Busy Day Beats The Rain

It was a day of beating the rain. Stella got her morning walk in before the rains that didn't show up this morning. She had a second walk where zero photos were taken and Heidi got a little sunbathing in but was back at the door before I could grab the camera. I needed to mow the yard if it was going to rain for the next three days. I just mowed it TWO DAYS ago. Yet I finished in time since the rain showed up an hour after I put the mower away.

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

Anything Political Deleted

Some of you may be wondering where Heidi has been. She has been doing a lot of this along with her daily movement from one sleeping spot to another throughout the day. She will have sudden bursts of energy, running a few laps around the house inside. Of course she took a walk yesterday afternoon only because I didn't have my camera with me. She's good.

Monday morning Stella had other ideas on how we should start our week. I admit, I did see some very tiny rain drops hitting the back of my camera and it had rained most of the morning before we attempted to walk. She wasn't going anywhere yesterday. She turned and went back to the door as I followed her back inside without any morning walk.

Today was different. I'm sitting here mid-morning with all the windows open with a slight breeze and a lot of bird activity. I think I saw them building a nest in my front gutter yesterday afternoon. They are going to have to find a different spot because anything like a nest in my gutter will be removed this afternoon as I pull out my ladder to do some checking.

I'll wait for the sun and wind to dry out the front yard, so my plans to mow just the front will not take place until late afternoon. I'll start by cutting it a little high this spring so it will build a nice root system.

I've got some other yard maintenance plans today. I'll pull any weeds out of the mulched areas, pick up all the small sapling limbs I cut along the driveway bank a few weeks ago. I need to add a bag or two of rock down by the mailbox and I might even find enough time or energy to wash the car today. The weather is just that nice to get a lot done outside today.

I must say the NCAA Basketball Tournament was very enjoyable this year. Too much replay reviews for me, just like it has become in all the other sports, college or pro levels. After that last reversal with a little more than a minute to go in the game last night I was fed up with replay. If you have to take 5 minutes to decide if that pinky finger just barely touched the basketball as it was batted away by the opponent BUT DON'T call the foul right before .. then something is drastically wrong.

Just like calling balls and strikes in baseball. Sure the ball is coming across the plate above 90mph most of the time but that is why they are a professionals. They are able, supposedly, to call balls and strikes for high speed baseballs. Studies over the last 11 years of baseball has proven that basically umpires behind the plate simply suck at their jobs.

Oh ... the blog post title today.

I mentioned the other day I was thinking of getting rid of any blogs, or websites, even twitter accounts, that dealt with politics, immigration, Washington D.C, refugees in the USA and Sharia Law in the USA ... well I did.

I didn't have many that I followed on Twitter since I use that mostly for sports news. I didn't follow politicians but a few people I did follow did, so political crap would show up if the person either retweeted something political or was in a Twitter argument.

On my Blogger blog's sidebar I had the four links I mentioned in my last post here and deleted all of them. I had a couple of the same links tucked away in my Feedly Reader account and deleted them there also.

It was a GREAT decision to get rid of all that crap. And that is what it is ... crap.


So without those links anywhere in my online world and still not tuning into tv news ... I feel much better. I wasn't stressed out by the news but I thought way too much about what I was hearing or reading ... now I can think about the hounds, summer, the to do list, etc without all the noise from D.C. I do glance at the headlines online but that is as far as I go. It  shows me I am not missing anything.

I filled up a couple of hounds mitts worth of hound hair out of Stella again on Monday. I follow that up with the small rake with the metal tongues to pull out more of that undercoat that wants to get out. Stella loves being brushed.

The book I am reading about the start of Top Gun is a really interesting book. My first four years in the Navy were at NAS Miramar where Top Gun originated. I worked in a squadron of F-14's at the time. Great location, a LOT of traveling and every day seemed busier than busy. If you are interested in the history of Naval Aviation, it's a good book to pick up at the library or off of a bookstore shelf.

I'll leave you with the rest of the photos I took on this morning's walk. I've run out of things to say. Plus I find it hard to sit in front of this computer with such great weather outside. All of these photos were taken straight from the Canon G9 X, without any editing. I am slightly surprised that I like that camera more than my Nikon D3200.

Really nice weather so far this month in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella Supervises Yardwork

I couldn't wait for Stella this morning. Luckily she was up and awake, ready to take the morning walk. As I glanced out to see what kind of field we had today before choosing what boots to wear, I swear I could tell that the backyard and field had grown over night. I'll be 'spot' mowing the yard at first because it never grows even at the start of spring.

Can you tell I am already finding it hard what to blog about this morning? After yesterday's excitement there has been some letdown this morning. I like seeing "mid-60's" by this afternoon but it was the coldest morning in the past week as we started the walk.

I am barely feeling an urge to pick up every stick and limb in my yard today. With a Cincinnati Reds game starting at noon, I'll either finish that project before the game or wait for warmer weather, then tape the game to watch tonight. The weather is too nice to stay inside. I did that all winter.

While watching tv last night, a Reds game, I started thinking again that DirecTv has a clearer picture than DishNetwork. I went through that thought process before making the change at the end of my DirecTv contract in February 2018. It was different enough to notice it right after they did the installation. The tech forums claim what I am seeing and agree.

Like any two competitive companies, each have their pros and cons. Both companies have features that the other doesn't but those you like. I have about 10 months before I have to make a decision whether to stay or move from DishNetwork. By that time AT&T might have streaming services in my area, but they don't at this time.

My mind was wandering this morning as I walked. Will it be a laundry day or a trip to the grocery store? Hold off on until it is a rainy day and do yard cleanup today or will procrastination win out where I do nothing? I could do a mix of all, so I guess I'll know by the end of the day. That's the advantage of being retired. I wasn't as focused this morning as I was yesterday.

I've noticed from the few blogs I follow now, that almost all of the full-time travelers from seven years ago have come off the road and travel part time, if at all. Some have passed on, others just disappeared from blogging. I remember how obsessed I was back in 2011 and 2012 spending most of my free time researching RVs and making plans for when I retired two years later, with two basset hounds and two bloodhounds.

I spent a lot of time reading those bloggers that lived on the road as well as the forums for RVing and different type of rigs. During those times I also read about a lot of places I had already visited and a few where I had lived. I did a lot more traveling and exploring the surrounding areas when I lived out west in California and later Washington.

Stella had a thorn bush get stuck to her jowls today, as she pulled away.

While I thought back to those times yesterday I knew that some roadtrips will take place in the future. The thought of traveling might have also been triggered when I looked at my list of towns in the generic weather app that comes with the iPhone, and seeing temperatures 20°-30° warmer than my April day was.

Like I have stated many times before, mostly on my older blog, this house and field are the best situation for my hounds and they are my #1 priority. I also like living here and enjoy the area. Things are simple, quiet most of the time and away from all the chaos. I've never lived anywhere as long as I have lived here in this house.

Stella wasn't tracking scent today even if it looks like it. Oh I guess she was ... deer scat scent, not deer travel. I had to stop her numerous times from eating it. I still don't think that is a good idea and I've read articles both ways, about dogs eating crap. She is not the first that has done this in my history of hounds. Some did some didn't.

I was a little surprised I did not have any kind of heartburn after having that medium pizza yesterday. I ate half of it there and the other half last night for dinner. I expected to be woken up in the middle of the night with indigestion but that did not happen. That's a good thing. I also stayed within my daily calorie limit by not eating anything else. I just wasn't hungry after I finished the last piece of pizza.

This is about all I have for this morning. I had thought about waiting until the end of the day to post but I have to many photos to do that. Maybe I'll hold off posting this, delete some of these photos and add some afternoon photos, then schedule this to publish later today.

By the time I got here I decided I'd wait to post this. Who knew what might happen. I became highly motivated to clean the yard up with a little raking and picking up every stick, stem, twig or limb from the highway all the way to the field.

Heidi let me know the reason for me not bothering with that stack of leaves. She found it to be the perfect bed under the sunshine to sleep while I worked. I had Stella on the long cord that is anchored in the field. All she did was enjoy the sunshine and slept the two hours I was outside.

I had one more job after cleaning the yard and that was get rid of those leaves along the back of the house. I moved them around the corner of the house and burned them. No chance of having them blow back into the yard during the next storm.

I was finished with everything by 11:53am and found out the Reds game did not start until 12:30 instead of noon. Either way it was perfect timing. I had time to clean up and fix something for lunch. I had all the windows in the house open for about an hour before deciding that 57° outside was just a bit too cold to leave the windows open.

It was good to be back outside working in the yard for the first time this spring in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.