Wow.... I'm so sorry it has been so long between posts. I know there was never a promise to write everyday, but it may have been implied that if I wrote enough that people actually wanted to read it, then I should at least write on a regular basis. So, while I make no promises..... I will try to do better in the future.
   But now, since I use this Blog for a record of my own, and what I have been doing in life, I am going to go back a few days and at least enter enough highlights, if any, that it will serve to remind me years from now.
   So... starting last Friday the 12th; it was early, way to early of a morning, for me. Up at 6:00 a.m., I was done with breakfast and packing up the interior of the trailer by 7:30. Outside it was a matter of draining the waste tanks one last time, turning off the water and propane, cranking up the scissor jacks and hooking up to the truck.  A quick drive of about 150 yards down a sandy road brought me to the field where the park allows people to stow their trailer or boat for $25 per month. Unhooking took another 10 minutes, as did disconnecting the battery wires. One last check to make sure it was all secure and I was on the road north by 8:45.
    A good day for driving, not too hot, not too cold. It was a steady 65-75 mph gallop up the interstate towards the great state of Virginia. There was a 20 minute stop for lunch, one for gas and a couple at rest stops along the way to rid myself of some of the caffeine I was steadily ingesting. In real life what it meant was that I was able to pull into the town of Floyd Virginia right at 7:30 p.m. Plenty of time to meet my girlfriend Rima for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Micky G's. Not only was it wonderful to see her again, but we got to celebrate meeting up again while eating some outstanding cuisine. For my part it was a whole baked flounder the size of a plate. Flaky and succulent, it was then sautéed in some olive oil along with capers, slivered garlic, and some fresh herbs. Pair that with a side of angel hair pasta that also had garlic and capers in it and it was a meal to remember. Rima went with the pasture raised grilled pork chop also pan sautéed  along with porcini mushrooms, sliced garlic and capers all in a balsamic vinegar reduction sauce. Add in slice of Lemon Cello cake for dessert and you had a perfect way to end the day.
    Saturday dawned sunny and bright, but pretty darn cold. It was the last time I've had on shorts and boat shoes since arriving. Rima had to work for most of the day, although most of it could at least be done at home. I hung out for the most part, caught up on some paperwork that needed doing, and then spent several hours outside unpacking the truck and looking around the place. It looks pretty much the same as when I left more than 6 months ago, just a few less leaves on the trees and a little more brown looking. Otherwise the barn and out buildings are all still in various states of dis-erection, the weed stalks are still rampant in portions of the pasture and there is a lot less cut and stacked firewood.
   It was a matter of wandering around and staring at everything several times just trying to get a feeling for what needs to be worked on first and what can be left for a little bit later. A little like home and grounds repair triage.
    Rima finally stopped working long enough to eat a late dinner with me and then we watched a movie on DVD. The movie was an old one from back in the 70's that I have always liked because of it's link to dancing, even though in this case it had to do with competitive ballroom dancing. 'Strictly Ballroom' was the name of the movie and it was a lot of fun to pull that old chestnut out and watch it once again. Especially with someone who had never seen it before.
   Sunday was also sunny and bright to start. We had a quite morning of breakfast and many cups of hot tea. Before long it was late enough in the morning that we jumped Rima's 2nd car and along with me in the truck, drove it over to the local mechanics place so he can take a look at it at some time and try to figure out why it won't start all of the time.
   On our way back into town one of Rima's kids called up to see if we could baby sit the kidlet for several hours in the afternoon so that they could go do some Christmas shopping without her. We met up with them in Floyd and all had lunch together at the Mexican restaurant there.  A decent meal as usual, but certainly not as good as some of the meals I experienced in Colorado and other parts of the west this last summer.
   We took Brynn with us afterwards and headed on back to the house for the afternoon, where she then proceeded to wear both of us out. I never knew a two year old could go that long or hard in one day. But we had fun feeding carrots to the horses and blowing bubbles outside in the sun. We hiked back and forth from the house to the horse pasture at least a dozen times before finally going inside for a couple more hours. Once there we played ball and legos and chase Brynn around the house until she finally slowed down enough that I could start making some dinner while Rima tried to read a book to her. In the end she conked out about 5 minutes before her parents showed up to pick her up. So all in all, a pretty good day. Of course the two of us were pretty much wiped out by that time so after eating a meal of chicken soup and dumplings we crashed on the couch and zoned out to that Christmas classic, 'The Christmas Story'.
    Rima was back to full time work yesterday morning, so it was a nice quite morning here for me. Finished up a few more remnants of paper work that needed doing, as well as catching up on the comics and crossword puzzles. Finally headed outside a little after noon and started in on my first chore here. I started clearing out this little back room in Rima's barn cluster. This area was once used by some neighbors of hers to, I think, build bamboo flutes, among other things. So it is maybe the best area in the whole complex as far as being usable space. That being said it has no door, and the window is busted and it took me several hours to clean enough stuff out of it so that I could actually see the floor. Along the way I found several tools, an old wood burning stove and even an old Colman lantern. Right now I need to still move out several bundles of shingles, a couple sacks of concrete mix, several sheets of plywood and the old stove before I can start deconstruction on the back wall of it. The idea is to tear out each wall one at a time, and then rebuild it so that it is actually structurally sound as well as being weather, and hopefully at least, somewhat snake proof, as there were lots of old snake skins that went out with some of the trash.
   So that took most of the afternoon, but there is still some left to do as I said. I couldn't get it all done because my sinuses were going crazy with all of the dust and detritus that was being stirred up. One more good day should just about do it and then I can start tearing things apart.
    Another pleasant evening last night once Rima made it home. We ate steak and pan crisped new potatoes along with some left over stuffed winter squash that I had made the night before. A little down time meant we could go in and watch a couple episodes from last years season of the 'Big Bang Theory', a show that both of us really get a kick out of.
    Today I went and did something about the 'Tractor Envy' I have been experiencing since last year when I got to use Rima's old broken down excuse of a riding mower for a couple of days. It wasn't much of a mower to begin with and it finally quit on us again a week or so before I took off. I always wanted something a little bit nicer, more reliable and maybe powerful enough to actually mow some of the hillsides in several of the pastures. But alas, tractors, and riding mowers aren't cheap. So I've just been biding my time keeping my eyes open for a good deal to come along. Yesterday while looking through some Craig's List ads from the Blacksburg listing I ran across this 20.5 hp MTD riding mower with a bucket on the front of it for $500. It looked to be in decent shape and the ad said all the belts were new, the bucket was new, it ran great and the guy was hoping to unload it at that price. So I called him up and we met over at his place this afternoon to take a look at it.
    So it turned out to be pretty much exactly what he said it was. He started it right up and I looked it over as well as I could. Seems like everything worked fine on it and the engine looked almost new. No manual with it unfortunately, and he didn't even know how old it is. But it seemed to run well and he promised to even deliver it for me for that price. So we now have a new(er) mower sitting out in the barn, and as soon as I can go pick up some regular gas I will give it a really good try out. There was enough gas in it today that I could at least take it for a spin around the smaller upper pasture and it did just fine considering the grass there was nearly 3 feet tall this summer when I left. It nearly bogged down once while pointed straight up the hill with me sitting on it, but I just backed a few feet down and then put it into low gear and it just crept right up the hill thrashing it's way through all of that vegetation. I think Rima is going to like using something that actually works most of the time even though there is still going to be a need to use the hand mower and string trimmer in spots.
    Rima was home by 6:00 this evening and we had a nice sit down dinner together before she was back to work again this evening. So it has been pretty quiet around the place. The good news is that it allowed me time to put these words down. But it is now finished for the time being. There are still pictures to down load off of the camera and I would like go check out email and such one last time today. so by for now.