Yes It's Normal

This time last Saturday I was sitting outside on the patio in 75° weather, the hounds were enjoying the backyard and the warm sunshine. Yesterday on Saturday it started snowing, ending up with a little over 3" and temps this morning at 16°. If you live in Indiana or are from Indiana you know this is not a surprise for weather in March. I have experienced blizzards in the third week of March where highways were closed and only "essential" traffic was allowed.

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.

Snow Storm ?

We were warned last night on the local news that the hounds and I were to expect around 3" of snow today. Not only did they tell us the amount and the probability of it happening but stressed that most of the snow would happen south of I-70. That's us. In that case Stella planned to get an early start on the walk this morning before the snow would start.

With a slight wind out of the NW I could tell it was a lot colder than the 31° my weather app was telling me. In fact after a few minutes I was beginning to think I had not worn the right coat. My face was feeling like I should have put on the down parka instead of my lightweight down jacket. None of that bothered Stella though, she was into her routine of dumping her tanks early and then catching up with me.

We were out the door this morning like old times, a few minutes past 8am. With another
7 days to go before we move the clocks forward we will have daylight at 8am until then. What was I thinking ???  LOL Of course it will be bright daylight at 7am (EARLIER) because we are moving the clocks FORWARD !!!

I have a 192 movies recorded on my DVR, another couple of hundred DVD's setting on my shelf and still could not find a movie that interested me enough to watch last night. 250 channels offered on my DishNetwork package and I probably don't watch more than 7 or 8 of them. Instead, I sat for hours reading the book about Steve Jobs, then went to bed with anticipation of a lot of snow when I woke up.

About the time we made the first time I could feel it spitting a little snow. I could see some very small crystals landing on my jacket sleeve and the air is always colder once that turn is made. Stella was into tracking again today and not a lot of verbal herding was needed. I let her go on her own.

I know this is a weird angle for a picture but I was trying to get a picture of the difference in her coat, on top of her spine. My very first bloodhound Max use to do the same thing with his winter coat, where it is a little curly compared to the rest of her coat.

I think she noticed it was snowing a little harder ... she started walking faster with her head up, like she wanted to get home.

Not quite a trot but close. Was she getting colder? She trotted nonstop all the way to the backyard.

By the end of the walk it wasn't snowing that hard.

Of course with a light snow outside and temperatures that are cold enough to make my face and fingers feel frozen by the time we returned, there was no way Heidi was going to wake up to see what was going one.

Maybe that will be my plan for today. Watch the snow fly and take pictures every hour to show the progression. Of course 3" is nothing compared to what the northern states and the east coast got this weekend. No worries though, it is supposed to be back in the 50's by this weekend.

As you see I wanted an old style design for the blog. Basically I wanted a sidebar back on the right hand side on the homepage and the post page so you could see other links to check out without having to scroll to the bottom of the page. Plus I was in the mood for a different blog style. Luckily I was able to use all that data searching with my free data period before 8am. Stella woke me up again at 5am, not wanting out but wanting breakfast. When I finally woke up she was standing by the bed whining.

I already can feel that a siesta will be part of my plan of the day, later this afternoon.

It's only a light snow so far this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.