When I woke up this morning for the first time since my neck surgery, my jaw did not feel like someone had slugged me. It is phantom pain. The doctor told me that some nerve damage was likely.
In my case I feel pain where I have no injury. It is not debilitating in any way and is not severe….just a pain in the jaw. It has lightened up the last couple of weeks which tellt me the nerves are healing. It was quite nice to wake up and it was not sore.
During the day the nuisance has come back, but at least it is improving.

Took a couple of photos of my wild flowers garden….I never imagined I would enjoy it so much. It is a little different every day

I have zuchini that are about ready for harvest, but alas we are still a few weeks from a tomato sammich

Stated the day by moving the equines to a new paddock and mowing the one they were in the last couple of days. Those who know me know that I have a lot of small paddocks and rotate the stock thru them fairly frequently. This time of year I am mowing paddocks after grazing and then closing them off to rest and recover.

Below is a shot of today’s paddock after mowing.

I am also still cleaning up damage from the ice storm this winter….right after the storm I spent several days cutting limbs and trees off the fences. Now as I graze them I am cleaning up the bigger pieces and burning them in my concrete fire ring, the smaller stuff just gets chopped up with the Bush hog. Still have a couple of paddocks yet to graze for the equines before we start the second round

Below Is a picture of the debris from a paddock that is about a tenth of an acre. It has already been burned today.

Then Apache and I went for a walk. We went to North anna battlefield park. Our goal was to walk three miles on the gray trail…but we did not quite make it..the gray trail is not quiet a mile and a half from end to end so to get three miles I have to walk some of the loops twice….Apache did not see the sense in walking circles…we came to one intersection and when I turned to do the loop, …..well he just stopped and turned to face the path to the parking lot…I told him he was right and followed him to the truck. We did 2.79 miles. He promptly stuck his nose in the air conditioning vent and went to sleep. While it was not too awful hot when we started, it was pretty warm when we finished…I am still marinating in my own ambiance….Apache is asleep under a fan.

Took a photo of Dixies brand and sent it to my friend Anthony Macalister. He is a big player in the mule world and I am hoping he can help me find Dixies origins. Maybe he will recognize the brand or know someone who will.

Still feeling good from another great ride with Dr. Condi yesterday,. I even sent Jim Blanks a note thanking him for the opportunity to own Condi. She is rapidly moving up my list of all time favorite horses….as an older unit, I have had the opportunity to ride a good many horses of all types and descriptions…some were mine and many were somone elses…some went on to big things, some I made into better horses at their job, some were broncs that learned a trade and made good horses…….at least one was an outright outlaw who in my younger days wrecked several people after she wrecked me. I learned a little from all of them…now Dr. Condi and I are learning together and I am having a ball. She sometimes now seems to be so tuned in to me that she knows what I am thinking. I have had horses before who were as responsive but they were horses that I rode every day or in a regular rotation. With Condi I am lucky to ride once or maybe twice a week. Thinking of all the horses I have learned from has dredged up a lot of good memories as well.