Still Waiting

What Do You Do?

Not much on the horse front due to this darn weather. The ground is still frozen solid where it's bare and covered with an ice and snow mix everywhere else.  I honestly to not remember a winter where the first snowfalls from December lasted until March, at least not here in New Jersey.

I'm pretty sure the Boys are bored.  I haven't seen them playing too much at all, and no wonder. With this footing, frolicking is not at option. They do wander about the paddocks and pasture. With my setup, there is a bit of variety both in terrain and view, so at least there is something to do out there. I've seen them sort of travel with the sun, basking in its rays by moving from place to place during the day. 

I've been soaking their regular feed in hot water nearly every time I feed--three times a day--and they seem to be drinking quite a bit of water as I have to refill the water tub every morning about the same as I do in summer. 

Meantime, somewhat housebound, I've been doing a bit of much needed cleaning. I  have a ton more to do yet, of course.  Somehow the house has gotten entirely out of control. It's not the first time, so I'm well aware of the major project I have created for myself. What I need to do is get rid of a lot of stuff. 

That led me to revive my eldest desktop computer to see what files I might want to keep before I get rid of it.  Windows 98, ancient now, still worked just fine with the newer keyboard and monitor, but the mouse??? No such luck. If you've ever tried to work in Windows without a mouse, you know the dilemma I faced.  Every mouse I had was USB and optical, and my old dinosaur did not have the drivers to work them.  And, to top it off, I could not find my Windows 98 CD which might have had some on it. 

Blessing be, my friend--my choir director--is a real computer geek from way back and he had some old serial mice with the track balls in them, and a Windows 98 CD.  I borrowed all and was soon up and running. 

The next challenge was trying to find a way to transfer files I wanted. The old computer would not recognize a flash drive, and even the CD did not have drivers for that. I used to save all my stuff on floppy disks, but the new computer does not have a floppy drive. (I've ordered an external 3.5" floppy drive from eBay since I have dozens and dozens of floppy disks with pictures and files on them I might want, but it's not here yet.)

That left me with one alternative, and fortunately I was prepared. The old computer had a writable CD drive and the software installed, so I managed to burn a CD of most of the filed I wanted. 

Apparently there is a way to hook up one computer to another via a USB cable, but none of the stores I visited over the last two days has the proper cable in stock. Back to eBay, I guess.  Meantime,  I found the floppy disks with the files I needed so if that external drive works, I should be able to recover them that way. 

Mind you, the files are my fantasy novels--three of them, each over 1000 pages long. (Double spaced--don't be too impressed.)  My intention is to format them for some kind of web publishing. That will take some time as I also have to proofread them again.  That should keep me busy for months.

---working at the computer, of course---

Now do you  understand why the house is a mess?