at horse camps in the past. Turns out this rider, Carol, lives nearby, she recognized my name, and she even has a copy of my book! Whoo-hoo! I invited her to come by later after her ride, and she took my number and friended me on Facebook, texted me to ask if I needed anything as she was going shopping, and when she came back for happy hour, she even brought me a bottle of wine! Now that's what I call hospitable! I spent most of the afternoon sitting the screen room getting caught up on something I discovered on my new horse camps supplement, apparently all of the work I had done last summer disappeared when my computer crashed and my Carbonite had neglected to back up for several month, grrrrr, so I started to rebuild that file by downloading it from my Facebook Book page. I managed to get that mostly caught up when Carol came back around 4:00, and we ended up chatting until nearly 7:00. We arranged to go riding in the morning, weather permitting, but who can tell? It never rained at all today, the storm that was over Arkansas petered out. Tomorrow they're calling for rain about 1:00, but I really have my doubts about all weather forecasts these days. We'll see what happens in the morning. Anyway, my site is really nice, and I think I'm really going to enjoy it here, even though there isn't an accurate trail map (what else is new?), and Carol has warned me that some of the trails are in really rough shape because of rain, and trees down from storms a few weeks ago, but again, what else is new? Anyway, it was a fairly relaxing day, an uneventful drive and setup, and it looks like a good place to spend a couple of weeks. And now it's time for shower and bed! Love you, darlin'! Good night!

Hi Sweetie,
After another night of occasional rain, it was cloudy this morning and cool again, though not below the 40's, thank goodness. After doing some computer work in the morning, I headed out to the town of Henderson, went to a hardware store to get the parts I needed to fix the leak in the ice-maker tubing, picked up a few more bales at the feed store for the horses (the price had inexplicably dropped from $7.75 to $6 a bale), and went to the local Piggly Wiggly to pick up a few essentials like dog food and milk. One of the pieces of the repair hardware turned out not to be the right part, but I managed to recover it from the old part and made it work. I read for awhile, and the clouds went away and the sun came out and the temperatures warmed up, so I decided to take Lola for a walk. There's a long wooden bridge that goes all the way across the lake they have here, and a nice trail around the perimeter of the lake, and since Lola isn't being let out on her own anymore, I thought a long walk would do us both good, so I hooked her up and off we went. What a luxury! To be able to just spontaneously decide to do something, without having a long list of necessary chores waiting for me, and feeling guilty about not doing something! It felt like the start of summer vacation back in my school days. It was a lovely walk, there wasn't very many people about, and it really turned into a beautiful afternoon. We even sat in a bench swing on the edge of the water for awhile and just hung out there, reading a bit, enjoying the scenery. Finally we headed back to camp. Just as we got settled in, I heard a loud pop and heard water rushing, and thought my repair had failed, but discovered that the repair on the ice-maker tubing on the OUTSIDE of the trailer that I had done some weeks ago had popped. The water pressure here is very high, and I've adjusted it down a couple of times, but evidently not enough! I managed to jury-rig a repair on that as well, though I had to modify a part to do so, so I don't know how long it will last. One thing I knew, I had to get the water pressure down, so I dug out the restricter that I had, but that slowed the pressure down so much it was practically nonexistent, so I took it back off and readjusted the pressure at the outlet again till I got it at a safe level, I hope! I also did the long-overdue job of changing the water filter in the hose, what a mess that was! And not just the filter, but the inside of the filter casing was covered with algae and grunge, it's a wonder it hasn't made me sick! Well, I do generally boil it when I'm using it for coffee or tea, but it was truly awful! But I cleaned it all out with some bleach gel, scrubbed it really well before putting in the new filter, so now it's good to go. So far, the two repairs seem to be holding, I just hope I don't wake up in the night or morning to a new flood, I'm truly getting tired of sopping water up with towels! Anyway, things are moving along, I'm managing to get this stuff repaired as it happens, without having to procrastinate or have ten things of higher priority to worry about first. That in itself is a luxury I have to admit I'm enjoying. I took my shower early since I got soaked doing the repair, watched a couple of DS9's and now I'm ready for bed. I hope Lola stays quiet, she didn't get too much exercise today (and she's still in the doghouse as far as I'm concerned), so it will be a miracle if she sleeps through the night. Clear skies, though, no rain forecast until late Friday afternoon, at which time I should long be settled into my new site at the Wranglers Campground at Natchez Trace State Park. It's only about an hour drive on Friday, so that should be easy. Hopefully it's a site I can get into easily enough! Anyway, time for bed and reading. Good night, sweetie! Love you!