Hiya Sweetie,
Getting back into my theatre schedule, late to bed, late to rise. That's what happens when I'm parked in deep shade rather than a wide open field! The horses are loving the new, giant hay bags I bought, even though they're slow feeders, and they're lasting all day, as planned. I finally decided to give up on fixing my camcorder, so I ordered the same kind, though refurbished since they don't make them anymore, at twice the price I remember we paid ten years ago! But that one gave us good service for a long time, and I need a good camera for my Yellowstone trip. The newer models are much bigger and heavier, so I wasn't interested in those, even though the pix might be a bit better. Not printing them up, so it doesn't really matter. Once I got that decision made, I then made arrangements to go pick up hay from the Mennonite family that Karen recommended, aka Tim the Hay Man. He had just baled his second cutting yesterday, and for $4 a bale, I got as much as I could hold in my trailer and use until the end of the week. Green and lovely, just as you would expect! Haymakers have been having a hard time this year, it's been so rainy, but the last few days have been perfectly dry, so fields are buzzing with activity. I picked up an extra three bales for Karen and dropped them off at her house, to replace the three she gave me a few days ago. I also stopped at the meat market for more garlic cheese curds, some lemonade, and a pigs ear for Lola. Got back to camp and put them all away, with a few under the gooseneck to finish off. Finally got around to saddling Apollo for a gorgeous four mile ride, starting on Shady Trail, then Hiawatha, Glenwood, Twin Ponds, Icicle and Blue Jog. Lola came along, and I figured she's head into one of the Twin Ponds, but I couldn't persuade her to go in. Apollo stumbled a lot, there are a lot of pine roots out here, but mostly I think it was his arthritis. I've started him on a MSM/Chondroitin routine, but it hasn't kicked in yet, I'm hoping that will help. Gotta keep this old guy moving whenever I can! Got back to camp just after 4:00, trimmed his front hooves, then settled down for the evening. My phone has now been charged four times with one of the battery banks I bought, so I'm gaining confidence that I can make it through Yellowstone with enough power to keep things charged up. Meanwhile, I've been having trouble livestreaming today, though I don't know why. I'm seriously considering a Starlink once I come back from my vacation, it gets so frustrating not being able to get online when I want. Anyway, time for my evening ablutions and bed! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hi Babe!
Had a fitful night sleep, until I pulled out my extra throw blanket! I was too cold to be comfortable, even with my wool cap on, until I did that! I slept fine after that. It's so shady here, it's hard to get up at the crack of dawn, so it was more like 8:30 when I finally got moving, though I did do some PT exercises and read for awhile. Spent some time taking apart my camcorder to see if I could fix it, not sure it's doable. I'm missing a screw on the door spring hinge, and don't have one to replace it handy, though I think tomorrow I might pull out one of my many old laptops and see if I can find one that fits. There might also be some damage to the electronics band that moves with that hinge, which is keeping the monitor from working. I can actually record video, which I tested from the SD card, but not photos, apparently, and the monitor is blank, so I may have more problems that that, but I'll try anyway! I'd really rather have a separate camcorder rather than do everything with my phone, so I may have to buy another one. Oh, well! Finally saddled up Flash and hit the trails about 12:20, on a gorgeous day! A bit cool in the woods, but finally warmed up by late in the afternoon. Had to wear my Red Rock denim jacket to stay warm! I decided to do the Blueberry Trail clockwise (so far, I've only done it counterclockwise once before), and it is truly a stunning ride. We took Fletcher Trail, Florence Pond Trail, Crooked Creek Trail (we had two creek crossings), then picked up Blueberry after a short stint on a road. We came across signs for Trailside Restaurant which didn't look like they were that old, so I thought maybe they had reopened it (I had heard they shut it down), and Google said they were open, so we took a detour just to see for ourselves. Sorry to say, Google had it very wrong, not open, empty, and looks like it has been for a long while. I think they shut down during Covid and never reopened. Anyway, we headed back, took a wrong turn and ended up meandering along a lot of private roads until we finally had to just about go cross country to get back on track. No worries, Flash is a bulldozer! We ended up going over 14.6 miles, and we cantered the last couple of miles, except one stop to let a couple of kids say hello, though Flash had his adrenaline up so he wasn't standing as calmly as usual. As soon as we finished there, we took off again. What a rush! Love that horse! Got back to camp, put him away, then went to visit with the gals at the end again, who then came down and had a tour of the trailer and bought a book. Went back to chat for a bit, then got a text from Karen that she had my special order Sweigels white hots (six pounds!) and a package, so I ran down there and got that, came back and had dinner and settled down for the evening. Got involved with trying to solve my camcorder problem again, there's still a couple of things I want to try tomorrow. Anyway, tea time, shower and bed soon! Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Darlin',
A cool morning, down in the low 50's, a refreshing change from the heat wave we've been having! Decided to run my couple of errands this morning to let it warm up, so I drove down to town, dropped off another return to Amazon, picked up a bag of All Stages (which the Tractor Supply was finally able to get in from another store, as they didn't have any, despite their website saying they had forty bags! Not a very well managed store!), then got back to camp just after 11:00. Had Flash saddled and out on the trail before 11:30. I decided to follow the trails where I might find the missing halter one of the ladies from the parade had lost, down Icicle and Erie Canal, but no luck. Ran into Carol and her friend, they hadn't seen it either. We reached the river and crossed it, then headed west on Eatonville Trail, crossed over Otter Creek and too the trail of the same name, then turned north on another loop and left the forest to go along a road until we picked up Hiawatha trail back to camp, just under fourteen miles in all. I had forgotten how rocky it was on some of those trails, not to mention the gravel roads, and felt bad that I hadn't brought Flash's boots along, but one is so stretched it keeps falling off, and the new one I ordered isn't due until next week, so there wasn't much I could do. I'll check his feet tomorrow and make sure there isn't any (or much) stone bruising. He'll get a couple of days off anyway. Today was absolutely gorgeous, perfect weather once it warmed up a bit, and it was a fantastic ride, as always here at Otter Creek. Got the horses settled, and even played a little fetch with Lola. I've been giving her Cosequin since Tennessee, and it seems to be working, she's moving around better, though she only retrieved the ball a couple of times. Still, I'm happy to see any improvement at her age! Had myself dinner and a little TV, won't be long out of bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Babe,
I keep waking up at the crack of dawn, and when I'm lucky, manage to fall asleep for a little bit longer, though not too much this morning. That's okay, I had a busy day. After chores and breakfast, I saddled up Apollo, and Lola and I headed out for a short ride. Apollo was stumbling a bit for awhile, but eventually loosened up enough to do a little jogging. I took him on mostly flat trails at first to get him warmed up, which I think helped. We did cut it shorter than I had planned, though, because Lola seemed to be struggling a bit. We ended up going just over three miles. At least the big guy is still moving! Once I got him put away, Lola and I headed into town to do a bunch of errands. I'm returning some pants I ordered from Amazon, dropped of the final check to the Yellowstone outfitter, got fuel at the ridiculous price of $4.19/gallon, picked up some joint stuff for Apollo and propane at Tractor Supply, but once again disappointed in the management there. Their website said they had 40 bags of the All Stages that I feed Flash, but they actually had NONE. Now we're back to getting some sent over from another store IF they have someone available to do that! Very poorly managed. Then to Walmart for some of my usual items, then a stop at Millers Meat Market for some garlic cheese curds (my new favorite snack whenever I'm up here), and a last stop at Mary's Dairy Bar, where they have superb frozen custard, which I've been looking forward to ever since I crossed the Mason/Dixon line, but haven't been able to find yet. A small twist cone (chocolate and vanilla swirled) was all I needed, and I called that dinner. Well, except for a couple of slice of bacon and a few cheese curds later, anyway. Had some visitors come by, a lady named Carol whom I had met several times previously around different horse camps in NYS, including Sugar Hill and Phillips Point, and we had a lovely chat along with another of her friends. Small world! Finally fed the horses and settled down for the evening, later than usual, but still daylight! Headed to bed shortly. Love you darlin'! Good night!

Hey Darlin',
Not a bad night sleep, but did wake up pretty early. Did my chores, had breakfast, then saddled up Flash for our first Otter Creek ride of the year. As always, it was a beautiful ride! We did about 11.5 miles, went down a couple of spur trails that I had never actually been down before, and generally just had a wonderful ride. Flash seemed to be raring to go, we did a lot of gaiting and even some cantering, though I lost my can of bug spray somewhere along the line. Seems to me I did that here another time long ago! Beautiful day! Once we got back, I spent some time in the chat room of Verizon trying to solve a problem, and eventually got out and put up a highline for the boys. Not supposed to, but it's just not right to keep my guys in a standing stall for two weeks! They seemed a lot happier, of course. Just before 6:00, Karen and two of her friends came by and picked me up, and we got into Lowville just in time for the parade marking the opening of their county fair, which is apparently the second oldest fair in the nation. She had already set up chairs, so we had front row seats to the voluminous number of fire departments from throughout the area, a couple of marching bands, horses and wagons, elected officials and, of course, plenty of tractors and business using the opportunity to be a slow moving billboard, not to mention most floats throwing out candy all over the street, getting swept up by kids and grownups alike. After about 90 minutes, we hauled the chairs back to the car, then walked down to the fair to wander and munch on a little junk food and walk through the animal barns. I kept the junk food to a minimum, hoping I didn't eat more than I burned today! Finally got back to camp just before 10:00 (we didn't stay for the fireworks, I think we'd all seen enough of those in our lifetimes!), gave the boys another flake of hay, walked Lola (one other camper came in just as I was leaving), and now am settling down for a cup of tea, a shower, and bed! Hoping I can sleep a little later tomorrow, getting tired of waking up before 6:00! Anyway, it was a lovely and different kind of day, and I was very glad to get back into the saddle. Good news, I haven't taken any pain killers for over a week now, mainly because I haven't been doing anything, but even with the ride and all the walking this evening, I still don't feel the need! Yippee! Hope I feel the same way in the morning! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
After spending the morning doing some research and trying to solve my internet problem, I think I've come up with a solution. When my cell phone signal is on the weak side, I'm having a terrible time doing livestreaming once it reaches the choke point and slows down. I've been considering Starlink, but that's a pretty expensive solution. I finally contacted Verizon and learned they could up my plan for $35 more a month and give me nearly three times the gigs, more than I typically use, without reaching a choke point, so I opted to do that to see if it worked. More on that in a minute. Once I did that and some other research, I saddled up Flash and headed out to Matt's Place, a restaurant about five miles south of here, and reachable by trail. I had trouble keeping his boots on, even though I taped the old one, but it nearly lasted until we got there. I was disappointed in the restaurant. I had looked up their menu online and they had some cool stuff, like a Monte Cristo sandwich, taco salad and club sandwich. When I got there, however, and saw their current menu, it was nothing but pizza, burgers and wings. Not really what I was in the mood for, but oh, well. I ended up getting a Philly cheesesteak, and while the bun was nice, and the homemade chips were wonderful, it was all way too salty. Had a Guinness, which was a high point of the meal. Anyway, it was an okay destination, but I don't think I'll be doing that again. Headed back up the Mohawk trail, and again, the boots didn't last half a mile, so I ended up just taking them off, which was a tough choice. The problem here is that there are a lot of rocks and stones, and a lot of mud, the worst combination. Flash wasn't thrilled about the rocks or the mud, but at least I didn't lost any more boots along the way! Got back to camp around 5:30, did my usual chores and settled down for the evening. I finally cranked up the TV to see if my new service plan had improved my live streaming, and I was immediately able to get my Prime going, something I haven't been able to do since I've been here! Yay! Watched an episode of Night Sky, and was so happy to not have any buffering at all! So hopefully this will make my viewing experience better in the future. Another good thing, we've had so much sunshine so far this week, and I've used so little power (since I haven't been able to watch TV, I suppose!) I've only had to run the generator ONCE so far! Though tomorrow is laundry day, so I'll be running it for an hour or so tomorrow. So, despite the less than stellar ride and meal, it was another good day all around. Finishing my usual evening shortly! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hi Babe!
Had a great night sleep though I woke up early, read for awhile before getting up for chores. After breakfast I went over to fill up my truck tank to make sure I had enough for laundry on Sunday, only to find the garage where the hose it was still locked, but fortunately a ranger was there and he opened it for me. Got that job done, then got the horses saddled up. I had offered to let my young neighbor Brandon ride Apollo, so both horses (and Lola!) would get some exercise. It's always nice when both horses can go out together. My planned 3.5 mile route ended up being just over five miles, and there was some good climbing, but everyone did fantastic! I think we're all getting back into shape now that we're on the road again. This is the second time in as many weeks that Apollo has been ridden with Flash, and I think they both enjoy going out together. I was especially delighted that Lola stayed with us, and was even leading most of the way! I think the cooler temps make a big difference with her, she even tried to get us to play fetch with a ball when we got back to camp! She hasn't done that in awhile! And Apollo didn't seem at all worse for the wear, despite the climbing. So happy! Once we got back to camp and got them put away, we sat under the awning and had a lot conversation, mostly about spirituality and religion, comparing notes on our differing beliefs, very entertaining. Finally quit long enough to have dinner, then finished a book just at sunset, so I climbed up the 92 steps of the firetower and saw the remnants of a gorgeous sunset, and stayed to watch the numerous fireworks that dot the landscape around this incredible 360 view. I didn't expect to be back here this year, but it has been nice being back in NY with the cooler temps, though it is supposed to get hot over the weekend, briefly.Anyway, a gorgeous day, a beautiful ride, a fantastic fireworks display, and now, tea, shower and bed! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Sweetie!
A decent night sleep, though once again I woke up to a generator being turned on right at 7:00. Did chores and breakfast, then saddled up Flash for my intended ride over to the Templar Falls. A Facebook memory came up of you recently standing at the top of those falls, and I thought it might be nice to revisit them, but we never made it. The trail was so overgrown and untended that it became impossible. At one point, we went through a shrub so thick I just put my head down and let him lead the way, but then a thick branch caught me anyway and almost swept me out of the saddle. Thank goodness Flash is just as good at Whoa as he is at Go, and he gave me a chance to untangle myself before moving on. We finally reach a spot where the trail was so washed out that it would have required a very steep crossing down and up again, and I decided it just wasn't worth it. Nothing to prove here, and as much as Iike a challenge, when it gets to the point of just being stupid, I'll pass. We turned around until we found another trail that my past GPS history had indicated we had taken, but didn't get 50 yards before it became impassable. So we went back the way we came until we hit the road, then I rode him north to where there was a trail that looped east, and was part of the more maintained horse trails.That brought us to Tower Hill Road, which we took back to camp. We ended up doing just over seven and a half miles, so not a long ride, but enough to get us out of camp for awhile. Put Flash away, then made some calls about hay, and headed out to a haymaker about 15 miles south. It was their first time using FB marketplace, and they had just posted it the other day, so I was lucky to find it. They managed to get about 90 bales of hay so far this year, which is amazing since it seems almost no one else has been able to do that with all the wet weather. Since I decided to stay another week, I bought 16 bales at just $4 a bale, though the bales were fairly small. I like that, though, it makes them much easier to handle. Got back to camp and Brandon offered to help me unload, so we got that job done in no time. Then we sat around and chatted for a long while, eventually being joined by our other neighbor John, and had a lovely afternoon. Eventually it was time for feeding everyone, and I resumed my normal evening schedule, though no TV tonight, it was too late. Heading to shower and bed shortly! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hiya Babe,
Woke up pretty early again, got up and started some laundry, then went over to the pavilion to get some more water, since I knew I didn't have enough for all the laundry I had. Met up with Nancy Y again, she decided to not only buy a copy of my horse camping book yesterday, but our public speaking book today! We chatted for awhile again, and I invited her to take a short ride with me, since it's been such a long time since Flash and Apollo have been able to go out together. After breakfast, she came by and we saddled them up. I had previously found a two-mile loop that I thought would be good, not as much grade as in some areas, but when we got to it, they had apparently closed it off to horses (which didn't stop us :-). There were a couple of trees we had to maneuver around, but nothing serious. Apollo was doing so well, even with some climbing, which he trotted up, so we went just a little farther to get him some exercise. Of course, Lola came along, so it was all a very nice little ride! Once we got back, I suggested Nancy try riding Flash around the yard just to get a feel for a Paso, which she had apparently never ridden before, and she gaited him around a bit. He does look mighty fine gaiting around! I took him and cantered him a bit just so she could see what that looked like, too. After seeing the crash yesterday, she was rethinking a Paso, but seriously, it's like any other horse, you just have to put in the time to train them right. We ended up sitting outside under the awning and chatting for quite awhile, and the horses came over and visited with us as well. We're re-bonding now that we're on the road again. Meanwhile, the decision has been made to go to Sugar Hill again for the 4th of July weekend, so that's where we're heading out tomorrow. Haven't quite figured out the rest of the schedule, just making it up as we so along! Once Nancy left, I started to slowly pack up the rest of the stuff throughout the day, which was mercifully very dry, so hopefully I'll be able to get out tomorrow. I've put my tarp over the ground where my tires will go when I hook up tomorrow in an effort to keep the dew off, and I just checked the forecast and they've now advanced their call for rain to much earlier, so I'm going to have to get moving early tomorrow to hopefully avoid any of that! Fingers crossed! Anyway, the sun has set, I'm going to look out for the fireflies, Nancy said they're amazing when they come out of the ground. I'd only noticed them a bit later when they were lighting up the forest like a hundred Christmas trees with twinkling lights, which was incredible enough! I still really hate Daylight Savings time, the dang days stay way too light, way too late! Hard to get to bed early like this! Anyway, good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hi Babe!
Had a good night sleep after the rain last night cooled it down a bit, woke up refreshed and ready to go! Just as I was saddling up Flash, the infamous Luke, the main ranger here, came by, finally got to put a face to the name. We chatted briefly, then he headed out and I finished saddling Flash and we headed out. Other than being a little more rocky than I like, the trails here are truly gorgeous! I didn't put Flash's boots on at first, and for the most part, it wasn't too bad. Most of the rocks here have been rounded out by the glaciers from the last ice age, so nothing too sharp, and we did the first 12 miles without boots. Once we got to the regular campground loop, though, it got a lot worse (likely from trail "repairs"), so I stopped and put them on him. I got really turned around at one point, because what's on the map and what's out there are two completely different things! I even had an Avenza geo-tagged map, but it was wrong, and I kept going back thinking I must be missing something, but never did manage it. I compared it later to a more recent paper map and could see a few changes, but that map is too big to scan, and, of course, it's not geo-tagged. Anyway, we finally made it back to camp. We were only about a mile out when we heard some thunder and felt a little overspray, but fortunately we got back to camp and untacked before it started any significant rain, which was welcome! Cooled it off a little, but then the sun came out and it was steaming for a bit. When I left this morning, there were several reservation tags on other horse sites, but when I came back, they were all gone, so I guess whatever company I was going to have decided not to take chances on the weather, which is for more rain tomorrow. Fine by me, I'm going shopping and picking up fuel tomorrow. Sorry to say that diesel prices are over $4.00 a gallon here, a lot higher than what I've been paying, but I expected that once I moved northward and into the blue states. The data stream signal still hasn't improved, though I've still got full bars on my phone, crazy. Anyway, time for shower and bed. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!