I've gone back and forth on this decision a lot in the past months. It probably shows in my writing and photos that this blog has ran it's course. There are a couple of reasons I am going to stop blogging, from being bored with writing the same kind of posts each time and posting photos of the hounds in almost the same positions, the same areas of the field as before ... more importantly I want my time back.
I started enjoying the days I did not post on the blog a lot more than the days I sat down to put a post together. It's amazing how much time you have when you are not blogging or spending time on social media. I now have time to ride my bicycle in an attempt to get back into some really good physical shape. I can sit outside reading a book without wondering if I missed a great photo for the blog. The hounds roam freely while I am outside.
There is also more time for hound maintenance for three of them. Things like trimming toenails, giving them a bath or combing their undercoats out. I also found the walks to be more enjoyable without the camera, then being able to come back inside and do other things besides moving in front of my computer to download, edit photos and put a blog post together.
I guess I am just tired of doing the same thing on this blog over and over. It is more like work than being fun.
This blog would be 7 years old this October. I have quit numerous times in the past and even deleted it a couple of times. In fact over those 7 years I have gone from a paid domain to two different blogspot domains.
I'll still take photos of the area and the hounds. I don't need a blog to look at them. They are all on my computer in specific folders for quick access. I know that is selfish in a way but really what was life like before the internet. I'd like to get part of that life back, especially in reading books and riding my bikes. In the winter I will ride my road bike indoors setting on a 'trainer'.
I made a comment a year or two ago when I quit this blog. At times blogging is like me standing down by the highway passing out pages of my life and that of the hounds to passing cars and strangers I don't know. Being a private person and one that likes solitude living wins out in this case.
I have spent time thinking about all the options of blogging, maybe some new ways of blogging that I thought I might want to do but the bottom line was I did not want to do any of it.
I want to thank all of you that stuck it out to the end. Believe me there have been a lot of inconsistent activity written here, sometimes even changing my train of thought in the middle of a paragraph. So you had your chances to leave many times. Thanks again for taking your time to stop by and see what was up.
Thanks for all the comments, all of the emails and becoming online friends with some of you.
So with this post I will officially announce that the hounds are retiring from blogging and we will continue to enjoy living in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.
Good luck to you all.