Winter In April

It was less than a week ago where I was washing my car after mowing the yard wearing a t-shirt and cargo shorts. My brain was sure that "spring is here" with the hot temps of summer right around the corner. As Stella and I finished our walk this morning, the "feels like" temperature was 31°. It felt colder than that as we marched through the wet field.

Heidi Surprises All Of Us

It was a great afternoon with the windows open, the hounds sleeping next to me on the couch while I started a couple of new books while watching the Reds win their third straight game. We are now a half game in front of the Cubs, who dwell in last place. :) As forecasted, the winds started picking up some steam as the day went on. Nothing major but you can see I have some new tree limbs to start my burn pile scheduled to burn this November 2019.

I could barely stand up straight while I took the photo of Stella checking out the strong winds from the SW. I wasn't sure what her plans were but it was past 4pm and I needed to take our second walk of the day. She was probaby smellig those three trucks worth of fertilizer across the highway. I admit the smell has been pretty strong. It's just part of living in a rural area.

If you would have seen Heidi at 4:15pm you would have thought there was no way she was getting outside this afternoon even with the temperature hitting 81°. She had not moved hardly at all during the ballgame that started at 12:30pm.


When she sat up staring out in front of her with eyes barely open, I asked "do you want to go outside and go for a walk?" ... she didn't bother to even look in my direction. All she did was slowly turning left, changed the side she was sleeping on. I thought the walk was cancelled for sure and went back to reading my book.

It only takes me getting up off the couch and do anything and I mean anything, in the kitchen ... both hounds will always wake from a deep sleep and come running. After all, the only reason I would be in the kitchen would be to get some food FOR THEM ... wouldn't it?

So they both let me know they were ready to head outside when I asked them. Heidi marched across the carport floor as if she had plans leading us on the walk today. That one large limb stopped her in her tracks, where she had to think not only how to get over or around it (she's not a problem solver), or even if a walk was possible.

I was about 10' in the field asking her or telling  her to "come on" .... she slowly turned just like she did on the couch and sat down. She would enjoy the temps while Stella and I were gone but she wasn't in the mood to walk the half mile ... even at her pace.

She will usually trot out toward me and Stella to welcome us back but with all the new grass, weeds and wild flowers growing in the yard she had a few places she needed her nose to check out.

Stella was claiming no guilt to the new strip of dried bloodhound drool that my newly washed car caught sometime in the past 24 hours. It was the type of drool that flies through the air when she shakes her head.

I guess it is better to see it on the rear corner of the car instead of spread out on my 55" tv screen.  :)

With my short run to the recycling center this morning I was able to stop by the library to turn in the two books I checked out last week and see what they had on their autobiography shelf and their 'new' section.

Victor Davis Hanson is not a Trump insider, past WH employee, in congress nor anywhere near the political scene. He did not work for Trump in any way nor has he ever met him and has no plans to. He was raised in a Democratic family, still lives in the same house he was raised in, Central California and still farms ... he has written many books but the one I picked up today was The Case For Trump.

It's hard to put down and I'll return to reading it as soon as I finish this blog post that will be scheduled to post early tonight. Take a look at it online, I think you will find it interesting to read ... both fans and haters.

There were FOUR new books about diets, food, and scientific proof on what I should eat, in the "new section" and I brought home Eat To Beat Disease by William Li, MD. I'll not go into detail but I compared my shopping list and what I have been eating to his lists (he has more than one) of foods he recommends.

What I found strange, bananas and avocados were not listed in his book nor found in the index in back. Hmmmmm.

It was good to see that what I have been eating overall is all on his lists of good food. He also states that you can tie in his information to any kind of diet you might be doing or any kind of diet prescribed by a doctor for any specific diseases you might have. You do not have to give up those good food diets to do his recommendations.

Chewy told me they were going to file a complaint with FedEx based on my feedback on their website for my last two out of three screwed up shipments. I received an email last night (the 10th) they had shipped my GlycoFlex Plus supplement for Stella ... I received it TODAY !!!!! Just like they use to do. My shipments in January and March took between five to seven days to arrive after I got the first notice it had shipped.

I'll go back to their website right after I finish this post and leave great feedback.

So another day in the books, marked as a success. No injuries, no falls, hounds are healthy and wise, well rested and I have not had any crushing urges for junk food. Yet .... we do have our annual TICK attack. As with any warm weather in the spring the ticks are out in force and of course they like me more than they like the hounds.

One thing good about wearing shorts while walking in the field (never recommended) ... I could see all 8 of them as they walk on my legs and before they could attach themselves. I checked both hounds, inside their ears, in their armpits and everywhere else .... ZERO found. I won the tick game today 8-0 ... the Reds won 5-0.

A few years ago on my blog on Blogger, I added a little square in the upper corner of the blog with my name and the hounds names listed individually for our "tick counter" ... over 120 total tics in April of that year and I won the contest by a landslide. It was tempting to join them as they chewed their NexGuard chews that year. I passed on that option.

Thunderstorms tomorrow but I already have an idea for my blog post on Friday ... I'll have to dig up some photos but I think you will enjoy them. New readers, those since December, will see what I meant when I mentioned Sadie and Stella in this morning's post.

Another very very nice day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Anything Political Deleted

Some of you may be wondering where Heidi has been. She has been doing a lot of this along with her daily movement from one sleeping spot to another throughout the day. She will have sudden bursts of energy, running a few laps around the house inside. Of course she took a walk yesterday afternoon only because I didn't have my camera with me. She's good.

Monday morning Stella had other ideas on how we should start our week. I admit, I did see some very tiny rain drops hitting the back of my camera and it had rained most of the morning before we attempted to walk. She wasn't going anywhere yesterday. She turned and went back to the door as I followed her back inside without any morning walk.

Today was different. I'm sitting here mid-morning with all the windows open with a slight breeze and a lot of bird activity. I think I saw them building a nest in my front gutter yesterday afternoon. They are going to have to find a different spot because anything like a nest in my gutter will be removed this afternoon as I pull out my ladder to do some checking.

I'll wait for the sun and wind to dry out the front yard, so my plans to mow just the front will not take place until late afternoon. I'll start by cutting it a little high this spring so it will build a nice root system.

I've got some other yard maintenance plans today. I'll pull any weeds out of the mulched areas, pick up all the small sapling limbs I cut along the driveway bank a few weeks ago. I need to add a bag or two of rock down by the mailbox and I might even find enough time or energy to wash the car today. The weather is just that nice to get a lot done outside today.

I must say the NCAA Basketball Tournament was very enjoyable this year. Too much replay reviews for me, just like it has become in all the other sports, college or pro levels. After that last reversal with a little more than a minute to go in the game last night I was fed up with replay. If you have to take 5 minutes to decide if that pinky finger just barely touched the basketball as it was batted away by the opponent BUT DON'T call the foul right before .. then something is drastically wrong.

Just like calling balls and strikes in baseball. Sure the ball is coming across the plate above 90mph most of the time but that is why they are a professionals. They are able, supposedly, to call balls and strikes for high speed baseballs. Studies over the last 11 years of baseball has proven that basically umpires behind the plate simply suck at their jobs.

Oh ... the blog post title today.

I mentioned the other day I was thinking of getting rid of any blogs, or websites, even twitter accounts, that dealt with politics, immigration, Washington D.C, refugees in the USA and Sharia Law in the USA ... well I did.

I didn't have many that I followed on Twitter since I use that mostly for sports news. I didn't follow politicians but a few people I did follow did, so political crap would show up if the person either retweeted something political or was in a Twitter argument.

On my Blogger blog's sidebar I had the four links I mentioned in my last post here and deleted all of them. I had a couple of the same links tucked away in my Feedly Reader account and deleted them there also.

It was a GREAT decision to get rid of all that crap. And that is what it is ... crap.


So without those links anywhere in my online world and still not tuning into tv news ... I feel much better. I wasn't stressed out by the news but I thought way too much about what I was hearing or reading ... now I can think about the hounds, summer, the to do list, etc without all the noise from D.C. I do glance at the headlines online but that is as far as I go. It  shows me I am not missing anything.

I filled up a couple of hounds mitts worth of hound hair out of Stella again on Monday. I follow that up with the small rake with the metal tongues to pull out more of that undercoat that wants to get out. Stella loves being brushed.

The book I am reading about the start of Top Gun is a really interesting book. My first four years in the Navy were at NAS Miramar where Top Gun originated. I worked in a squadron of F-14's at the time. Great location, a LOT of traveling and every day seemed busier than busy. If you are interested in the history of Naval Aviation, it's a good book to pick up at the library or off of a bookstore shelf.

I'll leave you with the rest of the photos I took on this morning's walk. I've run out of things to say. Plus I find it hard to sit in front of this computer with such great weather outside. All of these photos were taken straight from the Canon G9 X, without any editing. I am slightly surprised that I like that camera more than my Nikon D3200.

Really nice weather so far this month in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Settle Into Spring

I wasn't sure any walks would be taken today when we woke up to a steady rain. Even Stella did not want to go outside the first time I opened the door to start our daily routine. It was nice to finally sleep with the windows open and hear the rain just outside the window. It looks like the farmer has a new low spot in his field near the back.

Just a little sign of how much it rained overnight. It was nothing major but it was a factor for Stella. When I grabbed the camera and said "come on, let's go", she didn't move from her sitting position next to the island. By the time I took the first photo of the field across the highway, she was at the door wanting to be let outside.

With a slight hesitation, she finally stepped outside and once she felt the wet grass, moved over to the river rock to follow the side of the house. You will see that she took a different route this morning ... what is strange, it is the same route whenever it has rained.

I was going to let her go where she wanted and I'd follow. I was just happy the rain had stopped long enough for us to get a walk in this morning. I had plans to go grocery shopping, that would take place right after we finished.

I am still locked into my 'diet', which is not really a diet but a way of eating long term. Like I have said before, it is not really much different from what I have done for the past five years. I have cut out dairy products though and can tell a difference as well as moderation on steak, pizza, or cheeseburgers. I've only had one of those three, a pizza, the past month.

Still I caught myself again Friday going back through all my notes, bookmarked websites and shopping lists to see which direction I want to go in my eating plans. I stayed with what I am doing with low fat, 30% protein and 55% carbs, while keepign around 1,550 calories per day.

Stella was on her own this morning and she wasn't waiting around for me. She was not eating deer scat, nor was she doing much exploring but steady continuous walking. It was almost like she was getting a workout in. With her winter coat shedding, I combed out three large metal brushes full of undercoat yesterday afternoon.  Heidi hardly sheds at all in comparison.

Stella's pink John Deere collar was getting too small so I went back to an older collar I had hanging inside a closet door. I think she might have worn this bright red one before. She doesn't like it when I take her collar off, she likes wearing one, where Heidi only wears her's when she goes to the vet.

Will Heidi show up outside today long enough for me to take some photos of her?

Just before we got to the first corner of the field, Stella moved over to our regular path, where I can walk and she can inspect the edge of the field and woods.

From the first corner all the way to the back, the path was this wet with a lot of standing water. You can bet your last dollar that it will be impossible to get Heidi on any kind of walk today and possibly for the next few days until the path dries out.

Besides thinking about my diet, I have also been thinking about deleting some of the blogs from my reading list. Those would be the ones I added to my list here a few months ago. You might remember them ... Frauds, Crooks and Criminals, Creeping Sharia, Kunstler's Blog, and The Market Ticker.

Yes, all of them keep you updated on what is going on behind the scenes, rarely reported by the mainstream media. Some of their news is quite alarming, a little scary and concerning. Others are just their opinions but the one consistent thing about all of them ... there isn't a damn thing I can do personally to stop what is going on, or control what is going on in the world today.

After a while I just get tired of reading about or listening to all the bullshit surrounding politics, illegal immigrants, muslims wanting their way of life to be in control as well as their sharia laws and the abuses of Medicaid and Medicare along with food stamps and welfare. Basically the generosity of this country has been and is being taken advantage of and that will not stop until someone gets some guts and does something about it.

Will all of this affect me and the hounds living here in bumb*** Egypt ? Most likely not. I compare it to the increase in crime, gang activity, drugs and the attempt at being a sanctuary city only 25 miles from me. I know it's there, but that is not here. We already have a meth problem in this area and have for years and that has not affected the hounds and I ... so ....

I think it's time to delete those blogs and set them aside with the deleted tv news in my house and continue to feel much better without bullshit running around my brain cells. I'd rather read books, work in the yard, do house projects and hang out with the hounds instead of hearing and analyzing the bullshit called tv news and the changing of the country. Maybe I can hide out away from it for the next 30 years and never have it affect me.

Speaking of book reading, yes I am still reading the book about Steve Jobs but I picked up a couple of new books at the library on Friday. Top Gun written by the founder of the Navy's Topgun flight program. You might remember the movie about it from the mid 1980's. Another book is interesting after reading only a few pages. It's called The Light Years by Chris Rush. Just after a couple of pages Sunday night I lost all interest in this book and stopped reading it. I picked up the book about Topgun and couldn't put it down.

With the NCAA Basketball tournament finishing up, there hasn't been a lot of time to read. Plus major league baseball has started so that fills in the gaps during the week nights. I do not sit and watch the baseball game's every pitch but will have it on in the background and will tune in if something exciting is happening. A lot of times I can read with the sound turned off and the games on.

Today will be one of those days. Reading, game on, windows open, with the hounds sleeping.

Stella took her time this morning but by the time I stopped my Apple Watch "outdoor walking" tracker ... we had walked our normal 16 minutes and for .53 of a mile.

Not only does my watch tell me when to get off my ass and out of my desk chair to stand up and walk around, but Stella does a great job getting me outside for a little exercise. She is not as demanding as Sadie was, but there are times when Stella will come to get me if she is in the mood to take the walk.

There was no sniffing around the trees this morning. She never stopped one time to check on anything ... she kept on walking, right around the corner of the house and straight to the door. She must have known I had to go buy some food.

All I will say about my shopping trip is ... stupidity was at its finest this morning. I was glad to get back in my car and get home without an accident due to someone else's fault. I swear I really wonder what people are thinking sometimes ...

Still ... it's another fine day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.