Archives for May 2020

Hi Baby,
SO glad I took advantage of the nice weather yesterday, because rain came in overnight along with colder temps. They’re even talking about patchy frost tomorrow morning!! I can’t believe that at this time of the year it’s so chilly! Anyway, I had a fantastic night sleep for a change, I guess Lola got enough exercise to sleep through the night because she never bothered me, even with the storms that came in. Also, I had put in my earplugs, which helped, and I took a couple of painkillers because somewhere along the way yesterday I got a leaf cut on one of my eyes, and that was hurting pretty bad, so some Bufferin helped with that. It was still raining when I got up after 10 hours of sleep, but stopped shortly afterward, so I got the horses fed before too long, but it’s a soggy mess under their highline. I’d move them again but they’re all like that so there’s no point. I spent a large part of the day figuring out my schedule for the next few months. I just got it confirmed that the Shore-to-Shore ride in Michigan has been cancelled, so that freed my schedule up enormously, though I’m rather sorry about it, I was really looking forward to it. The governor of Michigan is being slow to open things up with the coronavirus lockdown, and apparently the Federal lands along the route are still closed too, despite mounting evidence that the virus doesn’t survive very well outside, it thrives inside, which is why we have so many more cases than many other countries that aren’t doing a lockdown. Anyway, I’m putting together a route to stay two weeks at a series of camps to get me to Lansing for the job that’s scheduled for the end of July, including doing Memorial Day at Loretta Lynn’s for their June organized ride. I think I’ll be meeting up with Callie again, you remember the girl we met there a few years ago that went riding with me on Clio? She stays in touch, and they’re going to be there, so I thought it might be nice to hook up with them again. I’ve got a pretty good plan, the only thing that might get in the way is if the job in Vegas gets rescheduled during that time. I mean, I hope it does, since I could use the work, but I’ll have to be flexible to make it work, like always. The good news is I’ve been lucky on my timing of investing the house proceeds on the stock market, it’s been up significantly every day this week, so it looks like I’ll be recouping the losses from the virus shutdown, and then some before too long. Spent the rest of the day watching DS9s, except I needed a change for the evening so I watched a romantic comedy about Valentines Day, which confirmed all the reasons why I was glad you and I never really celebrated Hallmark Holidays like that one! Too much pressure! A nice break, though, it did make me laugh a bit. Now it’s time for shower and bed, hope I sleep well tonight, too! Good night, babe. Love you!

Hey Sweetie!
The best laid plans…! I did my chores this morning, including moving the highline to a different set of posts because the ones the horses were on were at kind of a low spot that had turned pretty muddy, so I put them on slightly higher ground. I had every intention of going riding today, but the temperatures, unbelievably, hardly reached 60 today, and that was late in the afternoon. I decided it was too cold to go riding, in fact, I’ve made a new rule. If it’s too cold to sit in the screen porch, it’s too cold to go riding! Instead, I did some bookkeeping on my computer. My previous bookkeeping program expired, and they changed their method from being on my computer as a permanent program to being a subscription in the cloud. I waited around for their offer of a discount to get better, and finally they got down to 25 percent off, so I went ahead and ordered in. That meant some housekeeping to get it all working again properly, so I spend part of the afternnon doing that. I also did some reading for a while, and generally had a pretty lazy day. What a luxury! It won’t last, I know, but at least I can take advantage of it while it’s here. I noticed a leak coming out under the basement, so I took a quick peak at that, but the only way to see it is going to be to take the basement panels off. The good news is, contrary to thinking it was all one piece, it’s actually in about 3-4 foot sections, so I should be able to get into without too much trouble. The bad news is, all the screws are those crazy 8 point stars, which I’ve read can be turned with a 4 point square, but the last time I tried that I had dubious results. Considering that many of them are rusted, it’s not likely to be an easy task. I may just have to replace all the screws with something sensible. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY knows about these weird screws except the people in the RV building business! But that’s a chore for another day. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer, and I really have to get the horses out, they’ve been standing there for days with no relief, and the ground has been too soft to even let them roam in the fenced in area, they would just tear it up in no time, and I don’t need to make any enemies while I’m here. Lola and I took a short walk around the campground, and there’s a few posts with reservation cards on them, so it looks like I’ll have a little company this weekend, which wouldn’t be a bad thing. Not sure I want to go riding with anyone, though, because it seems like every time I do I end up not particularly enjoying myself for any variety of reasons. I guess I’ve been on my own riding for so long I’m kind of stuck in my ways. Anyway, it was a pretty lazy day, and now it’s time to put it to bed. Off I go! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hi Darlin’!
Just as I had planned it was a busy day! Great night sleep for both me and Lola, then after chores and breakfast we headed out for shopping. Unfortunately the Tractor Supply in Henderson didn’t have anything I was looking for so I ended up driving to the north end of Jackson to another Tractor Supply, where I at least got feed for Flash. Another quick stop at Lowes to pick up the fitting I needed to finish the ice-maker repair, a full shopping at Walmart, and a quick stop at the Farmers Coop in Henderson for 10 bales of Bermuda hay for the horses. Big bales, but light, not too well packed, but it seems pretty find so hopefully they’ll like it. Got back mid-afternoon, unloaded everything, then after a short break for Lola playtime I finished the job on the ice-maker, which only took a few minutes and worked brilliantly, no leaks! Then I cleaned under all the cupboards in preparation for returning all the pots and pans in there, and found a bunch of dead roaches, yay! I sprayed around the edges again, just to set up a border that will hopefully keep them out for a while, and put everything except the plastics back in the cupboards. I want to go through those again and cut down on them, I have way more than I need. Of course, once I got started on cleaning, you know me, I started to get carried away, and scrubbed down the entire floor just for the heck of it. It was cloudy all day until late in the afternoon, then it cleared up beautifully, though a bit cooler, and once I scrubbed the floor we sat out in the screen room for a while, me reading and enjoying a bit of wine and Lola standing guard and getting excited at a passing big bird every once in a while. Before I knew it, it was dinner time, so I fed us all and settled down for the evening. Got a lot done today! I’m hoping to take a ride, maybe even two, tomorrow, these horses have really been patient standing around on a highline for the last couple of days! I really hope I can get them out tomorrow. Meanwhile, it’s that time again, for shower and bed! Good night, my love!

Hi Sweetie!
What a strange day today! Well, maybe strange isn’t the right word, it just was kind of directionless, which just feels odd to me, I guess. I’ve always had something to do (too much!) so not having a list of things to tackle did feel strange! It was cloudy and there was an uncertainty to the weather, so I didn’t want to go riding, especially since there was rain last night and the trails are bound to be sloppy. I had to fix a drain hose, it was so kinked the water couldn’t get out, so I cut that shorter so that it would work properly. The stock market started out down (and was down a couple of days last week, too) so I decided it would be a good day to finally put the proceeds of the house into the financial plan I had developed last Sunday, and by the end of the day, the market was actually up, even though it was down 200 points when I started. That took several hours. Then I considered going shopping, but I had to find some hay first, and for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t find anything nearby, not through Marketplace or craigslist or hayexchange.com, nowhere! I finally had to call the farmers coop in nearby Henderson (yep, that’s the name of the nearest town!), and they have some for the hefty price of $7.25/bale, but I don’t have much choice. I saw at least one hay field when I was driving here that had just been cut, so it shouldn’t be long before the market is flooded with it, but right now, there’s nothing! Then I saw there was a storm front due in a few hours, and figured I didn’t have time to get back and keep the hay dry, so I abandoned that idea. After the first round of rain, I had dinner early, then Lola and I took a walk around the grounds, played on the jungle gym in the playground for a while, she’s really gotten the hang of going down slides and through tunnels! They have a nice bathhouse here, too, and a riding stable that I passed by. When I got back to the trailer I did some dishes, and all of a sudden I had a flood coming out from under the cupboard. Turns out the OTHER drain hose had clogged, too, and backed up all the way to that break in the drainpipe I already knew about (and did a temporary fix on only, because a true fix means dropping the entire basement cover and I haven’t had time to even consider that yet!), so I took off the hose and the coupling outside and water poured out everywhere, I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. So then I had to mop up all the water inside with towels, which meant every single pot, pan and container had to come out from under the cupboards, including the bottom drawer in the kitchen. Then I discovered another water leak coming out from under the refrigerator, just a slight one, which would explain why when I’ve got the water pump on it pumps up every once in a while. I knew I had a small leak somewhere, I just hadn’t had time to look for it, but now I’ve found it! I pulled off the back of the refrigerator from the outside and found a tiny pinprick hole in the icemaker line. The water pressure is really high here, and even though I’ve adjusted it down several times, it’s still pretty firm, but it also looks like it’s been rubbing against a piece of metal which might have contributed to it. Also, I found the hot water plug had a little drip, too. I tightened that carefully (you know how those plastic plugs can strip so easily!), and I cut back the icemaker pipe back far enough to get rid of the leak, but the end piece leaked when I put it back, and I quickly realized I was going to have to get a new and improved end before I could truly fix it. That meant I had to turn off the icemaker line underneath the trailer, which of course was all wet from the draining and the leaking, so I got wet and smelly doing that. In the meantime, it was getting dark, and another thunderstorm started to come through, so I had to wait for it to pass before I could put the water back on, all piling up at the end of the day! Fortunately it didn’t take long for the storm to go through, I was able to put on the water, take a nice shower, start a load of laundry with all the wet towels I had used to mop up the floor before settling down for the late evening. The pots and pans are still all over the place, I’ll have to clean them before I can put them away, which I’m not going to do until I’m sure all the leaks have been fixed. Oh, and I discovered a roach under the cupboard, gave it a good spraying, and the next time I looked under the cupboard I saw a bunch more! I sprayed it pretty good, but obviously I’m going to have to keep after that little problem before it becomes a really big problem. So, an eventful day after such a slow start! Now I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow, with shopping, getting hay, finishing the icemaker repairs, and trying to figure out how to make these drain pipes both working and accessible, something I thought about but never really solved since we’ve had this unit, washing and putting away all the pots and pans, and who knows what else is likely to come up! Well, that’s okay, it’s supposed to be nice weather later in the week, so I’ll have a couple of good days for riding. I’ve kept the horses on the highline since it started raining, otherwise the lawn would be a total mess, so I’m going to have to do something soon about giving them some exercise. There’s an arena here, I was thinking about maybe putting them in there for awhile, but there’s a post down so I’d have to jury-rig something to fix that. Or I could just put Apollo on an anchor and let Flash wander, there’s a lot of grass around, and absolutely no one else here, though the rangers do come through occasionally, and one even delivered a couple of pieces of mail to me today! Very nice! Don’t know what’s they’ll say about letting them wander, if anything. But I can’t do it tomorrow anyway, since I won’t be here most of the day, so it’s a moot point. Anyway, enough about my mundane day, I’ve had my tea, and it’s time for bed! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hi Babe!
Despite Lola being restless last night, I still managed to get a decent night sleep, but I still felt tired, not surprisingly. I can feel myself coming down in a crash, which I fully expected. The only chore I did today was to put up an electric fence around the yard so the horses would have some room to move around, and of course they both rolled multiple times. I played with Lola, read off and on both inside the screen room and eventually back up in bed, where I napped occasionally, which felt really good! I did take a short venture over to the other folks in camp who had stopped by last night, but didn’t stay too long. They did mention that electric fences were frowned upon by the management here, but I should just not ask and see what happens. It’s so empty here I’ll be surprised if anyone makes a fuss, but then again, some of these places get all crazy about enforcing nonsensical rules, so we’ll see. Considering how long I’m going to be here, I don’t particularly like the idea of the horses only being on a highline the whole time, but that’s just going to be a fact of life for them for now. I arranged to ride with these folks tomorrow, because evidently there is no accurate trail map, none of the trails are marked, and there’s no signs to tell anyone where they are, so I guess my GPS is going to have to serve me tomorrow! I thought it might be useful to have a guide the first day out anyway, to get a feel for the place, then I’ll explore some more on my own later in the week. Anyway, it was a nice relaxing day, I think I managed to recharge my batteries a little anyway, though I imagine it will take some time to be fully back to normal, whatever that might be anymore. After all, I haven’t really had a rest in almost three years, I’m not sure what “rested” feels like anymore! But I sure am going to try to find out! Another good night sleep should help, so here I go! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Yay! Back on the road again! Officially homeless! Officially a full-timer! Officially independent!! I wish you were here to share this with me (well, in person. I know you’re sharing it with me in spirit!) What a perfect day. The sky was cloudless, the temps warmed up for the first time in weeks, I got up with the alarm at 7:00 and managed to get everything packed up and after multiple good-byes with my hosts at Grandview RV Park, I hit the road just before 9:30. The drive went flawlessly, thank goodness. Of course, you’ll be happy to know that in addition to all the other things I mentioned I did yesterday, I also checked the air in all the tires, all the fluids under the hood, topped off power steering and transmission fluid, checked the fan belt, all the regular maintenance stuff I’m now going to have to get in the habit of doing. The horses loaded up with no trouble at all, they seemed as anxious to move on as I was, and we arrived safe and sound at Chickasaw just before 2:30. There was a lot of nice clover around, so I put the horses on anchors while I was setting up, which took me just about 2 hours, including the screen room because there were so many gnats around. I even got out Lola’s little swimming pool which I had retrieved from the house and filled it up, so once I got everything done, I finally got her out of the truck and we played fetch for a while. For the first time, I tried to do a live Facebook video, and it worked out pretty well, I actually had several immediate viewers, including my old boyfriend from high school, Larry, who I haven’t actually seen since 1976! The wonders of modern technology! It was a beautiful evening, and once I got the horses fed and on the highline, I fixed some dinner. Halfway through, two folks from the only other RV in the campground came around and asked me if I’d like to join them for grilling, but I explained that I was already having dinner, but promised them tomorrow night I would join them. For a Friday night, the place is dead quiet, but then again, this is the first day where the “stay at home” order was lifted. I was already falling asleep in my chair by 8:00, so I’m obviously feeling the crash as I knew I would. I doubt I’ll even have the energy to ride tomorrow, I might just take the whole day off, but we’ll see. I may just want to get out there and ride! Meanwhile, I’m no doubt going to head to bed extra early, and it’s so quiet out here, and the temps are dropping from mid-70’s to mid-50’s tonight, absolutely perfect, I anticipate one of the best night’s sleep for a long, long time! It’s so good to be back on the road again!!! Yay!! The next chapter is being written! Love you, babe! Good night!