College Football Saturday & Rambling

This will be a very short post but I wanted to show you what the hounds and dogs do while I watch hours and hours of college football on Saturdays. It was another HUMID day yesterday but lower temps. Walter is not shown because I took all the photos while sitting on the couch during the game commercials. Walter was back in the cold computer room snoring. I start rambling after the hounds and dogs.

Not Much Going On

The photos may show "not much going on" but when I think back to this past week, a lot of things did happen but not blog photo worthy. Where should I start? The "to do" list continues to have items checked off and a major project was finished this week. Finishing the repair of the lower living room windows and painting the frame. I installed the screens I repaired a few months ago and they look great with the new wood repair and paint job. I only wanted to see how it looked and still don't quite trust the dog (Walter) from tearing out the new screens while I am gone ... so they are stored in the garage. Plus when cleaning windows I see way too many jowl smudges on the windows from the hounds and dog.

A Lot Of Surprises This Week

It did not seem like it at the time but sitting here on a Saturday night a little after 7pm local time, there were a few surprises this week. One surprise is I am writing a LONG blog post with a MILLION PHOTOS. I am also going to try an experiment loading the photos because I want to insert tonight's hounds activity in between some of the ones I have loaded early ... I have just decided the hound photos will be after these next few photos. I say hounds because Walter is not pictured but one time and I will explain why in tonight's post.

Roaming Brain Cells

Watson and I have had wondering thoughts today. There might be some old fashion rambling in this post today. I haven't done that in a while. It might be caused by "my spring" vanishing with a snap of my fingers or is it the cool temps today? The next 10 days looking like highs in the 60's when I am wanting those mid to high 70's back that I experienced before the rains and the cold front. Yet I shouldn't be complaining about the weather nor anything else. Reading about various online friends and their health issues pulls me back from any thoughts about complaining, especially something so minor as high temperatures. I am thankful for my good health.

From Winter To Spring

The high temperature just two days ago was 27° after breaking rain records the day before that 27° cold snap with 2.25" of rain. Yet today I sat outside on the patio with the dogs in the yard in 61° weather. "From Winter to Spring" in just a day. It will only last to Tuesday but I'll take it. I love warmer weather. It is good to see the red, white and blue blowing in the wind. With everything going on in the world today, the sounds of semi-automatic gunfire at the shooting range a short distance away framed the whole picture. What will the future bring? Do the top three people in DC even care what that flag means anymore? I doubt it.

It's Cold !!!!

It's cold here in SE Arizona but if I were to compare 27° here with 27° in the winters back in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana it would not be close. Even on those days the skies were clear, blue and sunny the wind back in the midwest would cut you like a knife while we took our morning walks through the field. Here in temps like this, the daily walk was canceled Monday morning because all three of us have turned into bad weather whimps. We don't do much when it's cold during the day.

The difference in those winter days of temps in the 40's, one there is no snow on the ground and if I were to sit outside in the sun, it is so hot on my face it felt like winter was gone and summer was here again. We, the hounds and I, cannot wait for spring and summer to arrive. As you can see Heidi wasn't sure it was warm enough to lay out in the sun and nap next to the back of the house. She kept going in and out of the house as I sat facing the hot sunshine.

Stella also was a little confused. She really did want to sleep in the sunshine like she always does IF I AM HOME but when she stood in the shade she could feel how cool it was. I continued to sit in my ugly but comfortable patio chair with my camera nearby. I was going to test my equipment today and shoot photos with just one camera ... but I did sneak in a few photos with my iPhone camera.

While I was back inside fixing some low carb lunch ... do you know carrots are carb loaded? ... Stella decided it was warm enough outside for a late morning nap. Again I thought to myself "I wish she would enjoy the backyard like this while I am gone to town or riding my bike" but she has proven to me as recently as Sunday, she will not be comfortable in the yard if she knows I'm gone. She seems to think she can tunnel under the house from that one spot she started last summer. The one I keep filling back up.

Heidi had enough of the cool breeze as the wind picked up after 1pm. After my bike ride on Saturday I now know that winds 14-18mph that are gusty, is nothing to spend time in. Even if I cannot see the trees or brush blowing in some direction behind my house, that does not mean the winds are gone. Sunday the winds were so strong on my trip to Bisbee, all the flags I saw along the way were blown straight out with rippling force.

Once Stella got up to walk back inside, I slide my chair up into her spot on the patio. The temps on my face increased at least 20°. It didn't take her long to come back out, sleep and have some added back support with that rounded edge of the patio floor against her from head to tail.

She too got too hot ... but just like I did, she found out staying in the shade was too cold. I did my test on the shade by standing on the east side of the house in total shade to see if it was even possible that I might want to take a bike ride. It was freezing in the shaded yard and I went back to the sunny patio.

Within minutes she was back out in the sunshine while I snuck back inside.

Believe me, I am not complaining about SE Arizona winters. It is just what I expected it would be. It's just that I have found I don't want to put up with cold weather even when it's bright and sunny outside.

Other news outside of hounds and bikes ... I made the mistake a few months ago of downloading the Facebook app on my iPhone out of "convenience" and I knew then I had sold my soul to the devil. They would know everything I said on the phone, texted on the phone, emails I would send or websites I would visit. With that data collected they would pound me with advertising on the exact things I had talked about with friends, texted to friends or emailed.

It's not that I am bothered by that strategic advertising it's just the thought of how they can do that.

Since they have butted into my life and billions of other Facebook users or ex-users ... they still track you ya know after you delete your Facebook account??? ... the Ukrainians have decide to index my blogs and are now the leaders in traffic to my bike blog and this public blog on Blogger. The USA number of visitors are a distant second place when I look at the blog stats on the dashboard. I find it interesting that when I click a link many times it's a Blogger blog that had their last post in 2011 or 2013. Can anyone more knowledgeable than I, explain what they are doing?

I have been bopping around different internet browsers again. I use Safari on all my Apple devices like iPhone, iPad and the laptop. On my iMac I use Safari the most because of their security features built into their system. I only have a google account ending in gmail because I have a Blogger blog. None of my personal emails have gone through gmail for years. I use Apple's email system for that. I figure if the FBI cannot break into an iPhone or iMac without asking for Apple's help, then security must be pretty good.

I always get curious about stuff though so I wander around the internet, checking out the new and bestest Firefox. I like Google Chrome but rarely use it because I don't trust Google although after 24 years of being on the internet it is definitely too late to worry about what Google has on me.

So here I am on Safari with the same problem I was having last summer. They updated their OS the other day and now it works with my Blogger blog differently. When I sign into my blog, it takes me immediately to my blog dashboard. When I go back to my blog home page to read other blogs and to make comments ... Safari has logged me out !!!!

Yes ... I've unchecked cookies, I've uncheck 3rd party blah blah blah ... I have logged out of Blogger and back in ... I have turned off my computer and logged back in ... I have unchecked and rechecked those blocks that should not be checked so I can stay logged in on my blog when using Safari. I have all my settings set the way they should be for it to work ... it does not.

That is when I look at other browsers.

I had my Cox tv channels fixed sometime Sunday. They never notified me nor have they closed the ticket the made Saturday night when their tech department requested a service call. Sports Junkies, like myself, are still having problems "cutting the cord" as they say. I would but based on my cost analysis and the rising costs of these streaming companies that use to be free or low cost ... I am actually spending $30-$40 more per month now for what I need compared to "cutting the cord" to cable or tv.

I am watching less sports by the year and I found out the other night when I could not get the BTN channel due to a signal problem, I could follow the IU basketball game on my computer. I've known that for years but too lazy to learn how to do that streaming stuff from the computer to tv. I wasn't watching the game but watching the data of the game. I have watched IU football games this past fall on my computer when they were not carried on my Cox channels and the picture quality was just as good as my Sony tv.

Wow ... looks like I am rambling a little this morning and about very little actually.

My new addiction .... PGA Golf for PlayStation4.

I use to love playing this game on PS2 and PS3 but I never cared for Tiger Woods and his name was associated with the Sony EA Sports golf game, so I stopped playing it. When I got back in the mood to play games or Grand Turismo racing game, I saw a used copy of the golf game on the GameSpot store shelf with a different professional golfer's name on the cover.

Basically I have to have a lot of choices in life. From cars to drive, to bikes to ride, to food to eat and how to waste time. I'm not always in the mood to read books, never had the urge to paint, draw or learn to play an instrument. So this PS3 and PS4 games are just something else added to the mix of things to do. Plus like I have said before, I think "hand and eye coordination" are important to keep healthy as we get older. What better way to do that then play video games ... or Mahjong for time.

Now if I can find a Flight Simulator game and a Sim City game like I had on my PC ten years ago, I'll be set.

Sorry for the rambling and I admit I am surprised that I am going to post this as a real blog post.

Bright sunny skies and 31° while it's almost 9am here in the 'Wild West'.

The Urge To Blog Is Gone

Just like the change in weather, things change in life, in daily activities or thoughts. That is the case here in June 2019. I am practically forcing myself to sit in front of my computer to write even this post. Words are not there and as I scrolled though photos to post on this blog, I couldn't decide what to post.

Blogging about the hounds and I in a public format is over.

Yes, I have done it before a couple of times since I started in October 2011. For various reasons I came back but those reasons have also disappeared. At this point in this post I am not sure I can finish this ... the words are just not there.


I will say that I really got tired of this type of weather this spring and into the early summer months. I have emailed a few readers, ones I have kept in touch with over the years via emails, what the current situation is. For those wondering, I am fine and the hounds are even better. None of us have any crisis going on in our lives. So that's not the reason for the lack of blog posts.

I no longer want to stand down by the highway passing out current updates to our lives with photos to every car that passes the house, whether I know them or not. That is how I described blogging years ago. Sure, friends are made and have been made through blogging but the "privacy thing" as always been big with me. It's always lingered in the background of my thoughts.

I found out this spring that the more time I spent away from the computer the more I enjoyed life. Even when I was doing things I didn't want to do, it was still better than spending time in front of my computer. I found it harder and harder to grasp that hour or two it takes to put a post together with 12-25 photos in the post.

An ex-friend told me once some of the best photos you will ever take, will be those you don't.

Whether you want it to or not and other bloggers may feel the same way ... blogging gets into your thought process, your photo taking process and your daily life ... if you blog that often. You find yourself taking your camera not to capture possibly the best photo of the hounds but to get photos for the blog post that day.

That is no way to take photos.

I could be sitting outside battling the bugs, the gnats or mosquitoes and enjoy watching the day come to an end but battled within myself to get up, go inside and post something on the blog when I had not blogged in days. A feeling of 'obligation' sneaks into my daily routine ... and I've never wanted any kind of obligations.

It brings back that time I had an ex-girlfriend screaming at me "you have made a commitment ... not to make any" ... for the first time in our relationship we had agreed on something. LOL

I will say that my life and daily routine has changed drastically from what you have read on this blog and my old blog over on Blogger. I am back to bicycling again. I am back to loading the hounds into the car for local drives and exploring new interests. I no longer sit my first cup of coffee down in front of my computer in the morning and spend the first 2-3 hours of the day in front of my iMac. I'm outside enjoying the sights and sounds of another day getting it's start.

My time in front of a computer has decreased drastically and I like that ... a lot.

The hounds have had a slight change to their routines but all for the better. They still eat twice per day. Heidi still goes right back to sleep after her breakfast but a HUGE DIFFERENCE, she now goes to the door every morning around 10am expecting me to take her for 'her' walk.

Stella is now whining to go on her morning walk, if we are not outside by 6am. She is not only walking further than we use to but breaks into a fast trot and shows more activity than she has in many months.

Both hounds are looking better than they ever have and have done more activity than before. They are good.

The words reluctance and privacy seem to go hand in hand anymore when it comes to me being open on a blog. I gave it a gallant effort of being more open on the blog back in December. I cannot say I liked it but I did it anyway. Then I caught myself falling back into that privacy mode of mine of writing less about my thoughts and more about what the hounds were doing.

The urge to blog was disappearing even while I posted the past few times.

So where does the word reluctance come into play?

If I were to post like I did every day for a few years or many months, the possibility of unexpected visitors would be more possible than ever before. If I were to post current photos of the hounds, there would be a few keen readers that could figure out what was going on and might even go as far as knocking on my door to see the hounds.

Just like the strange lady I found one day a few years ago ... looking into the back bedroom window because she wanted to see the hounds. It didn't matter that I wasn't home at the time, she was there to see the hounds no matter what. I had been too open in my blog posts and the photos I took ... she figured out where I lived.

Over the years I have read more times than I wanted to, about blog readers showing up on the doorstep or knocking on an RV door of people that blogged, to see the people and dogs they were reading about. I don't want that to ever happen to me and the hounds.

Some might think that would never happen here but I have always leaned more toward preventing that one in a million chance.

I was careless before in my photo taking and blogging and thus the strange crazy lady looking in my windows, for the hounds. I'll not make that mistake again.

So combined with the the lack of words to type, the lack of interest for sharing my life and the hounds to the world, and the big reluctance to post photos that would blow our cover ... I cannot see anyway I can continue blogging in a public platform.

For some, this announcement might bother them or as in the past, in a few it will anger them. I'll hear from them since I have not changed my email address nor do I plan to. Some readers are bloggers and will understand what I have spoken about and others that don't blog will think that I am selfish, possibly crazy or even lazy ... I mean it can't take that much time to put a blog post together.

After all it only takes a few minutes to read one of my posts and only seconds to scroll through the photos. So it can't take that much time to blog.

To those readers I suggest you start your own blog and write about every little thing in your life and what you are doing. Take a million photos per day, download them, edit them and post the ones you like and open your door to any blog reader that wishes to stop by to visit you or see your dog, cat, reptile or plants.

For those readers that stopped by my blogs to take a look at the photos over the years, made comments or sent emails ... thank you for taking your time to stop by the blog. I found an enjoyment in taking photos and blogging then ... I don't now.

As each hound passed, things changed. The blog changed, I changed. I know that is just part of life but as I get older I find it harder to lose a hound. Sometimes those walks through the field were not as enjoyable as they once were because past memories overtook the walk Stella and I were on.

When she started losing interest in taking the 2 walks per day through the field, I did too. The window of finding things to blog about and to take photos of got smaller and smaller. Activities outside called life ... became more important than blogging. I cannot even find time to blog privately in my journal and the urge to do so is also evaporating.

So there it is ... it's the best I can do in trying to explain ... still a poor job of doing so.

Add me to the list of other bloggers that have stopped blogging for one reason or another. Some made an announcement and others just drifted out into the black space called the internet.

The hounds and I are more than happy with the change in our lives.

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.  :)