Blog Additions & Rambling

It was not a surprise to me because around 5am I heard a clap of thunder so powerful and loud I thought it was in the bedroom. I got up to close the windows not knowing how hard it was going to rain and went back to sleep. The hounds and the dog?? Never woke up. So when I opened the patio door for them to go out first thing in the morning like every morning, they stopped in their tracks and stared at "their" wet patio.

The Hounds Are Ready For 2020

What can I say? Life has been busy around here with normal stuff and some days I run out of time. I guess with us being here almost 7 months, life is back to a normal feel and a routine. I never make goals for the new year but I do see some things already changing within the first few days. All good stuff. It's also one of those times I am becoming a little bored with blogging and find some hikes and trips are good without taking photos. Someone told me once "the best pictures you will take will be the ones you don't." Although with a lack of adventure there is some news or updates really.

Heidi and I both had annual checkups including blood lab work. She is a healthy 10-11 year old basset with a waistline the vet really liked seeing. My lab work came back better than I ever expected with low cholesterol, normal blood pressure and a PSA count below 1. There was nothing on my blood lab work that was above the limits. I guess the labwork confirmed my diet of "moderation" and an occasional splurge is working okay. I set up an appointment for the same physical next year before I left.

My vet called me yesterday, or the administrator for the vet clinic. She was wanting to know what my complaints were about with Heidi's visit. I never mentioned their clinic name by name but they tracked me down by a comment I made on Facebook. Imagine that!! I'll just say that nothing turns me off more than a vet clinic trying to "up sell" me when I know my hound is healthy and all I want is the annual checkup and a rabies shot that is required by law. Nothing else.

With blue skies and higher afternoon temps I am still riding my bike inside on the trainer but plan an afternoon ride today with the temps in the 60's. There will still be a cool breeze but it will be nice to get back out on the road after a week or so.

 A zoomed in look over towards Tombstone. I finally decided yesterday I'd wait for a parking space and walk among the crowds to see Tombstone up close for the first time. For me, too many people and everything was overpriced. I took only a couple of photos and then deleted them when I got home. I'll try to back when few people are there.

Stella has a new nighttime sleeping routine. It's always been these two spots to sleep most of the night. This is one, the other is just to the left of the photo where she is next to the bed, against the wall next to the door. The new routine ???? She will sleep in the area where she can dig and move any shoes that might be in her way. The other morning I found she had slept on two pairs of shoes and a pair of hiking boots. Right on top of all of them. Yes, my Merrell shoes are under her and not seen in the photo.

Heidi sinks deep into her bed that I bought in October (?).

Stella's way of begging for food or when she is waiting for me to finish a container of yogurt or ice cream. She will get the container to lick out every last drop that is left. You must admit, she is consistent and disciplined in her process. Yes that is a little bit of Arizona dirt on her nose ... that's her latest new thing ... eating the dirt under the rocks in the yard. Never a dull moment with her.

Once she is fed her breakfast and a short trip outside she is ready to start her day of relaxation. I think she looks much younger than 10 years old.

 

A few days ago I attempted to write a post. I load all of my photos first and then type between them. When I clicked the button to upload the photos from my computer to the blogger format, this is what I saw. It's the first time I've ever seen that screen in the 14 years I've been blogging. I blogged for my online business prior to starting this blog in 2011.

All it took was to turn my computer off and on, then log into the blog again for it to go away.

I still love seeing the new sunrises each day but they are also becoming routine. Like how many photos can you post on the blog of the same thing or things?

This is the ONLY reason I am woken up by a whining bloodhound every morning and a basset hound shaking it's head hard enough where I can hear her tags making noise. They like to eat no matter what time of day or night. That is their main goal first thing in the morning.

You can see they love the sunshine and have spent every afternoon outside sunbathing and taking siestas.

I admit I am surprised that Heidi has adjusted from a grass yard to one of stone. Her allergies are gone, her eyes are clear and she takes the daily walk with Stella and I every afternoon. We will move that walk back to early mornings once spring arrives. The move to Arizona has been good not only for her but all of us.

Besides what is posted here I don't have much more to say. Things are good, life is very enjoyable and I still love this area as much as I did the first days I moved here. The new hip continues to heal and I have finally been able to read the list of things they installed and read the step by step process without feeling sick to my stomach.

Things are back to a normal routine here in the 'Wild West'.

What Is It About Blogging ??

Is blogging an addiction, an escape, a journal, online communication where the world can see you based on how you have your settings in the background? I do know that the internet, smart phones, online gaming or reading blogs is addicting. Some can handle it and control the amount of time they spend doing those things. Yet, is it out of control if you feel like blogging publicly again? I have quit many times since October 2011 when this blog started. A few of those times I deleted the blog just like I did to this one on July 25th ... but I always seem to come back.

Now the decision will be which blog do I use ... this one or my Wordpress blog ?? There are features I like on both formats, Blogger and WordPress. One big difference is Blogger has unlimited space for photos where Wordpress gives me a certain number of Mb of data depending on which plan I pay for. Since I just moved my blog back to their 'free' account, my space available for photos has decreased drastically.

Blogger compresses their photos Wordpress does not. They are not quite as sharp and clear on Blogger but is it that big of a difference? Big enough to pay for a plan just to have better quality photos? Remember, I'm cheap, I hate wasting money although I don't mind spending money ... just not for stuff like that.

So I am leaning toward returning my blogging to Blogger at this location.

I am sure a few readers are wondering what happened from my last blogging activity in May on WordPress until now. There have been a lot of changes and at the same time some things remain the same. The hounds do sleep the majority of the day but I have moved to where I am not pulling ticks off of me after every summer dog walk. Heidi misses her grass yard but she has taken more walks the past ~2 months than she has in years. Even Stella whines early in the morning if we are not out on her walk. If you remember she was boycotting the walks in late May.

The high desert doesn't have a lot of green grass or a hay field to walk in. I have found though, after years of very little running or trotting by Stella ... she does like to trot and even run at times as she walks down the middle of an empty street. She still can track scent on vacant land and we still walk the same amount of time and almost the same distance was we did in the field.

What is much different is Stella and I our doing our daily walks before 6am. Every day. She now lives in a neighborhood with neighbors nearby that have dogs. She can stand at the living room window and see walkers with babies and dogs pass by her house, or a group of bicyclist ride by her house or those that walk by with just their dogs, pass by her house. It depends what she sees or smells, if she decides to howl or not. She has become a neighborhood favorite to those that have met her.

She and Heidi have a fenced yard and all the sunbathing they can handle. Heidi still prefers air conditioning over hot sunshine while Stella will still lay out under the sun for the same short time after lunch as she did in the tropics of Southern Indiana. Nothing has changed there.

What has changed is me. After 21 years of staring at my bicycles leaning up against the wall, not ridden ... I now ride 4-5 morning per week and while getting in shape I can now ride 20-22 miles and around an hour and 45 minutes of continuous pedaling. This move has added years to my life and those changes are already showing my on the scale as my weight continues to drop.

I no longer have to drive 6-12 miles to buy a tank of gas for the car nor do I have to drive 12-25 miles to buy groceries. Both of those services are within 2 miles of my house and there are more than one business to choose from. I love that change. The hounds get to keep their same dog food as they were eating back in Indiana although due to our location they are drinking about twice as much water.

They both like to lay out on the patio every morning as I have my first cup of coffee, where the skies are bright and the temps are cool. My day is no longer started by turning on my computer but by grabbing that first cup of coffee and stepping outside to sit and enjoy the sunshine that is rising or has just rose minutes earlier. By the time that first cup of coffee is finished Stella is whining to take her walk and Heidi has moved back inside to one of her three different morning sleeping spots. She likes walking later in the day, not first thing in the morning.

This move was not a spur of the moment decision. If you were to look at the blog archives on the sidebar, click any year and read through the months between December - February you would see that almost every winter I wrote about wanting to move further west away from single digit temps, humid ticky summers and to an area where I could bicycle at least 300 days per year. I would always talk myself out of making those moves. I'll not go over all the reasons why since they have already been written about but I will say a LOT OF RESEARCH took place and in some cases over a period of years ... before I decided "that's it, we're out of here."

I almost moved various times to Alamogordo NM. That is also located in the 'high desert' but with some information from a couple of people that live there I decided to check that town off of my list. I kept coming back every year to the town I now reside in and had for years. I also decided that "small towns" were no longer an option since I had done that for the past 21 years. This move was going to be one about "conveniences" and that seemed to be more of a factor as I get older.

I also decided that I would really downsize this time. I did a lot of downsizing in 2014 when I thought I was going to live full time on the road in some sort of RV or small trailer. This time the downsizing was serious, really serious. All furniture, my record collection, pots pans and dishes were given away. Almost all of my books except for a few favorites were donated to the local library. The things that people did not want for free I donated to Goodwill. By the time we left that early evening heading west ... I had a 5x8 UHaul trailer that was not even full with the possessions I had left.

Of course to tow that trailer I had to trade my Mini Cooper S Countryman. I did more research on what to buy. Not only did I need a vehicle that could tow 3,500 pounds safely but I needed a vehicle that could get me off road out here in the wild west plus plenty of room in the back for the hounds to make the cross-country trip and the local trips after I moved. They did well on the cross-country move and if the car was moving ... they were sleeping. They enjoy taking the local trips although they still sleep most of the time while the car is moving.

So there it is ... we are living out in the 'tropics' of the high desert where the days are hot the nights are cool and there are no ticks. It might get a little cold this winter but nothing close to single digits and most of those times the high temps of the day will be in the 50's not in the teens or 20's.

Oh, the house in the 'tropics' of Southern Indiana ??? It was sold to the young man that I called to give me a quote to sand and seal my hardwood floor in the bedroom. I was preparing the house to list with an agent to sell when I called him for an estimate. While he looked at the floor I caught him looking all over the house and a couple questions he had led me to believe he was interested in buying my house ... he called two days after his floor estimate wanting to buy it.

Everything that happened in the moving process happened right on time and it was the smoothest transition I had ever experienced moving. They hounds adjusted almost immediately. They still might be in the old time zone but that fits in well out here. Early to bed early to rise gives me more time to do things outside and believe me ... there are a million things to do or go see around here.

I had to wonder this morning when I decided to start blogging again .....

Since I no longer have to spend time mowing the yard, raking leaves or general old house maintenance ... I have more free time. I still have time to ride my bike 2 hours per day, take local trips, go hiking, watch ballgames and still have time to blog. I may not blog every day but a few times per week ... basically like always in the past, when I feel like it.

Now ... I just have to decide ... Blogger ?? or WordPress ???

The hounds love living in 'the tropics' of the high desert.

A Blog Comeback???

I am not sure yet but I am thinking about making a return to blogging. Some of you know there have been some drastic changes recently. The hounds are normal and a-okay, no problems there. I am also okay and more active than I have been for years with morning bike rides 4-5 days per week.

For reasons I am not sure of, I had the urge to blog again this morning. I'm even thinking of possibly letting everyone know what changes that have taken place. I almost have to if I am going to post photos of the hounds. The brain cells are still scrambling trying to get in order before things are official.

At least I did re-activate my blog here and on Blogger, then changing them from private settings to public settings, so I guess that is a start.

We'll see what happens.

Stella's Thursday Morning Walk

Following my blog policy I mentioned the other day of "blogging when I feel like it" ... here is a morning post about Stella's walk. I received a photo article in my Feedly account this morning about Nikon AutoFocus. I found some adjustments I could make on my camera from that article. I only did one but it was not mentioned in the article but found as I was looking through my camera setup for something else. It had a setting for telephoto lenses, which I used at all times, the Tamron 18-200mm.

I did a little editing on most of the photos like I always do but one thing I did not do was go into the HTML of this post and change the size of the photo back to s1600 from the compressed size s640 that Blogger does automatically. Let me know if you notice any difference in the sharpness even in these low light morning. Apple Photos has a very detailed editing program that is free and comes with the program.

The owner of the field made a lap around the edge of his field Tuesday afternoon. The tire tracks from his truck has given Stella a whole new set of scents to follow. You can barely see one of those tracks in front of her nose.

Mid 50's ... overcast for today.

She thought she heard me mention food ... but she was wrong.

Another walk into the books. It's already Thursday.

Sitting at my kitchen table I saw this in the southwest skies. You could almost think I was witnessing a plane crash from this angle.

Pulling back that zoom, you could see it was just a plane heading southwest, possibly decreasing altitude on its approach to the St. Louis airport a couple of hundred miles away.

I hope to be motivated enough today to clean some walls. Yes the same walls I mentioned a few days ago. I've been pretty lazy these past few days after my big day of working out in the yard and on the roof cleaning my gutters earlier in the week.

A dark overcast morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.