Over Exposed?

Heidi could hear me, she could hear the click of the camera but didn't see me as I leaned and put the camera directly over her head as she laid in her chair. She has been the smartest of us all today. No sense in trying to make a slow afternoon faster when you can just kick back and enjoy what's there. No tv, no music, no sounds around .. just pure quietness.

I couldn't tell if it was raining again in the early afternoon. Stella was still sleeping after her lunchtime kibble. So was Heidi and I was nodding out at times. You can only play so many games of Mahjong in a day. Sometimes reading a book is like work, not enjoyable. I had no idea where to go, even if I were to take a drive. So I did what Heidi was doing ... I just sat back, relaxed and listened.

Either the water is rising underground or it has rained a little since our walk this morning. One step into the field felt like it was muddier than this morning. The wet leaves make it slick like snow but I was still paying attention and making sure that Stella didn't go near the land of burrs.

The afternoon pace is slow, one paw at a time. I was way out in front by the time she started moving my direction. By the way she looked I wasn't sure that she wanted to make this walk.

That tree limb fell in high winds in February 2009. With the windows closed and the tv tuned to an IU basketball game I could still hear it cracking as it fell. The next morning utility trucks all over the highway a few houses down.

I found out there was a tornado that has passed through that night. Near my house a utility pole had been snapped in half like a toothpick ... but the ballgame went on. I was totally unaware of what was going on outside.

It has been a long time since she went to the far corner of the field. I found out she went there for one reason and one reason only ... a lot of verbal herding took place and a small lecture as we returned to the path. 

Whatever it was, it was so good she stopped a few times to look back in that direction.

Now it was the sound of a very small dog barking. It's the same one as the other morning that stopped Stella in her tracks. I walked into the yard and waited, just so I could see what she would do.

In the north backyard where I cut a small tree down a few years ago.

After letting Stella be on her own for the whole walk, not counting the time I had to lead her back to the path away from the gross stuff she was eating ... she decided she wasn't coming in the house. She was going on strike.

So I left her, walked inside, took off my coat, poured a glass of water and I hear a bump against my storm door. That is the sound of her pushing the door with her nose to let me know she wants inside. I know she changed her mind awfully quick after I left her and was out of her view.

I was just reminded by a fellow Apple Watch user, that I cannot use just the watch even with the cellular feature. All that cellular feature does is let me use the watch when I am away from the house without taking my phone with me. I need the phone to download data the watch collects and to do the updates for the watch when they are released.

I knew there was a reason I wanted to keep my phone. BTW, she has told me that exact reason more than one time and I keep forgetting.

I'm going to set this post aside and let it brew for a while at 2:36pm.

Oh ... that's it ... now I remember what all of this was about. The OVER EXPOSURE????

A photo guru of mine saw my new blog, the photos from the Canon and thought my pictures were over exposed. So before this afternoon's walk I decreased the exposure on the camera three clicks to start and after a couple or three pictures I moved it up a click for a net decrease of two clicks on the exposure setting. I see a big difference in these photos compared to the last few weeks for the ones taken outside.

About the time I was having a snack, high protein day ... I checked the DVR to see if any new shows were recorded that I might watch this afternoon. I was in luck ... Homestead Rescue and Life Below Zero had shows listed. With a new season starting Building Off The Grid, I'll add that to the DVR timer to record only the new episodes.

It's nice to have a 2TB hard drive in the DVR. After 11 months I still have not filled one half of it. Later on once I need some space I can download those to an external hard drive. BUT THERE'S A CATCH !!!

To replay those ballgames or movies I have kept, I can only see them on a Dish Network system. If I were to eventually move to DirecTv or a streaming service, due to their coding and file structure all those ballgames and movies would be worthless.

Heidi has turned into a food begging monster. She has gotten to the point of wanting everything that I am eating. If she hears a cabinet door or refrigerator door opened, or the smell of cooked food ... she is right there looking up at me wagging her tail. She wasn't like that six months ago.

A day closer to snow Saturday night and the coldest temps yet on Sunday, here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Surprise Starts Friday!!

It wasn't that I woke up that much earlier today nor was it that I had a small load of laundry washed and dried by 7am. Nothing happened out of the ordinary on the morning walk with Stella, although she was on a different path than I had seen her on in a long time. The underground water is really rising to the top today, from the backyard to on the path from start to finish.

In fact the path was so saturated that I had to walk on the edge of it in the taller grass most of the way. So what is the surprise that was important enough to grab the title of this post????

A few weeks ago after doing a small load of laundry, meaning the water setting on my old Kenmore washer was set to "half" ... I mention that just to emphasize there wasn't a big chance of losing a fairly new wool sock in that load of laundry. I mean where could it go??? I remember last year pulling that same washer out of the closet to where I could turn it on it's side so I could see underneath as I was checking for a water leak.

No, the washer was not leaking. I saw during that inspection there just isn't a lot of things inside that washer cabinet. There was definitely no place a lost sock could go to during a wash cycle. Yet, weeks ago as I pulled clothes out of the dryer ... that new wool sock was missing. I was pissed.

Stella was so lazy this morning that instead of walking over to the edge of the field she only leaned as far as she could to smell that area. She didn't leave the path until the first turn. Different day brings different bloodhound routines. :)

So while that load of laundry was being washed, I pulled out my 33 year old Patagonia thermal long sleeve shirt ... it's still the best skin layer shirt I have, better than anything new I have bought since. I decided since that worked so well keeping me warm that instead of wearing the Columbia Sportswear fleece, I'd put on a normal sweatshirt.

So I am sitting at the computer doing my normal online morning reading when I feel something near my armpit. I reach under my sweatshirt hoping to pulls something out of from under it ... but nothing was there!!! Strange feeling.

It was there again. So this time I took off the sweatshirt, seeing nothing falling out of it, but I know the cause of that strange feeling near my armpit is caused by the sweatshirt in someway. I reach into the upper sleeve of the sweatshirt and pull out the missing sock!!!

You don't realize how something so small in life in general could give me such happiness. I was thrilled !!! To me there is nothing worse than missing socks, nothing. Especially wool socks in the winter, that were bought on sale.

So a sock is found, the laundry finished by 7am, today is starting off great. Plans and/or schedule are flexible of coarse but right now early this morning there is nothing I can think of doing ... unless I take a small trip around the area and take some photos of different .... hmmm ... buildings???

The Canon G9 was used this walk again this morning, shooting in manual mode so I can use the settings I set for color, contrast, sharpness, tone, etc. A couple of them I left at the default setting but by all the testing the past two weeks I finally have found the correct settings for the type of pictures I take.

Why not shoot in automatic? I do with the Nikon 3200. Well for some reason this camera's 'automatic' setting captures Stella's color, deeper and darker, too dark and I cannot adjust the light or the saturation to correct it. There is just basically too much color saturation using the automatic mode. Even those strings of hay are too dark and too colorful ... so I use the manual mode that has automatic focusing.

Stella decided she was going to explore 30' or 40' to the left of the path. I don't know what she had found but she was 'on a mission' of some type. Very focused. Almost too focused for her.

You can barely see a path of mashed down grass she is following over to the corner of the gully. She was in the 'search' mode today and not the 'eating' mode. That is always a good thing. :)

That's my path right there, muddy, soggy, you name it. I walked to the left of it on the taller grass. Stella walked right over it since she doesn't like getting her paws wet.

Believe it or not, there was no 'verbal herding' today. She was on her own from start to finish. She must have known it was a Friday, one of the best days of the week even if you are retired. There is just something about it being a Friday.

She followed that path most of the way home ... she was another surprise for the day.

We walk into the backyard and obviously the field cat had been in the area during the night. She explored every inch from there to the last corner but only along the very edge of the yard. I need to buy some sort of field camera and mount it low on the old fence post (?) or a tree so I can see what kind of animal activity I have around the house while we are sleeping.

I tried but could only grab one part of her full body shake and her skin going in different directions.

She stood and thought for a few minutes before deciding it was time to go back inside. She made the right turn walking right up to the side of the house, then followed that to the carport. I barely caught her as she walked around the corner.

Heidi woke from her morning nap about the time I was downloading pictures into the computer but after drinking a lot of water (normal) instead of heading to the door to go outside (normal routine), she jumped on 'her' chair for some more sleep.

You might notice if you make a comment from now on or at least for the next day or two, that I have added the list of blogs I follow, a dropdown menu of the blog archives, and the top posts or pages in the last 24-48 hours ... back to the blog. This theme does not have a sidebar on the left or right nor would I want one because I prefer large wide pictures on my posts .... so the only place this WordPress theme lets me put them is below each post BUT BEFORE the comment section.

Let me know if you like that or not.

Besides getting use to the new camera I have also gotten use to the new Apple Watch and still like it just as much as when I figured out how it worked. That did not take me long to do that and each day I find something else it will provide or a different setting I can do so it's optimized to what I want or need.

It still is, in my eyes, the BEST electronic device I have ever bought since my first computer in 1995.

I am finding it to be very very accurate with the information it provides. It is very tempting today to drive over to Best Buy, 27 miles away and trade it for the 'cellular model', then pay Verizon another $10 per month and then sell my iPhone.

I have thought about that possibility.

In fact I spent a day using nothing but the watch to see if that option of replacing the phone was even possible. It is possible, but then again, that iPhone 8+ camera is still a very nice feature to have. Even with the Canon G9 taking good photos inside in low light conditions. And ... that iPhone screen just looks bigger now, after reading, replying to emails and texts on the watch the past few weeks.

The friends I contacted by phone tell me the reception is so much cleaner and clearer than when we speak on the phone. I have noticed the verbal emails and verbal texts I sent have better spelling accuracy than the iPhone that is only 13 months old.

I also like the sleep app better than what I had with Garmin Connect. I like the Apple Health app much more since I have finally synchronized it to the watch and the Cronometer or MyFitnessPal food tracking apps.

Everything works smoothly.

It's so quiet this morning I can hear my ears ring here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.