Hey Babe,
A good night sleep, worked on my shoulder in the morning, did a little computer work, then headed over to HQ to see if Jo's husband wanted to play Smokey the Bear at the upcoming Taste of Goethe, but he's a rather small guy and the costume is built for someone the size os Sasquatch, so that's a no. Then Rick and I headed down to Tidewater to look at the changes I want to make on the purple trail, though we didn't have time to do it today, so we'll get a start on it tomorrow. We decided to not only do the half mile section that's the worst, but that there was no reason not to do the short, 100 yard section as well. We made some plans for that, then I ran into town, got my hair cut, which it desperately needed, and did some shopping so I'll be hopefully stocked up enough to not have to shop again before heading up to Suwannee. Got back to camp around 5:00, wasn't long before I was feeding the horses and myself, and settling down for dinner. Started to watch a movie but didn't like it, so switched back to a Northern Exposure. Won't be long out of bed tonight! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hi Sweetie,
Didn't do too much today, just worked on my computer, read for a bit, met up with Jo for lunch, made arrangements with Rick to work on the new alt-Purple trail tomorrow, shopped for a few things on Amazon, picked up some aluminum cans at Helen's, then settled down for the evening to a nice little rom-com and a Northern Exposure, and now that the rain has finally come in, looking forward to a quick shower and a good night sleep! Love you, darlin'! Good night!

Hey Darlin',
Slept way too late this morning, but it felt good! I've been busy, so it was nice to have a lazy day. After chores and breakfast, I did some work on the upcoming endurance ride in Suwannee, which took a lot longer than expected because the organizer I've been trying to work with doesn't have any understanding of Google Earth or any of the techniques I use, so it was a long, hard slog, but eventually we pretty much ended up agreeing on doing it according to my original plan. By then it was pretty late in the afternoon, and I had a book order to fulfill, so I took a drive to the post office, and then down to Jo's where I was expecting the Fedex package with my new inverter control panel. I sat at the end of the driveway until he showed up at 5:30 (Jo and Jeff went out to pick up her trailer and have dinner in town), then headed back to camp. Had a nice quiet evening after this relatively quiet day, just what I needed. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hiya Babe,
Woke up in the middle of the night when the rain finally came in, after it had been forecast to come in much earlier. Kept me up for awhile, then I slept until well after 9:00. Had a busy day doing laundry, housekeeping, cleaning the camp restrooms, and working a bit on the Suwannee Ride again. Having a hard time making heads or tails out of the crude map they sent me. Why they won't just work with Google Earth is beyond me, it's so much harder doing it the way they're doing it. More rain came in around 4:00 and kept going for a couple of hours. I finally settled down for the evening with some Northern Exposures and a odd little romance movie. Ready for shower and bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Darlin',
Spent about an hour working on my shoulder with my little shiatsu massager this morning, haven't had time the last few days, and while it's definitely improving, today I felt something move closer to shifting, which meant it hurt a bit more as it's trying to stretch over whatever is blocking it from moving back to it's rightful place. Still getting closer! Had an appointment with a vet in Williston for Lola, her back legs have been really giving her some problems, and they took a couple of x-rays, might have found one little bone growth in her right hock, but nothing in particular in her left hip, which seems to me to be the worse of her two problems. Not sure I agree with the diagnosis, but figured I'd give her the prescribed anti-inflammatories and pain meds a chance to see if that helps. Stopped at the Winn-Dixie for a few items, then headed back to camp, where I met Rick just as he was coming in. We sat and chatted for awhile before he took off for the weekend. I drove over to Helen's and we had a nice visit as she explained to me her ideas about new trail markers. She offered to let me store all my stuff at her place, sweet lady! Spent the rest of the afternoon quietly, with a typical evening. Ready for bed! Love you, babe! Good night!

Hiya Babe,
Another day of intending to do one thing and ending up doing something quite different. Started out with plans to take Apollo on a little ride, thought about taking him up to Watermelon Pond, then got an email saying they were burning in that area, so then I figured we could stay closer to home, but that didn't work out either. I started doing a few little things on my computer, and one thing just led to another, and the whole day went frustratingly by. I made my reservations for the hotel in Vegas for the Red Rock Ride, though I'm astonished that the first Saturday is already sold out, so I'm either going to have to go to a different hotel or fly on Sunday, or keep my fingers crossed that a room will open up, which I have to believe will happen since we're so far out. I can't believe June is fully booked already! I spent most of my time on hold, though, trying to solve my inverter control panel problem. I've tackled this problem several times over the last few months and hadn't been able to resolve it, but today I was determined. I was on hold with Xantrex for nearly an hour before I talked to someone, who gave me the model number and price and even sent me a picture to confirm it's the right one, all in about three minutes once we hooked up. It turned out I was talking to the wrong department anyway, so she transferred me to the right department, and was given a list of name of distributors, since they don't like to sell direct to the public, as it makes their retailers mad. I contacted every name she gave me, and they all gave me a runaround about how I needed to be a retailer, or how it would take days to get a price an availability (the manufacturer already told me they had them available), and on and on. I finally got so fed up, I called the manufacturer back and begged them to sell me one, and she (the second woman I spoke to) took it up the chain of command, and within a few minutes, cleared it to have them send me one. Free. Whoo-hoo! So I wasted a lot of time, but managed to get a happy outcome. Hopefully I'll have that in a few days. It's not that the old one isn't working, but it's definitely going. Just the switches, which I really have to finagle with to get them to work, and sometimes I'm convinced they never will, then at the last minute, do. They won't one day, though, and I'd rather repair it now and not have to worry about it anymore. After that, I made some dinner, fed the horses, and rushed around to get to a Taste of Goethe meeting at 5:30 where I helped them set up a Paypal account and some other stuff. Was after 8:30 by the time that was done, so a late evening. Settling down to my tea, the last half of a Northern Exposure episode, my Lorna Doone's and soon, a shower and bed. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
A good night sleep, a fairly quiet morning, until I decided to see how my truck was doing after yesterday. While I had no trouble driving it home in the afternoon, I still didn't have gauges, and my brake controller still wasn't working properly. So I tried to start it, and I had nothing. Batteries were flat again. I forgot to unplug it from the trailer last night, so I think that may have caused it, especially if there's a short of some kind in my brake controller. So I put the charger on and let it charge all morning. Around noon, I tried again. This time I had an even weirder problem. It cranked right up, than immediately died. I tried it several times, same thing. I texted the mechanic, John, and he agreed to come out after work and take a look. I ended up spending most of the day working on the computer, doing some trail planning and writing some emails about various topics. A pretty quiet day. John arrived shortly after 5:00 and proceed to try to check the codes, but couldn't establish communication with the ECM. Then he began to check fuses, which all seemed okay, but then he started pulling them out and putting them back in again. I don't know if that knocked off some corrosion or something, but suddenly he was able to get a list of codes, and it seemed endless! Lots of little stuff, including an apparent anti-theft device that shuts off the fuel when in doubt, which seems to be the answer to what was going on this morning. Anyway, we fiddled around with it some more, and he cleared the codes, and everything except the brake controller seemed to get back to normal. Then we worked on that, couldn't exactly find what was wrong, when it suddenly began working again! Crazy! I still think there's a bad connection, but I'm not going to touch it again while it's still working. So for the moment, we're back to normal. Don't know how long it will last, but we're good for the moment! I left the charger on, hopefully that will remedy the problem. It's possible my batteries have aged out and that may be contributing, or I do have an intermittent short in my brake controller, I don't know, we'll have to wait and see. As soon as John left I fed the horses, had dinner, binge-watched a little TV, and, as usual, am ready for tea, shower and bed. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Babe,
When I got going this morning, my plan was to take Flash down to Tidewater to remove a tree and try to put up some ribbons where we're hoping the Purple Trail road bypass will be, but after Rick got here, we ended up deciding to go to Bailey Mine. I had someone in the FB group mention it didn't get enough attention, so I thought there might be issues there, but we drove the entire 5-mile length of the designated trail and only came across one downed tree, which was nothing. All the markers were good, so I don't know what the issue is, other than there are issues on the non-designated trail, in which case, it will have to be done by horseback or on a volunteer day, which I can arrange, but I'd like to see if there's enough to do to warrant that. Anyway, by then it was lunchtime, so we drove into Chiefland (by accident) and had a fabulous lunch at ABC Pizza, which also served Greek and Mediterranean food, and I had a wonderful little appetizer of spinach and cheese in Filo pastry and a baklava for lunch, may not even need dinner tonight. We stopped at Ace on the way back where I picked up a couple of things I needed, then got back to camp around 3:00. There was a trailer from the Sheriff's office here doing some equestrian training, chatted with them for a couple of minutes, then got busy repairing the extension cord that burned out last month with a new end, and finished the day by putting a permanent connection on the brake controller, now that I know what the problem was. Finally getting settled down for dinner, TV, tea, shower and bed! Love you, Sweetie! Good night!

Hi Sweetie,
Was up a bit earlier than I planned, worked on my shoulder and a crick in my neck that I've had a couple of weeks now, then got my chores and breakfast done before going to work on my truck. My brake controller has been blinking a code for a few days, saying it's a power interruption when I step on the brake, and I'm lousy with a multi-meter, so Bev's friend Doc came over and gave me a little assist. He didn't exactly pinpoint the problem, but he did lead me in the right direction, so I finally just decided to reconnect the joint of the offending wire, and then it came back to life and seemed to work fine after that. I only put a temporary connection on it at the moment, need to get some better connectors. Did several loads of laundry, finished counting the last box of markers for the Suwannee ride while putting them on cardboard, then sent my final trail plan to the others involved for their comments and suggestions. Answered a few questions on Facebook, worked on getting maps for Bailey Mine and Watermelon Pond, two satellite properties of Goethe I haven't been to yet, but need to do. Eventually started napping in my recliner, this busy week catching up, and I was hoping for a really quiet day, but it didn't exactly happen. Busy in the day parking, of course, and had several conversations with folks out there today. Played a few computer games, finally settling down for the evening. Tried to finish off the Eureka series, but for some reason, I had trouble streaming it. I thought things had actually improved when I moved slightly uphill, but that doesn't seem to be the case tonight for some reason. I did finally get to watch a movie, Greenfingers, about prisoners taking part in the Hampton Garden show in England, which was fun. Anyway, a good day, albeit not as relaxing as I had hoped, but satisfying nonetheless! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Babe,
Had a great night sleep, and for once I didn't set the alarm as my only scheduled item was late in the day. Did my morning chores, a little housework, re-planned the Suwannee Ride that's happening in a couple of weeks (which I already did once, but then my computer re-booted itself before I saved it and lost it all) but it's probably better than what I had before anyway. It rained a little in the morning and then cleared up for awhile. I checked the air in the tires of the little trailer and had to put a little in, then hooked up so that I would be ready when it was time to go. I've been getting an error on my brake controller, and noticed a loose wire, so I reconnected that, hoping that would do the trick. I also spent some time sorting through the markers for that ride, putting them on cardboard the way I like them, and counting to make sure we had enough to do all the trails. I don't want to have to make up a bunch more at the last minute! Seems like we should have enough, but I'm not quite done counting. Naturally, just as we reached the time to leave, we had a great downpour of rain, so I got a bit wet, and so did Flash. Got him loaded up and went to the Chi University, met Jo over there as planned, and her horse Peaches and Flash both got a student massage, and then got finished off by the clinician. Flash was SO GOOD! Considering he'd never had anything like this before, everyone was very impressed about how calm and responsive he was. He evidently has a little muscle atrophy in his left should, Jo thinks it's because I do so much leaning to the right when I'm working on trails, which seems plausible, but maybe a bit far-fetched. Don't know what else would be causing it, though. Everything else on him seemed fine, and everybody fell in love with him. What a good horse! Not sure Apollo will be quite so tame tomorrow, but we'll see! Sorry to say my wire fix didn't work on my brake controller, will have to do a little more research to figure out what's wrong. Got back just as the sun was setting, got them fed, me fed, then settled down for the evening. Supposed to be a nice day tomorrow, I might go riding with Pistol, though if I remember last time our horses weren't too compatible, so we'll see. Feels a little more relaxed this weekend, with no rides to be involved with, and being able to sleep in a bit is nice, though I'll probably have to get up earlier tomorrow if I want to ride in the morning. Anyway, I have my tea and cookies, shower and bed are soon to follow! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!