My Rambling Is Back

I gave the reins to the hounds just three days ago and you may have noticed they did not want to do anything but post a paragraph and all pictures. That works out well for me since they have hired me to do all of their IT work, but there are times I just have to ramble. I'll explain as I narrate through these photos.

This morning the forecast was telling us no rain until later this afternoon. The radar showed a little rain about 25 miles west of us, would we have time to get in a morning walk? Did Stella know something I didn't? She was on 'Winston's Patio' and wasn't moving ... she was in her stance of "I'm not going anywhere" look.

When it gets to back to back days of hot sunshine I will be killing those weeds in the driveway with spray and high pressure hose on the gutters to get the winter wear off. Stella was more interested in the loud noises, not seen, a short distance away.

She finally decide we had enough time to walk before the rains. Is this why I feel like writing this morning? The weather? Or is it because I am not motivated enough to strike off something else on the '2019 To Do' list? Or is it because I have a few more things completed the past two days than I had planned on and am ahead of schedule?

Who knows ... but I felt like writing.

Maybe she sensed rain was in the air because she didn't stop to eat wet grass, nor did I have to verbally coax her into walking ... she took off, leaving me behind with a steady walking pace.

Something dawned on me after reading RVSue's post today. She has turned into a blogger that blogs from home instead of when she was traveling full-time. She also has two dogs and lives in an area where it might NOT be 'dripping with drama' and gobs of excitement, just like here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. So I understand what she is saying about blogging less.

At the same time it refreshed my memory banks to where I could remember from past times on this blog and on my older blog on Blogger, the feedback I got from readers saying they enjoyed reading about my daily life in 'the tropics' and they loved seeing the hounds every day even if it was in the same yard or the same filed. It was humbling to read years ago when an older couple in snowed in Buffalo NY said my blog was the highlight of their day ... they LOVED reading about and seeing all the hounds.

I realized that I like reading about the daily lives of RVSue and Al over at the Bayfield Bunch, plus others, whether they are traveling or just doing their normal routines around the house. If they were to stop writing and just post nothing but photos how would I feel? We blog readers are all different. Some of us just scroll through the photos, some read every word even wanting more details and some of use do both.

So I have reverted back to my binder titled "Steve's Blog Policy and Procedures" to Chapter 23, Page 1,102, Section 6, Paragraph 2 where it states Steve will blog when he feels like it as well as ramble incoherently when he feels like it and is given full authority to change his mind as many times as his brain wants him to  without penalties.

So here I am talking with no signs of order or topics in logical sequence.

I'll be a whopping 67 years old in a couple of weeks. These all leather shoes are THE BEST shoes I have ever worn and that includes a nice running shoe (never jog or run), or the trail shoes that barely fit over your feet. These are made by Keen and are so comfortable I could wear them 24/7/365. As you see I guessed wrong that the path would be dry this morning.

Stella did not stop one time on her venture as I lagged behind. Not even for her daily dumping of tanks that take place before this first corner. She is on a mission this morning and I can only assume it's because she thinks the rain is closer than the 25 miles the radar shows.

Since I am writing this a few hours after this walk where I had a million things I wanted to talk about, you know by now I am fighting hard to remember what those million things were and my train of thought is wavering. I't scattered at best and I'm going to have to have my best effort to refocus if this post is going to amount to anything.

Being a blogger is an interesting thing, not only to me but to others too. I am seeing more and more bloggers finding it hard to write about something or finding the time to write about something either because the weather is good or bad, or they have been writing for 10 years or more. I will be at 8 years this October, counting the few times I deleted everything and quit, only to come back in time where I could recover my deleted blog and not lose any posts or photos.

Sometimes it is the time (too long) it takes to put a post together. I do less and less editing with that Canon G9X camera I bought back in January. Still by the time I sit down to move the photos from the camera to my computer, look at them and choose the ones I am going to use, then upload them into the post (I do that first and then write between photos - it's faster that way) ... It might be an hour or two before I click that publish button or the schedule button for later today.

Some days I have the time to do that and other times I've been busy enough that just sitting down long enough to put a post with one paragraph and a bunch of photos is even hard to do. Be sure though, I am taking the time, long or short, to write because I DON'T HAVE to but because I WANT to. I know myself well enough that if it was that much of a pain in the butt to do .. I'd quit.

Speaking of the word "quit" ... see how my brain works ??  LOL

If you remember from a few weeks ago, I quit logging in all of the food I eat during the day into the Cronometer app. I admit it, I have felt a change and a nice one. It is just nice to eat something without logging it in. I said it before. I know what I need to eat and I know I buy basically the same food on my trips to the grocery. I know what is healthy and what isn't. For example I know that Ben & Jerry's NON DAIRY ice cream is NOT nearly as good as their regular ice cream.  :)

I know that I am basically eating the same food as I did when I logged it in and have a pretty good idea how many calories my daily intake is. Some days I go meatless but not on purpose, it just happens to play out that way.

I will find out tomorrow right after I feed the hounds in the morning if that change of not logging my food in an app has added pounds to my weight, inches around my stomach or mm of fat to my sides. No matter what the results are, I will not go back to logging in my food intake.

Just glancing at my watch I noticed I failed to stop my "Outdoor Walk" data ... one thing different in the Apple Health and Watch program compared to my Garmin VivoSport, is that I cannot edit or correct the time  for our walk, nor can I delete that activity if I forget to stop the data collection and time when the walk is finished.

I still say the Apple Watch is the best electronic equipment I have ever bought all the way back to my first computer in 1994.

I know this blog post is going all over the place and I apologize to those that are bothered by it ... but when you are grasping for that train of thought, this is about the best I can do.  LOL What can I say, it's in my DNA.

Scatter blog thoughts and blog posts reminds me of the time my friend stopped by my office to go to lunch, a rare thing for me when I worked. As she stepped inside my office she saw I was on the phone talking to someone, while looking at two different computer screens and looking through a notebook while speaking to someone standing at my desk... all at the same time. She found that interesting and I found it just being normal. What's the big deal?

There IS one problem though when blogging during the time that crosses into the period the hounds want their lunch. I step away from the computer to feed them, then let them outside where lately all the do is turn to look at me to let me know they don't want to go outside and that they wanted to stay inside all along. There is a slight interruption in the blog post.

From the time we stepped out of the backyard into the field I could hear the sound the neighbor's John Deere tractor in the field behind the one we walk in. To me it sounded as if he had started plowing so he could beat the rains. At the back of the field that tractor is on the other side of those trees but neither I nor Stella saw it. We heard it loud and clear though.

Once Stella made the final turn home she was back in the lead and walking away from me. I continued to walk, taking photos and thinking about things ranging from blogging to moving away and remembering Sadie and Winston on past walks through this field and on this path or close to it.

Yesterday morning when I poured my last two teaspoons of sugar in my last cup of coffee for the day I knew I was at a critical time of my life. Would I be able to get off my lazy ass and go to the store for more sugar or would I keep the car turned off and parked only to face drinking black coffee this morning. I drank black coffee this morning and once again I will try to get off the granulated sugar bandwagon. NO, I will not buy or use sugar substitutes ... so save your breath.

All I can say about my moving thoughts ... I have found a place I love. It has everything I am looking for and I have spoke to a realtor many miles away from here, who grew up in Indiana. So he knows what I am going through as I make a decision. He and his assistant has looked at my blog so they know that Stella would be leaving some prime real estate if I decide to move. All Heidi needs is a couch, her dog bed and/or sunshine to keep her daily routine. I think we both know that a field like this is not really a requirement for Heidi.

Somewhere in those clouds facing west is rain. I will say that 5 hours after Stella decided it was safe enough to take the morning walk ... it has not rained a drop, just as the forecast stated but not what the radar showed.

I have to pat myself on my back for staying away from tv news. For those that are pissed, or frustrated with what you see and hear on tv new I strongly suggest to turn it off, take the channels out of your tv remote ... it is hard to do but well worth it. It gets easier the longer you are away. So much more nicer, quieter and less stressful way of life.

There is nothing I can do about all that crap ... except vote ... and even then does one vote mean anything? I guess to my conscious it does, where I can say "at least I tried" ... in the meantime I can 'hide out' here in rural Southern Indiana without any issues but the frequency of spring rains.

You will notice below that tree along that small bank I have decided to let the bank grow back wild. It will add a little change to the look of my yard but more important it should help prevent the increased water flow I've had the past two years when I decided I wanted to burn all the growth down and plant grass seed where most of it was washed away by strong spring rains. That was not one of my better decisions.

Yes, that is where Stella makes her sharp right turn at the end of the walk and officially announce the walk is over by following the edge of the house.

More about my blogging frequency ... I think more than anything, I write and ramble when I am in the mood to screw off, waste time or have zero motivation to anything else but hang out in front of my computer. That might not be healthy but my Apple Watch tells me all the times I sit in front of a computer or on the couch watching a game ... my old pulse rate is 55-58 bpm. The Apple Watch even tells me when to stand up and take a break. Geezus !!!!

We had some excitement Monday afternoon. You have to remember living in 'the tropics' excitement can happen at any time and you can only hope you have a camera ready.

In this case on Monday afternoon, my game of Mahjong was interrupted because not only was the 4th load of fertilizer delivered but it was how it was delivered.

Looking back to the older blog yesterday to see what it was like a year ago. I found out that the fields were plowed and planted by the 6th of May, about a week away. I don't see how that will be possible while I see standing water in one field and a semi-truck stuck in the mud in another field, both across the highway.

I put my Mahjong game on pause when I heard a truck engine revving up and seeing spinning tires through my 200mm zoom lens on the Nikon camera. It was so interesting I stepped away to grab  my binoculars to confirm what I was seeing.  Since those binoculars can see a gnat on a flies ass, it was pretty easy to tell this truck really was stuck. I knew that before the driver got out of his rig and walked over to this side of the trailer to see what I was seeing.

It took a while due to where the owner of this field lives but help was on the way. Now fertilizer mixed with egg shells cannot weight to much I would think, still there is 40+ feet of weight to tow through a soft field

I could see the plan as soon as the tractor showed up.

It was as easy as towing a toy truck on the living room floor as a kid. In the old days Sadie would have woken up, ran to the screen door to look and see what was going on in 'her' neighborhood ... Heidi and Stella ??? They didn't move a muscle during their siesta on the couch.

So I would guess they are pretty close to being ready to plant their 2019 corn or soybean crop. Of course "Murphy" showed up last year even after the field was starting to grow .. heavy rains flooded the back half of the field and he had to come in, plow up his  corn, disc and replant the back of his field. It will be interesting to see what happens this spring.

I thought I was about finished writing this when I felt that familiar feel of something crawling on my neck. Yes ... one of those ticks I bring back with me after our hound walks. I hate those things and for some reason this week, the back of my neck has been their favorite compared to my legs a week or so ago.

This is what happens when I take the hounds outside right after they eat lunch just because "we always do that" ... lately they have not been too enthused about that plan and consequently hardly move.

So we headed back inside like they wanted so they could hang out, sleep, lick, itch or whatever.  :)

I like seeing different bloggers showing photos of bird feeders and all the different kinds of birds. I never mounted any feeders because Sadie was not a fan of birds and in fact they tormented the hell out of her. All she wanted to do was chase them out of her yard.

Here is one reason I am not a fan of birds and why I don't like them building their nests inside my carport.

Today's excitement could be an ugly situation. By the time I heard the first siren fly by my house the white State Police car was out of sight, obviously over 100mph. I did not sit at the kitchen table waiting for the rest of them that were following since they did not come all at the same time. I was able to catch these with my camera as I ran from other parts of the house when hearing a siren.

Yes that is two different ambulances, two different sheriff SUVs and I did not catch two more State Police cars and one State Police SUV. Evidently something very bad has happened on the Interstate nearby.

As you can tell it was another laidback Tuesday here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. Just remember "consistency" is not one of my stronger points when it comes to blogging. You never know how long or short the post might be ... but there will always be photos of the hounds 99.9% ... that 0.1% is for me to change my mind.  :)

A Spring Day Today

Six days ago this truck delivered something in the field across the highway. If I remember correctly I guess either ground up corn cobs or something that I cannot remember. Well every day since then, my curiosity kept increasing. It got to the point today that I had to walk over and check it out. With the temps around 50°, the hounds and I spent some time outside enjoying the great weather.

You might be able to tell that with all the rain this past week, the pile of 'something' got whiter. Hmmmm, can't be corn cobs. I had no idea what it was, nor have I figured out what the purpose is.

It wasn't warm yet when Stella and I took off this morning but it felt warm. No wind, and the sounds of birds filled the air.

The loud sound of cows, something we rarely hear, confused Stella as she turned to look at me for some answers. They were all the way across the gully and the property behind that.

Again the loud sound of the cows stopped Stella in her tracks. They would be to the far right of the picture, a good distance away, up behind what I call the 'far right corner of the field'.

With good weather in the forecast I wanted to pull my ladder out and clean the gutter where the downspout is attached. On the front gutter I wanted to take that downspout apart because last week when it was raining extremely hard, the water was coming from over the edge of the gutter and out every seam of the downspout. I was in for a huge surprise.

I have a guard that slides down into the downspout to keep the leaves from going down into the downspout on both front and back gutters. The back one had a few wet leaves blocking it so that was not a surprise. What was a huge surprise was not only the front downspout was clear but the whole gutter on front of the house was spotless ... clean. I took the small sections of the downspout apart thinking I'd be pulling wet leaves out of them but they were clear also.

I thought Heidi would spend some time in the backyard since it was such a nice day but as I was putting the ladder away, she was wanting to go back inside. She had no interest in staying outside. Stella on the other hand find it to be the perfect time to wade through the corner of the field that is full of burrs ...

When you see the picture of the field across the highway taken from my house, it looks pretty small. but as you see once you are behind the trees the field goes almost a quarter of a mile, even veering to the right past that row of trees on the right.

Any ideas????

Egg shells.

The field to the left of the one that is always flooded. I've seen water go over the road just past those trees and telephone poles. Below you can see the trash it left when the water receded.

I did a post on that old steel bridge you see, in 2017. You can see more photos of the bridge here. This post also had more pictures of the steel bridge plus the local area since the hounds and I took a drive in May 2016. For that post, click here.

It wasn't long after coming back inside that the hounds took up their normal afternoon positions on the couch and they were back to sleeping a beautiful day away. I just read that huge storms are passing through the central plains tomorrow with extremely high winds. We will get the end of that on Thursday with only 20mph winds and thunderstorms, at least it will be 64° if the forecast is correct.

I added a new link to my sidebar this morning. Very informative and information they don't tell you on the news. His article today will scramble your brain cells but it is the same information I read from the FBI site years ago, as far as the plan of the Muslim Brotherhood. His article today has updated information. Is anyone paying attention to this movement or will they just let them take the country 10-15 years from now?

Well the weather is great so Stella and I will go for an afternoon walk once she wakes up in a few hours. In the meantime my load of laundry is finished in the dryer and it's time to fold them. Baseball starts in 16 days ... it's great to be a sports junkie.

A cool 52° today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.