To The Hounds Everyday Is A Holiday

I knew when I retired in April 2014 that my life would not change much from a weekend routine if I stayed where I have lived now for 20 years. Traveling was an option, but I did not have my answer about traveling with hounds until after our trip in June 2015. What I did not know was that I would become more like the life of a 'hound' ... it's not bad really ... stress free, relaxing and no schedules.

You might tell from the opening paragraph I am in the mood to do a little rambling about life in general here in the tropics, minus political or religious talk. Commentary will not go with this morning's pictures of our walk. I will warn you that Heidi is not photo available since her new love is the air conditioned living room while setting records for continuous sleep on the couch. She gets up only to eat and drink water.

With a little rain scheduled for tomorrow, which may or may not happen based on recent forecast, the yard will be mowed today no matter what. With the new Indiana state laws starting July 1 I was happy to follow one of their newest laws ... an additional 10 cent tax per gallon of gas. Luckily I was filling up a small can for my lawn mower and not my cars. The Countryman was filled up on Friday at 12 cents per gallon lower than today.

Indiana may only have 3.5% income tax but they don't miss a beat on that 7% sales tax. I've paid higher in other places I have lived but Indiana taxes everything imaginable and I'm guessing that is why the state has billions of dollars in their accounts. Still I live in a low cost area, so it all evens out.

In the above picture Sadie was positive she was inches away from finding a deer. Stella trotted behind her but never got into the full running mode like Sadie did all over the field.

After looking at past blog posts for this time of year in past years I realized that July 4th weekend was no different this year than in past years, even before I started blogging. I can't remember being into parades, crowds or carnivals even at a young age. I might have been forced to go to them at an very young age but my mind was somewhere else ... most likely the ballgame I was missing on the radio or tv.

So the hounds and I are more than content to sit outside with a large glass of ice tea watching traffic go by with a highway full of camping trailers, boats and a few dangerous drivers that you hope they get back on the road before mowing down your mailbox. I am out of the hole digging business just so I can plant a new pole to mount a new mailbox on ... 99.9% of my mail now is just recycling material.

I am an addict with no possible help when it comes to college basketball and college football. Yet, I cannot remember the last time I watched a complete NBA game. I watched part of their Game 7 but not all of it. I do like to follow what certain players are doing ... so this week has been rather eye opening since they started their free agent signing period.

I'll not go into detail but in summary, when a player that I never heard of in college, is only a role player in the NBA and doesn't score much more than 5 points per game ... is signing for 8-10 million per year ... something is out of whack. The stars of the league are signing for $20-40M per year ... when does it tap out?

If I count my neighbors in a half mile radius there are 7-8 houses. All of the owners living in those house drive a pickup truck as their main vehicle. I live in the land of pickup trucks. That got me thinking the other day just how versatile a pickup is. I should have never sold my 1994 Chevy V-8 with the heavy duty shocks and springs for towing. It was not driven much but was always there when I needed to bring home some landscaping mulch, river rock or building supplies from Lowes or Home Depot.

Like I have said recently I am very happy with the Mini Cooper Countryman. It has done all I expected it to do plus more. It's very comfortable over long distance and since it's bigger (800#) than the smaller 2-door coupes, it does not have the 'go-kart' feel to it. So, I really don't have any intentions of make a trade for any kind of vehicle right now. Once the hounds pass on and I decide how I want to travel, I will decide what vehicle I will use.

Stella does not do full speed runs like she use to. She has been trotting more these past few days but I was pretty sure I saw her flinch a couple of times over the weekend when she started to trot.  The vet approved  of me giving her 700mg of buffered aspirin in her food twice per day, based on her weight. We will see if that works instead of moving on to something stronger.

She stopped this morning to sit and face the neighbor's house with the pool. No one was out swimming that time of morning, nor were they bbq'ing but she was smelling something ... I was wondering what they were preparing for a possible cookout later today or tomorrow ... Stella can smell food a mile away even while sleeping.

Once I yelled at her "come on let's go" ... she started the slow walk to the house. She is on her own time, not mine. The great news today though was how she did NOT tear out the window screens while I left her and Sadie in the bedroom when I went to town to buy gas and dog food.

I FORGOT to close the windows to prevent her from tearing out the screens and jumping out the window like she did twice in past years. I did not realize I had forgot to close the windows until I opened the door to let them out when I got back. It was fantastic to see that I still had window screens.

It's been around 7 months since she had any kind of separation anxiety and damaged anything. I wonder if she had figured out she is okay and I'll be back since, she has lived her 2 years this August.

The weekend was very relaxing, no drama, hot but not so much where you couldn't go outside and the humidity was a low 64%. I don't know where the gnats or other flying bugs went but I am happy that I can sit outside and read without battling bugs ... plus I can see where the hounds are as they roam the field.

Sadie turned to look this morning to see if Stella was going to make it back to the yard sometime before lunch. She too cannot understand the slow pace of Stella but will aways wait for her to catch up.

Notice the dark spots on each leg where Sadie licks. Is it seasonal allergies? She seems to do that more in the summer and spring compared to the fall and winter months.

I guess the highlight of today will be mowing the yard. That will get my pulse rate near 170 even if I am not panting or out of breath. It will be a good 47 minute workout.

The Garmin VivoSmart3 has done exactly what I wanted plus a couple of features I had not counted on. It's very accurate about my sleep patterns, right down to the very minute I lay down to sleep at night to getting up. I guess I am not the deep sleeper I thought I was as I only get 1-2 hours per night of deep sleep.

With the combination of the Garmin, no fast food runs or junk food, and Sadie dragging me outside for 3 walks per day ... I lost 5 pounds in June, an inch around my stomach and 3mm of fat pinched between the calipers. I am a couple of pounds away from the weight I was 18 years ago.

I've also been doing some low effort bicycling both on my mountain bike rides to town and my road bike out into the country at a faster pace. Still not anywhere close to what I use to do but enough to get the pulse rate up.

I'm sure there were other things I was going to talk about but have forgotten them.

I'll have to get on Google search later on and find out how to adjust my exposure setting on my Nikon camera. It does talk about 'exposure' in my owners manual but nothing shows me where and how to adjust it. {Found it and adjusted the exposure compensation to -3}.

I am not sure why but comparing my photos to those I took the first week I owned the camera ... there are major differences in quality. Those pictures taken when I first bought my camera were so much better in color and depth.

Oh, I did find out from another Countryman owner on the Mini forum that our black cars with the red mirror covers, JCW inserts on the sides and red brake intakes ... were an option that came out for the 2012 model (my year) and still available on his 2016 model. I might have the dealership or a local body shop install the stock red stripes again. Not sure.

I'm off to mow the yard while the hounds sleep until their lunch.

Still great weather here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella Didn't Want The Afternoon Walk

The day started out so bizarre a little after 5am, that I'll get to that later in the post. It ended a little 12 hours later with Stella not wanting to go on the afternoon walk as I was about a step away from the field and Sadie was hopping up and down with her "let's get going" energy.


We waited this morning for the storms to pass through before taking the first walk of the day. When it comes to getting  your shoes and legs soaked walking in the early morning field, it doesn't matter if it's from heavy morning dew or what the strong thunderstorms left ... it's still wet. Stella actually trotted from the carport to the field and then right past me. I'd never see her with that much early morning energy in quite a while.

These bright orange flowers will not last long. I expect as soon as the field dries out with the 4 straight days of sunshine we plan on getting, they will cut the field and start baling it by next weekend.

This afternoon was a different story for her though. Around 5pm Stella, Sadie and I headed outside for the final walk of the day. It had just rained but nothing was left on the weather radar that showed we were in danger of getting rained on. Stella got no further than the six red blocks at the corner of the house known as "Winston's Patio", where she stood and stared at Sadie and I like we were crazy.

These few pictures are all from this mornings walk.

I kept asking her "don't you want to go on a walk", she stood and stared as if to ask "can't you figure it out ...no". Finally when I asked her if she wanted to go back inside with Heidi, without any hesitation she turned and headed for the door.

She did not want to go on the walk.

She did something similar last week for an afternoon walk, but then after getting back inside she walked to the door wanting outside just as soon as she was inside ... then walked slower than she normally does.

I take each of these instances as signs that something is not good with her. Her days and nights are normal, no signs or sounds of pain ... but she would never turn down the chance to take a walk. Thinking back to past hounds I've had that ended up sick, turning down a walk was their sign they were sick.

I want to thank everyone for their comments and emails. I decided earlier today it didn't matter what those 4-5 people do, I don't care ... they'll be ignored.

Now for the story of the day that is too bizarre, especially when it's 5:02am after checking my watch while wondering what is going on with me.

I'm woken up with flashing lights moving around the top of my bedroom, with shades of red. LSD is not involved. It's the same type of lights I see at night when the local police or state police pull someone over on the highway in front of the house with their lights flashing.

I figured they had pulled over someone on their way to work so I decided to get up and look out the kitchen window to see where the cop was in relation to the house and what part of the highway they sat. This is the first problem of my day ...

There is no cop on the highway and there are no flashing lights ... but there is a huge light show outside with loud thunder just as the winds picked up and the severe thunderstorm we were warned about had started ... with a house full of open windows.

No need to stop reading yet, that isn't even the highlight of this story.

I return to bed and try to sleep for the next hour. So far my Garmin is telling me I've slept a little over 6 hours and zero of it has been deeper than a 'light' sleep plus I got up earlier and my total time of wandering around the house has been 23 minutes.

So I decided to start the day a little early. I get out of bed and make my morning coffee while all three hounds sleep through thunder and lightning. I can take advantage of 2 hours of internet data that is in that extra free 50Gb pot. It takes a lot of data to upload all of my photos from the previous day into Google Photo and Flickr, for online backups.

So to cut this thrilling story short, I'll get to the point. I have two cups of coffee (normal), take the hounds out for their morning walk (normal), then sat down about 9am to log in my meals into the app on my iPhone that is tracking what I eat with hopes of losing weight faster than I have been.

Bizarre #1 -- I go to "yesterday", enter the meals I didn't log in the night prior. When I go to what I think should be Saturday ... the app says it's June 17th ... which was on Friday. I even tried it a couple of different times just in case there was not a mistake with the synchronization between iPhone and watch.

Bizarre #2 -- I noticed the screen that breaks down my sleep from the previous night is on the wrong date ... it shows June 18. That can't be right I think to myself because it's the 19th and Sadie's birthday. I even go into the edit portion of the page and change my wake up time to 6:02am because the screen is showing 6:58am but I did that the day before.

After making the change I realize I was on yesterday's screen and it was right to begin with ... but why is it showing today as the 18th.

With the flashing lights to wake me up, the normal ration of caffeine and now this ... I am willing to let things go as is and forget about it. I am positive the Garmin and the iPhone did not finish it's synchronization correctly and it will fix itself later.

Then the the world came crashing down on me ... I couldn't believe it ... was I in the Twilight Zone?

As I sat down at the computer I glance up to the right hand corner where my computer says "Sun 9:38am" .... SUNDAY ????? Sunday???

You're right, for the short 3 hours I had been up I thought it was Monday morning, was sure of it, even though I thought the traffic pattern on the highway was a lot different than a normal work day.

Needless to say, I have spent today just a few steps off the pace. It's good that the hounds can't read a calendar.

To those I made famous yesterday ... blogging will continue here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds & I Are Loving This Weather

While it was 74° after midnight last night, the hounds were sleeping peacefully. They had a pretty active day yesterday with 3 walks, and numerous other trips outside. This morning the air was filled with the smell of honeysuckle and a cloudy sky of blue. I find it interesting that the rows of corn did not float away while spending days under water. 

I took a cup of coffee outside this morning while keeping an eye on the hounds. They have been wandering off more and more recently. It's to the point that I cannot let them out on their own anymore. Sadie is checking to see if she is the only hound being call back in or does Stella have to follow the rules too.

I didn't get a picture of Stella over by the burn pile, but I did get one of her starting her day in the normal fashion of a good deep itch relieving scratch. This is also after not finding any ticks, fleas, hot spots and anything else that could cause her to scratch like this. She stood inside the bathtub like a statue as she got a bath yesterday.

The bugs were out in formation early. I could hear them buzzing close to my ears and to me there may not be anything worse than having to fight battling insects that fly and dart fast enough to stay out of my reach ... biting me. We headed back inside for that 2nd cup of coffee.

With computer problem solved and operational, the only crisis around here was whether to go back putting the blog post content above the picture it went with instead of below. How's that for having all of the world's problems solved here in 'the tropics'?

With the morning being so nice, Sadie did not hesitate in getting me outside for the hounds first walk of the day. I had not sat in my chair 5 minutes before she was at my elbow telling me "lets go". Her mouth grabbed my left hand leading me to the edge of the field, then she took off running to get ahead.

Stella was back to her slow pace this morning and wasn't going to change much. Although she did trot to catch up with Sadie later on and was even leading the walk at one time.

The new computer set up is working out fantastic and I continue to learn new things by finding small changes to tweak it a little finer. You never know the settings have been changed with the fresh restart, until something doesn't work.

As expected with all the recent rain the field is growing at a fast rate. It might not be as thick in the majority of the field but it is getting taller than my knees. The brush along the sides is thick enough to where you cannot see through it, let alone walk through it.

Sadie was certain there had been deer in the area before the first turn.

Stella was back looking for that rabbit she accidentally stumbled on in the 3rd walk of the day yesterday. Even I heard the rabbit charging through the small brush breaking sticks as she ran to get away.

The noses of the hounds were really active this morning but that did not mean their energy levels increased along with it. I decided I'd let them go where they want, do what they want, just as long as they stayed out of the woods and out of the gully.

When they both made the turn to the far corner I decided to join them. Not only could I keep a better eye on them in case they decided to bolt out of bounds but it would give me a different angle to take some pictures.

Is this what I am smelling? If you are a plant or flower hobbyist, please chime in here to correct me or give me answers. Google images tells me that it's honeysuckle.

For these two partners in crime, there is nothing better than some fresh morning natural protein to add to their diets. They were so stubborn when I called them that I had to walk back and nudge them to get going.

Stella took the short cut again, cutting the corner of the last turn. She stood and looked into the area of the 'no-fly zone', then slowly followed behind me. I still have my suspicions that she is sick. So much change in her in a years time.

They both continued the slow walk home. I wanted to get back to fix some breakfast/brunch before loaded up the Mini Countryman with two 32gl trash containers for a trip to the recycling center. One had my recyclables and the other had bagged trash that I can drop off for a whopping $2.

They tried their best to casually veer right, walking further away from me. Lately in the afternoons, without taking my camera, they have been going too far out of their boundaries when I let them continue their wandering off.

With the recent rains, there is something in the drainage ditch that runs along the edge of the field and the neighbor's yard. Stella is very attracted to that area and it almost takes me grabbing her collar to get her to leave. She was following that ditch toward the highway Monday, so the recent afternoon walks have been without the camera and carrying the 25' retractable leash in case I need it.

I almost stepped on this guy, luckily Sadie nor Stella saw it. I don't see as many of these worms as you would expect. I see a turtle every once in a while but not every year, no snakes and lately no sign of the large blonde field cat.

The flooded water receded a lot over night. The water level can change by the hour. With my trip west of town to the recycling center, I saw a lot more flooding than I have been seeing across the highway. As it should be since the river is in that direction.

Whenever you do a major install of a new computer that you just bought or changing out one like I just did, all of those settings change. Anything from your cursor not able to move to drag and drop cells in Excel to the keyboard not scrolling to the left fast enough when I am trying to delete a sentence.

Yet there was nothing worse than finding out yesterday afternoon that when I did the migration from the iMac to my laptop, it set my Mahjong game back to a brand new start. All of those games I had spent hours playing, achieving my goal sometimes of completing the games under 3 minutes were gone !!!!

A 160 different games were all setting at different times above 4 minutes, just waiting for me to start over on my quest of under 3 minutes to complete. It's harder to play on a screen twice the size. Using the keypad on the laptop was still slower than normal with the larger monitor.

One great thing I found out how to do yesterday ... I can close my lap top and as long as it is on and plugged into my external monitor it works perfect just like a hard drive. So I am back to one monitor instead of two. I'll see how I like that change ... because the results could determine if a possibility could happen months from now.

What is that?

I remember the first time they were set out on display a couple of years ago, the iMacs with the 'retina' display blew me away. The difference in picture quality is indescribable. I told myself then and remind my self to this day ... "STAY AWAY".

So on purpose last night, I surfed the web during commercials of the baseball game I was watching, on my iPad Mini ... that has ... a ... retina display.

My brain cells scrambled, pulse rate went up, ideas, temptations, justifications, and maybe even some slight drooling took place as I looked at the clarity and perfect picture quality ... KNOWING ... an iMac with that retina display was just a 40 minute drive away.

I admit it ... after the game was over, with my Reds beating the powerful first place Yankees, I sat in my desk chair and went straight Best Buy online to take a look a those iMacs with the retina display. It was a tough fight all the way not to change my current path from what I have set up to buying something new ... with that damn retina display.

Other websites, and bloggers who talk about Apple computers almost always warn their readers NOT TO go take a look at them on display because you will never look at your computer monitor the same way again.

With some sound sleep, a bowl of fresh fruit for breakfast ... all of that "retina stuff" had evaporated from my thought process. Sometime overnight I had been drug back into reality and lectured on my lack of focus.

With the yard mowed yesterday, recycling trip this morning, days of salad cut up in advance, a fresh pineapple cut and ready to eat ... there are not any plans for today. I'll continue to live in those '5 minute' windows like a child, led by the decisions of the hounds. (ie: would you prefer I stand on the right or left side of the door as I let you out for the 100th time today?)

I love that I have gone from a work-a-holic to a full blown slacker without any transitional pain. Being 'a slacker' should have been my career path from the start.

It's too quiet in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana today ... just the way I like it.

Hounds Up Early Today

It was still dark outside, I could hear traffic and Sadie was standing next to the bed eye level ... already giving me the look that she wanted to go out. How long had she been standing there?

I tried not to subtract one hour from the actual time to make me feel even worse, with the recent time change. Since retired I never get up when it's dark in the morning ... never.

Today was different. After I became a little more conscious I realized I was just as awake as Sadie. Stella and Heidi were still in a deep sleep. As you can see, Stella wasn't even that thrilled being up and outside by 8:15am when there was some daylight. Sadie is wagging her tail ready to go within seconds of opening her eyes every morning or after a nap in the afternoon.

Stella liked that it wasn't raining this morning. It will tomorrow but this morning she was trying to sneak away from the start of the morning walk. Does she think I will not see her while I stand 20' away? That drainage ditch she visited a couple of weeks ago is in that direction.

After yelling her name a couple of times, she turned and headed back to us. Sadie was already off headed to the first turn and was quite active this morning.

Sadie was going in so many different directions, some of the pictures of her may be blurred due to her movements. Let's just say that she was getting a lot of good nose exercise in this morning.

I was surprised that Stella was on the path with us, walking without any commands or instruction from me. I was curious if she would lead me to the far right corner. There seemed to be a lot of recent deer traffic based on the actions of Sadie.

Once Sadie checked out what Stella had found, she was back to running from the left side of the path and then all the way back over to the corner. Nose to the ground, paws in the air.

There were so many different scents in the area she couldn't make up her mind which direction to go. She was everywhere, while Stella meandered slowly along the path that I take.

Sadie was back again on the far right corner and started running along the edge of the field. That is the path the deer take before they turn right, jump over the short worn fence and sprint through the corn field. I've seen them do that but not today.

Sadie was so focused during all of this she heard nothing that I said, nor paid any attention to what Stella was doing. She was 100% serious today.

Once they joined forces they had that look they were both headed to the 'no fly zone'. I was preparing myself mentally that I'd be sprinting after them, while hoping it would be a false alarm.

Yes, the deer move right along here ....

And jump into the field behind this one about right here ...

Before I sprint anywhere I always call their names. I am not running, let along sprinting anywhere if I don't have to. I was pretty happy that both of them turned and headed my direction from the 'no fly zone' then headed home back on the path.

Stella looks and feels like she is staring to gain her weight back. Those larger portions of kibble two times per day must be helping. The hound that eats the less weighs more, and the hound that is always hungry, eats as long as there is food ... is the skinny one.

She may have looked like she was heading home with Sadie and I, but she had to take one more look at the neighbor's house just in case there is something to chase or wander off to check out. When they look this way I always forget that they can hear 4x further than we can.

Without any bribes of food or treats, no threats of putting the 6' leash on her ... she turned and came our way.

Sadie had sprinted all the way back to the house by the time Stella and I walked into the driveway. She was making one last check there were no birds to chase before we came back inside. Bird chasing has been her favorite hobby this week ... Spring is here.

It's been a little over 24 hours since Apple updated their OS. I guess all of those times the past few months that I would click the buttons to send them a report when my iMac would reboot itself while in the sleep mode ... worked. So far in almost 36 hours, that error has not repeated itself.

I leave my computer in sleep mode anytime that I am away from it besides just a quick trip to the fridge or bathroom. Each time since the update it has NOT rebooted itself. When I click any key on my keyboard the computer wakes up without delay. I also have noticed it boots up faster than it did after the last update.

I did something different grocery shopping yesterday and it paid off quite well. I live near a government commissary store, same distance just the opposite direction from the grocery store I normally shop at. Evidently with a new fiscal year, new funding or something ... their small store was stocked with more choices than I had seen in the 20 years living here. All the brand names that I buy were there, including some new ones.

I'll not go into detail but to give you an idea on the difference in prices across the board, these items show the type of savings I was getting on the same foods I buy on a regular basis.

1. Greek Gods Greek Yogurt is $4.95 at the store, I paid $3.15 yesterday
2. Tyson skinless chicken breasts are $4.50+, I paid $3.88
3. Seattle's Best Coffee is $5.50+ where I bought it before, $4.59 yesterday
         -- I bought the cheapest bag on the shelf with over 8 popular brands
              to choose from.
4. Veggies and Fruits were 50% less than I normally pay.
5. Two New York Strip Steaks in the past were $10-$12, yesterday $2.96

I walked out with $50 worth of food that is normally $80-$100.

It was hard to do at the start but cutting out fruits that have too much acid, plus all fruit juices has eliminated indigestion. I love oranges and orange juice so that was hard not to buy them. As I compare how I have been eating lately to the spreadsheet of foods I pulled from the book about eating foods based on your blood type ... their lists of foods on what to eat and what to avoid has proven to be very accurate in my case.

Not much else planned today. Skies are overcast but rain is not predicted until tomorrow. I think I'll take the Z4 out for a spin. Later this afternoon after the grass is dryer I'll mow the small areas of the yard that has tall, thick green grass.

The hounds will get another walk or two this afternoon. Heidi will pass those walks up also since it is below her 70° threshold and nowhere near her 65° minimum option.

Final 4 Championship game on Monday with MLB starting their season the day before on Sunday. Life is good as I move my sports addiction into the spring and summer months. Cargo shorts instead of jeans are about to begin.

April 11 will be my 3rd year anniversary of retirement here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana. It's all good.