Heidi Explores In The Snow !!

While living retired in the 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana you have to be flexible. Retirement allows me to be very flexible and the weather gives me plenty of chances to prove it. Like today. I was going to take photos every hour to show the progression of our small snow storm. There wasn't enough progression to note with a camera, so plans had to change. This was around 10:30am, about an hour or so after it has started snowing lightly.

A little later Stella and Heidi were not impressed with what they were seeing, smelling or touching. The idea of being warm and back inside the house seemed like the better idea. It wasn't even noon yet and plans are changing at a rapid pace.  :)

Heidi never got off the concrete, she decided she could wait to pee until later.

I sat at the kitchen table looking out the large picture window but it was barely snowing. I wasn't going to miss much if I didn't take photos every hour. Plus that early wake-up time at 5am was beginning to hit. I thought why not? Why wait until later this afternoon for that siesta I spoke of this morning? I was in the state of unconsciousness within minutes and didn't realized it was almost 3 hours later before I woke up.

My sleep app was happy. It didn't hesitate to let me know I had reached "their" goal of me sleeping for 8 hours in the past 24 hours. Remember flexibility is key when retired. :)

Three hours later both hounds were a little more curious than they were earlier. The temps were still borderline freezing so it felt warm. It had snowed an inch or more, maybe two, as the forecast said.

Off topic ... this blog design has a feature setting that helps tablets and phones load the blog faster. Let me know if you notice a difference on your device with my blog. In this post I have 42 photos, more than normal, so it should be a good test for that feature.

I could tell from what Stella was walking through the snow was really heavy and wet. Perfect snow for building a snowman or a snow cave but that wasn't going to happen. I'm a hot weather person if you remember. I am counting down the days until spring and the MLB baseball season starting.

With Stella tried to decide what she wanted to do, I decided I would sneak up on Heidi by walking along the back of the house to the north yard and see what she was doing. I was expecting to see her somewhere in the front yard, and possibly walking back to the carport to be let inside.

I was shocked to see her not only in the north side yard but up on the hill tracking something. There were no rabbits prints in the snow so I am not sure what she was interested in ... but she was focused and was on a mission.

If the snow had been frozen hard with icy conditions, she would have been sliding down the hill by now but since it was a wet and heavy snow she was able to show me her agility walking down what seemed to be a mountain to her.

She had enough fun and decided was time to get back inside.

By the time I turned the corner of the house and walked in the carport, both hounds were waiting for the door to open.

While I ate a low carb snack, caught up on emails, texts from friends and all of the basketball scores for the college games today ... Stella was acting as if she wanted to go for a walk. There was plenty of time to do that since it was just past 4pm. I also needed to get another walk today for some exercise. Snow boots on. Down parka on. We were off to see just how deep the snow was. It wasn't much that's for sure.

A walk is exactly what Stella wanted. She took off to get ahead of me.

This gives you some idea how deep the snow is ... not much. An inch or two of snow.

A very light snow while we walk but it wasn't going to amount too much.

Nothing like stretching a little in the middle of a walk. She was enjoying this walk this afternoon. As you can see the snow is a little deeper as we moved to the back of the field. Of course some of that is caused by the deep thick grass she is walking on.

That is the most energy with fast speed I have seen from her in a long time. Faster than a trot and zoomed right past me, moving my knee out of her way as she sprinted by me.

All this time I saw no signs of any kind of animal traffic since this morning.

Looking east ... that is where the storm is heading.

She was in a hurry to get back home. The photos make her look closer to me than she really was. I thought at first I might have to jog to catch up with her. What was she up to?

She wanted to take the 'old way' home and turned left at the "Y" of our two paths.

That wet snow is sticking to my boots and my jeans. Back inside with a hot cup of coffee was sounding like a good idea.

I heard this tree limb fall while inside my house one February night in 2008. I was watching an IU basketball game. I found out the next morning a small tornado had passed through the area, snapping a power line pole in half just two houses north of me.

Well it's been a pretty good day even while sleeping through three hours of it. I'm going to try again tonight to find a movie or two to watch.

I see while I was having a 'small' snow storm, down south tornadoes have been passing through different states causing damage. The U.S. Tornadoes twitter feed has been extremely busy today filling up my Twitter account with a lot of updates. It will track tornadoes from start to finish. Hard to picture snow storms in the northeast and tornadoes down south at the same time.

With the new blog design you might have noticed I added a few new blogs to the sidebar's "Favorite Links". These are blogs I use to follow and felt like following them again. Good bloggers with great photos and interesting stories whether they are traveling or are stationary like the hounds and I.

I can also see with the new blog design having all the links being more visible on the sidebar, is resulting in more movement around the blog. That sidebar is not only on the homepage but each page there is a post. Readers are clicking more of the blogs to read and more of my past blog posts than before on the other design. That is one reason I made the change this morning to the design. I wanted to make it easier for readers to navigate and see all the information the blog has to offer.

As I glanced around the outside of the house when I was sneaking up on Heidi, I can see this spring I am going to be busy using the high pressure washer on the house siding, the gutter and the fences. That power washer has been one of my better purchases.

Glancing through my Feedly and Flipboard accounts this afternoon I found a couple of interesting articles, related to politics. One is not a surprise and the other is a really long but informative article. She points out what my greatest fear is for this country. What concerns me is the American citizens will not pay attention to what is going on "behind the scenes" just like 9/11 and even as far back as Pearl Harbor. It's one of those situations where they think "it can't happen here" and that is exactly what the Muslims in power or in our government want.

It can happen and will happen if something isn't done !!

Here are the two links of interest:

Creeping Sharia is real

Bernie Sanders is always a surprise

It's normal to have snow in March and even in April here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

8 Days Until March !!!!

Sunshine always makes a difference, no matter what the temperature is nor what month it is. It just makes a difference. I had not even started my first cup of coffee when I could hear the birds outside singing to each other like it was a Spring day. It was 29°. Again we all started our day later than a few weeks ago but none of us minded sleeping an extra hour. I couldn't stop reading one of the books last night, just picked up from the library yesterday. Can you guess which one kept me up past 1:30am reading?

With the high today going to climb into the middle 40's, all of the frozen puddles of water were starting to melt in the yard. Although the large puddle inside the carport remained water. I was happy I chose the North Face snow boots to wear this morning. I use them as my rain boots also ... because I am cheap. LOL

Stella had her own plans this morning. She veered off the return path and headed to the middle of the field. As long as she was heading in the general direction that I was on the path, it was okay. I kept an eye on her while I enjoyed the great morning, a little past 10am. The air was filled with different kind of birds chirping away, the sky was blue and the sunshine was bright. A perfect morning.

I was wearing layered clothing with my light down jacket, not the parka. I really didn't even need my gloves but wore them anyway. As I walked, so did Stella at a pretty brisk pace.

Slowly without any input from me, she gradually moved toward me and about the time I got to the first corner, she cut me off, walking in front of me over to the brush area next to the woods. She was so close to me when she cut in front of me she almost stepped on my boot !!!

After I moved out in front of her, I glanced behind me and didn't see her!!!! She had walked down into the woods maybe 6' before I barely saw her. As I walked over to find out where she was plus prevent her from getting further into the woods and then down into the gully, she turned and walked toward me like nothing happened.   LOL

As we moved into the part of the field that was no longer frozen but extremely saturated, I could still hear the sound of the leaves and long grass breaking with a crunching sound with each one of my steps. Water came up along the sides of my boots with each step. Stella stayed just to the side of the path to keep her paws dry as possible.

I let her move along the back edge of the field at her own pace. I walked up ahead of her and had moved over to the path that Stella was walking on.I had not walked along the edge of the field in back for many months. It was also drier up there compared to the path we use every day.

I was able to take the same photo of the turkey farm and AT&T tower but it looks so much different today because I was standing at the edge of the field about 20' closer to the tower. In my eyes it makes a huge difference while I used the same zoom setting as I always do. I could not believe how different it looked.

When I told her "let's go home", she was happy with that and headed out on the path, with a few stops along the way. She is such a funny bloodhound. No plans, no focus, and walks as if she goes from moment to moment without any thought of a plan. To say the least, she is a pretty laidback bloodhound.

This does not happen often ... she beat me to the yard this morning.

What is she thinking ????

LOL ... I have no idea. Classic pose for Stella, obviously in deep thought.

With the morning so nice, she and I spent some extra time right there in the north backyard. I picked up some new limbs and tossed them into the overgrown brush area. This is the area I'd like to light a match to and burn about 20 years of dead limbs, dead leaves and give the ground some new area for new growth.

See .... she can be a nice bloodhound when she want's to be. She isn't stubborn all the time. How can you resist that kind of look?? Yes ... she does get everything she wants, at least 99.9% of the time.

For new readers or first time visitors ... that fence post and rolled barbed wire has been there since the mid 1940's based on the story my dad told me.

Stella still continuing to move to her right to finish her walk along the side of the house.

Just because it was beautiful outside Heidi still had sleep to catch up on and wasn't happy when I woke her up. Later she came out, inhaled some water and went back to sleep on the big leather chair. It's the same chair that Winston use to use, then Sadie and now Heidi. It's a great comfortable chair and I sit there sometimes for hours reading.

With the great sunny day outside at noon you would think that the hounds would have gone outside and stayed for hours enjoying the great weather. I was willing to stay outside that long. It was up over 40° and sunny. I think you will find the following photos shocking. I'll let them tell the story. No .... neither went any further than the photos show.

Heidi seems to like Oikos Triple Zero blended greek yogurt. The brand by Greek God's is a little too sour for her and she will not lick the last of the container. As you can see with the Dannon brand she has no problem burying her head inside the container to lick the bottom of the container. I always share it will both hounds.

I like Plochman's Mustard but I hate their container. I keep the nozzle clean so it spreads the mustard evenly. The problem is the mustard blocks the opening of the container and prevents the flow of any mustard, no matter how clean the nozzle is. So to fix that .... I poured half the Plochman's container into a French's mustard container, which never stops the evenly smooth pour when the container is squeezed. Is that politically correct to do in today's society?  (joke)

That just shows you some of the exciting activity around here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. I tried again, giving the hounds a chance to go outside to enjoy this weather but Stella did not wake up and Heidi went outside just long enough to pee and came back to the door.

Because of that I can almost assure that there will not be enough hound activity this afternoon to blog about. I will not get many more photos than what I have right now. Therefore I am going to post this now as my only post of the day instead of waiting until 6pm, thinking or hoping I'd have more photos to add.

So which book kept me up until 1:30am, where I had to force myself to put the book down and go to bed?

Hero Dogs by Wilma Melville with Paul Lobo.

I started the Bernie Sanders  book first yesterday afternoon because I was really curious what I would find. I started the book with an open mind and read 79 straight pages. It was interesting because many of the things that he wanted "his movement" to accomplish ... Trump has done since January 2017. Granted, Bernie wrote this book and what he wanted before the 2016 election but the fact still remains a few things have been accomplished by a man he hates.

Although I had read 79 pages without stopping, two names of people that he respects (in his own words) made me stop reading and my first impression of Bernie Sanders was correct. This is a man I want nothing to do with. Those two people? ... Linda Sarsour and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (my favorite dingbat)

Like all the other far left Presidential hopefuls, he wants to tax the rich and give more free services to those in need, middle to low incomes or those not wanting to work, plus of course ALL immigrants, legal or otherwise. Yet with millions of dollars in his bank account, and three luxury homes, I find it hard to believe that Bernie would like to give himself that same tax increase.

What he preaches against he has ... wealth.

Would he make the last ten years of his income tax returns public like he wants President Trump to do? Would any of the screaming Democrats make their tax returns public? Doubtful. Including Trump they have all followed the US Tax Code, I have no doubt about that but I also beliew a few people walked away paying nothing in taxes just like Amazon because they have top notch tax accountants.

Here's a tidbit about Bernie ... enjoy reading it:  Bernie's A Fraud !

Jussie Smollett ???   I can't stop laughing. What "a piece of work" .... let's see just how far they follow the letter of the law because I can bet my ass if that was me, I would be convicted as a racist, hate crime offender and would be behind bars the maximum amount of time allowed. Just mailing that hate crime letter to himself should put him behind bars based on Federal Law. Prove to me that I am wrong with that assumption.

A beautiful day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. I'm going back to my book.