Teasing Us With Spring

With it raining most of the day yesterday there just wasn't any chance of taking an afternoon walk, otherwise all three of us might have floated away while walking the path. Heidi came out late afternoon but only to relieve herself and then headed back inside. The warmer afternoon temperatures are nice but those overnight lows make it quite cold first thing in the morning.

So when Stella and I went out for our first morning walk in two days, the "feels like" temperature was 23° !!! The forecast is telling me it will get up to 51° later today and that is fine with me. With the wide range of temperatures in a 12 hour period, Spring is teasing us. I want to feel the heat of the sun, not just see its brightness.

Cold temperatures were not the start to our day though. That happened in the dark bedroom a little after 5am when I thought I heard bloodhound toenails pacing back and forth on the hardwood floor in the bedroom. It's a familiar sound and I knew Stella was wanting to go outside. I could hear her stomach making those gurgling sounds again and figured she would eat some grass to settle her stomach

With it freezing cold outside I wasn't going to accompany her, even with a coat. I wasn't planning on getting dressed to go outside and figured she would be back at the door to come inside within 10-15 minutes. With the announcement of Apple updating their macOS, it was a perfect time to download that 2.5Gb of data while I waited on Stella. It would be a total of 5Gb for my iMac and MacBook Air and with the free data period (2am-8am) it would be the perfect time to do the update.

I have noticed Safari is faster than before after that update. There were some updates to their built-in privacy internet program. I found it interesting that I had to give my computer permission to allow access to Google Mail or the other way arround. I had not seen that before anytime since October 2010. I only use my gmail address to log into my blog on Blogger.

With the moon in the southern sky, I had a passenger plane flying from the north. When I see plane traffic I always wonder what their destination is and what model of plane they are flying. I am around 70 miles south of the Indianapolis airport so I do get to see a lot of air traffic, especially at night.  I forgot to mention that within a few steps of our walk this morning my face and hands were freezing as if the temperatures were in single digits.

One good thing about the freezing temperature this morning, the wet soggy path was frozen hard enough to walk on. Just the little bit of sun you see up ahead turned that frozen path into over saturated softness and as we approached the back of the field there was standing water on the path in the two to three usual places.

When you miss a day of walking due to weather you can count on the strength and number of scents will keep Stella more than busy. Just after she made that first turn I didn't know if we would ever leave that area. To get from this picture to the one below where she was on the right side of the path, looking in her direction, it took half the total time we used to finish the walk. She wasn't eating deer scat, just thoroughly investigating what her nose was picking up.

She darted across the path as if she was onto something but it was a false alarm. Within seconds of the sudden change in direction, she was walking toward me.

I did look at the different WordPress Themes yesterday. They have added quite a few new blog designs, or what Blogger calls templates. I've never gotten use to the word theme that WordPress uses. Either I was too lazy to really look for something different or I had lost my urge to make any changes ... nothing happened and I doubt I looked longer than three or four minutes. I decided a late afternoon siesta was the better option.

My own test with grains, beans and wheat bread continued yesterday. I am still eating some of those foods until they are gone. I hate wasting food and I wanted to see what combination caused indigestion. I have confirmed it does not matter if it is normal Jif Peanut Butter or one that is a different brand with "natural" on the label ... I can no longer eat Peanut Butter of any kind.

David's Bread is a high quality organic wheat bread with grain and seeds ... sometimes I can eat it without issues and other times I am reaching for a Tums. I am cutting out all grains anyway, so that will take care of that problem.

I went to the US News & Word Report where a panel of medical experts test, analyze and rank over 40 different diets. I've looked there before in past years. Their latest review was this past January. They have never had anything good to say about Paleo or Keto. This morning I had a different idea. I wanted to look at three kinds of diet and pull off their macronutrient percentages.

The diets I looked at were Mediterranean, Flexitarian and Paleo. For a man my age the recommended daily calorie intake is 2,200 grams per day. That is an US recommendation not the panel of experts. I wanted to see what percentages were recommended for Protein, Fat and Carbs. After writing them down so I could look at them to compare the three diets, there were some pretty interesting results.

For those that don't know how to convert a percent of those three topics into grams of food allowed per day ... the formula is this:  calories times the percentage, divided by the number of grams for Fat, Protein and Carbs. There are 4 grams of carbs and protein per calorie. There are 9 grams of fat per calorie.

An example for a daily intake of 2,200 calories would be:

2,200 x .29 / 4 = 159.5 grams of Protein per day in the Mediterranean Diet. It did recommend to eat only 1,527 calories per day for a man my age, so the amount of protein would be reduced.

As I looked at the different limits by each type of diet, it all fell in line with the way I have been eating for a year or so. I call it "My Diet" because I take a little from each kind, overall. I have tried enough of these diets since 2014 that I know which veggies to buy, which fruits to eat if I want to lose weight and those I can add back if weight is not an issue. I know that most of my diet has been and will be fresh veggies and fruits with more salmon, trout or halibut than chicken or beef.

Some of those days will be meatless, mixed in, not intentionally but because there will be times I will want to eat some veggie recipes I have used in the past, like Spinach Lasagna. Once or twice per month I'll lean Keto/Paleo where it's only meat and veggies. Pizza or burgers on special occasions I guess.

I was about to give up all dairy products because the short time I have eliminated them, my winter cough has decreased and my sinuses are clear of mucus. Yet, there are too many articles that overlap different diets that consistently mention cottage cheese and greek yogurt as beneficial for gut health.

I have to watch it if I add those two because I am addicted to both cottage cheese and yogurt.

Yesterday was my first day in a long time of getting on my road bicycle that is attached to an indoor trainer, where I can ride inside. I am still feeling the soreness after an easy 30 minute ride. Stella sat and watched me, not sure what was going on. Heidi slept through all the excitement. For a while I plan to ride every other day inside and hopefully be in good enough shape by warmer weather in April to take 25-40 mile rides outside. The 40 mile ride use to be the daily norm after work, then a 100 mile ride one day on the weekend.

I am probably past the days of riding those 100 mile rides.

So things are pretty well set up I think as far as eating. I have some new things I want to do besides the to do list. I need to get in better shape because just the short hour of climbing, leaning around the bank along the driveway cutting small saplings had me sore for a couple of days.

I didn't watch the Apple announcements yesterday. I never do but always read the day after articles to see what they are going to do. Since they don't sell software like Microsoft does they have decided they have to make their billions somewhere else. People like me are not upgrading or buying a new iPhone. Once I read that their new version of Apple TV would not carry prime time sports, there was nothing for me.

From what I have read the past year, Apple TV is the best streaming service of all, but if I cannot use it to watch live games in football, baseball or basketball, then this Apple customer will not buy their Apple TV services.

Speaking of sports, besides a day of bright sunshine I will get to watch a Reds game this afternoon in Atlanta and then an IU basketball game tonight at 7pm. Fit in an afternoon hound walk, some steamed broccoli and baked salmon ... that is almost a perfect day.

It's good to see the tables have turned in D.C. All I can say is, payback is a bitch and I hope they nail every one of them involved. I hope Lindsey Graham gets his request for a special counsel to investigate those involved with the real corruption and those whom directed this mess.

How many of you have lost friends due to politics since pre-election 2016 ??

It's trying to get warmer here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana and that's a good thing.

A Bloodhound Nose ??

Basset Hounds are bred to flush rabbits out and into thick brush, the woods, a field or a backyard. To do that Heidi would have to get out of bed first and it's almost 11am. I have seen a Basset Hound in action though and Sadie (the WA Basset Hound) did just that, flush a rabbit into the thick brush where the rabbit stops in panic. The shoulders of the Basset Hound is made specifically to charge through brush so thick you cannot even walk through it.

The Bloodhound has the better nose though and is bred to track deer whether they are walking through a field or woods and after a hunter has shot them. A few years ago Sadie and Stella would sprint after deer they would see in the field but I haven't seen a deer in this field since November 2017.

From the pictures I take of Stella everyday you would think that she has a great Bloodhound nose but I have two pictures today, really just one picture but two stories, to prove she either doesn't have a great nose, or maybe she lost focus or maybe since it wasn't deer scent she didn't care. Yet we all know how she loves deer scat. Her nose story continues.

As I walked over to get a better view of this tree limb, I practically stepped on a rabbit hiding in the brush. It was not more than a foot away from me when it took off sprinting toward the gully. Heidi has a great nose for tracking rabbits and no doubt would have been baying and chasing that rabbit as fast as she could. I've seen her do it in this field but not today, she was still in bed.

Stella had walked right past the rabbit no further away than the distance from the path on the left to the edge of the brush on the right. What, maybe 10' away? She is well past the place I almost stepped on the rabbit so she is not even close. Don't let that picture throw you off.

Now Stella does not have the worst nose in Bloodhound history because she does show signs of tracking deer scent or deer trails just like this morning. There were a million signs that deer had been running through this field a few hours before we made our appearance. I don't think you would want to see a million pictures of a deer hoof print in the soft ground so I have included just one of those pictures further down the blog post.

Sadie was 'the tracker' ... strong strong desire to track scent. Stella has a more relaxed approach to her tracking. I have no doubt that she would stop immediately if I mentioned the word "food" or had some small bone treats in my pocket. THAT is one thing she can track ... any kind of food or treats.

In my lightweight down jacket I was enjoying this Saturday morning walk with no wind to speak of. WeatherBug said it was 34° but my carport thermometer said it was 42°, so I kept picturing that 42° in my head as I walked. Hard to believe it will be in the teens on Monday for a high temp of the day.

I let Stella go where her nose led her. After all she is a Bloodhound and looks as if she is tracking something. So I veered off my path to follow her.

You can barely see a path straight ahead and that was made by deer traffic. The camera did not capture the path as clear as my eyes.

This is a little better view of a deer path cutting across the middle of the field to the left of me as I followed Stella.

Looking at those two pictures you would think that I am entirely wrong with my assessment of Stella not being a tracker. She looks professional in each of those pictures. Remember how much she loves finding deer scat and adding that to her kibble diet as more protein? Remember how good her nose is supposed to be?

Well she literally walked right over the top of not one of these piles of deer scat but the second pile not two inches away. HER NOSE WAS DOWN LESS THAN AN INCH ABOVE GROUND !!!! How did that happen? Too old? Too new? Not hungry? Lack of focus?  :)

This is one of the million pictures I took this morning of deer hoof prints in the soft ground. They were everywhere, from right on my path to all over the field. So there is deer still in the area, I just have not seen any of them.

With her tracking scent over this morning, she starts the slow walk home. When I say slow, I mean even slower than that. Each step is in slow motion so that you wonder if that front paw is ever going to touch the ground. She walks like she is suspended in air as I anxiously await for her to catch up to me. I'd like to get back to the house for a brunch I plan to make sometime today.

Then ... a sudden burst of energy where she is almost running BUT she has to do a full body shake at the same time she is running. As her body goes forward trotting, her ears show that her head is moving left to right back and forth as she shakes. Who needs a good Bloodhound nose when you have agility like that?

Obviously after five weeks of the lamb based dog food instead of chicken as the main protein source, that has not made a difference in her scratching. No fleas that I can see. No red bumps, no skin irritations. It just itches.\

With another Saturday morning walk in the books she was energized to get back inside so she could sleep. Her and Heidi's eating schedule is off today, way off. All because of Stella.

Since I was in a deep sleep I have no idea what woke me but when I finally came out of it I heard hound toenails making a sound on the hardwood floor as if they were pacing or moving back and forth. At first I thought it was Heidi because she kind of tip toes in the dark but then I heard a stomach making a gurgling sound ... that is always Stella.

So I got out of bed to let her go outside. It was pitch black in the house and outside because it was 4am !!! While she trotted off around the Mini out towards the field, I put on my lightweight down jacket and slipped on my cheap Chinese flip flops and headed outside with my bright LED flashlight. It wasn't that cold outside even while standing there in a pair of Russell Athletic Gear gym shorts.

I could see as I stood behind the house she was straight out from the house halfway between the yard and the woods. She had found some nice tall, possibly wet grass to eat and was eating like it was her last meal. Luckily when she was finished she trotted to the house where I was standing. It may have been more about me sneezing than her being obedient.

Of course, since I couldn't go back to sleep I got up. Computer on, lights on, with Heidi still sound to sleep. Stella was checking out the dog food container to see if the lid just might be off or loose for her to grab some kibble ... at 4:15am!!!

Finally after 30 minutes and hearing her stomach gurgling again I decided that maybe some kibble would settle her stomach. Of course as soon as that measured cup of kibble hit Stella's stainless steel bowl .. Heidi woke up and came sprinting to the computer room because breakfast was being served.

Yes, they both had breakfast at 4:30am.

Just like their normal routine after breakfast, they both went back to their dog bed and slept soundly. I never heard Stella's stomach gurgle again after that. So you would think by now as I type this both hounds would be barking and howling for lunch but they are both asleep ... that's what happens when you get up at 4:30am.

I did get back to sleep for a solid four hours of sleept. Thus the late start for the morning walk.

I have a basketball game I want to watch at noon. Right before that I plan on having eggs, with steamed spinach right there in the cast iron skillet and warmed up salmon. This change in eating is really helping and I continue to feel the change in appetite and the amount of food I eat in a day. Getting under 1,500 calories is not intentional but is easy to do with what I have been eating.

Otherwise, I have no plans after the ballgame is over. The book about Steve Jobs is a very slow read but at the same time it is very interesting. I bought the book when it first came out four or five years ago but never finished reading it. So that is the plan, read the book from start to finish.

I'll see what Heidi has planned for this afternoon but I can almost bet that it will not be much different from the pictures I posted last night about her afternoon. She might stretch her threshold down to 60° but until then don't expected a lot of active pictures of her outside.

Hard to believe we are 29(?) days from April.

All is good this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.