From Winter To Spring

The high temperature just two days ago was 27° after breaking rain records the day before that 27° cold snap with 2.25" of rain. Yet today I sat outside on the patio with the dogs in the yard in 61° weather. "From Winter to Spring" in just a day. It will only last to Tuesday but I'll take it. I love warmer weather. It is good to see the red, white and blue blowing in the wind. With everything going on in the world today, the sounds of semi-automatic gunfire at the shooting range a short distance away framed the whole picture. What will the future bring? Do the top three people in DC even care what that flag means anymore? I doubt it.

I saw a young lady walking along the fence line the other day with clipboard in hand. The hounds and the dog attacked the patio door from the inside with their best barking and howling to let me know there was an intruder just outside the fence. She works for a contractor for the utility company. They will be showing up between March 10 and April 6 to cut tree limbs 10' from their power lines. She assured me my fence would survive without any damage. Any limb larger than 6" in diameter will be cut to 3' lengths and laid at the base of the tree. Under 6", they will throw in their shredder and clear my bank of tree limbs. Should be exciting and enough photos of the operation for a blog post.

I know it's a weird combination but I had just a little ice tea left from my new pitcher of tea. I got caught up in all the warmer weather that I made some. You will notice the damage I caused my table by not bringing it into the garage for the winter. Single digit temps I guess do not mix with a table made in Nogales AZ.

I enjoyed the shadows in this picture more than anything.

Some way Henry was able to get that large piece of ice from the outside water bowl and drag it out to the yard. He was pretty protective of it. I hate hearing the sound of people eating ice. Gives me chills when it happens. I cringed when I heard him eating it but I did my best to survive and let him enjoy his treat.

That is the bowl the ice piece came from after I dumped the bad water with leaves, and bloodhound drool. As you can tell by the rocks, the bowl is located between the brick room and the great room with vinyl siding. 

Will the grass ever grow back? It will but this summer the grass inside the fence will be cut higher than the yard outside of the fence.

Henry decided he needed to make sure that Watson knew the ice belonged to him and yes ... it tastes good.

Who would ever think a bloodhound with a pose like that could cause so much trouble. He is just a puppy and will be 10 months old in eight days. I have two to three more years of his puppy behavior, if I live that long. He is giving me a real run for my money helping him grow up. LOL

Walter is monitoring the neighbors driveway, the street and the side yard for any dogs or people walking by. I didn't realize when I bought him that English Bulldogs were such watch dogs. 

Walter was definitely enjoying the spring type weather today. I guess Henry got his point across, nobody is touching "his" ice.

What are they fighting or playing over ... a small deer antler.

You can see the small piece of deer antler in Henry's mouth as he walks away triumphant. 

Toward the end of the time outside Walter had to step out and make sure everything was under control between Henry and Watson. As the temp dropped below 60° we headed back inside. It really was a beautiful day here.

Those that read the blog with smart phones probably don't see the sidebar of the blog. It will show I started blogging in October 2011. I was bored with my job at the time and had read the Yahoo Business article about some guy named Glen that lived and traveled in his van. I followed his blog for years as he changed vehicles but stopped when he moved his operation to Instagram. Some of you may remember who I speak of.

At that time I started researching RVs and traveling the USA like other bloggers I found did. I knew with three hounds that would be a tough challenge. In June of 2015 I found out I did not want to do it with three hounds, with strong noses, and didn't have much to blog about. I deleted the blog in December of 2015. My inbox was flooded with request to keep blogging, to blog about the hounds and show photos of our boring daily lives. That didn't consist of much more than two walks per day in the field behind our house. I never knew what hound photos meant until reading some emails from a few readers.

I continued to blog and then someone mentioned I needed to be more transparent, open up more. Some even felt I was hiding something. So I did. I moved over to Wordpress when you could have a decent blog that was free and I let 'er rip as some say. That transparency offended more than a few. I changed not only strategy for my openness but also came back to Blogger as my blog platform. I stopped the transparency but still kept "rambling" on occasion when I got off my meds. (joke, I think)

Through the years, already 11 years worth, I have heard a lot of stuff either in the comment section or received their thoughts in my email inbox. Some made me angry enough to stop blogging. Some made me defensive. Some just outright pissed me off because I knew if they were not behind a keyboard they would not be so opinionated face to face.

A long time retired blogger told me a few years ago that he never wrote FOR his 10 million readers over the life of his blog but that he wrote for himself. Unlike me he was very open with this thoughts for them to see and suggested I write for myself and not the readers. The difference was he and I disagreed on publishing personal thoughts and I told him if I wrote my real thoughts about stuff, that was like standing down by the highway in front of my house and passing out a book written all about me to every one that drove by. That didn't make sense to me. I didn't want to do that.

Well I guess the other day in just one paragraph I ruffled feather again. Some of the weak people got their panties in a wad and decided to tell me about it. I find it amazing over these 11 years how those same type of brave people that love telling me what I can or can't write about on my blog, not there's. Because they don't have a blog where they lay it out on the line. They don't even have a blog period. Not one of them have a blog and most don't have a profile when you click their Google user name.

No worries. 

I don't have the time nor the energy to fight or argue or even change my writing style. There is nothing in my blog that is organized. It is all impulsive rambling and at this stage of my life, sometimes I forget even what I was going to blog about by the time I finish. About all I can do is what I have been doing the past year or two, although the hounds and environment have changed drastically. 

I still feel the best blog I had was over on Wordpress a few years ago where I wrong ONE intro paragraph and listed 20-25 photos, nothing else. It might be time to go back to that. Blogging gets old anyway after 11 years. Yet I know that those 11-13 people just love seeing the hounds and now the dog, even if I don't leave my patio chair taking photos.

For those that don't agree with my opinions, I don't give a damn. That is being nice or political correct. I cannot use my favorite word here. Leave if you don't like what I write or better yet, write your own damn blog since you are the experts. 

Don't tell me what I should or should not say when something in this messed up world sets off my rambling machine. If I want to go back to transparency it could get real nasty around here. That is not what I am going to do though, don't have the energy to waste on daily transparency.

Other than that, it was a great day in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.