Archives for August 2020

Hey Sweetie,
Once again, I went to bed expecting one kind of weather and woke up to something else. Forecast last night was a 30% chance of rain for about an hour later in the morning, woke up with rain coming down heavily and a 100% chance of rain, duh! Fortunately the radar showed it wouldn’t last too long, and that Hueston Woods was sunny, so I crawled back into bed to wait it out. Once it started to wane a bit, I got up and had breakfast, and by the time I was done, the rain had gone. I finished packing up, hooked up and pulled out the trailer, loaded up the horses and off we went! It was an uneventful trip (my favorite), except when I arrived at Hueston Woods, I noticed a long scratch a several dents along the compartments under the manger. I have no idea how they got there. I’m sure I didn’t run into anything, but I don’t know how anything could have run into me, though I did stop by the side of the road one time, but I pulled off pretty far, and I would have thought I would have noticed if someone slid along my side. I took the long route on purpose, to keep me mostly on freeway, but I don’t know, it’s a mystery. Anyway, my first stop at Hueston Woods when I arrived at 2:00 was at the dump, since Hocking doesn’t have one, and then off to my site, which is in the middle of a row of sites. There must be some kind of event or something here this weekend, because practically every site is booked. I barely have enough room for the trailer here, but I managed to get in okay. I had do to some extra maneuvering, because the electric boxes are side by side every other site, which means for my site it’s on the wrong side of the trailer, so I had to stay close to one side to make sure it would reach, just barely! That gave me a tiny bit of room to put up an electric fence around the (sigh) hitching post, and up along the slide-out, but it’s hardly enough to turn around in. The good news it that the newer maps show a lot more trails than the older maps did, so it looks like we have a lot of trails to explore. The bad news is they’re busy “upgrading” the trails with gravel, big chunks on the bottom, then some of that netting material, then small chunks on top. Looks like it’s going to be boots for the boys for the next 10 days! I really can’t understand why these decisions are made, everyone I talk to KNOWS that horses don’t like gravel, but some bureaucrat somewhere has decided that this is the way to do it, and that’s that! Frustrating. Anyway, I was completely set up with screen room, fence, grill, the whole works by about 5:00, then settled down for a nice grilled pork shop and sides and an evening of reading, TV and extremely frustrating letters back and forth to Equity about meeting their absurd covid requirements. Grrrr! For a union of artists, they have NO imagination. Anyway, I finally showered, and am off to bed. Good night, darlin’! Love you!

Hi Babe.
A good night sleep and a lazy, rainy day. Did little else but the minimum of chores, put the horses out on anchors for a bit to get some fresh grass and clover, repaired a tear on the dining bench that Lola made, read for awhile, watched TV, played games on the computer, just a relaxing, luxuriously boring day. Unfortunately, it looks like rain again tomorrow, clearing up on Sunday, so I guess I’m not going to get another ride in, since Sunday I’ll be packing up. I imagine the trails are super muddy by now with all the rain we’ve been having, and the remnants of Hurricane Laura will be coming through overnight, which will only make it worse. The trails here do tend to get muddy, though I will say, this is the quietest Friday night I’ve ever seen, so not many horses out on the trails today! Heading for shower and bed, we’ll see what the rest of the weekend brings. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Sweetheart!
I had another great night sleep, did my chores, then decided my saddle and saddlebags were long overdue for a cleaning, so I pulled them all out and spent quite a few hours getting those in shape. I had to switch out the other stirrup from the other Aussie saddle, because I felt the wood crack on the OTHER side when I was riding yesterday, so now both stirrups have been changed out. My saddlebags were absolutely filthy, mud everywhere, so I took everything out an re-sorted it, washed everything down, restocked the first aid kit, and discovered that my emergency blanket had pretty much disintegrated. Who knew it could do that? Got everything cleaned up and put back together, so it was a productive day. The rest of the day was spent arguing with our union about how I’m supposed to meet all their covid requirements (ridiculous!), so that I can get a contract so I can keep my pension contributions and health insurance going. Sigh, I hate bureaucracies! Anyway, it’s been threatening with rain and thunder all day, Lola keeps diving behind my chair whenever the storms get close, but it’s only rained a little bit so far. Supposed to be worse tomorrow. No worries, I’m snug as a bug in a rug here in my luxury trailer! I finally settled down for the evening, watched a decent modern western for a change, then broke down to watch the last 90 minutes of the Republican Convention. I tried to watch it once or twice earlier this week, but seeing all the awful presentations just made me crazy. But I was compelled to listen to Trump’s speech, and he did a good job. He’s got himself a pretty good scriptwriter now, and if he didn’t keep leaning sideway on the lectern, I’d say he did a half decent job of it. Anyway, I showered long ago, and Trump didn’t finish until about midnight, so I’m getting to bed late. Good night, darlin’! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Well, I’ve had my first birthday since 1985 without you, without anyone today really. I know we never made a big deal out of holidays, so I’m not making a big deal out of this one, either. I did some computer work in the morning, mostly rearranging park reservations, then finally saddled up Apollo for a 7 mile ride on a couple of trails I hadn’t done here yet. He did pretty well, considering some of the climbs were pretty steep today. We managed to only lose his boot once, and got it put back on right away, not losing it again for the whole trip thank goodness. There was one long stretch along a road, and I put Lola’s leash on because she tends to get too far ahead and out in the road, but she stayed perfectly beside me once the leash was on. No cars came by anyway, but better safe than sorry. Got back, rinsed him off, then let him eat some clover for awhile, while I smacked a couple dozen horseflies as they landed on him. Eventually made a nice surf and turf dinner with shrimp and steak, rice and asparagus, then settled down for a usual evening. It was an enjoyable day, and that’s all I can ask for! Heading off to shower and bed, so good night, darlin’! Love you!

Hi Darlin’!
A good night sleep, but still feeling a bit tired after the exertion of the last couple of days, which is fine, since the only thing on the books today other than my usual chores is laundry and rest. I had to fill the tank up twice to accomplish it, but otherwise, I spent the day binge-watching ST Voyager, that’s it. Already had my shower, and I’ll be off to bed soon. Not much else to report! Love you, babe! Good night!

Hi Babe!
For once I managed to go to be early, as promised, and fell asleep while I was reading, slept through till almost my alarm going off, a nice full 8+ hours, which I really needed! Had breakfast, then saddled up Flash, who was willing but not thrilled about heading out again, and even Lola needed a bit of encouragement after our long day yesterday. We headed out on the orange trail (probably my least favorite here, mostly because a lot of it is either muddy or gravelly), but I had to do nearly five miles on it to get to the parking lot where I was meeting the rest of the gang at 11:00. I gave myself 90 minutes, and was just a couple of minutes later, mostly because Flash was really a slug this morning. I put his boots on when we got through the muddiest sections, just before the gravel got really bad, and that improved his tempo considerably. We headed across the road from the parking lot, and within minutes arrived at a couple of the hot spots on the map, Table Rock, which is one of those crazy big rocks teetering on a much smaller pointed base, and Fat Man’s Squeeze, which was where the trail went between the main escarpment wall and a couple of big rocks that had fallen down eons ago, leaving about a four to six foot wide path between them. We then continued on the trail all the way down to the overflow parking for the Old Man’s Cave, which, it turns out, is a real destination point. The place was packed! A big main visitors center and a constant stream of foot traffic followed the path past a couple of waterfalls, along a creek for a bit more than a quarter mile, to the actual cave, so named because of a settler back in the 19th century that lived there, and circled back again. It reminded me of Watkins Glen without the incline, but nowhere near as big or long or interesting as that. I was kind of surprised it had such a crowd, and was such a big tourist site. I mean, it was nice and all, but it wasn’t all that big a deal. Well, maybe for city folk who never get out to the country, but the cliffs weren’t much more interested than the ones by our house back in Tennessee! But it was a beautiful ride, nonetheless. After we walked through, we headed back to our horses, who were waiting patiently across the road at a hitching post, had our lunches, then headed back. That was the only drawback, it was all linear, just out and back again, but still, a lot was in pine forest, which I always like, and there were some nice trails and grades to traverse. It was about 18.5 miles for me, but I had a few more miles than the group, because their camp was closer to the parking lot. Flash did great, I even put him at the back of the pack just to get him used to not being in front all the time, and he was pretty good. Once the group peeled off, he started to run faster, but that didn’t last long, wisdom set in, and he slowed down for most of the rest of the way. As soon as we hit the gravel again, I put his boots back on, since I had taken them off earlier when we hit dirt trails. We managed to get all the way back to camp without losing one, even when we went through some pretty deep mud, yay! Washed him down, put everything away, and after awhile, headed back over to their camp for supper, which this group takes great pride in. Beautiful grilled pork chops and lots of sides, delicious! And always better because I didn’t have to do any cooking or cleaning up!. Got back just before it got dark, fed the horses, showered, had my ice cream, watched one Voyager, and now I’m SO ready for bed! Tomorrow will be a laundry/equipment clean up day, with as much rest in between as I can manage. I need a day off! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!