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.

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.