A Surprise Starts Friday!!

It wasn't that I woke up that much earlier today nor was it that I had a small load of laundry washed and dried by 7am. Nothing happened out of the ordinary on the morning walk with Stella, although she was on a different path than I had seen her on in a long time. The underground water is really rising to the top today, from the backyard to on the path from start to finish.

In fact the path was so saturated that I had to walk on the edge of it in the taller grass most of the way. So what is the surprise that was important enough to grab the title of this post????

A few weeks ago after doing a small load of laundry, meaning the water setting on my old Kenmore washer was set to "half" ... I mention that just to emphasize there wasn't a big chance of losing a fairly new wool sock in that load of laundry. I mean where could it go??? I remember last year pulling that same washer out of the closet to where I could turn it on it's side so I could see underneath as I was checking for a water leak.

No, the washer was not leaking. I saw during that inspection there just isn't a lot of things inside that washer cabinet. There was definitely no place a lost sock could go to during a wash cycle. Yet, weeks ago as I pulled clothes out of the dryer ... that new wool sock was missing. I was pissed.

Stella was so lazy this morning that instead of walking over to the edge of the field she only leaned as far as she could to smell that area. She didn't leave the path until the first turn. Different day brings different bloodhound routines. :)

So while that load of laundry was being washed, I pulled out my 33 year old Patagonia thermal long sleeve shirt ... it's still the best skin layer shirt I have, better than anything new I have bought since. I decided since that worked so well keeping me warm that instead of wearing the Columbia Sportswear fleece, I'd put on a normal sweatshirt.

So I am sitting at the computer doing my normal online morning reading when I feel something near my armpit. I reach under my sweatshirt hoping to pulls something out of from under it ... but nothing was there!!! Strange feeling.

It was there again. So this time I took off the sweatshirt, seeing nothing falling out of it, but I know the cause of that strange feeling near my armpit is caused by the sweatshirt in someway. I reach into the upper sleeve of the sweatshirt and pull out the missing sock!!!

You don't realize how something so small in life in general could give me such happiness. I was thrilled !!! To me there is nothing worse than missing socks, nothing. Especially wool socks in the winter, that were bought on sale.

So a sock is found, the laundry finished by 7am, today is starting off great. Plans and/or schedule are flexible of coarse but right now early this morning there is nothing I can think of doing ... unless I take a small trip around the area and take some photos of different .... hmmm ... buildings???

The Canon G9 was used this walk again this morning, shooting in manual mode so I can use the settings I set for color, contrast, sharpness, tone, etc. A couple of them I left at the default setting but by all the testing the past two weeks I finally have found the correct settings for the type of pictures I take.

Why not shoot in automatic? I do with the Nikon 3200. Well for some reason this camera's 'automatic' setting captures Stella's color, deeper and darker, too dark and I cannot adjust the light or the saturation to correct it. There is just basically too much color saturation using the automatic mode. Even those strings of hay are too dark and too colorful ... so I use the manual mode that has automatic focusing.

Stella decided she was going to explore 30' or 40' to the left of the path. I don't know what she had found but she was 'on a mission' of some type. Very focused. Almost too focused for her.

You can barely see a path of mashed down grass she is following over to the corner of the gully. She was in the 'search' mode today and not the 'eating' mode. That is always a good thing. :)

That's my path right there, muddy, soggy, you name it. I walked to the left of it on the taller grass. Stella walked right over it since she doesn't like getting her paws wet.

Believe it or not, there was no 'verbal herding' today. She was on her own from start to finish. She must have known it was a Friday, one of the best days of the week even if you are retired. There is just something about it being a Friday.

She followed that path most of the way home ... she was another surprise for the day.

We walk into the backyard and obviously the field cat had been in the area during the night. She explored every inch from there to the last corner but only along the very edge of the yard. I need to buy some sort of field camera and mount it low on the old fence post (?) or a tree so I can see what kind of animal activity I have around the house while we are sleeping.

I tried but could only grab one part of her full body shake and her skin going in different directions.

She stood and thought for a few minutes before deciding it was time to go back inside. She made the right turn walking right up to the side of the house, then followed that to the carport. I barely caught her as she walked around the corner.

Heidi woke from her morning nap about the time I was downloading pictures into the computer but after drinking a lot of water (normal) instead of heading to the door to go outside (normal routine), she jumped on 'her' chair for some more sleep.

You might notice if you make a comment from now on or at least for the next day or two, that I have added the list of blogs I follow, a dropdown menu of the blog archives, and the top posts or pages in the last 24-48 hours ... back to the blog. This theme does not have a sidebar on the left or right nor would I want one because I prefer large wide pictures on my posts .... so the only place this WordPress theme lets me put them is below each post BUT BEFORE the comment section.

Let me know if you like that or not.

Besides getting use to the new camera I have also gotten use to the new Apple Watch and still like it just as much as when I figured out how it worked. That did not take me long to do that and each day I find something else it will provide or a different setting I can do so it's optimized to what I want or need.

It still is, in my eyes, the BEST electronic device I have ever bought since my first computer in 1995.

I am finding it to be very very accurate with the information it provides. It is very tempting today to drive over to Best Buy, 27 miles away and trade it for the 'cellular model', then pay Verizon another $10 per month and then sell my iPhone.

I have thought about that possibility.

In fact I spent a day using nothing but the watch to see if that option of replacing the phone was even possible. It is possible, but then again, that iPhone 8+ camera is still a very nice feature to have. Even with the Canon G9 taking good photos inside in low light conditions. And ... that iPhone screen just looks bigger now, after reading, replying to emails and texts on the watch the past few weeks.

The friends I contacted by phone tell me the reception is so much cleaner and clearer than when we speak on the phone. I have noticed the verbal emails and verbal texts I sent have better spelling accuracy than the iPhone that is only 13 months old.

I also like the sleep app better than what I had with Garmin Connect. I like the Apple Health app much more since I have finally synchronized it to the watch and the Cronometer or MyFitnessPal food tracking apps.

Everything works smoothly.

It's so quiet this morning I can hear my ears ring here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Questions About Apple Watch & Canon G9 Camera

I knew after yesterday's excitement with Stella's high energy and playful mood, then the FedEx experience, that today would be anti-climatic. How could it not be? We don't want to do all the exciting stuff every day, we need to spread things out during the winter. There will be days on end of excitement once the weather warms up. Heidi has definitely moved into her 'winter hibernation' and Stella is well ... just Stella, nothing bothers her. I did check shipping status this morning on the FedEx and Chewy websites. Both say the GlucoFlex Plus is on the truck at 7:52am and those famous words ... "out for delivery." Of course FedEx is protecting themselves by adding "By The End Of The Day" ... what 5pm, 9pm, or midnight?  LOL

Stella tried getting me up at 5:05am again today but it wasn't going to happen. For some reason the house felt colder than normal, so I did get up to check that. Then I remembered it was so hot inside last night, around 68°, that I turned the old thermostat too low ... it was reading 60° this morning in the living room. They both agreed another hour and a half worth of sleep was needed. Overcast skies means it's dark and even at 8am it's almost too dark but by 8:05am Stella was at her water dish hydrating herself for aerobic exercise and that is my signal to put my boots on. This morning it was back to hiking boots instead of the snow boots.

The ground was frozen which is a good thing on these walks. No wind so the 28° felt warm and Stella was on pace similar to what she does on the afternoon walks ... slower than slow. I had to do a lot of 'verbal herding' this morning plus backtracking to get her more than I wanted. Her stubbornness was showing today. Looking back to last night and yesterday afternoon, she did not miss a meal, a snack, a dog treat, and had the same position stretched out on the couch. All was good, so what the change in her attitude?  LOL ... she is just a bloodhound, that's all.

It was interesting that she was staying on the path most of the time and kept walked slowly way out in front of me. Not a lot of 'nose to the ground' in the middle part of the walk. I had already decided that if she was way out in front of me I'd let her do her thing and I'd follow. Just as long as she was heading in the general direction of our turnaround point, towards that tower.

It's something we have not heard before, it's a small dog barking in the distance and I hope it's from inside because to me it's too cold for any small dog to be outside any length of time. Maybe that is why it's barking, it's outside? Wherever the dog is, it grabbed Stella's attention more than a few times on this walk. She stared intently in the direction of the barking throughout the walk.

She backtracks to me ... so I can catch up with her ... then turns and takes off trotting away.

Some fresh new signs that deer were running on our path this morning before we got outside.

I honestly believe that if I did not do any 'verbal herding' and let her take her time .... I'd be outside all morning until she was hungry for lunch.

As you see most of the snow is gone. A temperature range of 14/1 for Sunday and those funny little snow icons show up for Saturday ... nothing major though, probably just ground cover if anything at all. Both NFL games will be on Sunday, lots of college basketball will be on tv Saturday, so I'll be able to handle any kind of weather ... but I am ready for the college football season to start again. Luckily my Reds have made some off-season changes by adding a couple of new starting pitchers, a new manager and coaching staff so hopefully the hounds and I will not have to suffer through a 4th straight season of losing 90+ ballgames this summer.

I have been able to steer clear of any tv news. I glance at news headlines online sometimes when my curiosity wins. It looks like nothing has changed much and won't change much. All the focus seems to be on the 2020 election, so they will continue to get nothing done in Congress. It's the perpetual merry-go-round, with a great salary, and a fantastic retirement plan.

Stella thought she heard that dog barking again, in fact I did too but she is looking in the wrong direction.

Maybe it's over there, in the north woods?

It sure does sound like it's coming from the neighbor's house two doors away from us.

There it is again ... from the neighbor's house. Maybe they are petsitting?

We eventually made it home, taking the 'old' return path for a change. It's pretty amazing how bad the yard can look now and then look so nice and green in April, after I mow. All the mole damage will be repaired by the natural spring showers and I'll be mowing 3x per week to keep up with the tall grass to start another summer. That word 'summer' sure sounds nice to me right now.

I'll be doing some online reading today on various topics, questions that need answered, ranging from my Apple Watch, the new Canon G9 camera (still), the best way to eat as an older male, ... things like that. There will NOT be any blog theme changes though ... I really like this design and setup I have now. Everything is good with the Apple Watch but for some reason after the 5 minute mark on my walks, it will stop and ask me IF I want to end the walk or continue. Does the sleeve of my coat set off something on the watch face to make it think I might want to stop my walk?

The camera?  LOL ... the camera.

The pictures taken this morning looked so good after I took them, while I viewed them on the monitor on back of the camera. They look great there. Then I download them into the computer and they are not. I have to do a lot of editing, especially on these morning pictures. I know the lighting this time of day is not the best for taking pictures. I know these same pictures will look much better if I take them again later during the day. So that raises the question, is an expensive camera worth having just for situational shooting? Like it has to have the right light, it can only be so far away from Stella? I noticed today in the information for each picture there seems to be a consistent result ... when the zoom setting is more than 15mm they are not the sharp clear quality I like.  Like Sally told me the other day in a comment "Why don't you just take it back!!" ... this morning that is a possibility.

If it was a $109 camera then I could see using it as a situational camera but not one that cost more than my Nikon D3200. I could take the same amount of money I paid for the Canon G9 and buy a new lens or two lenses. Yet, the size of the Canon G9 does make it convenient to carry with me.

We will see what happens.

In the meantime I will be reading Canon G9 forums about zoom focus points, Digital Zoom, and any other issues that users are finding. As far as my eating habits I am seriously considering sticking with an emphasis on veggies like always, just certain fruits, but finding the right protein sources while reducing fat intake. All opposite of Paleo or Keto ways of eating, that stress fat and protein. I don't follow either of those but have added more beef to my menus than anytime in previous years. I am also considering eliminating chicken and only using seafood as the 'meat' in my diet.

So a lot of reading today ... maybe a trip to Best Buy maybe not ... and the anticipation of that ringing doorbell as the FedEx driver is sprinting back to his truck. Drop and run is what I call it. Yet, none it really matters ... I am still retired everyday and love it ... my hounds are great house dogs and funny ... electronics work ... car works ... no crisis to take care of ...

Another find day ahead here in 'the tropics of Southern Indiana.