Hounds Settle Into Spring

I wasn't sure any walks would be taken today when we woke up to a steady rain. Even Stella did not want to go outside the first time I opened the door to start our daily routine. It was nice to finally sleep with the windows open and hear the rain just outside the window. It looks like the farmer has a new low spot in his field near the back.

Just a little sign of how much it rained overnight. It was nothing major but it was a factor for Stella. When I grabbed the camera and said "come on, let's go", she didn't move from her sitting position next to the island. By the time I took the first photo of the field across the highway, she was at the door wanting to be let outside.

With a slight hesitation, she finally stepped outside and once she felt the wet grass, moved over to the river rock to follow the side of the house. You will see that she took a different route this morning ... what is strange, it is the same route whenever it has rained.

I was going to let her go where she wanted and I'd follow. I was just happy the rain had stopped long enough for us to get a walk in this morning. I had plans to go grocery shopping, that would take place right after we finished.

I am still locked into my 'diet', which is not really a diet but a way of eating long term. Like I have said before, it is not really much different from what I have done for the past five years. I have cut out dairy products though and can tell a difference as well as moderation on steak, pizza, or cheeseburgers. I've only had one of those three, a pizza, the past month.

Still I caught myself again Friday going back through all my notes, bookmarked websites and shopping lists to see which direction I want to go in my eating plans. I stayed with what I am doing with low fat, 30% protein and 55% carbs, while keepign around 1,550 calories per day.

Stella was on her own this morning and she wasn't waiting around for me. She was not eating deer scat, nor was she doing much exploring but steady continuous walking. It was almost like she was getting a workout in. With her winter coat shedding, I combed out three large metal brushes full of undercoat yesterday afternoon.  Heidi hardly sheds at all in comparison.

Stella's pink John Deere collar was getting too small so I went back to an older collar I had hanging inside a closet door. I think she might have worn this bright red one before. She doesn't like it when I take her collar off, she likes wearing one, where Heidi only wears her's when she goes to the vet.

Will Heidi show up outside today long enough for me to take some photos of her?

Just before we got to the first corner of the field, Stella moved over to our regular path, where I can walk and she can inspect the edge of the field and woods.

From the first corner all the way to the back, the path was this wet with a lot of standing water. You can bet your last dollar that it will be impossible to get Heidi on any kind of walk today and possibly for the next few days until the path dries out.

Besides thinking about my diet, I have also been thinking about deleting some of the blogs from my reading list. Those would be the ones I added to my list here a few months ago. You might remember them ... Frauds, Crooks and Criminals, Creeping Sharia, Kunstler's Blog, and The Market Ticker.

Yes, all of them keep you updated on what is going on behind the scenes, rarely reported by the mainstream media. Some of their news is quite alarming, a little scary and concerning. Others are just their opinions but the one consistent thing about all of them ... there isn't a damn thing I can do personally to stop what is going on, or control what is going on in the world today.

After a while I just get tired of reading about or listening to all the bullshit surrounding politics, illegal immigrants, muslims wanting their way of life to be in control as well as their sharia laws and the abuses of Medicaid and Medicare along with food stamps and welfare. Basically the generosity of this country has been and is being taken advantage of and that will not stop until someone gets some guts and does something about it.

Will all of this affect me and the hounds living here in bumb*** Egypt ? Most likely not. I compare it to the increase in crime, gang activity, drugs and the attempt at being a sanctuary city only 25 miles from me. I know it's there, but that is not here. We already have a meth problem in this area and have for years and that has not affected the hounds and I ... so ....

I think it's time to delete those blogs and set them aside with the deleted tv news in my house and continue to feel much better without bullshit running around my brain cells. I'd rather read books, work in the yard, do house projects and hang out with the hounds instead of hearing and analyzing the bullshit called tv news and the changing of the country. Maybe I can hide out away from it for the next 30 years and never have it affect me.

Speaking of book reading, yes I am still reading the book about Steve Jobs but I picked up a couple of new books at the library on Friday. Top Gun written by the founder of the Navy's Topgun flight program. You might remember the movie about it from the mid 1980's. Another book is interesting after reading only a few pages. It's called The Light Years by Chris Rush. Just after a couple of pages Sunday night I lost all interest in this book and stopped reading it. I picked up the book about Topgun and couldn't put it down.

With the NCAA Basketball tournament finishing up, there hasn't been a lot of time to read. Plus major league baseball has started so that fills in the gaps during the week nights. I do not sit and watch the baseball game's every pitch but will have it on in the background and will tune in if something exciting is happening. A lot of times I can read with the sound turned off and the games on.

Today will be one of those days. Reading, game on, windows open, with the hounds sleeping.

Stella took her time this morning but by the time I stopped my Apple Watch "outdoor walking" tracker ... we had walked our normal 16 minutes and for .53 of a mile.

Not only does my watch tell me when to get off my ass and out of my desk chair to stand up and walk around, but Stella does a great job getting me outside for a little exercise. She is not as demanding as Sadie was, but there are times when Stella will come to get me if she is in the mood to take the walk.

There was no sniffing around the trees this morning. She never stopped one time to check on anything ... she kept on walking, right around the corner of the house and straight to the door. She must have known I had to go buy some food.

All I will say about my shopping trip is ... stupidity was at its finest this morning. I was glad to get back in my car and get home without an accident due to someone else's fault. I swear I really wonder what people are thinking sometimes ...

Still ... it's another fine day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Blog Has Changed !!

It was not too long after I published that post this morning that I sat down with a new cup of coffee and clicked on the WordPress dashboard "Themes" ... I was going to get serious about finding a blog with a sidebar on the right hand side. Should be easy to do with over 300 blog themes to choose from. Anywhere from 60-108 of them had sidebars on the right side of the page. A little over 5 hours later I found myself unsuccessful in the hunt, yet ... I made some drastic blog changes.

Yes, I did sit my my computer for almost all of that time looking through and trying out different themes. A few of them I made some changes and on two of them I had everything modified with my information ... just click on the "publish" button to change it all.

Didn't happen.

The hounds let me know by Stella howling and Heidi barking, that I had worked through lunch, their lunch. They wanted that new lamb and rice kibble right now. It gave me a chance to get away from the computer, fix myself some lunch and walk around. I could go outside and check out the weather. So much for that spring weather lasting until Friday.

Heidi did her lap around the house after relieving herself but it was cold enough that she ran to the door to go back inside. That was the last time we saw Heidi as she hid out in the bedroom on the dog bed sleeping the afternoon away. She's not stupid.

I'll take a break from the hound discussion and get back to the blog and what drastic changes were made. Based on what device you use, nothing will look any different to you UNLESS you scroll to the bottom of the page.

I reduced the rows of photos/posts on the home page from the 4-5 rows on the home page down to just 2 rows. Showing only 8 of my most recent posts. Why?

After I played around for a little over 5 hours, using around 800Mb of data looking at themes, and customizing some of them with my information or stuff I wanted to show ... I realized there was nothing better than what I have here. So why not work with what they gave me for the sidebar.

This theme has the largest photos anywhere on WordPress. In exchange for that wide photo, they give me only two places for sidebars. (1) Below each post, between the post and comment section. (2) In the footer at the bottom of the blog. I chose to make the footer like an additional page.

I see more and more sports websites and local newspaper websites doing that exact same thing. If it's available to be expanded, then the 'footer' of the blog becomes like an additional page added to the homepage.

Of course since I have some deficiencies in my mental make up, such as straight pictures in your house, or straight laps when mowing my yard or even when I make spreadsheets .... things have to be even, straight, and/or balanced.

So when you scroll to the bottom of the blog homepage to check out this 'new' footer (sidebar) I speak of, you will see 21 lines of recent posts only because I had 21 lines of websites that I follow. I put the shorter list in the middle so the outer edges of the links would be even.

For the sidebar under the post I just put the 'follow button' there to make it convenient for those that want to follow the blog after reading their first post as a new reader or first time visitor. First timers, if you make a comment WordPress tells me I have to approve your first comment, then all your other comments will post immediately. So your first comment did not disappear after hit the submit key, it is just waiting for my approval.

On that list of favorite blogs I have added five new links, some you have seen, some have not. I added the link to my old blog with the same name as this blog but only a letter difference, (B). That will give you more history and hundreds of more photos of the hounds plus of Winston and Sadie. If you dig really deep in the archive list, you'll read about my RV research.

Two of the links I added, I told you about the other day and posted their links inside a post. You'll recognize them as the Fraud, Crooks and Criminals and Creeping Sharia. Both of those are filled with good information that you rarely see on tv news. It might be buried online news but you have to dig to find it.

The last two links I added are blogs well written about the political scene or other news in the USA. Kuntsler's Blog and The Market Ticker both do a much better job of writing in a way that all people can understand it and they express the bullshit of Washington DC much better than I have attempted to do. So take a look at them if you are a little curious.

A reminder to my readers from my Blogger blog ... that list will not change when a new post is published. They stay in alphabetical order but I think we are all pretty familiar with who posts daily and those that space out their posts. You can click their sites based on that I guess.

I will be interested to see if this new format shows any changes in the traffic pattern within my blog. All my photos are available for downloading for your own use, as they always have been. On my Blogger blog I could see what photos were downloaded but I cannot on this WordPress blog.

I guess since I have attempted to change this blog design a couple of times in the past 10 days or so but left it the same, then it's the design I really want to use and keep. Wordpress calls this theme one of their most popular if not the most popular theme in their blogging history

So I believe I am set on the blog.

As you could see from the photos this afternoon, Stella was in her afternoon walking mode which means a pretty slow pace and mostly on the path for most of the way. She did test me once by straying away back there when I wasn't paying attention to her but that's just part of walking with a bloodhound. Bloodhounds are in their own little world when they are outside.

As we approached the 'Y' in the path, I veered left to take the old way home. Stella was heading down the newer way home ... then she realized what I had done.

She turned to follow me without me saying anything. Plus she can wonder on her own this way because she always seems to end up in the north yard.

It was interesting to see her still stop and stare over at the neighbor's yard or the woods behind their house. She was pretty far left of the path we normally take.

Once she decides that she is going inside, she doesn't move. She doesn't turn around. She stands and stares, waiting for that door to open. Not once in the three years and five months that I have had her, has she ever barked to come back inside. Nor has she barked at birds, squirrels, rabbits or deer. She never barks and only howls for lunch to be served.

Once spring arrives it will be a busy couple of days with my high pressure washer ... those steps and all of the house foundation will be stripped with the high pressure washer and then repainted with gray concrete paint. I am looking forward to the new look. I might also buy a new Larsen's storm door that would match the front door. My 'to do' list continues to grow for 2019.

It was sad to hear this morning that Tioga George had passed away recently. What an amazing man who influenced many with his travels through Mexico, leading many into RVing and traveling the country. When I would read his blog I found it amazing he was in his mid-80's, doing all that he was doing in the past year or two. He will be missed, like all the other travelers/bloggers who have passed away the past few years.

Well after a full day of work here at home ... It is steak and steamed broccoli night ... then another night of reading, glancing at basketball games on tv with the sound turned down while the rest of the world goes ape shit crazy over the State of the Union speech.

It was another great day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.