Archives for 2024

Hiya Sweetie!
My goodness, what a fun but exhausting day today! Got up early, did my usual chores plus the added chore of dumping my black water tank, had breakfast, then piled Lola into the truck and met at Jo's just before 9:30 so she could play around with Jo's dogs for a few minutes. Headed out soon after, first stop at the UPS store to drop off a package (returning some pants that I ordered), then to her bank, then to the tack store where I bought a new halter for Flash and a new muck bucket for water, then we went to the World Equestrian Center, and had lunch at the little Mexican restaurant there. OMG, what an incredible meal! Taco salad, which was amazing and totally different from anything else I've ever had, splurged on a margarita and had a totally decadent dulce de leche cheesecake. WAY too much food, I won't be eating again until tomorrow, probably midday! We walked around a bit through the various arenas, seemed like mostly practice, but we did managed to catch a couple of the young riders in the Level 6 Hunter Jumper competition in the main outdoor arena. Finally left there about 2:00, headed to Tractor Supply in Dunnellon where I picked up feed, which will save me a trip next week, and finally, we decided to squeeze in a quick trip to the U-Pick strawberry farm before they closed at 4:00, and just made it in time to get in and out. What fantastic strawberries!! Huge and ruby red and delicious! Yeah, I know, I was stuffed already, but I had to test one, right? I picked just under two pounds, which will be plenty for me, and Jo picked over five pounds for her and Jeff. Got back to her house around 4:30, and I finally made it back to camp about 5:15. Fed the horses, put on Flash's new halter, carried my feed into the trailer, and finally, CRASHED for the evening, exhausted! I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight! And Lola will, too, busy day for her. A wonderful day! Love you, my darlin'! Good night!

Hey Darlin',
Had a good night sleep at last, woke up early and refreshed, got my morning chores and breakfast done just before Rick arrived. There's been a bad leak in the well house that he's been waiting for a plumber to come and fix, but he kept not showing up, so Rick decided to do the work himself, which seems to be par for the course for the rangers around here. I gave him a hand, he used some of my tools, and after awhile we managed to get it done. In the process, though, he did something wrong on the electrical circuit board, and we ended up with no power beyond the well house. We finally pinpointed the problem to a bad circuit breaker and once that was replaced, everything worked fine again. I also dug a trench behind the bathroom to locate the pipe leading to the septic tank, then at the end of the day, we covered it up with plywood and traffic cones to hopefully keep people off it. I had hoped to go riding today, the weather was gorgeous, almost too hot by afternoon, but it was not to be today! Finished off around 3:45, too late to start anything else, so I settled down for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Jo and I have plans for tomorrow, so it will be an early morning for me tomorrow, so my plan is early to bed! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Didn't have a very good night sleep, pretty sure it's because there must be a lot of caffeine in the iced tea at Willards, since I had trouble the night before as well. Just finished feeding the horses when Rick arrived, and he spread around the last load of gravel with the tractor before they left to go cut away some trees that were blocking roads and trails. I decided to take advantage of the lack of activity on my part to get my grocery shopping done, so I headed into town and did just that. After getting back and putting all the groceries away, I sat in my recliner and, not surprisingly, almost nodded off. Kept myself awake with a little computer work, then settled down for the evening, watching several Crown episodes, but am ready to get to bed early to make up for the last two not-so-great nights of sleep. Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hey Sweetie!
Spent the day in camp, perfect weather, working with the guys bringing in loads of gravel in a dump truck and leveling it off with a big tractor. What a great job! It's going very fast, more so than I had imagined, great progress! We took a break for lunch at Willards again, then did another load of gravel. We finished the day dropping one last load, but leaving the spreading until tomorrow. It's possible we might even be able to have me move over on Friday, though we might wait until next week. I'm thinking the sooner the better, but it's up to them. Logan stopped by to check on the progress as well, seemed happy with how it's going. Finally quit around 4:00, did my afternoon chores and settled down for the evening. Finished bingeing on the latest season of Heartland and got started on The Crown, which I'm two seasons behind on, but they're short seasons. Ready for shower and bed! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Darlin'!
Had a great busy and productive day today. Got up fairly early and had the morning chores and breakfast done just about the time Ranger Rick got here, and we headed to do a pretty good list of odds and ends. We went out to remove that second downed tree in Apex, checked up on Tidewater, picked up a sign for Beehive Rd. from the shop and a post from Tidewater and installed that, cut out a bunch of barbed wire along the perimeter firebreak at Buck Pond Trailhead, had lunch at Willard's, then came back to Black Prong to change a lock on the bathroom closet, put up some trail markers at a badly marked corner on the green trail, removed another downed log, and generally kept busy all day. Got a lot of little stuff done that's been hanging around, and it was thoroughly enjoyable to be working in the woods! We have a pretty busy schedule for the rest of the week working on the new camp host site, so it was nice to get out and about today. Settled down for the evening, happy I didn't have to cook or clean up dinner, watched a little RV, now I'm ready for an early night. Good night, baby! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie!
Today was a nice, quiet, rainy Sunday, just like we always used to love. I did a bunch of laundry, practiced my Morse code, read for a few hours, watched a little TV, played a few computer games, made Lola her special meatballs, and generally just had a nice relaxing day, while warm, light rain kept coming in small waves. Nothing too heavy, so it didn't really do too much to settle down the sand on the new site like we'd hoped, but it's better than nothing, I suppose. Hoping for an early night and a good night sleep! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Darlin'!
Didn't have the best night sleep, as Miss Lola decided at midnight she just had to go out, so I had to get out of bed and let her go. Normally she would just go and come back, but for some reason, she decided to really go exploring, and I waited, reading, for almost an hour, and she still hadn't come back, so I got up, put on my heavy robe and my parka and went out looking with my high intensity flashlight. It didn't take long for her to come moseying along without a care in the world, much to my dismay. Finally got her back in and went back to bed, but it took me awhile to get back to sleep after having been out in the cold. Still got up relatively early, did my chores, then went and picked up hay at 9:30, with a quick stop at the new DG mart to pick up a couple of things. Got the hay stored away, then killed some time until I left to go to my friends George and Margarita's house, where we had an absolutely delightful afternoon. I cooked my special recipe chicken and accompaniments, drank a lot of wine and we talked for hours, though it passed it no time, like it always does with us when we get together. It was great fun. Stayed too long, got back after sunset, had to use my neck flashlight to feed the horses, then finally settled down for the evening. A really lovely day, with perfect Florida weather! Lola once again played for a bit, then stole someone's dog bed and crashed. Seems she's become a real bedhopper these days! Anyway, a great day, always fun spending time with friends, looking forward to a rainy, quiet day tomorrow. Good night, baby! Love you!