Stella Loved Her Afternoon Walk

Heidi was ready and acted like she wanted to spend some time outside this afternoon. The sunshine was bright, skies were clear and it was hard to believe what I had heard on the radio earlier .. snow is possible tomorrow. Of course in these photos it might look like it's in the 50's but it's not much warmer than it was this morning. With a Columbia Sportswear fleece under a North Face light jacket, (Brand names are not important ... its what's on sale)  Stella and I were able to take the afternoon walk without gloves. Let see if you notice any difference in the photo quality with these photos. The lighting would be much better than this morning or earlier in the afternoon to take pictures but still it's the same time as yesterday's walk where I was beginning to wonder about picture quality and my sanity. Others were also.

See if you notice any difference in these pictures taken this afternoon.

Stella wasn't going anywhere until she had her after lunch siesta. It's tough riding in back of the Mini Countryman, down narrow bumpy crooked and hilly roads. It was also what she always does after her lunch and in the same spot as this. It looks like Heidi has joined her today and that never happens.

After I got back from a short grocery store run that consisted of a large bag of mixed frozen fruit, a large bag of frozen blueberries, 5lb bag of red delicious apples, bananas, two more containers of Oikos Zero Yogurt, a dozen eggs, baby spinach, and some of the best looking oranges I had seen in a while ... it was time for a walk. The weather was just too nice not to be outside, even at 29°. You will find out later that I spent some time at a place you have never heard me talk about. Pictures were taken there also and you'll probably see that place as one of my posts on Friday. I've now got more pictures than I can post on one or two posts ... so the 'post bank' is building into a library.

I don't do too many things without the hounds giving me approval first. Stella stared intently across the field behind the house, sniffing the air to gather information to process. She finally decided it was a great time to walk and without even turning her head to let me know ... she took off up the return path.

I was actually shocked I was walking in 29° with no gloves, didn't need gloves and reached up to unzip the top of the jacket then the fleece I was wearing underneath. It seemed like those summer afternoon walks we take

Stella was showing a lot more activity than she normally does for her afternoon walk. She is usually following me, dragging her feet with each step. Today she was like she is on her morning walks, tracking scent and keeping on pace while lingering behind at times.

Can she smell the cat? Or is she smelling the food the neighbors leave out for the cat? Or does she hear something I cannot? I doubt if we'll ever know.

Places where she would normally stop to find deer scat, she walked over them, never stopping.

I was amazed at her constant motion. She must have had a deep sleep in that short time while I was gone to the store.

The 'holes' I mentioned this morning made by the deer hoofs while walking or running on the frozen grass.

The 2017 roll on the right and the smaller 2018 roll on the left. They will most likely stay there forever

I'll admit it ... I am really happy with the quality of these photos this afternoon.

I always take a picture in this direction as a reference, where I can tell differences in camera settings. It also helps when the sunshine is bright and the skies are clear.

As we made the final turn home I let Stella go anywhere she wanted. I wanted to see if she would follow scent to her right and all the way to those woods. She has not moved in that direction since Sadie has been gone. Maybe it was always Sadie leading Stella on those 'wild goose chases' instead of the other way around?

I turned just in time to get only one picture of her running. She was far enough away that I thought I'd get at least three of them. She was faster than autofocus.

It wasn't too far after she passed me that she slowed to a slow walk.

I thought I'd try a little black and white ... but I did not make that adjustment until I had downloaded it and was editing the pictures. Not all pictures are edited but every blog picture is looked at when deciding if it is going to be included.

She did not explore the edge of the bushes, or along the trees this afternoon. She just kept on walking without me saying a word ... not stopping to pose for any pictures ... she headed straight to the door.

Well it's been a pretty good day today. I bought only what I needed at the store. You can bet your ass that I will keep my bowls of fruit on top of the refrigerator anytime I leave the house. I'll take no chances of Stella eating seven bananas, five red delicious apples, possibly an avocado again. I think Contessa was right ... leaving her alone, shut off in the bedroom when it was her normal time to eat lunch made her motivated enough to break out last week and eat all of that fruit. She did not touch anything else in the house ... only the food she could get to. Luckily she has not figured out how to open the refrigerator.  LOL

I took close to 200 pictures today from 8am to 3pm roughly. I can see the differences in the pictures when I match them in my computer based on the time of day I took them. I have enough pictures from today to make two more posts.

I'll leave you with a surprise ......

All of the photos you see here on this post were taken with my Nikon D3200.

Retirement Life Is Easy !!!

I can get use to this great weather very easily. Just like retirement, it's another great day not to jump in that line of traffic 'flying' by the driveway and join them for another day at work. That is probably one thing I have never gotten tired of as I approach my 5th year ... FREEDOM !!! It is so much different to wake and start your day not having to follow a schedule. I can do what I want like the hounds do. Heidi and Stella basically dictate most of my schedule.

Even though the weather was great this morning for Stella and I on the walk, Heidi needed some extra sleep time. She did get up like we all do, had her breakfast kibble and then went back to bed. She likes to scratch the sleeping bag and blankets into the perfect spot before circling three times and laying down. She slept late today because I was up too late last night (2:36am) changing and fine tuning the blog.

I also found out this morning that the actual time on the clock isn't what dictates what Stella wants, such as her walk ... it is based on when she wakes up, and has her breakfast. For example, this morning we didn't start the day until 7:52am, much later than normal. So with her walk set to take place eight minutes after she woke up .... instead she went in the dark bedroom to sleep on the floor right after her breakfast (normal routine) ... an hour later she woke up, drank water to let me know to prepare for our walk.

Starting with this photo here I clicked on the screen in back of the camera to take the photos instead of using my view finder. Three reasons for that. One, I wanted to find out if my hands were really shaking during these morning photos that seem just a tad blurry to me. I wanted to see how hard it might be, since I have rarely taking photos like that. I will discuss the 3rd reason Friday or Saturday. :)

I was surprised actually how well the photos turned out with me not using the view finder. I also found out my hands are not shaking when taking the photos BUT when I pushed the shutter I noticed a few times that I was pushing in a way that my camera would tilt just a little to the lower left. It made me also wonder if my head against the view finder was a factor in moving the camera ever so slightly.

I have also been wondering if Stella's supplement, the VetriScience GlycoFlex Plus, was working or not. She is into her second bag. This morning I found out that the supplement really was working. She was running fast enough that at times I couldn't raise my camera fast enough to catch her running. By the end of the walk as she stepped into the yard, she ran and jumped into me wanting to play like she use to do with Sadie. We wrestled for a short time but there was no way I could take a photo of her with any kind of camera.

Stella was in what I call her tracking mood this morning. She spent a lot of time on the move with her nose to the ground. I let her go on her own and followed her after we made that turn at the corner of the woods.

I soon found out that she was going to lead me diagonally across the field. I had a hard time keeping up with her and for a few seconds I thought she might take off on me and head to the woods to the north. She did that a few years ago and I eventually found her in the woods. Sadie would always find her before I would.

With the 200mm zoom I was able to find her in the tall grass.

You can barely make out the worn path ahead of her made by deer traffic.

As she lagged behind me on the return path home, as I turned to get my camera ready to hopefully take a photo of her running ... she was already passing me on a full-speed run.

It was up to her whether we take the path that ends up at the north property pole by the yard, or take a left and follow the old path used for 20 years back to the house. This morning she headed left ... the scent was just too strong for her to pass up.

Verbal herding was needed here. Then some louder tone to let her know I wasn't a happy camper when she ignored me. She lifted her head to stare at me as if I was crazy, then slowly walked home.

Tuesday afternoon I decided to use only my iPhone 8+ camera. It does well with low light, close-ups and the 2x zoom ... but nothing more than that. I thought I took more photos than these two but college football must have shaded my memory from yesterday. Neither of these photos were edited in any way, straight from the iPhone.

I will be fine tuning the look of the blog today. Barney was nice enough to give me some feedback about the font color, something I wasn't keen on either. I fixed that but there are a few other things I want to fix that will require me to read to find my answer or use the free WordPress chat where their techie will give me the correct answer within minutes.

My priority is finding a way that all of the thumbnail photos on the home page are all the same size. When I inspected the element of the home page it shows the correct size is 200x200. So I have to find a way that any photo I add as a feature photo will be that size. In writing that I just figured out what I need to do, to make that happen.

My brain is on fire today with correct answers ... maybe it's the new year eh?

I signed up for and get the notices from USPS telling me the mail they are delivering that day or within the next few days. It makes a world of difference because in past years I knew I was losing some mail because I was getting too much mail in my mailbox belonging to my neighbors.

Today USPS is reminding me that society thinks I am old. I see the four pieces of mail I am getting today are for hearing aids, life insurance, funeral insurance and joint supplements. All will be thrown into the recycling bin after I take my name and mailing address off.

Since synchronizing my Garmin Connect app with the food MyFitnessPal app ... the food app is now adjusting how many calories I am allowed to eat, plus or minus my 1500 that I manually entered ... if I am not getting the amount of exercise that it believes I should be getting, based on previous activity ... it subtracts a certain number of calories from the 1500 for that day.

Some are reading this and saying "I don't count calories" or "That is not needed" ... but in my case it is. When I don't track the food that I am eating and counting calories I GAIN WEIGHT FASTER THAN EVER !! Plus it's like playing with spreadsheets I guess, in a sick way.

I still have the big urge for pizza and ice cream ... will I "fall off the wagon today?"

I just remembered since the font is now 'bone white' ... I will need to figure out how to change the color of a 'link' so when I do add links into my post you will be able to see them BEFORE you hover your cursor over them.

Well we are a little behind in our normal routine today ... the hounds are still sleeping and not howling or barking for lunch. Based on what I have seen so far, they will not want lunch until around 12:30pm local time, about an hour or so after their normal request.

I TRIED WATCHING SOME TV NEWS THIS MORNING ... 'tried' is the keyword there. By the time it took me to walk from my computer in a different room to the tv remote in the living room I turned it off mumbling to myself "I'm not going to waste my time with that shit."  (noticed how I tucked that period inside the quotation mark)  LOL

Well busy day ahead today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Bloodhound Tracking

At least the sun was bright this morning when we started our morning walk. I was still doing some last minute additions to the blog sidebar and I thought any extra time past 8am might make it a little warmer. I was wrong, the thermometer needle never moved.

With the frozen grass crunching with each step I wondered how long it would be before Stella started showing signs of cold paws. She never did and acted as if it just another morning.

You probably notice there has been a lot of changes to this blog in the past 24 hours. Deciding which theme (template) to use took more time than ever. With each one tried I had to move the info widgets around to where I wanted them. It's not a surprise that there is not just one theme that does everything I would like.This current design is the best I found for what I want.

I thought when I started I'd go simple, less cluttered, and still maintain the ability to list a lot of posts with a thumbnail photo, and a date that I published the post. Since I really don't like having  a lot of links at the bottom of my page that leaves me with adding a sidebar. Yet if I didn't have that sidebar the photos would be larger in each post.For those readers that have migrated from Bhounds and Other Stuff you will see the list of blogs and websites on the sidebar in alphabetical order. That is much different than having the blog move to the top of the list based on the most recent post. I don' think that format can change on WordPress but I will continue to look to find out and make any adjustments that I can find. I figured that was better than not listing them.

Also some of the newer blog designs make it hard for some readers to find the links, a comment section or how to sign up to follow the blog. I like that style of blog but I have never been a fan of the drop down menu once I clicked those three dashes. The information I want is hidden.So I have exposed as much information as possible on the home page and those links will also follow you when you open the posts to read. If you have any problems finding something or something doesn't work right for you, let me know and I'll see if I can fix it or make changes.

Stella always lets me know I can take the morning or an afternoon walk at a slow pace. No land speed records are broke when Stella is in charge of the walk. She has taught me to 'throttle back' in the life of retirement.

I like the change to WordPress for blog designs and putting a blog together. One thing I am going to have to look into deeper is their new editor they are going to use because when I tried it I did not  find a way to load all the photos at one time, then write my content between them.I have found it much faster to write a blog post if I can inert all the photos at one time before I start writing. Otherwise I have to insert one photo at a time as I write. The photos will look better on this blog. That is something I talked about in January 2017 when I tried this as my main blog.

I have added some new blogs and websites on the sidebar. You will want to check out Retro Roxie if you are a fan of tv shows, music, in the 1960' and 1070's. I'll be adding her Jukebox to my sidebar later today. I started listening to that late Saturday night and couldn't stop. It has music from the 60's and 70's with over 100 songs to choose from.

About the time I thought my walk was over, I remember that it was not my walk but Stella's walk. She had decided she wasn't finished yet. That little path she is on is one of the main deer highways that passes by the corner of the yard and follows the north edge of the property all the way to the highway.

I guess she was trying to show me that she really is a 'tracker' and not a 'couch potato' bloodhound.Not much going on outside of the ordinary routine today. Heidi never came up for air while sleeping except the one time when lunch was served. She is not in the mood to have her photo taken today as she turns her head away from the camera each time I have tried to take one or two of her. At least it is bright and sunny today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana at 30°.