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.

A Rainy And Dreary 4th Of July

The weather experts were right on the money with their prediction of a wet holiday weekend. Once again this morning we woke up to rain hitting the leaves of the mahogany tree outside the window.

Two of the three hounds were in a deep sleep, snoring and didn't wake up immediately. They do know that when I get up, it's breakfast time for them and eating may be their favorite hobby.

I could tell by the skies we were not going to get much done today at the house. I forgot it was a Monday. I need to buy groceries, wishing I had delivery. My mind has been wandering lately and I'll touch on that later in this post.

Again the hounds headed in the direction I am not wanting them to go ... what happened to the 'good ole' days where they would walk straight back into the field and explore along the tree line?

Luckily Stella will come when I yell her name. By the time I do that she is far enough away that a yell instead of just calling her name is needed. I guess I shouldn't be that alarmed. When I first moved here in 1997, my first basset hound Harry, would go that direction, but all the way over to the 2nd house north of me and lay on the top step of their swimming pool. Or he would head south and check out the landscaping business ... sometimes take an afternoon nap, before they would call me to let me know he was there.

Sadie knows that is not the right place to head so she usually watches Stella walking into trouble and then looks back at me to see if I am going to do anything.

A little after 1pm we tried going outside again. I guess when they said "scattered" thundershowers it meant it was to be a light rain anytime we went outside. It was't long after these next three photos that we headed inside as the rain drops became bigger and more frequent.

By late afternoon it had stopped raining but we still had that dark overcast sky. Sadie wanted a walk but with standing water in some parts of the field ... a walk wasn't going to happen. I grabbed my camera and a chair and took all of these photos sitting down.

You might notice a slight difference in the quality of the photos today. When you are stuck inside you find things to do. Today's special task was to take a new soft micro cloth and clean my camera plus both lenses. I think it made a big difference in my photos today.

With raindrops hanging from the short grass in the field, Stella thought that made the grass taste even better. She couldn't eat enough of it quick enough and didn't want to share with Sadie.

I guess the highlight of the day was seeing the reactions of each bloodhound when they heard a loud popping sound, only to see this large piece of bark from the sycamore tree pop off and fly overhead into the backyard. I probably have more bark laying around than anything else.

The hounds are not happy unless they can slowly drift as far away from the house as possible. As the rain started to fall again, they slowly headed for the house ... but not fast ... slower than slow.

Amazing after I cleaned the 55mm-200mm lens, it worked for all settings. Lately it would not focus past 135mm.

With rain the next 5 out of 6 days, I'm not sure when the next hound walk will be ... maybe Tuesday afternoon after the yard is mowed.

The past week or so my mind has been drifting back to traveling. That topic stays hidden most of the time. I knew last August after a lot of thinking, once Stella arrived most likely my traveling would be put on hold. Well the urge to do something hit a few days ago and with the bad weather I have spent most of my time inside looking at houses, trailers, vans, motorhomes, etc.

I always come back to the same answers and ideas I have had in the past. From my testing a few months ago I found out real soon that it was much easier to walk two bassets and ONE bloodhound on standard 6' leashes compared to TWO bloodhounds and one basset hound.

If you would see how fast those two partners in crime take off after deer or birds in the field, you would know that walking them unleashed anywhere traveling is disaster waiting to happen. They would have to be leashed even if I were boondocking.

I always come back to converting a cargo trailer after I spend days looking at motorhomes, vans and travel trailers. So I think what I am going to do since I don't plan to travel until the number of hounds decrease over time, is to get a cargo trailer and take my time converting it. I could take trips locally to test things out as I went. Plus it would give me something to do since my house "to do" list was pretty non-existent this summer.

I have all my research from past year but it was just last year that I really started thinking about using a cargo trailer. I have a lot of photos of different mods, photos from different people using a cargo trailer to travel in and all kinds of sites bookmarked showing the 'how to' or their step by step process.

Stella has yet to do any damage to the inside of my FJ when I leave the hounds in the car when I make a short grocery run but I am not sure what she would do if she was left in a cargo trailer even with the AC or the heater turned on. There would be some times I would take off for a bike ride, a hike that didn't allow pets and maybe even a museum here and there.

I see some sunshine trying to fight through the clouds right now so it's all good here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.