Stella And I Tip Toe On The Walk

I keep reminding myself this is just a normal winter, that winter weather is NOT the same every year. From the history of my photos, sorted by day or a blog post written in the past, I can see consistent changes taking place about ever three years. Although I cannot remember off the top of my head the last time we had a major snow storm where schools were closed, highways were closed and the bread plus milk aisles at the grocery store looked like the last day on earth ... empty. I remember those types of storms happening a few times since I moved in this house in March 1998 but unless my memory is really in the failure mode, that type of snow has not happened in the past ten years.

But it wasn't snow that Stella and I were concerned with this morning ... it was the extremely saturated ground with standing water on the field path in spots, after some rain, temps near 40 melting the snow from Friday night and as we started our walk, little balls of sleet were hitting my dark blue down parka sleeve.

Here you can see how the light overnight rain depeleted a lot of the snow, only to have its evidence frozen with low overnight temps. As my North Face boots took each step through the yard you could hear a loud crunching of ice only to met by 'mud' ... not really mud but ground so soft I thought I was stepping in mud.

You can see here each step we took yesterday at the end of the walk has melted. Also it's interesting to me to see that up in the north yard, the bare grass is the exact spot that the underground water flows, even making that right turn ... I've only seen that path after I cut and cleared all the natural overgrown brush in that area a few years ago.

I took this picture of Stella not knowing  my camera was still on "landscape" mode, after I was checking some things out yesterday. I did intend for the flash to be on because it was that dark outside, even at 8:05am.

When I saw the flash show up on the image on the camera monitor, I turned if off ... this is the exact time I caught the camera in "landscape" mode instead of "auto no flash" mode.

As you can see, with bad weather yesterday and about 4 hours until kickoff for the first NFL Playoff game, I had time to 'play' with the blog template. If you checked the blog between 12:30pm and 3:30pm Saturday you may have seen 3 or 4 different designs I had published. I was close to what I wanted but was still looking and using up my internet data like a water faucet left on. Yes, I thought I loved the dark background, making my pictures stand out but there was just something about a white background I really like. I even caught myself seeing every sports website now moved to white backgrounds along with the news websites I saw a few weeks ago. I found my own eyes preferred the white background with black fonts better than my dark and light tan color font. Still at 3:27pm ... I was still looking through the long list of WordPress themes I could choose from.

Then there it was!! Had I seen this theme before? If so, why didn't I choose it. I had used some search terms I had not used before such as "clean", "one column" (I did use this prior) "grids" (I did use that prior) ... but this theme looked great before making any adjustments plus it had a feature I had never seen before. I could choose for the home page to be skinny, standard or wide. I could choose my blog post content to be skinny, standard, wide and wider. If I made the home page wider I'd have less columns and if I made my post pages extremely wide I had huge pictures for us that read the blog on large monitors. For those of use that use laptops, those pictures would fill the screen ... for the tablet and phone readers, it did not make any difference. I checked the new blog design on my laptop, iPad Mini and iPhone so I had some idea what the readers on those devices would see.

Unlike yesterday I saw a ton of deer tracks in the melting snow this morning and so did Stella. They had followed the edge of the woods up to the first turn. Then around the corner where Stella is always checking out their entrance to or from the woods, there were tracks coming out of the woods and following the edge of the gully heading east across the field to the back.

It's funny to see when Stella picks up her pace. It reminds me that she really does have a bloodhound nose and she isn't a 100% 'couch potato' ... a term a bloodhound breeder told me once. She separated her puppies with a test at 45 days old and could tell who the 'trackers' were and who the 'couch potatoes' were. I have never bought a puppy from her but at the time I was talking to her about some issues Sadie was having as a puppy. I did not get Stella until she was 6 years old

If that isn't an overcast day I don't know what is. The temp is hovering around the 40° mark so most of the white stuff will be gone by tomorrow. I must admit I like the pictures I take in the spring, summer and fall from this vantage point. There is just something about bare trees I don't care for. At least when I lived in Washington, it might rain a lot in the winter and get dark by 4pm or earlier but those pine trees are always green.  :)

While I walked softly along the wet path, Stella had been tip toeing most of the way as if she didn't want to get her feet wet. She will walk around puddles of water near the house or on the carport floor, here I have her in 7 acres of puddles this morning.

Here you are looking at 4 stages of weather .... snow from Friday night ... residue of ice from last night ... tiny holes of rain drops from last night and then frozen overnight ... and standing water from the warmer temps Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.

Although in recent months, she has never taken off north toward those woods or even tried to escape on the worn ATV path made in the summer of 2017 ... she glances that way at times wondering either "what if ... " or "I remember when ..."

Stella is walking in the exact same steps she took yesterday ... she even veered left to walk parallel ... can you see where veered turned left?

With that left paw held up, that just shows you how slow she was walking with each step as the path got wetter. Super slow-motion. Tip toe through 'the tulips' ... wasn't that a song many years ago??

I've been feeling lighter this week. How can I tell? Two ways ... by what I bought and snack on since Thursday plus how much easier it is to fasten my jeans. I always find out that I can no longer eat breads in any form. It doesn't matter if it is wheat, sourdough, rye ... it's bread and my body craves it like candy when it's in the house. I also know that a 1/2c of pasta sauce isn't enough, nor is the 1c of 'dry' pasta ... even fact the word pasta can only be eaten about once per month and only in the recommended serving size on the jar or bag. I was looking through the list of diets by USNews the other day for their 2019 ratings. At #4 was something called the Flexitarian Diet ... I found out I'd had been following that for the past 5 years more or less. That is mostly veggies and fruits, eggs, seafood, chicken and then an OCCASIONAL burger at 5Guy's or that Stromboli at Nick's.

Yet that doesn't help me lose weight. And .... I'm not really dieting but just finding the best way to eat for the rest of my life ... of course open to changes as I get older.

I keep thinking about writing and posting my review of the Apple Watch I bought a little over a week ago or has it been two weeks already .. not sure. I still love it as much as I mentioned the last week. I still consider it one of my best if not the best electronic purchases I've ever made. I did a lot of research before I bought it. I also talked to an online friend who bought hers last year for health reasons. She emailed me a couple of days ago with an update about the watch, with some news you could almost consider negative as far as the watch goes but very positive that she is okay.

She has atrial fibrillation (A-fib) and that can be picked up by the Apple Watch Series 4. This newer model is supposed to detect when you fall, then automatically call 911 if that person whom has fallen does not respond in a certain amount of time by pressing a button on the watch. She fell, and passed out but that was not detected by the Apple Watch plus it did not call 911 as it was designed to do. Test reports stated it was very accurate in detecting a fall and if you had A-fib. Luckily her husband was at the house and found her soon enough to call for medical help. She did say the watch DID detect that she had a A-fib episode.

Fall Detection is one of the reasons I decided to buy the watch since I live alone. As I said when I wrote about it a few Fridays ago .. I don't think I will ever be in that situation, but you never know. If I would fall and the watch did NOT detect it, I guess I would be in the same situation as if I had not bought it. So nothing lost really ... I still love the additional information the watch gives me and the different ways it provides that information.

I have two more NFL Playoff games to watch today. I did not finish watching the second game last night. It was not that late but the urge to sleep was greater than wanting to watch the game. I guess that is what I get when Stella thinks I should get up every day at 5am. Only today, she let me sleep late. In fact I had to wake her and Heidi up to go outside a little past 7am.

I know you have heard me say this many times over the 7+ years of blogging on this blog, either here on WordPress or over on Blogger. I really like this current theme and am pretty sure this is the final design. I DO have one more option to check out. It is on this same theme.
I can add a sidebar either on the home page, the post page or bothI can only add to the footer, a sidebar is not an option I found out I had two options, in the footer but only two columns wide or on the single post page BUT only after the post BEFORE the comments section So I chose in the footer so the comments section is just below the post ... a sidebar would let me list those other blogs or websites I like to follow, the most visited posts or pages for those first time blog visitors, maybe a few favorite pictures, or the link to my new Flickr account that I keep forgetting I set up a few weeks ago.

That will be the only change that MIGHT HAPPEN ... a sidebar added ... IF I decide I want that information within a click away.

The Question of the Day ... why does Stella always whine or howl when I sneeze or when I am trying to break the record for the most consecutive sneezes in a row?

It's Sunday, the snow is melting, the hounds are laid-back like always, my coffee was good and my Apple Watch battery has lasted longer active than the 18 hours they told me it would. NFL games on today with some college basketball, good food available, a fairly clean house for a single hermit and a 'toy' list that is once again blank.

It's all good today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Some Sunday Morning Rambling

I am writing this post this morning from the comfort of the laptop sitting at the kitchen table. This is where I have the best view outside with the large picture window looking out across the highway to the two fields. That Southwest direction also gives me a good idea what the weather will be like for the day and shows me storms before they arrive. This morning it was 27° as Stella and I stepped outside. High winds last night from the West-Northwest just as forecasted. Stella was positive there was some kind of visitor last night around that area ... she wouldn't leave.

I changed my coat for the walk from a Carhartt I had to my Mountain Hard Wear parka. I was surprised that the freezing temps really didn't bother me, with a cold breeze coming out of the north. Those days of upper 80's wearing a t-shirt and cargo shorts are a distant memory. I can't even remember what that feels like.

So yes, late Friday afternoon well into late Friday night I re-opened my old files, jumped on Realtor dot com and looked at houses for sale in Arizona and New Mexico. That always seems to happen with the temps dip below 32°. I find the same results every year. Decent houses cost more than I want to pay and those that need fixing up are overpriced. I know my view is skewed because I have had no mortgage for a lot of years.

Add to that, I can never make up my mind where I would want to move to. Everywhere, even here, has it plus and minuses. So I'll leave it as something I like doing on a cold day or night. Yet ... you never know.

Again as I start writing this, there is no order of my thoughts. Some things I was going to write about I have already forgotten. I hate that. I did find out Saturday just how nice it was not to blog. I once again liked walking with Stella without the camera and no photos were taken yesterday until late last night with my iPhone. You'll see those few photos at the bottom of this post. A friend that blogs told me once, "The best pictures are the ones you don't take."

Don't take offense to my thoughts of not taking photos of the hounds or not blogging. It's not personal and they are the same thoughts I have have had since my first blog post in October 2011. In a way blogging is a trap. Where do you draw the line? Whether I want to or not I find myself always going back and forth between what is too much blogging and what isn't enough. Do other bloggers feel the same way?

Those leaves are dead leaves on the trees, not full of color. Is that a sample of things to come?

Since I am "stationary" and don't travel, my daily routine doesn't change much. Just the way I like it. So to blog daily is hard at times for the same reasons I have written about in the past. Things like the same photos on the same walk and the hounds doing the same thing ... day after day. Other times there is not enough hours in the day to do what I want to do ... then there are times I just don't feel like blogging period.

So I will do what other readers have told me to do in the past ... blog when you feel like it. That is why I am blogging this morning, I felt like it.

In a selfish way, it was good to read that I am not the only one that feels it hard to blog when you are not traveling. Where your routines are pretty close to the same every day and there just isn't that much to write about or take photos of ... RVsue and Al at TheBayfieldBunch have found it harder to blog recently since they are only traveling part time now. Both of them use to blog daily but they were also traveling full-time. The times Al wasn't he, Kelly and Pheebs would be out in their jeep traveling locally in the Southwest, capturing fantastic photos of the area.

I wonder if they have that feeling sometimes "my readers deserve a daily post" and fight that inner battle whether to blog when you don't really feel like it. That might just be the particles called brain cells that make me feel that way. I've never been normal. Ha!

Yes I could take less time to blog but it's just my makeup ... I like editing photos a little, I like deciding which ones to use and I always seem to post more than I plan on or what readers may want to see. Plus as many of you have figured out .. I like to talk ... sometimes too much. That leads to me rambling and typing a longer post than I planned. OR ... my train of thought will move to something entirely different so I write about that.

There is no middle ground for me in most things that I do. It's one extreme or another, like don't blog at all or blog multiple times per day. You have seen both of those take place on this blog. Just like I cannot mow just part of the yard, it's either all or nothing even if part of the yard does not need mowing. Or .. I can't wash just one car, I have to do both at the same time. Just like this interior painting I am thinking about doing.

Could I just paint a room or two???? No way!!! If I do one closet then I have to do a room. If I do one room I have to do the whole house.

So I have a lot of inner battles I have never escaped from. LOL

Here I go right now .... "what was it I was going to talk about???"

I will say it is really nice to have all of those paper files out of my life, recycled or burned and file cabinet drawers empty. I opened the drawer in the bathroom sink cabinet and it was almost empty with only things that I use. All of my closets have been cleaned out, only stuff that is used is still there. Even my 'to do' list is down to cleaning walls and painting inside.

I will go up on the roof on Monday when it's 61° and blow the leaves out of the gutter with my leaf blower. It will take longer to take the ladder out of my shed and expand it from a fold up to one that gets me on the roof than cleaning the gutters. As far as raking the yard ... those high winds yesterday afternoon and last night took care of them. I have only one line of leaves along the back of my house that are left and they will be blown over the side bank on Monday when it's warmer and sunny.

I'm at one of those times of trying to remember what else I wanted to say.

Blogger was having issues with my photos today ... another time consuming thing for blogging.

Speaking of Blogger, owned by Google ... this blog is the only reason I kept my three gmail accounts. One each to log into my three blogs, where two of them are private. For the past 4-5 months I have gotten rid of Facebook, stopped using Google Chrome as a browser, stopped using Google for searches. I have nothing to hide on the internet. It's just the principal of what those two companies do with my data without my permission. I read yesterday that Facebook is right back to doing what they got in trouble for last Spring, by using "Shadow Accounts".

Stella decided to take her own way home this morning. She may have led me to the original return path but it wasn't long she decided she would finish in the northern part of the backyard. That's fine as long as I could see her and that she didn't turn around and head toward the neighbor's yard or woods.

Every morning she looks in the direction of the highway and every morning there is nothing there to see.

There is that daily stare she gives me before she heads to the house.

Yes ... that is ICE you see on my hiking boots. It was 87° in Phoenix late yesterday afternoon.

My old friend that lives in Phoenix and loves all the hot weather he can get, was about to take his Mastiff out for a pre-dawn walk that they do every morning but he heard something outside and it was loud. He thought someone might be getting ready to break into his house but saw it was 10 javelinas with 2 babies. He and his dog decided to delay there walk until this group left their neighborhood. He lives in a residential neighborhood.

My iPhone 8 Plus takes the best photos inside and in low light than any camera I have or have had. None of these next few photos were edited, all straight from the iPhone.

Stella's normal position every night on the couch while I watch a movie or ball games.

Last night between 7pm and 8pm I had more games on that I wanted to watch live, not tape. So one of the reasons I bought the larger tv last summer was to do this. Those are large screens where I can sit 8' away and don't have to squint to read the scores or banners at the bottom of each channel.

While I watched the games ... the hounds slept soundly. You can tell the temps are dropping as they turn their noses into the warm leather couch.

I admit that I eat most of my afternoon or dinner meals on the coffee table while watching a game. Heidi will stand to the right of me and gives me that look that she would love some of my chicken, salmon or steak. What about that crust from the pizza ??? Could you refuse a face like that ??

Stella has adopted those Bloodhound Rules and thinks everything is hers ... including my food. When she doesn't get any or maybe not as fast as she would like ... she pouts. That is her pouting face and she will not move from that pose until I say "here" and hand her something to eat.

As a warning ... everything I said here could be BS as far as plans or blogging thoughts. I live in small windows because I can. Things, plans or ideas can change at a moments notice with me. I am more of an impulse person than a planner. I would be more likely to load the car up with camping stuff and two hounds on spur of the moment to see my friend in Phoenix this winter ... than pull out the maps and make a PLAN to get there.

Just like I might plan a drive to Bloomington 25 miles away but within an hour, 30 minutes or even less ... I could ditch that idea and end up doing something entirely different.

Living in 15 minute windows fits my DNA and my Retirement Policy. At least I am always on time if not early for meeting friends or having an appointment.

It's just above 32° right now but it's sunny, NFL games on later today and Heidi is barking for lunch while Stella joins her request by howling ... I gotta go.

2 hours 1 minute

No Fall this year in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.