Hiya Darlin',
You know that for the last almost fifteen years I've been struggling with a shoulder injury from a day when I spent so long using a chainsaw that I thought I shifted something out of place, but I haven't ever been able to convince any practitioner of any kind to really help locate and solve the problem. They all wanted to treat it but no one wanted to solve it, because they didn't believe my description of what I thought was wrong. Well, I think I might finally have made some significant progress! Since my last deep tissue massage over a year ago, where the masseuse managed to shift something, and it felt better for awhile but since then it's been hurting worse for a long time, I decided I needed to try everything I could to solve the problem once and for all, or else look for a doctor when I get down to Goethe, since I will be in one place for a while. Anyway, I've been taking advantage of the available time and having the round-the-clock electricity to pull out that old hand-held shiatsu massager, and have been really going at my shoulder and my back for the last couple of weeks. I tried putting ice on it one day to see if that helped, but it only made things worse, so I got out the heating pad instead, and for the last few days I've really been putting some heat on it. Then this morning, I woke up a couple of hours before dawn, so I pulled out the massager and really went at all the tight and sore spots. Lo and behold, about an hour later, I suddenly felt something big shift in my back, and it seemed like a whole lot of the tension suddenly released. Wow! I'm not saying it's perfect yet, but it sure feels like a HUGE step in the right direction. I discovered I could now reach for something and not have to shift my shoulder to a different position to avoid the pain, which I've been doing subconsciously for a very long time now. In fact, that was the weirdest part of the day, trying to NOT shift my shoulder, and only having the tiniest bit of pain when I reach for something. What a breakthrough! I can still feel a few spots of tightness and tenderness, which is certainly to be expected considering how much I've been beating on it lately, but I feel like everything will eventually settle down in the right place and maybe even get back to pre-2009 levels, which would be absolutely fantastic! Whoo-hoo! Of course, I finally fell back to sleep and ended up getting up late again, then after awhile I saddled up Apollo for a ride. I haven't ridden him in awhile, and he seemed ready and willing, so we headed out to do the trail down to the river to the west. I had cleared most of that so that it was passable except for the very end, a short path leading down to the river itself, so when we got there, I went ahead and cleared that out while I was there. Despite the fact that we haven't had much rain for a long time, the river seemed a lot higher to me. The last time I went down that path there was a good 10 yards of beach, but today there was only about 5 or 6 feet at the widest point. Enough for Apollo to get a drink and Lola to take a swim. On the way back, Apollo, who hasn't been on any of these sections of trail in several years, found and took every shortcut he could find, even ones I wasn't sure about, and except for one trail I insisted upon, he found the shortest way home. What a navigator! Got back to camp by 4:00, rinsed him off and settled down for the evening to dinner and a movie, and my usual routine, all feeling much better about the progress I've made with my shoulder. Can't wait to see how it plays out in the next few days! Love you, sweetheart! Good night!Hiya Darlin',
You know that for the last almost fifteen years I've been struggling with a shoulder injury from a day when I spent so long using a chainsaw that I thought I shifted something out of place, but I haven't ever been able to convince any practitioner of any kind to really help locate and solve the problem. They all wanted to treat it but no one wanted to solve it, because they didn't believe my description of what I thought was wrong. Well, I think I might finally have made some significant progress! Since my last deep tissue massage over a year ago, where the masseuse managed to shift something, and it felt better for awhile but since then it's been hurting worse for a long time, I decided I needed to try everything I could to solve the problem once and for all, or else look for a doctor when I get down to Goethe, since I will be in one place for a while. Anyway, I've been taking advantage of the available time and having the round-the-clock electricity to pull out that old hand-held shiatsu massager, and have been really going at my shoulder and my back for the last couple of weeks. I tried putting ice on it one day to see if that helped, but it only made things worse, so I got out the heating pad instead, and for the last few days I've really been putting some heat on it. Then this morning, I woke up a couple of hours before dawn, so I pulled out the massager and really went at all the tight and sore spots. Lo and behold, about an hour later, I suddenly felt something big shift in my back, and it seemed like a whole lot of the tension suddenly released. Wow! I'm not saying it's perfect yet, but it sure feels like a HUGE step in the right direction. I discovered I could now reach for something and not have to shift my shoulder to a different position to avoid the pain, which I've been doing subconsciously for a very long time now. In fact, that was the weirdest part of the day, trying to NOT shift my shoulder, and only having the tiniest bit of pain when I reach for something. What a breakthrough! I can still feel a few spots of tightness and tenderness, which is certainly to be expected considering how much I've been beating on it lately, but I feel like everything will eventually settle down in the right place and maybe even get back to pre-2009 levels, which would be absolutely fantastic! Whoo-hoo! Of course, I finally fell back to sleep and ended up getting up late again, then after awhile I saddled up Apollo for a ride. I haven't ridden him in awhile, and he seemed ready and willing, so we headed out to do the trail down to the river to the west. I had cleared most of that so that it was passable except for the very end, a short path leading down to the river itself, so when we got there, I went ahead and cleared that out while I was there. Despite the fact that we haven't had much rain for a long time, the river seemed a lot higher to me. The last time I went down that path there was a good 10 yards of beach, but today there was only about 5 or 6 feet at the widest point. Enough for Apollo to get a drink and Lola to take a swim. On the way back, Apollo, who hasn't been on any of these sections of trail in several years, found and took every shortcut he could find, even ones I wasn't sure about, and except for one trail I insisted upon, he found the shortest way home. What a navigator! Got back to camp by 4:00, rinsed him off and settled down for the evening to dinner and a movie, and my usual routine, all feeling much better about the progress I've made with my shoulder. Can't wait to see how it plays out in the next few days! Love you, sweetheart! Good night!

Hi Babe!
Can't believe how much sleep I'm getting. I must have read later than I thought last night before falling asleep because it was nearly 9:00 when I woke up this morning. Crazy! Well, I did do a lot of physical work yesterday, and I do feel fully recovered, so I guess that's a good thing. When I went to feed the horses, I found the top wire in Apollo's fence was hanging down. I had noticed yesterday he was leaning up against the fence, rubbing on the wire, now I know he was testing it. He pulled all the caps which held the hotwire off the tops of the fenceposts, just like he used to pull the portable fence posts right out of the ground. So I had to put the hotwire on, glad that I got it fixed last week. Spent the morning working of the planning for the McCulley Farms endurance ride in a couple of weeks. There's a large section of forest that is still closed after the hurricane, so we're trying to come up with some interesting alternative routes. Meeting with the organizer tomorrow to get trail markers and discuss options. Finally got far enough along to stop and take Flash for a ride. After yesterday's exhibition of running around the pen like a mad horse, I figured he needed the exercise, and so did Lola, so by 1:00 we were saddled up. I headed over to the river trail, thinking it had been mostly cleared by the Spirit of Suwannee folks, but I was certainly wrong about that! I was barely a mile out when I came across a couple of big trees blocking the trail. I had my mini-chainsaw with me, so I cut enough limbs to clear the way to step over the biggest log, and a few other small ones further down, but it soon became clear that no clearing had, in fact, been done on that section of trail. Since the point of the day was to get Flash some exercise and not do trail clearing, I managed to bypass a couple of bad spots and finally get to the old bridge stanchions, and the trail was completely blocked right there. I turned back to the wide trail and we ended up going on the hard-packed sand road all the way down to the Allard tract, about two miles down and two miles back. Then we cut back toward the river for a ways before heading home. A rather boring ride, but the point was exercise, and it's clear that I won't be able to reach any of the eastern trails any time soon. We gaited most of the way, so it was a pretty good workout, we did about nine miles. When it came time to feed them dinner, it was obvious Apollo had tested the fence and learned his lesson, because I couldn't even get him to the gate to put his feed bag on! I had to go in the paddock to do it. Surprised it took him three weeks to push his luck, he's always been a pretty good Houdini. Anyway, had a pleasant evening, ready for a quick shower and bed. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Sweetie!
Woke up early, read awhile, finally sent back to sleep but got up with alarm. Wasn’t too long before I was on the trail, took both batteries for the chainsaw with me this time, though in the end, I only used one. Looked carefully for my missing credit cards, no luck, so I had to take time in the afternoon to cancel them out and order new ones. The trails had another half dozen or so places that were impassable or uncomfortably cluttered, and my little chainsaw and I managed to get all those cleared. There are maybe two places where you can get around, but need a serious saw and some burley guys to finish clearing it up. I was able to go all the way to the end of the trail, though not down the path to the river, that was too cluttered with big stuff, and by the time I got there, I had had enough. Once we turned around and reach the farthest place that I got to yesterday, I got down and started walking, figuring I had a better chance of finding my cards from the ground, especially since Flash knew we were headed back home and he would have wanted to rush, and I didn’t want to fight him. So I got my hiking in today! Still didn’t find them, though, darn it. No matter, I’ll have a new Discover card in a day or two, the other one I hardly ever use anyway. Relaxed a bit in the late afternoon, recovering from more hard labor, spent a little more time getting my new phone set up the way I want, now I’m definitely ready for shower and bed! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hiya Babe!
A very busy day today! Since I didn’t ride yesterday, I saddled up Flash and grabbed my new little chainsaw and headed out on the trails today. The first blockage I came across was just a few feet in from the end of the road, but it was too big for me to do anything about, so I took another direction to get around it. Not surprisingly, a lot of the wide trails in the the direction of the Spirit of Suwanee campground had been cleared, but as soon as I crossed the road by the boat ramp, there were a lot of problems. Amazingly, my little chainsaw did an incredible job, and I was able to clear have a dozen spots that would have otherwise been impassable. The photos here show some before and after shots. Very impressive that this tiny chainsaw did so much work! There was one section near the sinkhole that I actually got lost on, couldn’t tell where the trail went at all and got a little turned around it was so bad, but I managed to backtrack and get a few more spots done. My battery finally gave out, and I didn’t bring the second one because I figured by the time the first one wore out, I’d probably be exhausted, and that turned out to be just about right! We only got out about two miles, but got a lot of work done. Got back to the trailer for a grape break, then took Deb’s 12 inch electric saw down to that first blockage and managed to get that all cleared up, except for one log I left on the ground, for reasons us horse people understand :-). When I got back to the trailer after that, I suddenly discovered that a couple of credit cards that were in my phone case were missing, and since I only took the phone out once on the trail (for a stupid spam call!), so it had to be there, but just to make certain, I drove back to the last tree and they weren’t there. I’ll have to go looking early tomorrow. As I was coming back to the trailer again, the mail arrived, and my new phone was in, yay! Figures that an hour before I was going to change phones and phone cases would be when I lost my credit cards from the old case! Spent a little time changing over the SIM and SD cards, and even though I thought that would make everything work, I was wrong. I ran out of time, though, and headed over to Shannon’s (the firewood guy) and picked up the trailer and moved it over to where Dave wanted it, but we just dropped it off and left. I decided to head to Verizon so they could finish transferring the information over, and that solved a lot of it, though I still had some work to do to get it set up the way I wanted. Spent most of the evening doing that. But it certainly is a lot faster! That was my biggest complaint about the last one, way too slow, but I think this one will last a long time. Anyway, I’m exhausted and I have another long day tomorrow, looking for my credit cards and clearing some more of the trail, though this time I will take both batteries and make it a long day, unless Dave and Deb need me for anything. I’ll be “on call” for them. Good night, darlin’! Love you!

Hey Darlin’,
Up before dawn even broke this morning, days are getting shorter very fast now! Was ready to go well before 9:00, I remember Linda came early last time and wanted to be ready. This time she was a few minutes late, but no worries, we got to the trailhead in plenty of time. There was a good crowd, and one girl showed up even later than we did, but Linda was ready to go, so she and I and one other woman, Terri, started off with Lola and Linda’s dog Annie. The rest of the group caught up eventually. We began at a small trailhead that barely had room for all out trailers, and started climbing. There was a lot of stones and rocks, but Flash’s feet are so hard these days, he doesn’t seem to be the least bit bothered. I did a little rasping on that one hoof that used to be split, and it’s almost perfectly back in shape again. After climbing to the top, then we went back down again at a slightly less grade until we came to a little bridge where we watered (Flash was the only one who drank, the other two horses didn’t), then came back a bit to pick up another uphill climb. The rest of the group caught up to us several times, but then Linda or Terri or I would start to move out. How wonderful that was to actually do some nice gaiting! After last weekend, where all anyone wanted to do was walk, walk, walk, it was fantastic to actually be moving again. Flash was a much happier camper being able to go at his own speed! Eventually we reached the end of that loop and started back toward the trailhead. If I had wanted, I could have ridden back to camp at one point, as the hill that runs the crest of the mountain eventually hooks up with the trails that come out of Lost Corral, but that was not in the plan today. We made it back to the trailhead no problem, with only one stop long enough to drop a log that was across the trail. Everyone got over it, but it was still a bit high for comfort, so they dropped it down. It was a nice ride, about 9.5 miles, with lots of mountain climbing, though I have to say, it wasn’t nearly as pretty as the Lost Creek trail that we did in the Spring when I came up north. Linda’s already enticing me with some other rides for the next time I come through, and if I wasn’t in a hurry to get down to Florida to help with the hurricane cleanup, I would have stayed through the weekend and done another ride with them. It was a beautiful day after the rain we had yesterday evening, starting out with some mist and fog which cleared up nicely, not too hot or cold, just right today! After the ride, we all went down to a nice Mexican restaurant in Etowah where we sat out on their patio, with Lola sleeping nearby, and had a great meal with a nice cold cerveza! I don’t eat out much these days, so it was a nice change. Got back to camp around 3:00, relaxed for a few hours before packing away the few things I had taken out, ready to get out bright and early in the morning. Long drive tomorrow, nearly 400 miles, I’m figuring it will take me about eight hours, but you never know what the traffic in Atlanta will be like! I’ll be up even earlier tomorrow, so I’m signing off to head to shower and bed. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie,
Another good night sleep, it’s amazing what earplugs can do! Jumped out of bed when I heard Trish leaving, said good-bye to her then went about my usual morning chores. Doug and his group fed me breakfast again (I’m afraid I’ve set back my cholesterol goals by a large margin this weekend!), then watched everyone pack up to leave. Got a little help moving my hay from the truck into my trailer, which was nice, then watched as everyone finally left. Started a load of laundry, then saddled up Apollo, boots and all, for a short five mile loop just to give him some exercise. He was a bit slow at first, but managed to warm up enough to move along a little. Trails here are a bit rough, lots of rocks and downed trees, so it was challenging, which for him is a good thing, it keeps him engaged. Took about two hours for that five miles, though, still a slug! Arrived back at camp and gave him a nice rinse and some extra hay, then jumped in the truck and drove into nearby Corydon. I had arranged to meet someone from marketplace that was selling an Etrex GPS (my old one has about given up the ghost!), but unfortunately, it was some weird model that didn’t have a cable to connect to my computer, it needed some special cable that was “optional” and hooked to a serial port on a pc. I wasn’t even sure if I HAD a serial port on my laptop anymore, and the fact that I would also have to buy a cable? That was a bridge too far for me, so I turned it down. Turns out I do have a serial port on my pc, but it was just too much trouble to convert over. I managed to get online and find another one in GA where the buyer was willing to mail it to me, for a reasonable price, so I bought it sight unseen and he’s mailing it tomorrow, so it should be waiting for me when I arrive in Florida, which I’m now scheduled to do on Friday. Staying here one extra night, leaving Tuesday for Tennessee, hopefully riding on Thursday with my buddy Linda, then heading to Florida on Friday so help do some hurricane cleanup. Settled down to some homemade dirty rice, ate way too much it was so good, now I’m not long for shower and bed. Considered riding tomorrow, but decided I’m not that enamored with the trails out of here, so I’ll wait until next time I come to O’Bannon State Park and stay at the primitive horse camp, which is right in the thick of things, although with no real facilities other than water. Or I might check out the modern camp at the top of the hill to see if they’re not too expensive. Anyway, a good day, Apollo did a good job, didn’t lose a boot, and didn’t stumble as much as he had been, so I guess he enjoyed himself. Another beautiful day with perfect weather! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Babe,
Had an excellent night sleep, thanks to my earplugs, and slept a little later because we had already decided to take a shorter route today. Was fed breakfast by Doug, our main camp cook (nice to not have to cook or clean up a meal!), then got on the trail about 11:30 or so. Today was a shorter ride, but we had a couple of folks that didn’t usually ride much, and should have probably been on a much shorter ride than the one Doug had planned, but at least today I had put his proposed ride into my GPS so I felt a little more relaxed about the trip. We started out with boots on Flash, but he kept losing the one where his hoof is flat in front, so I finally just took them off. He didn’t seem bothered after all the gravel and stone from yesterday, so I guess it was okay. He didn’t seem too bothered today either, but I was just trying to make him more comfortable. We took the trail down to a different river crossing, the eventually out to what’s called the Twin Chimneys, which are the remnants of a homestead house that’s been gone for, I’m guessing, at least 150 years, though, as the name suggests, two chimneys and a basement of stone remain. The newbies were suffering by that point, being a much longer ride than they should have attempted, so the going was pretty slow. As usual, Flash was impatient, and a couple of times I had to run him out to keep him from bunching up on me. It was a nice ride, of course, and I arrived back in camp around 5:30, just ahead of the rest of the group, since I had to let Flash finish the ride at his own pace. Got everyone put away, and once again got fed by Doug and Jason and some other contributions by folks, a lovely potluck. Lola was brilliant, laying down on a mat by their trailer door while a couple of the other dogs sat and begged. She’s such a good dog, and I’m very proud of her! Finally headed back to the trailer around 9:00, dealing with my website still being down, and considering staying here an extra day just to finish off a few trails I haven’t done yet, possibly on Apollo for a short ride. Found someone selling a Garmin GPS locally, my old one keeps fading out and turning off without warning, planning on meeting him tomorrow, I need to solve the problem since I rely on my GPS so much. Anyway, time for shower and bed! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hiya Darlin’,
Ended up having a lousy night sleep, woke up around 3:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep until almost 6:00, after three aspirins and putting in my earplugs. Amazing, it was such a long drive out in the boondocks, I never imagined I would end up a stone’s throw from an interstate, with traffic all night, but that’s what happened! Finally fell asleep for an hour before the alarm went off. We were scheduled to start the ride between 8:30 and 9:00, but it was more like 9:30 before we finally hit the trail. I had been under the impression that our guide for the day knew these trails really well, but that didn’t turn out to be exactly the case, so we ended up taking a few wrong turns and misjudging several distances, so we ended up going over 26.5 miles. I didn’t really mind, since Flash hasn’t been asked to do any long distances since the Shore to Shore, so it did us some good. Of course, I was fighting him every time other horses were in front of us, but before long, we were in front, and he relaxed and all was good. We crossed the Blue River a couple of times, and we were supposed to get down to the Ohio River, but never made it that far. Didn’t meet any other riders on the trail, but there were a lot of folks camping down at the O’Bannon primitive site, where I stayed last time I was here. The trails were a lot rockier than I would have liked, but Flash seemed to handle it all okay. At one stop, I checked his feet, and there was no sign of heat or bruising, so I guess his feet are hard enough to take the rocky ground. I’ll know better tomorrow when I check him again, but for the entire 26.6 mile ride today, he was barefoot. The last couple of miles I finally let him set his own pace, to get it out of his system, which has become our habit whenever we ride with other people, so we arrived back at camp a good ten or fifteen minutes before everyone else. Got him put away and fed, then we all gathered around a central trailer and had a fabulous meal of deep fried pretzels, pork tenderloin steak, breaded fish and a bunch of sides. I ate too much, but it was wonderful, especially since I didn’t have to do any cleanup afterward! Finally got back to the trailer at 8:30, headed to shower and early bed tonight, have to make up for the hours I didn’t get last night. Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hiya Babe,
Glad to say I got my eight hours of uninterrupted sleep in last night, yay! Started my morning off after chores and breakfast with finishing off the rest of the movies I’ve been making of the two Shore to Shore rides in June. I’d forgotten how much I love doing production work, I had a blast doing it, and I think they came out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I’m hoping that the horse camp I’m going to tomorrow has a good wifi signal, or at least good cell service, so I can get them loaded up on YouTube. I finished around 2:00, so I saddled up Apollo, he hasn’t been ridden in a couple of weeks and he needs the exercise! There are no short loops here, at least none that don’t take you on a road, and since Lola came along, I didn’t want to do that, so we just took the trail to the first road and turned around, which made it linear, but it was almost five miles, so it was just the right length for him. I let them graze the rest of the afternoon, and put almost everything away. I don’t need to leave too early tomorrow, the next camp is only an hour away, but I have an appointment to pick up some hay at 4:00, and I want to get my shopping done before then, so I don’t want to leave too late either. Anyway, settled down for the evening, a nice meal, a new British series on TV, now I’m ready for shower and bed, nice and early. Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hey Babe!
Sleeping so well lately, feeling really refreshed! Had a nice ten mile ride of Flash, today we did essentially the entire outside perimeter loop, and it was another beautiful ride. It’s quite a nice unit of the forest, with enough variety to make it interesting, and the trails were dry and pretty nice. They’ve fixed quite a few sections with small gravel, but with boots on, Flash didn’t seem to mind. There’s still a lot of down branches and roots that make it slower going, but not bad, just not wide open for a lot of fast riding. Of course, that didn’t stop him from speeding up once we hit the halfway point and started heading back to camp! Still, it took about 2 1/2 hours to do, very nice ride. When I got back, I started to do an exercise I had been thinking about for awhile, taking all the pictures from the Shore to Shore ride and putting them together into a slide show. I’m actually thinking about doing that with every ride somehow. I haven’t worked with this movie making program before, so there was a learning curve, but very easy to learn, and I had the first day finished in no time. The time consuming thing will be uploading them to my Equicamping Youtube page, with I discovered I haven’t done anything with since our trip to Costa Rica back in 2012! I almost forgotten I had it! But I figure now that I’m essentially retired, it’s time to figure out how to either monetize my site or get sponsors to help keep us going. There are a lot of ways to do it, I just have to take the time to get it started. Had a nice stir fry dinner, watched the last Jack Ryan episode, then decided to watch all the Jack Ryan movies in chronological order, if that was possible. Not when they were released, but technically Ryan’s life, although there is quite of bit of theatrical license taken in intermingling the stories. The first one is actually the latest movie, Shadow Recruit, with Chris Pine as Jack. I hadn’t seen it yet, and it was a thrill a minute, so it was a nice way to spend the evening. Anyway, done with that, so now I’m getting ready for bed. Good night, darlin’! Love you!