My Rambling Is Back

I gave the reins to the hounds just three days ago and you may have noticed they did not want to do anything but post a paragraph and all pictures. That works out well for me since they have hired me to do all of their IT work, but there are times I just have to ramble. I'll explain as I narrate through these photos.

This morning the forecast was telling us no rain until later this afternoon. The radar showed a little rain about 25 miles west of us, would we have time to get in a morning walk? Did Stella know something I didn't? She was on 'Winston's Patio' and wasn't moving ... she was in her stance of "I'm not going anywhere" look.

When it gets to back to back days of hot sunshine I will be killing those weeds in the driveway with spray and high pressure hose on the gutters to get the winter wear off. Stella was more interested in the loud noises, not seen, a short distance away.

She finally decide we had enough time to walk before the rains. Is this why I feel like writing this morning? The weather? Or is it because I am not motivated enough to strike off something else on the '2019 To Do' list? Or is it because I have a few more things completed the past two days than I had planned on and am ahead of schedule?

Who knows ... but I felt like writing.

Maybe she sensed rain was in the air because she didn't stop to eat wet grass, nor did I have to verbally coax her into walking ... she took off, leaving me behind with a steady walking pace.

Something dawned on me after reading RVSue's post today. She has turned into a blogger that blogs from home instead of when she was traveling full-time. She also has two dogs and lives in an area where it might NOT be 'dripping with drama' and gobs of excitement, just like here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. So I understand what she is saying about blogging less.

At the same time it refreshed my memory banks to where I could remember from past times on this blog and on my older blog on Blogger, the feedback I got from readers saying they enjoyed reading about my daily life in 'the tropics' and they loved seeing the hounds every day even if it was in the same yard or the same filed. It was humbling to read years ago when an older couple in snowed in Buffalo NY said my blog was the highlight of their day ... they LOVED reading about and seeing all the hounds.

I realized that I like reading about the daily lives of RVSue and Al over at the Bayfield Bunch, plus others, whether they are traveling or just doing their normal routines around the house. If they were to stop writing and just post nothing but photos how would I feel? We blog readers are all different. Some of us just scroll through the photos, some read every word even wanting more details and some of use do both.

So I have reverted back to my binder titled "Steve's Blog Policy and Procedures" to Chapter 23, Page 1,102, Section 6, Paragraph 2 where it states Steve will blog when he feels like it as well as ramble incoherently when he feels like it and is given full authority to change his mind as many times as his brain wants him to  without penalties.

So here I am talking with no signs of order or topics in logical sequence.

I'll be a whopping 67 years old in a couple of weeks. These all leather shoes are THE BEST shoes I have ever worn and that includes a nice running shoe (never jog or run), or the trail shoes that barely fit over your feet. These are made by Keen and are so comfortable I could wear them 24/7/365. As you see I guessed wrong that the path would be dry this morning.

Stella did not stop one time on her venture as I lagged behind. Not even for her daily dumping of tanks that take place before this first corner. She is on a mission this morning and I can only assume it's because she thinks the rain is closer than the 25 miles the radar shows.

Since I am writing this a few hours after this walk where I had a million things I wanted to talk about, you know by now I am fighting hard to remember what those million things were and my train of thought is wavering. I't scattered at best and I'm going to have to have my best effort to refocus if this post is going to amount to anything.

Being a blogger is an interesting thing, not only to me but to others too. I am seeing more and more bloggers finding it hard to write about something or finding the time to write about something either because the weather is good or bad, or they have been writing for 10 years or more. I will be at 8 years this October, counting the few times I deleted everything and quit, only to come back in time where I could recover my deleted blog and not lose any posts or photos.

Sometimes it is the time (too long) it takes to put a post together. I do less and less editing with that Canon G9X camera I bought back in January. Still by the time I sit down to move the photos from the camera to my computer, look at them and choose the ones I am going to use, then upload them into the post (I do that first and then write between photos - it's faster that way) ... It might be an hour or two before I click that publish button or the schedule button for later today.

Some days I have the time to do that and other times I've been busy enough that just sitting down long enough to put a post with one paragraph and a bunch of photos is even hard to do. Be sure though, I am taking the time, long or short, to write because I DON'T HAVE to but because I WANT to. I know myself well enough that if it was that much of a pain in the butt to do .. I'd quit.

Speaking of the word "quit" ... see how my brain works ??  LOL

If you remember from a few weeks ago, I quit logging in all of the food I eat during the day into the Cronometer app. I admit it, I have felt a change and a nice one. It is just nice to eat something without logging it in. I said it before. I know what I need to eat and I know I buy basically the same food on my trips to the grocery. I know what is healthy and what isn't. For example I know that Ben & Jerry's NON DAIRY ice cream is NOT nearly as good as their regular ice cream.  :)

I know that I am basically eating the same food as I did when I logged it in and have a pretty good idea how many calories my daily intake is. Some days I go meatless but not on purpose, it just happens to play out that way.

I will find out tomorrow right after I feed the hounds in the morning if that change of not logging my food in an app has added pounds to my weight, inches around my stomach or mm of fat to my sides. No matter what the results are, I will not go back to logging in my food intake.

Just glancing at my watch I noticed I failed to stop my "Outdoor Walk" data ... one thing different in the Apple Health and Watch program compared to my Garmin VivoSport, is that I cannot edit or correct the time  for our walk, nor can I delete that activity if I forget to stop the data collection and time when the walk is finished.

I still say the Apple Watch is the best electronic equipment I have ever bought all the way back to my first computer in 1994.

I know this blog post is going all over the place and I apologize to those that are bothered by it ... but when you are grasping for that train of thought, this is about the best I can do.  LOL What can I say, it's in my DNA.

Scatter blog thoughts and blog posts reminds me of the time my friend stopped by my office to go to lunch, a rare thing for me when I worked. As she stepped inside my office she saw I was on the phone talking to someone, while looking at two different computer screens and looking through a notebook while speaking to someone standing at my desk... all at the same time. She found that interesting and I found it just being normal. What's the big deal?

There IS one problem though when blogging during the time that crosses into the period the hounds want their lunch. I step away from the computer to feed them, then let them outside where lately all the do is turn to look at me to let me know they don't want to go outside and that they wanted to stay inside all along. There is a slight interruption in the blog post.

From the time we stepped out of the backyard into the field I could hear the sound the neighbor's John Deere tractor in the field behind the one we walk in. To me it sounded as if he had started plowing so he could beat the rains. At the back of the field that tractor is on the other side of those trees but neither I nor Stella saw it. We heard it loud and clear though.

Once Stella made the final turn home she was back in the lead and walking away from me. I continued to walk, taking photos and thinking about things ranging from blogging to moving away and remembering Sadie and Winston on past walks through this field and on this path or close to it.

Yesterday morning when I poured my last two teaspoons of sugar in my last cup of coffee for the day I knew I was at a critical time of my life. Would I be able to get off my lazy ass and go to the store for more sugar or would I keep the car turned off and parked only to face drinking black coffee this morning. I drank black coffee this morning and once again I will try to get off the granulated sugar bandwagon. NO, I will not buy or use sugar substitutes ... so save your breath.

All I can say about my moving thoughts ... I have found a place I love. It has everything I am looking for and I have spoke to a realtor many miles away from here, who grew up in Indiana. So he knows what I am going through as I make a decision. He and his assistant has looked at my blog so they know that Stella would be leaving some prime real estate if I decide to move. All Heidi needs is a couch, her dog bed and/or sunshine to keep her daily routine. I think we both know that a field like this is not really a requirement for Heidi.

Somewhere in those clouds facing west is rain. I will say that 5 hours after Stella decided it was safe enough to take the morning walk ... it has not rained a drop, just as the forecast stated but not what the radar showed.

I have to pat myself on my back for staying away from tv news. For those that are pissed, or frustrated with what you see and hear on tv new I strongly suggest to turn it off, take the channels out of your tv remote ... it is hard to do but well worth it. It gets easier the longer you are away. So much more nicer, quieter and less stressful way of life.

There is nothing I can do about all that crap ... except vote ... and even then does one vote mean anything? I guess to my conscious it does, where I can say "at least I tried" ... in the meantime I can 'hide out' here in rural Southern Indiana without any issues but the frequency of spring rains.

You will notice below that tree along that small bank I have decided to let the bank grow back wild. It will add a little change to the look of my yard but more important it should help prevent the increased water flow I've had the past two years when I decided I wanted to burn all the growth down and plant grass seed where most of it was washed away by strong spring rains. That was not one of my better decisions.

Yes, that is where Stella makes her sharp right turn at the end of the walk and officially announce the walk is over by following the edge of the house.

More about my blogging frequency ... I think more than anything, I write and ramble when I am in the mood to screw off, waste time or have zero motivation to anything else but hang out in front of my computer. That might not be healthy but my Apple Watch tells me all the times I sit in front of a computer or on the couch watching a game ... my old pulse rate is 55-58 bpm. The Apple Watch even tells me when to stand up and take a break. Geezus !!!!

We had some excitement Monday afternoon. You have to remember living in 'the tropics' excitement can happen at any time and you can only hope you have a camera ready.

In this case on Monday afternoon, my game of Mahjong was interrupted because not only was the 4th load of fertilizer delivered but it was how it was delivered.

Looking back to the older blog yesterday to see what it was like a year ago. I found out that the fields were plowed and planted by the 6th of May, about a week away. I don't see how that will be possible while I see standing water in one field and a semi-truck stuck in the mud in another field, both across the highway.

I put my Mahjong game on pause when I heard a truck engine revving up and seeing spinning tires through my 200mm zoom lens on the Nikon camera. It was so interesting I stepped away to grab  my binoculars to confirm what I was seeing.  Since those binoculars can see a gnat on a flies ass, it was pretty easy to tell this truck really was stuck. I knew that before the driver got out of his rig and walked over to this side of the trailer to see what I was seeing.

It took a while due to where the owner of this field lives but help was on the way. Now fertilizer mixed with egg shells cannot weight to much I would think, still there is 40+ feet of weight to tow through a soft field

I could see the plan as soon as the tractor showed up.

It was as easy as towing a toy truck on the living room floor as a kid. In the old days Sadie would have woken up, ran to the screen door to look and see what was going on in 'her' neighborhood ... Heidi and Stella ??? They didn't move a muscle during their siesta on the couch.

So I would guess they are pretty close to being ready to plant their 2019 corn or soybean crop. Of course "Murphy" showed up last year even after the field was starting to grow .. heavy rains flooded the back half of the field and he had to come in, plow up his  corn, disc and replant the back of his field. It will be interesting to see what happens this spring.

I thought I was about finished writing this when I felt that familiar feel of something crawling on my neck. Yes ... one of those ticks I bring back with me after our hound walks. I hate those things and for some reason this week, the back of my neck has been their favorite compared to my legs a week or so ago.

This is what happens when I take the hounds outside right after they eat lunch just because "we always do that" ... lately they have not been too enthused about that plan and consequently hardly move.

So we headed back inside like they wanted so they could hang out, sleep, lick, itch or whatever.  :)

I like seeing different bloggers showing photos of bird feeders and all the different kinds of birds. I never mounted any feeders because Sadie was not a fan of birds and in fact they tormented the hell out of her. All she wanted to do was chase them out of her yard.

Here is one reason I am not a fan of birds and why I don't like them building their nests inside my carport.

Today's excitement could be an ugly situation. By the time I heard the first siren fly by my house the white State Police car was out of sight, obviously over 100mph. I did not sit at the kitchen table waiting for the rest of them that were following since they did not come all at the same time. I was able to catch these with my camera as I ran from other parts of the house when hearing a siren.

Yes that is two different ambulances, two different sheriff SUVs and I did not catch two more State Police cars and one State Police SUV. Evidently something very bad has happened on the Interstate nearby.

As you can tell it was another laidback Tuesday here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. Just remember "consistency" is not one of my stronger points when it comes to blogging. You never know how long or short the post might be ... but there will always be photos of the hounds 99.9% ... that 0.1% is for me to change my mind.  :)

My Apple Watch Series 4 Review

First of all I am not an expert techie, I will not be paid for this review nor will I have any other affiliate links built into the photos or this post. This review is from a normal (??) everyday user that decided to take the leap and buy the new Apple Watch Series 4 almost two months ago on January 4th. I still claim, it's been the best electronic device (toy?) in the last 24 years that I have ever bought.

That includes PCs, DSLRs, every Apple product and my Sony PlayStations.

I watched from a distance after Apple released their first series a few years ago. I knew there would be bugs to be worked out and there would be more improvements with each new release. So I was willing to wait until they had the features I wanted and in some way ... needed.

It was the Fall Detection and EKG Reading features that I had been waiting for. Since I am a borderline hermit that lives alone and never has visitors, I needed some way to let friends know or contact medical services, that I either needed help or had dropped dead. Only one of those friends lives in the same state but not locally. The others live out of state, scattered from Georgia to California and parts in between.

It wasn't so much they needed to know or I needed medical service .... my #1 priority is my hounds. If something were to happen to me, unexpectedly, they need to be rescued and taken care of. Honestly they were the main reason I decided to spend the money on the Apple Watch Series 4. (Just in case something happened to me)


I will most likely outlive my basset hound and bloodhound but in March 2010 I found out in a split second of time ... you never know. I had been sitting at a 3-way stop on a highway waiting for my turn, to make a left hand turn when I was rear-ended by an old modified Ram 3500 truck pulling a horse trailer. It had a huge homemade steel front bumper. Police reports showed he was going 65-70mph when he hit me. There were no signs he applied any brakes.

I'll not go into detail about the wreck but I was not the only car he totaled. That showed me just how fast your life can change unexpectedly. It happened so fast, within seconds.

So if I were to fall, pass out from a medical issue or accident, the chances are good based on studies, that the Apple Watch Series 4 will contact medical services automatically and the friends I have listed in the Apple Health SOS. At least my hounds would not have to wait too long to be rescued and kept from becoming shelter animals.

It was hard to picture having something 44mm on my wrist. I had not worn a watch since the day I bought my new Apple iPhone 3s many years ago. Between the phone and the computers at home or work, I always could tell what time it was. So that was a question in my decision process. Would I want to wear a watch again?

In May 2017 I bought a Garmin VivoSmart3 to wear all the time so I could monitor my pulse rate. I also would use their activity monitor for my the daily hound walks and the Garmin Connect app tracked my sleep. That was some good information I had not counted on ... but it showed me just how much information I had access to concerning my health.

It also had me getting use to wearing something on my wrist again.

So I came home on the 4th of January with the new Apple Watch Series 4. I had it up and operational within 15 minutes. I scanned the Apple Store for a free sleep app and it synchronized with the Apple Health app that was preloaded on my iPhone. I had no issues setting up everything and within minutes it was already showing me the basic information I was wanting:

My pulse rate

Temperature and weather outside

Time

Recording the daily walks

One of the blog readers whom I've kept in contact with over the years by email, discussing Apple products, updates, etc ... had bought her watch a few years before so she was a great source for suggestions, how it worked, and the pros and cons of the watch. She has had to remind me at various times when I have thought about ditching my iPhone and use the Watch as my full-time computer when away from the house .....

You have to have the iPhone to transfer all the iOS updates to the phone. Everything is programmed on the iPhone for the watch. That includes choosing which watch faces you want to use. I rotate between two really. The one face you see above and this one.

It did come with this screen as the default and would have been very handy during the years I was working and not retired. I could have loaded my calendar, notes, etc.

I scrolled through all the settings and watch faces on my iPhone, and the changes or additions were immediately transferred to the watch. I never had any kind of synchronization issues between the watch, the phone, Apple Health App and my free app SleepWatch. Here is the iPhone screen where I could decide which feature was arranged on my watch face. A very simple process.

With my Garmin, synchronization was a problem because it would lose connection frequently. After almost two months of use, I have not had any issues with connectivity between my Apple Watch and iPhone.

I have my Apple Health app on my iPhone connected to the food tracking app I use, Cronometer. It lists the amounts of food in ounces, grams or milligrams for every vitamin, mineral or micro-nutrient. It's amazing everything that it tracks and is easy to see on the iPhone.

Since I am basically a cheapskate most of the time, I never pay for apps even if they are only a $1. If I can find a free app that gives me the information I am wanting, then free it is. I have found the SleepWatch app to be very good and accurate. I can tell by looking at the times during the night I may or may not get up and it's right on the money for accuracy. It will also record sleep data when I take an occasional siesta.

It gives me a 3-day target for sleeping and what percentage of time I have come close to that target. It already tells me what I already know ... I don't sleep a lot. I also don't get a lot of deep restful sleep. One neat thing it does track is the Sleeping Heart Rate Dip. Something I was not aware of. It will tell me if I am average, below average or above average for people my age.

The app also measures Average Sleeping Heart Rate and it measures Sleep Rhythm.

The real test will be this spring and summer as I wear the watch when I am outside doing regular yard work. I'll be sweating, possibly around dirt or gravel and the watch could possibly get banged around.

One thing that has happened that you have to be aware of .... the Fall Detection ... almost works too good!!! I have had it activate while hammering a nail in the wall. I have had the detector activated slapping a soft sided can of biscuits against the edge of my kitchen counter to open the can. I also can swing my left wrist down hard not hitting anything and see the fall detection activate.

The first screen will give you a choice "I'm okay" and the second screen will give you a choice "I did not fall" ... both important to click shortly after you feel the watch vibrate on your wrist and hear a loud buzzing sound. Otherwise emergency services will be called.

Speaking of calling ... using the Apple Watch as a phone, the sound is crystal clear. The few people I keep in contact with over the phone tell me it sounds better to them than when I use my iPhone. All of those calls are long distance and at times the person I have called is driving their car.

The watch has so many notifications loaded as the default setting, that I had to go into settings on my iPhone for the Apple Watch and turn them off. I know I am not using the Apple Watch to its full potential but have the features set up for the information I want.

EVERYTHING is very accurate, from walking time and distance, the GPS map of your walk or run. When I bought the watch, I checked my heart rate manually for 60 seconds to compare it with the watch and the pulse rate was very accurate. The EKG feature works fantastic. It would tell me if I had A-fib when I ran the EKG feature. After the test it told me my heart was above average for someone my age.

All the apps you have on your iPhone are carried over to your Watch. The watch monitor is easy to read, even the texts you receive. I do not use any kind of watch monitor protector and have seen no damage to the screen after wearing the watch 24/7.

WARNING --

The friend I mentioned that has had her watch for a couple of years does have A-fib and she knew that before she bought the watch. Over the past couple of years she has fallen due to that condition. She recently had an episode and told me that the Series 4 watch did NOT warn her in time that her A-fib was taking place. Also when she fell, the fall detection did not work !!! Luckily her husband was in the area to get her the help she needed.

Note: my friend sent me some added information that might change your thoughts or curiosity if the fall detection really works well. She was wearing her older  watch at the time she passed out. That watch was "bricked" when she did the update to the operating system and had to be sent in to Apple to be fixed. You might remember reading about that issue that Apple acknowledged at the time of the update. She things the watch I am wearing and what I am reviewing WOULD HAVE WORKED if she had worn her newer watch.

That sounds so strange since the few times I have had that fall detection activate with a simple slap of my hand, or my wrist in motion with a hammer or even slapping down on the kitchen counter as a test.

I am sure that after I post this review I will remember something that I have left out. If so, I will come back to add what I remember and color the additional thoughts in my crimson color I use here on the blog.

Did the watch cost more than I wanted ... yes. Here is a story about my past Garmin VivoSport and VivoSmart activity monitors (watch) before buying the Apple Watch. I bought my first Garmin VivoSmart for $110. After 17 months the band tore in two, a common problem that I did not find out until it happened. Garmin sent me a free replacement, the VivoSport. That was a model above what I had and it retailed for ~$162. How long would the band lasted on that watch?

So cost wise I was already at ~$273 in less than two years for the Garmin. I bought the Apple Watch Series 4 for around $425.

Conclusion --

If you are in the market for buying a 'smart watch' I feel the Apple Watch Series 4 is the best way to go. Expert reviews agree with me. After two months I still say it's the best electronic device I have ever bought and I have everything from computers, laptops, tablets and iPhones. The watch IS worth the cost and the amount of information that is provide is just like a desktop computer ... amazing amount of information right there on your wrist.

Even if you are in good health but are 60 years old or older, the Series 4 is a great health feature for not only as a warning system if something unexpected goes wrong but also as a health monitor AND as a tool that will get you off the couch doing some sort of healthy activity.

Definitely a good purchase.

Heat Wave This Morning

What a difference 20° makes! It felt like a spring day as we stepped outside today even with ice around the door and a few snow flakes dropping from the sky. The flakes were so few you could barely see them but they were there. Stella didn't hesitate zipping past me

I hadn't checked the weather when we left so I had no idea what to expect. It's really handy to look at my watch and see 28° and cloudy without grabbing my phone. The Apple Watch still continues to impress me and I'm really happy that I made the purchase.

I couldn't find many words this morning after we got back, so I'll let the photos tell you about Stella's walk this morning. The Canon G9 X is my 'go to' camera now on these walks no matter what time of day it is or the type of lighting.

Stella doesn't like walking through puddles of water and obviously she feels the same about the ice on our path as she moved to the left of it to get around it.

I almost had to backtrack to go get her but about halfway there, she started to moved away from that spot that had a lot of data for her to collect.

There were no noises of any kind, nothing on the horizon so evidently she heard something.

You could tell she was pretty lazy this morning. She didn't roam too much, stayed on the path a lot of the time, got a little running in and is now ready for the weekend.

Although the single digit temps had left us, it seemed like the perfect time to put a pot of beans on the stove. I was in the mood for beans and cornbread for my late lunch or early dinner and to do it right that takes some time to cook.

With the beans cooking and the hounds fed, we checked the sunshine outside. As usual there wasn't a lot of activity after lunch. Heidi did her thing and then got some aerobic exercise trotting up the driveway, while Stella thought deeply about her next move.

Mid-afternoon Stella and I headed out for another walk. I was surprised to see light snow flurries because it felt so warm.

About the only difference in this walk from this morning's walk, Stella went on the right side of the ice instead of the left side. That just shows how much excitement we had going on today.

The day has been slow enough that I have thought about changing the template of the blog, going back to the "old school" format with a sidebar on the right on the home page and the post page. Of course that makes the photos smaller but with so many of you reading the blog on a tablet or from a phone, that would not make a difference to you ... the size of the photos.

I am probably wanting to change it just to have something to do. Who knows??? {I spent a few hours Saturday night looking for a different template with a sidebar on the right hand said and fairly large pictures. I made all the customizations I needed on the new design, hit the "publish" button and changed the look of the blog. By 12:06am, I turned my computer back on and brought the blog back to the design I had for the past few weeks. It will stay this way.}  :)

It's been a slow, quiet Saturday here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.