A Perfect Day To Blog

When the day is full of rain in the forecast I guess any excuses for not blogging are not valid. Plus I had an urge to write some updates, not that things are happening a mile per minute but actually in the laidback slow routine we lived in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. I have no idea how I can tell but I am almost positive that the hounds are enjoying a winter that is so much milder than their past ones. So today I will ramble a little bit and post a few recent photos. You can tell not much has been happening in the "blog topics' department. These photos were taken with four different cameras.

A few weeks ago I mentioned I had labwork done thru the local VA Medical Center. It was an option I've always had but I needed to stop by and straighten out some thing on my file since I had not talked to them in 15 years or so. I blogged recently how I had joined the VA Circus ... but they have done a 360° turnaround in performance and I can say they have been nothing but professional and proactive since my complaining here on the blog.

Having an annual physical there saved me time and money. Even around the Christmas holidays they had a followup appointment 4 days after they drew blood and urine. Then a nurse practitioner spent almost an hour going over my results, asking questions about my diet and physical activities. She mentioned that if I wanted they could make an appointment for me to speak on the phone with a VA Nutritionist in Tucson. I accepted that appointment without hesitation ... Two days ago I had more great news confirmed about my health and diet.

You may remember when I have written about different diets over the past 5-6 years. I've tried some not all. They were not really diets to me but just a change in what I ate or how. From years of going back and forth, reading journals online, books from the library, I decided sometime last year that my diet plan was pretty good. Moderation for dairy and beef plus ice cream. Yet there were times I would fall off that eating plan wagon hard and I would be on the extreme end of binging on all the food I should not be eating.

Basically if it was in my house it was gone, in large quantities. Whole packages of Pepperidge Farm cookies, full containers of Ben&Jerry's ice cream, too many slices of a large loaded pizza that would come with breadsticks and cheese or brownies for desert, chips, candy, etc. In all the years of reading about diets and health in books and online, I've never found the cause of such a drastic change in eating in a matter of 12 hours. What brought on these extreme eating binges of mine?

I found out last Tuesday talking to the nutritionist ... "not eating enough protein will cause those binges for junk food and sweets." I use a free app called Cronometer because it gets into the detailed nutrient breakdown on all foods I eat. Their database of food is fantastic and if it has a bar code on the package you can scan that with your smart phone camera and it will load the nutritional data.

From the answers I was giving her and the lab results she could see on her computer, she thought I was going great. Then she explained how I could stop these binges based on what I had told her. We both agreed that I cannot have those kinds of foods in my house. I can go out for a "slice of pizza" or "a scoop of ice cream" or have some "chips and salsa" as an appetizer before my Mexican meal but don't bring any of that stuff home.

We discussed different popular diets, different books that I had read, the food app to log all food eaten, then compared that to the lab work results. What fat I am eating is being processed normally with nothing left over as added calories. The little sugar I add to my coffee is workable with my glucose numbers at the low end of the normal range. Evidently my own diet as I called it, with moderation principals, was working better than I thought they would. She agreed with what I was saying and what I was eating.

Of course the bicycling I do is a great addition to staying healthy. Now I am not in racing shape nor will I ever reach that level of physical fitness again but what little I do is a key to my lab results and general health overall. Every doctor and nurse, except one, has said so. How much I ride outside is dependent on weather during these months but I still get on the bike on a trainer inside to ride for 0-45 minutes. Especially on days like today.

She also agreed with what I read in a book last weekend. The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up by Steven Masley, MD. Eliminating food is not the way to go but the way you eat it and the quantity. Some say beef is beef but the book and the nutritionist said that "grass fed" made a world of difference. Eggs? Only those from "cage free" chickens. Vegan or Vegetarian Diets were not a good option in her opinion. Dr Masley wrote in his book that even a diet like a whole food plant based diet that added fish, poultry and grass fed beef could reverse heart disease in all the tests he had performed for over 30 years.

Of course it's not the 16oz NY Strip steak but one that has been divided up into 3oz or 4 oz portions. I never could tell who to believe when I reads stuff like this since some claim that ONLY a Whole Food Plant Based Diet can reverse artery blockages. Dr Masley can prove it otherwise. Here is a nice sheet in poor quality photo that seems to help me so far.

How do you know if that makes a difference? What about those large cheeseburgers at The Diner sometimes? or back in Indiana at 5Guys Burgers? How do you know what is too much whether it be fast food, junk food or ice cream? Which kind of diet is best? I can only accept my answer by looking at my lab results.

Blood tested in the lab ... it doesn't lie.

During my VA annual physical they gave me a free machine to measure my blood pressure. I was almost ready to click the buttons on Amazon a few days before my appointment to buy exactly that. My apple watch does a great job of monitoring my heart rate but I wanted more data. I logged my blood pressure twice per day for 14 days and then went back to the VA nurse practitioner to go over the results. I could also download that data from the machine if they wanted to verify my spreadsheet.

I sat in her office on Tuesday at 9:30am BEFORE having any coffee and produced a 116/64 blood pressure reading. I was cleared with a "see you next December" and was on my way. The times I took it during the day of normal eating, two cups of strong coffee with two tsp of sugar in each up (16 oz), it still ranged in the 120s/60's

So without getting those Medicare "Notices" on what they pay and what I "might" pay ... I went in for free or a low co-pay that I have not seen yet, drew blood and urine on a Monday before Christmas holiday and the Friday after was back in their office reviewing the results. Two weeks later they confirmed my blood pressure was good and consistent ... finished and not a dime out of my pocket. I am getting different stories on the possible co-pay I might have to pay ... based on some military awards the VA tells me that I'll not have co-pays but I know Viet Nam vets that do pay a co-pay. I'll find out in the next month I guess.

The hounds have not changed. They are doing great and have never looked or felt better since moving back to Fromm Dog Food for Large Breeds in October. Heidi's and Stella's coats have never felt softer and smooth. Stella has healed her two small "elephant spots" that were on her hip bones ... I think the cause was the carpet in my house in Indiana when she would sit on those hip bones as she scratched herself.

Heidi is now going on every .57 of a mile walk we take almost every day except when it rains. She even gets excited when I take the retractable leashes out of the closet. They have done pretty well adjusting from walking in a 7 acre field of grass/weeds to walking on sidewalks with cars (not a lot) passing us, along with meeting people that want us to stop so they can pet the hounds. They are quite popular in the neighborhood.

Every night Stella sleeps in the same spot while I read a book or watch a movie or game. That smudge on the couch that I just noticed is not anything damaging or a stain ... the material has moved in an opposite direction when Stella used it to brace her self as she curls around into her sleeping position. They adapted to the new rule of not getting on the couch very quickly.

My new hip turned 4 months old on January 8th. It had felt great most of the time the past two months but I was still feeling some soreness or stiffness when I would get up off the couch or out of my desk chair. Colder weather made it a little sore ... then things changed almost instantly at that January 8th date.

The soreness and stiffness was completely gone and it did not matter how long I sat on the soft couch or on the hard desk chair. I was back to getting in and out of bed or cars and my truck the normal way, instead of sliding into the seat with by back to the door before swinging my legs around. I could feel the small changes in that hip area that told me all those muscles that were cut were healing and getting stronger each day. Those muscles were back to wanting to exercise, to ride the bike just like before my bike wreck. I don't have to go back to see my surgeon until next December which would be 15 months after surgery.

So healthwise I am good. Not bad results for someone who had their last physical close to 20 years ago.

As far as blogging ???

I am pretty sure I will no longer be blogging every day. There just isn't enough time for me to do that based on what my daily routine has changed into. Time passes quickly every day and before I know it 6pm is there on my watch staring back at me and I am not finished doing whatever I might be doing.

Activities have increase and we are not even in great weather yet. I read a lot more, I hike a lot more and I am trying to ride my bike as much as possible. The information I read in the "30 Day Book" gave me assurances that I cannot ride my bike enough and there was no reason to track my heart rate while riding unless it shot way above the maximum limit. That maximum limit is higher than what I was using ... the old formula of 220 minus your age. The MD author cited that formula as a very general estimate then gave me the correct way to find it.

Back to blogging. Like I have mentioned in past years, there are times my blog is boring to me ... very boring. Same photos of the hounds, sunrises or sunsets and certain hikes just on a different day. That kind of blogging doesn't excite me and I am sure if I am bored with it, so are you as a reader.

I've discussed this with other current and past bloggers so it's just not my messed up head ... you try not to but at times but you catch yourself taking that hike or taking those photos just to do the blog for that day. Then you wonder if those photos are good enough, can't I find something different and better to show people? Sometimes I'd ramble about nothing for pages and other times I'd sit here for an hour and thought of nothing to write about. I notice and do know for a fact that when I blog less I take fewer photos. I've regretted missing some photos in the past when I have taken time off from blogging.

Although it's easier, I'll not move to Instagram and use that as a blog replacement. YouTube is definitely NOT an option. I post a photo or two at times on Facebook for friends there that don't have time to read blogs but want to see the hounds. I've thought about emailing photos to readers that want to see the hounds but not certain that is a good move either.

Then there are the times I enjoy getting away from electronics like computer, phones, tablets and tv's. After the initial excitement of watching movies from Amazon Prime and the shows that Apple produced ... my tv time decreased rapidly and is trending to no tv by next fall. With a spring and summer of hiking, biking and local exploration in moving vehicles, the desire to watch tv in the fall may be completely gone. Tv time in my house is decreasing rapidly even in the middle of college basketball. So we will see what happens.

I've added some time to do some barbell training here at home three times per week. They are based on exercises recommended by the book author who happens to be a cardiologist. Most of them I was doing 7-8 years ago. I implemented my own stretching program for my hip once I found out there was no pain afterward. There was some during the stretch but not afterward so I figured some of that scar tissue was breaking up or stretching. No matter what it was, there is no pain now when I stretch and it's to the point of a normal feeling of good.

As the weather gets warmer I'll be out and about more and more. Not all the time but there will be times the hounds will join me. Yet the one time I took both of them hiking with me or really walking out by the San Pedro River/House ... Heidi wore out a short time after we started as she had her nose to the ground from the time we left the car. Stella had too many distractions ... from horse scent, coyote scent, possible snake scent ... just too many scents for a bloodhound nose. Let's just say they reacted the same way as Winston, Heidi and Sadie when we took our camping trip to Colorado and Utah in June 2015.

Two hands ... two leashes ... two hounds ... both wanting to go different directions at different speeds. It's the BREED not the dogs that make it hard for me to hike with dogs like I read and see on other blogs of those that travel. These two are not herding breeds but hound breeds and their noses are stronger than ever which equates to a LOT of distractions or new things to explore.

So that is about it from the 'Wild West" today.

The Urge To Blog Is Gone

Just like the change in weather, things change in life, in daily activities or thoughts. That is the case here in June 2019. I am practically forcing myself to sit in front of my computer to write even this post. Words are not there and as I scrolled though photos to post on this blog, I couldn't decide what to post.

Blogging about the hounds and I in a public format is over.

Yes, I have done it before a couple of times since I started in October 2011. For various reasons I came back but those reasons have also disappeared. At this point in this post I am not sure I can finish this ... the words are just not there.


I will say that I really got tired of this type of weather this spring and into the early summer months. I have emailed a few readers, ones I have kept in touch with over the years via emails, what the current situation is. For those wondering, I am fine and the hounds are even better. None of us have any crisis going on in our lives. So that's not the reason for the lack of blog posts.

I no longer want to stand down by the highway passing out current updates to our lives with photos to every car that passes the house, whether I know them or not. That is how I described blogging years ago. Sure, friends are made and have been made through blogging but the "privacy thing" as always been big with me. It's always lingered in the background of my thoughts.

I found out this spring that the more time I spent away from the computer the more I enjoyed life. Even when I was doing things I didn't want to do, it was still better than spending time in front of my computer. I found it harder and harder to grasp that hour or two it takes to put a post together with 12-25 photos in the post.

An ex-friend told me once some of the best photos you will ever take, will be those you don't.

Whether you want it to or not and other bloggers may feel the same way ... blogging gets into your thought process, your photo taking process and your daily life ... if you blog that often. You find yourself taking your camera not to capture possibly the best photo of the hounds but to get photos for the blog post that day.

That is no way to take photos.

I could be sitting outside battling the bugs, the gnats or mosquitoes and enjoy watching the day come to an end but battled within myself to get up, go inside and post something on the blog when I had not blogged in days. A feeling of 'obligation' sneaks into my daily routine ... and I've never wanted any kind of obligations.

It brings back that time I had an ex-girlfriend screaming at me "you have made a commitment ... not to make any" ... for the first time in our relationship we had agreed on something. LOL

I will say that my life and daily routine has changed drastically from what you have read on this blog and my old blog over on Blogger. I am back to bicycling again. I am back to loading the hounds into the car for local drives and exploring new interests. I no longer sit my first cup of coffee down in front of my computer in the morning and spend the first 2-3 hours of the day in front of my iMac. I'm outside enjoying the sights and sounds of another day getting it's start.

My time in front of a computer has decreased drastically and I like that ... a lot.

The hounds have had a slight change to their routines but all for the better. They still eat twice per day. Heidi still goes right back to sleep after her breakfast but a HUGE DIFFERENCE, she now goes to the door every morning around 10am expecting me to take her for 'her' walk.

Stella is now whining to go on her morning walk, if we are not outside by 6am. She is not only walking further than we use to but breaks into a fast trot and shows more activity than she has in many months.

Both hounds are looking better than they ever have and have done more activity than before. They are good.

The words reluctance and privacy seem to go hand in hand anymore when it comes to me being open on a blog. I gave it a gallant effort of being more open on the blog back in December. I cannot say I liked it but I did it anyway. Then I caught myself falling back into that privacy mode of mine of writing less about my thoughts and more about what the hounds were doing.

The urge to blog was disappearing even while I posted the past few times.

So where does the word reluctance come into play?

If I were to post like I did every day for a few years or many months, the possibility of unexpected visitors would be more possible than ever before. If I were to post current photos of the hounds, there would be a few keen readers that could figure out what was going on and might even go as far as knocking on my door to see the hounds.

Just like the strange lady I found one day a few years ago ... looking into the back bedroom window because she wanted to see the hounds. It didn't matter that I wasn't home at the time, she was there to see the hounds no matter what. I had been too open in my blog posts and the photos I took ... she figured out where I lived.

Over the years I have read more times than I wanted to, about blog readers showing up on the doorstep or knocking on an RV door of people that blogged, to see the people and dogs they were reading about. I don't want that to ever happen to me and the hounds.

Some might think that would never happen here but I have always leaned more toward preventing that one in a million chance.

I was careless before in my photo taking and blogging and thus the strange crazy lady looking in my windows, for the hounds. I'll not make that mistake again.

So combined with the the lack of words to type, the lack of interest for sharing my life and the hounds to the world, and the big reluctance to post photos that would blow our cover ... I cannot see anyway I can continue blogging in a public platform.

For some, this announcement might bother them or as in the past, in a few it will anger them. I'll hear from them since I have not changed my email address nor do I plan to. Some readers are bloggers and will understand what I have spoken about and others that don't blog will think that I am selfish, possibly crazy or even lazy ... I mean it can't take that much time to put a blog post together.

After all it only takes a few minutes to read one of my posts and only seconds to scroll through the photos. So it can't take that much time to blog.

To those readers I suggest you start your own blog and write about every little thing in your life and what you are doing. Take a million photos per day, download them, edit them and post the ones you like and open your door to any blog reader that wishes to stop by to visit you or see your dog, cat, reptile or plants.

For those readers that stopped by my blogs to take a look at the photos over the years, made comments or sent emails ... thank you for taking your time to stop by the blog. I found an enjoyment in taking photos and blogging then ... I don't now.

As each hound passed, things changed. The blog changed, I changed. I know that is just part of life but as I get older I find it harder to lose a hound. Sometimes those walks through the field were not as enjoyable as they once were because past memories overtook the walk Stella and I were on.

When she started losing interest in taking the 2 walks per day through the field, I did too. The window of finding things to blog about and to take photos of got smaller and smaller. Activities outside called life ... became more important than blogging. I cannot even find time to blog privately in my journal and the urge to do so is also evaporating.

So there it is ... it's the best I can do in trying to explain ... still a poor job of doing so.

Add me to the list of other bloggers that have stopped blogging for one reason or another. Some made an announcement and others just drifted out into the black space called the internet.

The hounds and I are more than happy with the change in our lives.

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.  :)