Hey Babe!
Another good night sleep, and up again at sunrise, these new standard daylight hours are working just fine for me now. Did chores, and started the Buick and let it run the whole time, just to see if it would stay running (and it did!) had breakfast, finished reading a book, then brought out Apollo. It’s been way too long since I’ve ridden him, and even though I should be conditioning Flash, I just couldn’t ignore Apollo any more! I gave him a good grooming, which took a while, his mane was a real mess with lots of tangles, and did his tail as well. He looked gorgeous by the time I got done, though he’s got sections of his face where he has no hair, and his forelock is really thin and short these days. Male pattern baldness, maybe? Trimmed his feet, and started to get worried about one rear foot that seemed to be getting misshapen, his frog drying out and his foot getting more oval than round, and that had me paying closer attention, but once I had him saddled and on the trail, he didn’t seem to be limping or have any other indication that he had a problem, other than the fact that he’s so slow these days. We jogged for quick a bit, too, and that didn’t seem to bother him, and at the end of the ride, his frog actually looked better, so maybe it’s not as bad as I thought. Since it’s general gun season for the hunters, I stayed on the green trail, doing the loop to the road, then taking the road up to the loop back again, in order to shorten the ride and avoid the really wet spots. I could tell it was going to be wet when even the drier spots were wet, not surprising after the storm that came through earlier this week. Once we got back and I rinsed him off, gave his sheath a good cleaning (and amazingly, he had no objection!), then I put him in one of the paddocks in front of the barn, since the mowers haven’t been here for over three weeks and the grass looks really succulent, and put Flash in a paddock next to him, and they munched out for the rest of the day. Then I set fire to the three piles of hurricane clean up that I had before coming back to the trailer. I did some sewing repair on my saddle bags, which I needed to get ready for the cattle drive, and left them soaking in soapy water overnight so I can get them nice and clean. So a busy day, got a lot done, and still managed to enjoy a ride! Finally went out to put the horses away, ran the Buick again for a bit, and eventually settled down for the evening. Another busy, productive day! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie,
A long, tiring, but nice day today. After breakfast and chores, I saddled up Flash, and was just about ready when I got a call from Petra that she and John were here and wanted to ride with me. I saw their permit, but thought it was tomorrow, but it didn’t matter, as I was just about to leave anyway, so I waited for them. John is in the doghouse with me, he wrote an article in the local paper and made is sound like the horse club he belonged to was responsible for putting in the whole trail marking system out here, which really hurt, since his club has done practically ZERO and had no right to even claim ANY credit, much less credit for the whole thing. It really upset me when I first heard about it, and I’m not over it yet. It’s not that I want that much credit, it just bothers me that someone ELSE tries to steal the credit. Anyway, water under the bridge for now. So the three of us headed out about 10:30, they on long-legged gaiters and me on my Paso Fino Flash. It started raining just as we left, and when I looked back, I saw a beautiful rainbow again. Seems we’re getting a lot of sun showers and rainbows lately! They all did fine together until John decided he wanted to take the road instead of the trail, then they took off at high speed, and Flash, competitor that he is, took off after them. He went into a full-on mad gallop trying to keep up, and I was hanging on for dear life, praying he didn’t stumble or shy sideways. We went quite a ways before we finally slowed down again, much to my relief! Getting too old to fall off these days, especially on a gravel road! We stayed together for the first few miles, then I veered off because I wanted to finally put the crosspiece on the farthest post on the west side, Interesection 49, glad to get that job done! I met up with them again a bit later, but they turned back toward camp when I still had a lot of trails I wanted to reconnoiter. There are still two water crossings that are high, though I could probably make one of them, and the stretch along the powerline on the green trail is still a bit iffy, but there are several areas now that I think I can reach, so maybe on Monday I’ll take some out there. General gun hunting season started today, and I heard a few shots but never saw anyone. Got back to camp, walked around paddocks with Petra looking at rosary pea, then finally finished up for the day, as it was well after 3:00 when I got back to camp, and an hour later by the time I got Flash washed up and put away. Chilled out for a bit, had Mary, Chrissie’s friend, stop by and chat for awhile, then relaxed the rest of the night. I’m going to enjoy having an extra hour of sleep tonight, as the clocks are “falling back”, but the shorter days will mean getting up earlier, which I don’t think will be a problem, since I still have work calling my name. Can’t wait to get this job done so I can start enjoying myself instead of working all the time! Can’t complain, though, I asked for it! Anyway, time for shower and bed. Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hello Darlin’!
Had a great night sleep, and it wasn’t long after chores and breakfast that I had Flash saddled up and ready to go on a ride. I’ve been trying to tidy up all the shape files for the trails so that James will have pristine copies, and I found a few wonky discrepancies on the white horse trail, so I decided to ride it and use both my GPS devices to try to get it right. I’ve been kind of avoiding the white trail lately because I assumed it was wet, and after all the rain yesterday, I took along a couple of garbage bags to put on my lower legs, but it turned out I didn’t need them at all! I was pleasantly surprised that other than one entrance right off the road, most ot the trail was quite passable, so much so that I’m going to put it on my schedule to get the tractor in there and put some much needed posts in. I thought I was going to need to wait until the dry season, but evidently not! It actually felt a bit cooler this morning, and the humidity was down, relatively speaking, to about 87%, an improvement over the usual 99%, and I could actually tell the difference. With a slight breeze, even with no clouds, it was a beautiful morning. We were off by 9:30, went about 11.5 miles, and was back in camp by a bit after 1:00. Flash got a good rinse off, and Lola, who thoroughly enjoyed splashing around in every puddle we came across, napped the rest of the day. I took a run into town to get horse feed, some distilled water for my RV batteries, and ran up to Glenn’s to check on the pool after all that rain. It had a palm frond in it, but otherwise was just fine. So, I’ve discovered that the brown-out problem I’ve been having is partly because I had turned off my inverter, which meant that every time the power pulled down the TV shut off, but the real problem was that I, ashamedly, had neglected to check my RV batteries in a long time. When I’m on the road I have a regular maintenance schedule, but sitting in one place has kind of screwed that up, and when I checked the batteries, they were WAY down, like DRY. I used up a one and a third gallons of distilled water, all that I had, and I still only was able to just cover the plates in one battery and was still below that on the second. As soon as I got back, I filled them up to specs, and now I’m running my inverter, so now my TV and other electronics don’t spike anymore. I tested the system yesterday using just the generator and everything worked find, but obviously the dry batteries affected the overall system. Anyway, that’s back on my to-do list monthly! Finally settled down for the evening, watched a good movie about a Chickasaw rancher, now I’m ready for shower and bed. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Darlin’,
Woke up bright and early this morning, and I decided that I absolutely needed to take a ride today. It’s been too long!! Need to release some stress. So as soon as I took the feed bags off, I pulled out Flash and saddled him up. We were on the trail by 8:00, would you believe! Lola has been so restless the last few days, she needed the exercise, too, so we took a nice speedy six mile ride (just about an hour and a quarter, Flash’s choice!), got in some nice canters and lovely cordos, and everyone got some exercise. Had breakfast, then decided to put out a few cross pieces on the nearest posts with the tractor, and at the same time, do a little mowing along the way, just some short stretches that had really high grass. Once I get the truck back I’ll start painting the final markings on the posts where I can reach them, then resort to the tractor in the areas that are dry enough, then eventually finish it off once I can reach them all. It’s going to take a lot longer that I had hoped, but hey, what else do I have to do this summer? Read for a bit, then made some home-made hummus (my food processor gave up the ghost, so I ordered a new one), and a batch of satin balls for Lola, since I finally got ground beef with the groceries yesterday. Finally settled down for the evening, as usual, ready for shower and bed. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Woke up feeling more refreshed after yesterday’s lazy day, with the first thing on the agenda after chores and breakfast was to take a ride on Apollo. He needed the exercise, and I wanted to check out just how dry the green trail was after it rained almost all day yesterday. Turned out to be pretty good, better than I expected. The usual ditches had slightly higher water, and there were only a few spots near the south end where there was about an inch or so of water for a couple of sections. Only one spot was a little higher, but nothing even knee high, so it will be a very good summer ride, albeit only five miles long. Apollo seemed to enjoy the exercise, and, of course, Lola loved it, too. As soon as I got back and put him away, I went out and painted identifiers on all the valve dots I had painted the other day, so now all but one of those is done. The one by the old well doesn’t have a post, and there are so many pipes coming in and out of there, I didn’t dare start digging, so I’ll just need a small piece of plywood to paint and screw onto a nearby tree and they’ll all be done. Started some laundry, ended up doing three loads, and finally defrosted the freezer, which was long overdue. I had so much ice buildup in there, I couldn’t fit all of my groceries! Put a space heater in there, so it didn’t take long, stored everything in a couple of coolers while I was doing that. Finally settled down mid-afternoon (though I was still doing laundry), and did some planning for my upcoming business trip. Pretty much done for the day, just going to relax the rest of the evening. Tomorrow will be all about prepping for my trip! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hey Darlin’,
Had a decent night sleep, got my chores done, and after breakfast, took Flash out for a ride. I wanted to check on just how deep the water was in some of the more southern sections where I’ve been hoping to put in the last of the posts, and even though many of the trails are only under a few inches of water, there were enough suddenly deep sections to confirm my decision to not try to do any more posts until the rainy season is over. We had a great ride, though, even though I got wet from the knees down with all the splashing. Lola was truly in her element today, water lover that she is! It was so dry out here for so long, I didn’t take her with us for awhile, she would get too hot, but today, she was having a blast! There was a nice breeze, too, so it was a very pleasant ride. Flash had a lot of energy, so it was a quick ride, too, we did six miles in barely 90 minutes, but I figured that was enough for today. Got back just after noon, and pretty much crashed the rest of the day. Now it’s time for shower and bed already, so good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Babe!
What a lovely day! Didn’t sleep very well, but was still up at my now usual time, go my chores done, then after breakfast, I saddled up Apollo for a nice five mile ride. With all the rain we’ve been having I suspected there would be plenty of water on the trail, puddle-wise, so I took Lola along, she’s been in dire need of exercise. Two short periods of frisbee are just not enough for her, even at her age of 9 1/2 years! Brother Glenn called while I was on the trail, and he said they were grilling by his condo pool over on Hutchinson Island at 4:00, and that I could come over any time. I got back to camp, put Apollo away (he was brilliant on the trail today, albeit a slug at barely 3 mph average), stopped to talk to the horse ladies and got caught in a little rain just as I was walking back to the trailer. Got dried off and changed, read for a bit, then headed out to Glenn’s. What a difference between doing that during the season and during the summer! I had forgotten how quiet the roads get here in the summertime. In the winter it took over 90 minutes to get to his place, today, just 45. Had a lovely afternoon sitting by the pool, brother Jeff came too, we all ate too much, but had a nice time catching up. There’s always a nice breeze by the beach, so it stayed nice and cool. Stayed until 6:30, then headed back to camp in time to feed the horses. Stopped for fuel along the way, cheapest gas as $5.55/gal, I pulled in with more than a quarter tank and it cost me a whopping $137! Grrrrrrr! Nothing happening in camp, so now it’s time to settle down for a bit before taking my shower and going to bed. Nice day! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
Had an excellent night sleep last night, deep and long, felt great this morning, so I decided to take a ride after breakfast. Was out before 10:00 on Flash, and we rode nearly 14 miles. He was a bit jumpy at first, it seemed he was trying to flick off flies, though I didn’t see many, but he eventually settled down. He kept a great pace all day, especially when we headed north at the bottom of the loop, when he picked up speed, averaging between 7 and 8 mph. Got back to camp around 12:30, got him put away. Some other equestrians have their horses in stalls and paddocks, and my guys had been locked into one stall with a small paddock, so I moved them over to the other side of the barn and kept the whole back ten available to them again, so much so they didn’t even come over for their dinner! With all the rain we’ve had the last two days, I imagine the grass is nice and sweet. We ran into some rain toward the end of the ride, but it was a positively luscious experience, no lightning or thunder, just a nice light rain for about 10-15 minutes, then it stopped after it cooled us off, and by the time we got back to camp, it was beautiful again. Hot and humid, but that’s just the way it’s going to be down here for the next few months, so I’m just going to have to get used to it! Either that or not ride, and THAT’S not an option! Spent some time on the tractor forum, and made a few discoveries that might be the problem. Would you believe it might just be missing a tiny o-ring? Wouldn’t that be a kick, after all these years of struggling with this 3-point hitch that it might just be a missing o-ring that costs less than a buck? Guess I should have tackled this problem sooner! Well, I won’t know for sure until I get one, so that’s my next project. Meanwhile, I did a little computer work, then settled down for the afternoon and evening. Heading to shower and bed shortly. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Got up even earlier today, 6:30, and it was an absolutely gorgeous morning! Got down to 67, so it even felt a bit cool! Got chores and breakfast done, and was out on the trail on Apollo by 9:00. We just did the green trail loop, with was a bit over 5 miles, but took over two hours, he’s such a slug these days! Took Lola along this time, was hoping there would be some water on the trail, but there wasn’t, but there was lots of shade so she managed okay. It was a lovely ride, though he was a bit skittish at a few things, I guess because it’s been so long since he’s been on the trail! Got back and decided I should mow the part of the campground (which was most of the actual camp sites) since for some inexplicable reason, the contract mowers mowed everything EXCEPT the actual sites, so the grass was getting too long, which make the bugs out here worst. That took me a couple of hours. Thanks goodness the District is giving me the diesel to do these jobs! After I got back I noticed a text from Fedex saying my package had actually been delivered already, but when I called the office, they hadn’t seen it. I drove over, and old James found a tag on the gate saying it was in the mailbox, so I picked it up. Got back to camp, unpacked it, plugged it in figuring to charge it up. Then I noticed that on the bill they had charged me a $35 “upgrade” fee which no one had mentioned, so I called, and after some running around, managed to get them to drop that charge. Considering I can get the exact same phone for $100 less at any other retail store, I wasn’t about to pay another $35! So I was momentarily happy with Verizon. After a couple of hours, I still couldn’t turn it on, so I downloaded a manual to figure out how to get to the inside, thinking maybe I had to pull off a plastic tab on the battery or something and when I pulled the back off, to my astonishment, there was NO BATTERY! How the hell do they send out a phone with no battery?? So I got on the phone again, got transferred at least 7-8 times, spent an hour and a half trying to sort it out, was told they didn’t have a battery so they would send me a new phone, but then the order wouldn’t got through, that was another department, and finally I was forced to leave it with a woman promising “to call me back” once the order, which now had to go outside the system to accomplish. I asked repeatedly for a way to reach back to her, which I never got, except she promised to call back. That was two hours ago, still nothing. When I started the call, there was plenty of time to get the package overnight, which they said they would do, but by the end of the call, after 7:00, not holding my breath. Grrrrrrrrrrr! I had ordered a cover, which I should get tomorrow, but now I have no idea when I’ll get the phone, because even if they send it overnight tomorrow, I probably won’t get it until Monday. I HATE this other phone I got on Sunday, too big, too clunky, won’t fit in my hand or my pocket, can’t WAIT to replace it, but there you go. Stuck again. NOT happy with Verizon again. Sigh. Anyway, watched a little TV, now I’m ready for early bed again, just my Spanish lesson and to finish by nightcap, and off I’ll be going! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Well, my body clock is definitely moving earlier, was up and about just after 7:00, and what a gorgeous morning! Temps actually got into the upper 60’s overnight, just enough cloud cover to keep it from getting too hot, and by the time I got on the trail just after 9:00, there was a lovely breeze to boot. Absolutely gorgeous! Flash and I did nearly 12 miles, and I was very surprised at how wet some of the sections of the trail were already. We haven’t really had all that much rain, but it seems to be raising the water levels, so we spent quite a bit of the trail wading in ankle deep water, with the occasional deeper creek crossing. Flash seemed to like it, he was splashing away like a mad horse! Tried to get down to the office to see if my package with my new phone had arrived yet, but it’s a different combination, which I don’t have, and it’s all fenced off, so I just went back to camp, arriving at about 12:30. Spent most of the afternoon on the phone with the IRS, only to learn that the problem I was having was entirely of my own making, so I’m not getting as big a tax return as I had hoped, darn it! Good thing I have a job in Vegas next month, getting a little short on ready funds! And once again, not surprisingly, Fedex failed to deliver my package today, I got a notice at 4:45 that it was being delayed until tomorrow, probably because the office was closed by then, what did I expect? Fedex has only ever delivered one package in 35 years on the day it was supposed to arrive, so once again, I’m left empty-handed. For some reason, they won’t deliver it to me at the campground, it has to go to the office. So another day with this clunky phone! Grrr! So once I got off the phone, it was a day of reading and TV again. Won’t be long out of bed again tonight, going to try to keep this early bird schedule going. That said, good night, by darlin’! Love you!