Heya Babe!
Had a good night sleep, and was up before the alarm, and just managed to have breakfast and catch Flash by 7:30. Got him saddled up and loaded onto the trailer right at the required hour of 8:00. I hadn't realized just how big the pasture was, they were all the way over on the other side and I had to walk over to where they could see me over a ridge before they would come over for breakfast. We had a long drive out into the Cherokee National Forest, and even further until we reached the Ocoee Wildlife Management area, which was true wilderness. As is always the case with Linda, riding with her did not disappoint! The main purpose of the ride was to finish clearing a loop that has been hit so bad by winds that countless trees have fallen down, and they've been cleaning it up in stages. The original plan was to do the final couple of miles, which had previously been approached from both directions, with the middle being the only part remaining to be cleared. Well, that was the intent, anyway. Turns out that bunches of NEW trees had fallen and blocked the trail, even in areas where they had cleared only a few weeks ago! The result was a very long and tiring day, and it still didn't end up being completely done. Though we were on the trail by 9:45, we didn't get back to the trailer until 5:35. It was pretty much non-stop clearing along the way, so I'm exhausted! By the time we got back home, I barely had enough energy to give Flash a quick rinse, feed them, feed myself, watch a little TV, fall asleep in my chair, but now I'm heading to my shower and bed. A productive though tiring day! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Pix to come.

Hey Babe,
Finally had a good night sleep, maybe that double dose of Sleepytime tea, or maybe just my sheer exhaustion, finally did the job! I was glad of it, too, since we had a very busy day. I helped a bit with breakfast, then there was a long break when the bulk of folks went to an away vet check, then I actually got to go out and pick up some ribbons on a short stretch of trail that was just perfect for a little ride on Apollo, just two miles out and two back. There were a couple of nice grades he had to climb, so he got some exercise, though I got the impression he wanted to keep going when I asked him to turn around! Then we got busy prepping for dinner, spaghetti, salad and garlic toast, and we were pretty much nonstop until after 7:00 when the awards ceremony started. I did some cleaning, then came back and fed the horses and walked Lola, went back and really couldn't do much, since I didn't know where anything got stored, so I came back to do a little more cleaning in the trailer. They needed two bags of chopped onions, so I got out my old kitchen machine, which I haven't used in ages, and chopped them all in no time, but it did get the trailer a bit smelly. No worries, I'll spray some air freshener before I get in the shower, which won't be long! I'm making some more Sleepytime and looking forward to getting up a little later to take down ribbons, and a nice ride on Flash in the process! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Pix to come.

Hi Babe,
Had a terrible night sleep last night, no idea why, I was so tired I thought I'd be out like a light, but I tossed and turned for hours. Eventually woke up with my very early alarm, still dark outside, and got busy with chores and breakfast. Managed to get Flash saddled and ready to go by 8:00 ET, just as April came to get me. We headed out on the trail up to the north, and spent the first 5+ miles marking together before splitting up. I did a total of 16+ miles, only had to use my mini-chainsaw once, but there were a couple of big trees down that I texted April about. She says the park guys will get right on it. The terrain is variable, with some very steep hills (and I forgot to put on Flash's breast collar, darn it!), but there is an awful lot of gravel and stones, the majority of trails, really, and in fact, a lot of the "trails" are really gravel roads, so not my favorite. The wilderness itself is quite beautiful though, and I saw a bear! Second one I've seen, actually, though I was in the truck the first time. I think Flash saw it go by in front of us, but he didn't even react to it! Got back to camp around 2:30, got him put away, then one of the ride managers came over, she and the other ride manager were going to bring me hay, but she said she'd paid $10.50 a bale! I told her I wanted to see if I could find it cheaper, so I drove up to the water spigot where I got a better cell phone signal, and found several haymakers in Jamestown selling hay at $6-7. I reached out to a couple of them, and got answers almost right away, so I arranged to pick some up this afternoon. Before long I was heading down to town, where I wanted to fill up with fuel in the truck anyway, and met up with the guy, who led me back to his barn and loaded me up with 12 bales, enough to last the week and still have me fully stocked when I leave here. Got back to camp, put all the hay I could away, covered the rest in the truck with a tarp, then started to get dinner ready. I even managed to get a good enough signal to watch a couple of hours of TV! Did my evening chores, am going to have some Sleepytime tea and my shower and get to bed. No plans to get up early tomorrow, I need to catch up on some lost zzzzz's! Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Babe,
Had a good night sleep, no alarm this morning, it was cloudy and misty, but not exactly raining, with a forecast for skies to clear as the day went on, so after chores and breakfast, it was decided that we'd ride at 11:00. Kathy and I were both ready, but Sue took a bit longer, and it was 11:30 before we finally hit the trail. Our aim was to reach a place known as the watering hole, and fortunately, it took us on a few more trails I hadn't been on, so I feel like I've had a good, thorough workout on most of the trails here. Hard to say, since I haven't really seen a good map of the trails, so I don't know how many more are out there, but it seems that the way back to camp is always the same, so I'm thinking we've likely hit all the ones within reach. It was a lovely trail, and the rain had really tamped down the dust, which had been a problem yesterday before the storm. Not very much gravel, thankfully, at least until we got near camp, and we went down a creekbed, but it was all rounded river stone, so no problem. We stopped for a while down there for lunch and rock hunting, Kathy and Sue were on the hunt for some rock with a hole in it that apparently lets you see into the fairy world. We headed back after awhile, and the final mile, I moved out front and left them so that Flash could stretch his legs. Oddly, I thought riding with a Tennessee Walker and a off-track Thoroughbred would be compatible with speed demon Flash, but the gals only wanted to walk, and eventually, Flash got impatient, so I had to let him get it out of his system. When I got into camp, Kathy's husband told me that one of Sue's dogs and bit Kathy's neighbor Nicki, then ran off up the road. They had to take her to the hospital because the bite hit an artery. After putting Flash away, I waited for them to come down off the trail, which took another forty minutes, much longer than I had expected (well, Flash did gait all the way back). Sue went looking for her missing dog Pete while I put her horse away, but by the end of the day, he was still missing. He's a rescue and very leery of people, so we don't know how he'll behave in a strange neighborhood. Anyway, not much we can do at this point, except the usual getting the word out. I fixed some dinner, fed the horses, and settled down for the evening. Crazy, every time I sit in my chair I start to nod off. Must be the heat or something. Anyway, other than the unfortunate ending, it was a lovely day with a great ride, fingers crossed that Pete finds his way back. Heading to shower and bed shortly. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Darlin',
Had a good night sleep, was up with the alarm so that I could be ready for our 9:00 start time this morning. I timed it perfectly, and was hopping into the saddle right on time. At the last minute, Sue decided that here horse wouldn't behave well with mine and Eddy Ray's, so we went ahead for a while, then met up with them about 20 minutes later. We let her go first, which seemed to be her concern, and I stayed in back, so it all worked out. We made our way backward on the Kimble trail that I took the other day, took the Hill Loop Trail, and made our way down to the Paddle Creek Campground. I was hoping to get down there to see it, and frankly, it was much more to my liking than Elkins Creek. Of course, it's primitive, but there were highlines and a vault toilet, but no water except for the creek, which was all but bone dry right now. There is also apparently a very sharp turn coming in that I would have to negotiate, but I met a guy there named James who said that the long rigs just go to the end of the road and turn around, which makes it possible to make the sharp turn. Plus the campground is apparently free! Good to know! Even though it was barely 11:00, the gals decided to have lunch there, and while we were eating, we heard thunder and saw dark clouds coming in. Of course, last night when I checked the forecast, it said the rain wasn't coming in until 3:00, but no one checked this morning, and boy, did it change! We decided to skip our trip to the water hole and head back to camp, and Eddie Ray was very concerned about his awning in the wind (apparently this is his third awning!), so the two of us ended up speeding ahead to try to get back in time. We didn't quite make it. We were still about a mile out of camp when the skies opened up, thunder and lightning and wind, the whole deal. We stopped long enough to put slickers on, which at least kept our torsos dry, but my legs and boots were drenched. We managed to get back at about 12:30, and fortunately, all awnings were okay, but it just kept pouring for another half hour or so. I put Flash under the awning just long enough to get his tack off, then put him in the little paddock I put up for them. I made myself a little salad for lunch, then sat in my chair to relax for a few minutes, and fell asleep for two hours! Not sure what that was all about, but there you go! Went over to visit with Kathy and friends again for a bit, then saw more gray clouds coming, so I put all my tack away in the back, it had mostly dried in the sun that appeared after the earlier rain. Sure enough, another stormy round came through, so I watched an old Clint Walker movie until the rain was gone, fed the horses, visited with Kathy again for a bit, ready for my shower and bed! Love you, sweetheart! Good night!

Hey Babe,
Had a decent night sleep, though it was too hot to open windows so the air was a bit stale by morning. Got my usual chores done, had breakfast, then started to get ready for my ride. I wanted to get out reasonably early, before it really got scorching hot. Before saddling Flash, though, I added another strip of wire to my portable fence, and put the solar charger on it. Someone had pushed on one of the fence posts, and it was a little crooked. The ground is so hard here in places, I had a dickens of a time trying to get the posts in deep enough, so I'm not surprised I had a post leaning this morning. I figure the second string and the electrification will prevent any further breaches. When I got Flash out, Apollo accidentally touched the wire and leapt back, so I knew it was working! Since he's the Houdini, it was a good lesson, he won't go near the fence again. Flash already respects the fence, so I'm not worried. Anyway, got Flash saddled and booted, and we were out about 10:30, going counterclockwise on the kml trail. Unfortunately, it started as a long, steep climb up a gravel two track, which is certainly not my favorite kind of trail. We did nearly two miles of that before some of the gravel finally disappeared and a nicer dirt trail became the norm, though there were still long patches of gravel. The terrain was typical for the area, lots of grades both steep and not so steep, winding around the various hills, with some indentations in the stone walls that folks call caves, but they're really just overhangs. The ride turned out to be about 7.2 miles, which was fine for a first venture, I wanted to get a feel for the landscape, and I did. Flash was his usual brilliant self. When I got back, there were three older guys parked under the tree having a discussion, and I mentioned it was a good ride except for the gravel, one guy wholeheartedly agreed, and the other guy (the owner, I think), made it very clear that he was the one that put down the gravel, and that it was the only alternative to muddy trails. I tried to point out that there were a lot of ways to stop mud on a trail that didn't involve gravel, but he wasn't the least bit interested, so I just let it go. I've reached the age where I can let people be wrong and not get too excited about it anymore. I gave Flash a nice bath, filled up their water tubs (which is kind of a pain, because the hose that's on the spigot at the other end of the row isn't long enough to even reach halfway up the row, so I have to carry my hose down every time, disconnect, reconnect, turn on the water, disconnect, reconnect, turn off the water, blah, blah, blah), and left them to their afternoon. I went into the office for a bit so I could use the wifi to do a few things online, then just wasted the rest of the afternoon playing computer games and reading. Too hot to sit outside! Guess it will be an early night, nothing else to do but take a shower, go to bed and read! Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie!
Hard to believe, but another birthday has come and gone! It was a lovely day, I got to do all the things I love to do! Took a nice drive to pick up some lovely hay for $4 a bale, best price I've had all year! Then went over the river to PA, went to a big hardware store and picked up the replacement piece I needed to finally finish the floor, went to Tractor Supply and refilled my three propane tanks so I'd be ready for the next few weeks when I won't have electricity, as well as a couple of bags of feed, went shopping for a few grocery items at the Giant store, filled up with fuel for the good price of $3.49/gallon, then took a slight detour to check out an Indian restaurant I was hoping to go to for dinner. The little voice in my head said to check it out, and I'm glad I did! Turned out to be an Indian take-out place inside a gas station! Not exactly the atmosphere I was going for! On the way back to the farm, I stopped and got a soft ice cream cone (hey, it's my birthday! If I can't splurge on my birthday, when can I splurge?!) Got back to the farm, got everything put away, including my hay, and just as I was finishing, Amanda arrived. She's the gal that's renting the apartment off the barn here, and is looking after the property when Meg's not here. She had asked if we could go riding today, and of course I said yes. I love it when Flash and Apollo can go out together, so it was a lovely birthday gift to be able to do that. We did a nice four mile loop around the church property, which is what they call it here, but we did it backwards from what was done during the ride, just for a little variety, at least for me and the horses. It was a lovely ride, such a pretty section of woods. Got back to camp after about 90 minutes, put the horses away, and made arrangements with Meg to leave at 6:00. First we stopped at Lowes for a few minutes so I could return the final item that I was erroneously told I needed for my floor (and didn't.) Then we went to the Curry Zone, another Indian restaurant in Flemington, which was only about 20 minutes away, but Meg had never been there, though she did say she liked Indian cuisine, and that turned out to be the perfect place! A very classy decor, and the food was absolutely fantastic! We had a fabulous meal, with wonderful, comfortable conversation, got to know each other a little bit, and were there nearly two hours. Just delightful. When the proprietor learned it was my birthday, she send us off with a couple of ice cream treats, but we were both so full, we packed them with our leftovers to put in the freezer as soon as we got home. It was dark by the time we left, but it was such an enjoyable evening. Got back, changed clothes, fed the horses, and finally fixed a bourbon and settled down for the evening. Took my shower earlier, so no need for that again! Had scores of well-wishers on Facebook send me birthday greetings, so overall, it's been a great day! And the weather was perfect! Couldn't ask for more out of life than days like this. Happy to be alive! Wish you were here with me! Miss you lots! Well, until we meet again, I'll keep telling you I love you, and always will. Good night, babe!

Hey Babe!
Didn't have the best night sleep, but got busy quickly in the morning. After chores, I took Flash for a ride around Horseshoe Bend Park, just to look for any missed markers and ribbons, and I did find a few. A lovely 6.75 mile ride on a gorgeous day. Just after I got back, Amazon arrived with the part I had ordered for the truck, perfect timing! I got Flash put away and got to work on my truck. It didn't take too long to get the part in, but was surprised when my batteries turned up dead, I had to jump it to get it going again. Weird, but that seems to happen whenever I disconnect my brake controller, not sure why. Anyway, it all got done, and my tow/haul is now working just fine! Had one weird moment when I couldn't get my key out of the ignition, almost like it was expecting a lock to be released, fought me for several minutes, then suddenly let go. Hope that's just a passing thing! It was later than I thought by that point, too late to run the errands I was hoping to do, so I took a look at my hostess Meg's truck, which I put batteries in the other day but it still was showing a code error. I did a little diagnosis, but everything seems fine, and the check engine light is off, so I just suggested that she needed to drive it for awhile and see how that goes. Should work fine. Then I asked Meg if there was anything else I could do to help (just trying to earn my keep!), and she set me up dragging a rake behind the Kubota side-by-side around the arena to try to drag up some weeds, and it worked like a charm! Spend awhile doing that, until it was much better, she threw the old weeds to her horses to eat. It was about 7:00 when we finally quit. Dang these long days! Fed the horses and finally settled down for the night. Pretty sure I'll sleep tonight! Good night, my darling! Love you!

Hiya Darlin',
Started out the day trying to solve my stopover problem, still trying to find accommodations in Western Maryland to spend the night on my way to Ohio. Who knew there would be such a dearth of places to stop? Made a little headway, but it still wasn't resolved by the end of the day, grrrr! After that, I did some research to find out why the tow/haul on my Sierra has been intermittent, and discovered it's a common problem in the shift lever, just as I suspected. Of course, a new shift lever through an auto parts store was in the neighborhood of $80, and on Amazon, it was more like $30, but they couldn't deliver it through Prime until Tuesday, which is the day I'm supposed to be leaving. I decided to see if I could jury rig, and actually got it working for a minute, but the wires are so tiny and short, it didn't take. I decided to order the part and pay extra for overnight shipping, figuring it would still be cheaper than the brick and mortar parts store, but when I put in Meg's address, the arrival changed to tomorrow anyway! Cool! So I'll be able to fix it tomorrow, assuming the part is the only thing wrong, and I'm pretty sure it is. Can't climb the mountains between here and Ohio without my tow/haul feature! Once that was settled, I decided to take a ride on Flash to check out the parts of the orange trail that John and I unmarked backward, and Flash was ready to go after sitting around since Saturday. We did nearly seven miles in about 90 minutes, and only found a few leftover signs, all down by the creek at the north end of the Horseshoe Bend Park, and no missed ribbons. Got back to the farm, and other than the usual chores, settled down in my usual routine, soon off to shower and bed! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie!
Had a good night sleep, woke up a half hour before the alarm, so got my chores done early. I decided that since today's job was to pick up the last of the markers, and that it was only about four miles worth, that I would take Apollo and Lola. John set out on the UTV to take the signs down, but I did the rest of the ribbons on horseback. It was a lovely ride! The forecast, once again, was completely wrong. They had rain almost all day, starting at 1:00, and the only rain we got was a very short shower several hours later, and another a few more hours after that! Barely enough to get the ground wet! Was very glad we didn't get wet on the ride, though. Apollo may be slow, but he certainly is good at stopping at the ribbons and letting me pull them down and put them away. At one point, he actually galloped up a hill! Lots of energy for an old guy! Good to see! There was one part of the trail that had some Halloween ornaments hanging from the trees, apparently leftover from some previous event, kind of cute to see. We were only out about 90 minutes, which was great for him and Lola both. She enjoyed jumping into whatever creek we came across, so it was a nice family jaunt. Got back and put him away, enjoyed a pizza lunch that John and Helen brought back from town, helped put the ribbons on cardboard and put in bags the way I like them, rather than on baling twine and hangers, both of which I detest. Worked on Meg's truck for a bit, she's having problems getting it started. I had put my charger on and had gotten the green light on both batteries, but there's something else going on we haven't figured out yet. Will work on that later. Because I had borrowed an electrical cord from John, and they're leaving in the morning, I switched out a couple of long heavy duty cords with a long slightly lighter cord, and I'm hoping that the change will help keep the GFI from breaking as much. It's been doing that constantly since I've been here, so it's been a challenge, but I wasn't sure my long cord could handle it, but so far, so good! Finally settled down for the evening, hoping if my electrical problem is resolved I might be able to do laundry tomorrow. Spent some time researching places to go between here and Ohio, still haven't settled on anything yet. Every time I sat in my recliner, I kept dozing off, so I'm pretty sure I'll get a good night sleep! I'm heading to shower and bed soon! Good night, baby! Love you!