Toyota - Apple Store & Fishing

The thing about retirement and a brain that can change to unplanned activity within minutes makes a normal Monday interesting. As usual I had no plans for today, I rarely have plans, so that leaves a lot of open space on the calendar to get things done or go places ... or a chance for my brain to lead me down a path of destruction.

Expecting 80° and sunny, I woke up to overcast gray clouds and 70°, that was my first signal that possibly things were not going to go as I thought they would go today. If you remember a few posts ago I posted a picture in the backyard where I had cleared out an area of overgrown brush, small 1" trees, weeds etc. I finally was going to turn this into a part of my yard where I could build a fire pit plus have some nice shade to sit under during the summer.

Well that is going as planned. Like all bags of grass seed that I buy anyway, there always seems to be more in the bag besides just grass seed. I will wait a few more weeks before I take pictures and try to decide what it is ... maybe some readers can help with the identification ... although I do have new grass sprouting up on schedule. I have various attachments I can connect to my hose to water the yard. Unlike the western states I have an abundance of water so watering the yard is permissible if I chose to do so.

That is too easy though and not nearly as much fun you can have with a hose in your hand and watering that area yourself. You can adjust the spray nozzle, you can rotate the water spray anyway you want, flip the water back and forth or up and down but the real reason I like doing that task ... it's relaxing ... plus I have always enjoyed watching the ground crew at a Major League Baseball game water the infield before the game is played.

To me, watering the infield before the game is almost as enjoyable as watching batting practice. In some games I've attended, watering the infield pre-game was better than the game. I know some will accuse me of being 'weird', but I have been accused and called worse. So that is what really has me watering that back area myself instead of using water sprinklers. I not only like doing it, I love watching it.

Before I did the watering this morning, I cut the last of the small trees that were 1"-2" in diameter down to ground level so I can eventually mow that area without tearing up my mower. At times I was on my hands and knees, getting jeans dirty but I was dressed just for that. Those dirty jeans are a factor in this story.

Where and why does that lead into today's post???  Stick with me and you can see how I may have a little ADD but not confirmed ... sure I can be doing yard work but that doesn't stop me from something else if I am distracted.

As Winston, Sadie and I were headed back inside the house, as I walked by the FJ I had a sudden urge to crawl under the FJ to look around. With those dirty jeans I was already dressed for crawling under my FJ to take a look around for any skid plate damage, any kind of leaks, plus I also wanted to locate the oil drain plug because lately I had been thinking about changing my oil. See where this is going???  LOL

When i realized that I had to remove two skid plates to get to the oil drain plug ... I wasn't in the mood for that today. I've done it in the past but not today. Maybe it was the overcast clouds instead of sun, who knows but all I knew, I would not be the person changing the oil today.

Since I had nothing else planned or at least I had not made it back to my iPhone to see what was next on my 'to do' list, I called the local Toyota dealer 25 miles away and they said oil changes were first come first serve. Nothing was happening in that line and if I could make it over within the hour they should be able to get me in and out fairly quickly. That sounded good to me. A quick shower and change of cloths had me on the road within minutes.

Off I went, stayed at 60mph, made it through some light traffic in town and was at the Toyota Dealership within 45 minutes. I pull the FJ into the garage as the sign said, stopped next to the service desk and I saw a garage that was about 1/3 filled with Toyotas on lifts being worked on. It looked like plenty of space for them to take my FJ and finish the job in under 30 minutes. I mean the FJ was already inside and they were stepping into my vehicle .. what could go wrong?

Not so fast, nothing ever goes that smooth with me and vehicles. Instead of giving them the FJ and sitting in the waiting room for 30 minutes, the lady said it would be 2 hours before I got my FJ back .. but but but ... that's not what he said on the phone ?? I called before I left. If I had heard the two hour window on the phone at home, I wouldn't have gone because patience is not my strong point .. plus I can change the oil in less than two hours myself.

Here I am in a two hour window twenty-five miles away from where I had thought I'd spend most of my day today .. at home or taking another local expedition to blog about and take pictures. I bit the bullet or my tongue, gave them the FJ, nodded at their two hour estimate and hopped into their shuttle van for a trip to the local shopping mall.

An hour plus ago I was on my hands and knees in dirt, sawing small trees to ground level and now I am headed to the mall ... just like that ... totally unplanned and unexpected.

I knew that a trip to the mall with the large 'food court' would probably be a true test for day 4 of my diet ... it was and I was surprised I passed. It was something else though that caught my eye in the mall that I had not seen before, it was something that makes one forget about food, tv, mall walking, or anything else ... a new Apple Store. It had opened just last Friday. I could hear it calling me ......

See how my mind works at times? Totally unfocused equals totally dangerous. From dirt to new Apple computers within 1-1/2 hours.

I hated the thought of going inside the store to even look. My iMac is great and has treated me well for almost 5 years ... except that time I activated File Vault. I posted about that disaster last fall under the 'Geek Squad', read if you are seeking some humor today.

Anyway I had to look, I had to feel and test out the new MacBook they just released. Of course they had that displayed right up front as  you stepped inside. In gold, extremely thin, great picture on the monitor ... it was just like the pictures Apple has been sending me lately in email.

I also wanted to look at a MacAir with the retina display to see if the 13" monitor is manageable after living on my 27" monitor at home. I need more than a 16Gb iPad Mini to upload photos from my camera when I travel. Plus I am finding out I do more than just internet and mail, so a laptop computer is probably the better choice.

Needless to say, I survived both of those machines without opening my billfold.

Then ... as I was walking past the iMac's to look at cases for my iPad Mini ... there it was ... the 27" iMac 5G with the retina display. woah woah woah .... what a clear precise picture displayed on that 27" retina monitor. It made me stop to look. No ... I am NOT in the market for a new iMac but this one is simply amazing in person, so I had to, I had no choice ... afterall I heard the store calling my name as I walked down the mall corridor.

With the retina display on one side of me and the regular 27" monitor on my other side it was very easy to compare the same photos, to see if my old naked eyes could tell the difference. They could and they could very easy ... I didn't even have to squint to see if there was a difference ... I could see the differences standing a foot away. I had a feeling I was slipping off the cliff on this one ... I confirmed by feeling for my billfold and it was still there, so I had the ability to close the sale.

Remember when I said I hated the thought of walking inside the store?

Well I can feel my brain cells scrambling, heavy electrical activity going on between my ears ... I hate when that happens.

After giving that iMac a strenuous personal test, I loved it ... but I walked away a few steps ... then turned back around. The sales agent seriously thought by the look on his face that he had NABBED ME ... it wasn't the MacAir or the new MacBook this customer wanted ... I had sold the iMac to myself. He could feel the 'tug of the line' I'm sure ... but like some fishing stories I've heard ... this fish gets away.

I told him I had some thinking to do, and headed to the door ... billfold still in my jeans back pocket.

I had survived the new Apple Store !!!!

The driver of the Toyota Shuttle van was also retired and after I told him I had made it through my first year of retirement unscathed, he asked me what I did ... I replied "not a damn thing and I love it" .. no schedules, no priorities, no business trips, no boring powerpoint meetings ... it's great.

Then he asked if I fished. When I heard that question all I could think about was the picture of that bobber I took yesterday that was hanging in a tree about 10' off the ground. It's also the picture at the start of this blog post. In fact there were two bobbers hanging from two different spots on that same location on the bank of the lake. I wondered if it was the same fisherman that put them there.

When I saw those bobbers in the tree yesterday I mumbled to myself out loud ... "that's why I don't fish".  lol

The very few times I have been taken fishing by relatives or friends, less than 5 times in my life ... i've never caught anything ... not even a nibble. Someway my fishing line always got tangled, at times I've had those same red and white bobbers do weird things behind me as I rare back in my baseball pitching form to cast the line out into the water. Although they were probably worth taking a video or at least a picture to laugh about ... luckily phones with cameras or even small cameras were not available way back when.

So ... fishing has never sent excitement to my brainwaves like that 27" iMac w/retina did today.

Lake Greenwood

The weather in "the tropics" has been great lately. Today it was sunny, 80° with only 55% humidity. I decided I'd take a drive, get away from the house and do some local exploring with photographs included. The hounds had been fed around 1:15pm by popular demand, with Sadie jumping and doing 360's while Heidi barked and howled. Winston? He sat by his food bowl wagging his tail.

The plan was to take all three hounds with me. I've decided the more they ride and get in and out of the FJ, the faster they will learn the process so we can travel. By the time I had finished some things from this morning, they had gone outside for their after meal cruise and by the time I was ready to leave all three hounds were in a deep sleep, with Sadie snoring.

Why wake them, I decided to make this trip solo.  By the time I was at the bottom of the 80' driveway I had already changed my mind on which direction I was heading. I chose to turn due south instead of north. A few miles down the road is a large man made lake, a few tent camping spots, an RV park with full hook-ups and a small marina. Luckily the place was practically vacant, with only a couple of trucks parked with empty boat trailers. The place does not open until next Saturday the 9th of May.

It was a perfect afternoon to say the least.

Since all the facilities do not open until next Saturday, I had the whole place to my self. This marina is located about 1/3 from the eastern border of the lake. Water skiing is allowed but only miles away in the last 1/3 of the lake on the western side. Otherwise all the water you see is for sailing, fishing, canoes, kayaks and boating.

The small dock area on the left side will be filled with boats renting those spaces by the end of May. Currently they have about 4-5 pontoon boats on the water behind the shelter that are available to rent starting next weekend. By that time they will also have kayaks and canoes that can be rented.

Would have been a great day for sailing

Rentals

Am I reading the side of that boat right ... "Party Barge" ???  I better pass on the chance to rent that one ... LOL

Spaces will be filled by May 30

Across the dock area is the tent camping area. I didn't see more than 8-10 camping spots along this road. Almost all of the camping spots had a view of the lake. The grass for each spot wasn't mowed but probably will be this week before they open on Saturday. It was strange with only 6 days from opening and all the fire pits needed to be cleaned out.

I spent most of my afternoon with this view, sitting in the sun daydreaming, listening to the many birds around, the light breeze and at times water that was washing onshore after a boat passed. Without anyone around I could imagine the hounds sitting in the grass nearby unleashed. With people there the hounds would have to be leashed because they would want to visit everyone that was camping and would try to move from site to site ... they love people.

Sadie's best friend

It would be a challenge with Sadie because of the amount of squirrels, rabbits and birds that were around. The basset hounds I am not really concerned about. They would be more interested in meeting anyone that was walking by but not really into chasing other animals that may be in their area.

With miles of a narrow two lane road, around curves and up and over small steep hills, I have a hard time seeing how a 40' Class A can get around. Even the entry/exit into the small RV park was only one lane and very steep. The RV park was not one of the best I've seen on other blogs but it did have full hook-ups, a few washers and dryers, a shelter for pot-luck dinners and a small view of the lake. As you can see the park was all gravel .. grass was nowhere to be seen.

A total of 40 spots were jammed into this area. It looked cramped with only a few early campers. Some of the trailers looked as if they had been stored their for the winter, although when I talked to them last year, they didn't have any kind of storage available for trailers or Class C's nor Class A's.

A view from a tent camping spot

The lake and the camping area are a few miles from a very small grocery store but is surrounded by 100 square miles of some of the nicest land in southern Indiana. It has a feel of being off the grid.

One note on my diet ... I'm making some changes and in the very short time since I started last Friday, I have not had any indigestion nor bouts of acid reflux. Today is my third full day of making the changes and a few times I have had short periods of withdrawals. It's hard at times to get past those cravings, luckily the stuff I crave during that time is not located in my house.

As a test I am eliminating all grains, as far as fruit I am only eating melons and berries, and only a handful of almonds per day. Instead of oatmeal (caused indigestion) for breakfast I have added bacon and eggs. Instead of eating unlimited amounts of fruit and all kinds of fruit, I have changed that to only berries, melons and pears ... nothing else and a limited quantity those. No orange juice and no cranberry juice as they both caused heartburn.

Lunch is a lot of salad and sandwiches have been eliminated. Cheese will be decreased to a couple of slices per week ... NO ice cream (that's a killer).

I am also eliminating - fast food joints, cookies, candy, and soda. The only thing I am drinking is coffee, tea or water. If it is boxed, canned or packaged I will not buy it.

I know it's very very early in this experiment, only 3 days, but so far zero heartburn and acid reflux anytime. I spent a lot of time reading about different diets and have decided to modify from some of the information I've read. My goal is for the month of May. That length of time should get me on my way to a different way of eating.

Well it was great sitting out by the lake today. I'm going to make more local trips when the weather is good and blog about what I see in hopes of blogging a little more plus taking a lot more photos.

All three hounds are sitting looking at me as I type ... this time of day it only means one thing ... it's time for the daily hound walk.

Another Great Day of Retirement

I've been sitting here today waiting for the grass to dry so I can mow the lawn later this afternoon. It's tall as usual this time of year and with the light rain early this morning it's not dry yet. It just proves that when you are retired things do not matter. If something is not done one day it can be done the next or another day.

A lot has happened this past year, nothing major, no problems but just the way my life has adjusted to my first year of retirement.

I had no doubts I would NOT miss work and I haven't. If I wasn't traveling, I am doing what I pictured I would be doing if I decided to stay around the house and the local area.

All the plans for traveling and the reasons for delaying them have been discussed in past posts.

My daily activity is not much different than what I have done for years while working. The only difference is, what I spend all day, every day doing now I use to do during weekends and when I had time off from my job. It seems like a lot of my time I do nothing and that's fine with me. It just doesn't matter to me, nothing is scheduled nor prioritized. Sure there are things I want to get done around the house, some things I need to get done before going anywhere ... and they are getting done, just at a slow pace.

I use to be a workaholic, rarely took vacations, worked on days off and at home. Still deep inside I knew I could and would adapt to be someone would slow their pace down to almost nothing. There are days I follow the same schedule as my hounds do ... eat a little, sleep a lot.

Through the help of my Excel spreadsheets I've always kept that track my monthly spending and a book I read a few years ago called You Don't Need a Million Dollars to Retire, I have been able to adjust my lifestyle this past year and my spending from the days of working a stressed out job to daily routine of relaxation and leisure.

Sure, there is always unexpected expenses and there always will be. Mine have been small amounts  compared to others. They were no more than the cost of vet treatment for Heidi's skin rash/allergies. It seems like a lot of money but is nothing compared to medical bills, car/rv repairs or house repairs that other people are going through. I'm thankful for that and know that I am fortunate my life is what it is.

I have gone past my 1 year anniversary for retiring. I stopped working last year on April 11 and then it was official a couple of weeks later after my company processed what was needed for my departure.

At the time of the exit interview I had just bought a 2006 Chevy 2500HD 4x4, with plans of purchasing a larger trailer and was deciding on a trailer around 19'-21'. It was a great pickup truck, short bed, crew cab, plenty of room for me and hounds and enough power to tow about anything I wanted.

At times it felt like it was too big for me and when thinking of adding another 20' feet behind it ... I had doubts that was what I really wanted to do.

Within 4 weeks after buying that truck I saw a Toyota FJ Cruiser for sale that had low miles, one owner that had it serviced on a regular basis at the Toyota dealership. Of course that would put me back into the range of small fiberglass trailers 16' and/or the converted cargo trailer option. It was a costly move but one I'm glad I made.

Still that smaller vehicle was going to put me further off the grid to camp and a vehicle that would get me further off-road when exploring the local area.

It must have been the right rig to buy because for the first time in almost 15 years, I have not had the urge to look at other vehicles online, buy, sell or trade it. I've been happy with the two vehicles I have and that says something after the amount of cars and trucks I have bought, sold over the past 15 years. The only thing I have noticed though since retirement, I rarely drive anywhere. When I reported my annual mileage for my car insurance, which decreased my premiums, I thought they might have a really hard time believing the mileage I was telling them.

Luckily with my addiction to spreadsheets, I already had a spreadsheet made, where I take the odometer reading the first day of each month, recording the monthly mileage of each vehicle. I know those miles will increase later but since last June, it is consistent and extremely low.

So if you have read this far, you must be asking yourself where is this leading to ... what is so "great" about today? Nothing really, except I am not in the long line of traffic every afternoon that passes in front of my house, of those that work where I use to work. That is the "great" thing about today and every day ... a job is not soaking up my time and after a year plus two weeks, I am still able to do what I want when I want. To me, that's a fantastic thing to have.

I have not missed spending money on a whim. I do miss the dollar amount of those checks I use to get electronically deposited in my account every two weeks, but I really like the trade off of dollars for time. Time seems to be much more valuable and is much more enjoyable.

For those readers that may be on the fence, trying to decide how much longer to work, it's doable to retire and live on less money than you planned on having. It's doable if you have as many things as possible paid off. It's also doable if you have a few monthly expenditures and can control your spending.

Enough about wasting days away retired.

As you can see from the photos, Heidi has decided to come out of her hibernation and enjoy the good weather outside. From day one when I picked her up 4 hours away at the Basset Hound Rescue in 2010, she has always been a true homebody and will spend the majority of her time inside the house, no matter how nice it is outside. Plus she loves to sleep more than any other hound I have had since 1987.

The other two, Winston and Sadie love being outside. Winston will sleep in the sun unleashed, while Sadie will roam the field in back connected to a rope to prevent her from taking off chasing deer, rabbits, squirrels, birds or butterflies. She will sniff every inch of that hay field. The length of the rope is long enough where she can reach the back of the field near the woods.

One thing I have noticed. When I am sitting outside enjoying the day, the sun, sometimes the cool breeze and they have all those acres of open field to move around in ... they either sit or lay in the grass within 6' of where I am sitting. If I move my seat, they follow me and stay within 6' of me. They don't get too far away from me if I am sitting outside.

That makes me think they would all do well at a campsite boondocking. I have made each of them a 20' lead that can be connected to my FJ bumper, to a stake or a cable run when traveling. They have also passed the nighttime test sleeping with the windows open and a lot of animal noises nearby, such as dogs barking, or coyotes howling. Things that wake me up do not wake them up. That's another good sign for their future in traveling.

I think right now it's down to a couple of things for use to get sorted out ... the process of all three of them wanting to get out of the FJ at the same time when the door opens in back. Then the process of me controlling three 6' dog leashes with two hands and keeping them from wrapping them around my legs like on the trip in September 2013.

Sadie has no issues jumping in and out of the back of the FJ like she did with the H3 Hummer I had on the September 2013 trip. She has even jumped into the FJ that was full of groceries when I have opened the door after returning home from the store. She never did that when I had the Hummer. The two bassets have to be lifted in and out of course due to their short legs. They would jump out but that isn't good for Winston's bad back and both basset's knees. I have a ramp picked out to buy for them to use. It's retractable and can be easily stored.

So once again it's that time of  year where the travel 'bug' is with me. Some things with the hounds have been figured out and tested with positive results. I know the two kinds of weather I don't care for but put up with are "hot and humid" and "freezing cold" ... those are looking like travel times.

We will see.

Dairy Queen and Apple Computer Photo Issues

Well after all of that hard work over the weekend, the rain on Monday gave me a day off from any kind of effort. I took advantage of that and probably spent more time sleeping than anything. I didn't have a great night of sleeping Sunday night ... I knew the reason.

So I caught up on my lack of sleep on Monday. I now have a better idea what it must feel like to be a basset hound or a bloodhound, as I followed their daily routine.

Probably not good for you but they taste good going down ... Dairy Queen grilled cheeseburgers, with onions, tomatoes, mustard and ketchup. I also added a large order of onion rings to that gut bomb and a large strawberry shake to wash it  all down.

Everytime I do that and after I finish, I say never again ... but a few months down the road, I'll do it again and then spend the majority of the night sleeping in 30 minute periods, waking up with some major heartburn.

So the rain on Monday didn't bother me that much .. the day was a totally wasted day.

With the new changes that Apple has shoved down their user's throats whether they want it or not, the latest update to their Operating System Yosemite has replaced their iPhoto program with something called "Photos". This program is like the one on all the iPhones and iPads but it's a huge change for those with iMacs and MacPros or MacAirs.

It migrated the 24,000 photos I had with a few minor issues of "duplication". I found out yesterday why those photos may look to be duplicated in the Photo program. Luckily I can still use and view all of the self made folders I have put my photos in previously in iPhoto, even though the new program is designed to and would love to do that for me. I hate when that happens.

The one thing I am having to learn is how I treat photos that I want to post to the blog. No longer can I go directly to Photos like I did with iPhoto to pull the photo out of the file to post on the blog ... I have to put photos in a different file that is accessible for the blog to pull them.

The 2nd thing I have been having problems with until I dug through information to find out the fix ... when I would export the photo to the file I had set up for the blog to use, it would export the photo in the original size. Well some of those photos from my Nikon D3200 are huge in size ... like 5-7mgb large per picture. The blog would pull them and post them ok but I have to wonder just how many photos of that size the people at Blogger will tolerate.

Of course the solution to the photo size problem is hidden in a drop down arrow at the time of export. You have to set yourself, otherwise by default, the photo size remains the same as the original size it was loaded.

I love the Apple products that I changed to in October of 2010 but their recent changes to their O/S has had too many bugs when they released it. They don't tell you how to fix things, you have to read forums, or read it on a blog ... for example since I have not changed any of the default settings it has attempted to synchronize my 24,000 photos in to my iPhone that has only a 16Gb hard drive. Go figure...lol.

If I wanted my iPad and iPhone to have all of those photos I would have made my own arrangements to have them transferred. I didn't, so now at some point in time I will have to spend time taking those photos out of my iPhone and iPad.

Back to the diet information. I am finding that my heartburn / acid reflux is occurring more frequently with any kind of food eaten. I guess those late nights of hot salsa, chips with melted cheese are going to happen less and less.

Yard Work is Kicking My Ass

As you can see from the hat, I've been working way too hard outside in great weather. I'll get to the yard work with some photos but first since I have not posted in over a month I thought I'd write about general stuff first. I will say my time on the internet is still low. I'll read my Feedly feeds, check the sports news, over my first cup of coffee then turn off the computer or put it in the sleep mode until early evening. Every day it's been sunny outside, I've been outside 4-6 hours per day doing things, by late afternoon my body is sore (out of shape) and by early evening I'm headed to bed.

That's quite a change for me since I'm a night person by nature and spend most of my time up past midnight, sometimes till 2am or 3am. So when I am going to bed and am fast asleep by 9:30 or 10pm, that's history.

Heidi has just started her 11th week on RESPIT. I've been giving her 1ml shot per week as directed. I started with .1 and then increased it each week by .1ml until the 1ml was reached. A couple of weeks ago I saw a lot of improvement, although it is said not to expect any signs of improvement for a 140 days of treatment.

Her stomach and armpits have healed. Under her neck has healed and has white hair growing back. She continues to lick her front and rear paws, will tear off baby socks when worn to protect her feet, so those spots on the paws are healing, the skin is a lighter red and nothing raw. Her hair is trying to grow back on all the spots that were red and raw.

One of the side affects of the RESPIT, is being lethargic. She is all of that for the first 3-4 days after the shot on Wednesday. Still she is back to sprinting around the house after her first trip outside to start her day. She is also back to barking when she wants fed, so I take it she is okay.

Winston has had a little lower back/hip problem as all older bassets have on occasion and has a little trouble getting up the two steps to get into the house. I'm finding that the "buffered" aspirin helps that lower back out, although I don't give him that on a daily basis.

Sadie is normal, happy go lucky and obnoxious as always ... lately getting her aerobics in by chasing the rabbit in the yard to the back of the field into the woods ... then she returns to her yard. If it isn't a rabbit it's the squirrel that likes to torment her. She is strong pulling on the retractable leash when she locks into the scents that are more evident in the spring time.

Back in the middle of March I was doing some indoor minor repairs and general house maintenance, waiting for warmer temps outside. Then 'March Madness' started so there went most of the nights and afternoons from Thursday - Sunday. Once the college basketball champion was crowned in early April, the good weather showed up, so the yard work commenced.

After the first time of mowing the yard with my 22" push mower, on the side of a 80' hill, I found out really quick just how bad of physical shape the winter had put me in. My breathing and muscle soreness told me just how bad of shape I was. I was somewhat shocked as it felt worse than past years.

July 2014

I had more plans this spring than just cleaning the yard, picking up the fallen tree limbs from the winter and mowing weekly or around the rains. This spring I wanted to do two things. I wanted to clear out a patch of land that had been overgrown with wild bushes, some honeysuckle, vines of some sort and really just brush junk. I also wanted to clear the bank on the side of my driveway, which consisted of dead 6' horse grass and a LOT of small tree starters that had trunks of 1"-2" in diameter. I didn't clear them last summer, so I had some work to do.

First with the land in back. I really didn't know this was my property until the neighbor had the field surveyed when he bought it a couple of summers ago. Of course I'm still not sure how accurate that survey was because soon after they started they had wood markers pressed against my truck door on the south side and metal stakes with orange flags driven into my yard on the north side inside my fence, not 5' away from the house.

A few days later after returning home from work, I noticed I had gain my original property line on the south side but had gained 10' on the north side of the house along with 10' more along the back. So I decided I'd cut those bushes out, at least burn them, clear the land and make it into a "camping" spot. I would build a fire pit, sit out a couple of chairs and spend some nights out there with a fire and a sky of full of stars.

It didn't get that done last summer due to laziness, so this spring was my chance. I started with this in March. Once the snow melted and things dried out, I burned it. That took out a lot of brush but still left me with a lot of vines that had taken root. I pulled out what I could, then cut them out of the ground. There were some trees where I cut with my hand saw, down to ground level.

January 2015

I did half of the area, raked and leveled the land enough to plant grass seed. Just the bending over to pull roots out of the ground or to kneel down to cut small tree limbs put more hurt on my body than the lawn mowing did. My nights ended with me laying on tennis balls, on different pressure points on my back. Cheaper than a massage and still will point out all the bad parts of the back.

Still with each day bright and sunny, my focus on the job at hand would fade. My focus would move on to the next job outside even though I had not completed the land in back.

So last Thursday I glanced at the bank along my driveway and decided it was time to clear it. I started by cutting many of those small trees with an electric handheld saw. Since I had sold my old Chevy truck last spring, trying to downsize the auto herd, I found out the only way I could remove those 10' trees were by hand. That meant I had to take as many as each hand could hold, walk up the hill more than a few times and haul those 1" & 2" trees back into the woods behind my house.

October 2014

January 2015

That took time. That also was a workout climbing that driveway going up the hill.

With tree limbs dead from previous years, dead horse grass stems and the usual wild brush ... my urge to build fires came back to me ... so I lit the bank on fire, with the water hose turned on and nearby in case the fire wanted to go further into the woods than I had planned.

There were no problems with the fire, except the one spot that burnt my fence. That took place as my neighbor and I were discussing life in general. By Saturday afternoon I had raked all of the dead leaves, branches and anything else my rank could find, down the bank into a burn pile.

Some of the trees branches were too green and were not expected to burn but I was planning to burn as much as possible. This will now have some green wild stuff start growing to cover the bank. It will also prevent those small trees from growing taller and harder to cut down, that would disturb my clear southern sky for my Directv and Internet Satellite dishes.

With rain forecasted today and Monday, I will get a break from killing myself clearing land. On Tuesday I will be back in the back area to complete the land clearing and plant more grass seed.

The land that my house is now on plus the field behind my house use to be my great grandfather's property. As a kid, my dad use to farm this property with a team of mules. He remembers putting this roll of barbwire fence on the fence post sometime before 1944. I found the barbwire and a rusty metal fence still attached to the post after I cleared out the brush and overgrowth around the fence post and trees.

Well the rain has stopped, the sun is trying to peek out from behind the clouds and Winston is whining to go outside. I'll start blogging  more often and hopefully Heidi will be willing to have her picture taken outside, where I can post some updated shots of her.

Good Weather Makes the Mind Wander

I actually believe that winter is officially over here in the 'tropics' of Southern Indiana. It's 58° right now on a bright sunny Sunday and a forecasted high of 68°. Although in past years I have seen weather like this in mid-March and have a snow storm weeks later ... in this case I am believing the "global warming" stories and am planning that the 2015 spring is here for good.

Not a lot going on as usual. Not really a lot to blog about, so this is just a short update for the past few weeks.

About 10 days ago when the snow was so high, Heidi did what she rarely does, she peed on the concrete. That was a blessing in disguise. As I was about to pour water over the urine to get it off the concrete, I see a puddle of blood in her urine. This poor basset hound is having a rough winter.

By the next morning we were at the vet to check that out. She had a urinary tract infection and the vet said it was not surprising with all she is going through. With a weak immune system, the infection didn't surprise him. He sold me some Baytril tables that she ate like candy for the next 10 days. Within 24 hours of the first two tablets, she was back to her normal self sprinting around the house after her first trip outside in the morning. I could tell she was already feeling much better.

The vet was happy with the improvement she saw on her skin. This is not clearing up her skin as fast I want nor as the Atopica did back in November and part of December. At times she looks like she is improving and by the end of the night, she looks no better than last October when this skin rash mess started.

Very frustrating to say the least.

The weekly shots of RESPIT are increased on schedule by .1ml until we get up to the 1ml weekly injection. Basically that is an immune program that fights all allergies that are geographic location specific. It will take almost 140 days before any improvement will be noticed. Still, it is not damaging to her kidneys or liver that long term steroids would do nor the reports of what long term Atopica would do. So I guess the wait is worth it, even though that is hard to do.

We have just passed week 6 of the treatment or as of today it's day 46 days out of 140 before noticeable results.

Would her skin problem heal or be a potential problem with location changes, environmental changes, while traveling?

Temperatures are getting high enough for me to finish the last few things on my list of house 'to do'. These things on the list have been held off until the temps get warmer. There are a couple of things I will have to wait until the ground dries out. The ground is extremely saturated with the melted snow and then two days of rain this past Thursday night and all day Friday. I'm not thrilled about getting under the house to inspect, especially with a rising water table. It's not a crawl space under there but a huge dirt hole about 4' deep and I have seen it after there are heavy rains.

As every spring, improving weather generates mind cell activity. I start thinking of traveling, and it has happened every spring since 2012. Of course two of those three years I was still working, so it wasn't possible long term. Last year I was very close with the Chevy pickup truck I had bought and the search for the right trailer. I only kept that truck for a month and a half before buying what I really wanted ... the Toyota FJ Cruiser 4x4. I still love that vehicle.

I still cannot understand why it seems to be so important what I do or don't do to some readers of this blog. I've always done what I want, not what someone else tells me to do, even at work. I've never followed the path of the yellow brick road and white picket fences around the 2-car garage house... or even the plans required to move up the corporate ladder. All of my moves have been location/recreation first ... job second. That is until this last move back to Indiana in 1994, that was job related. Even then I've pretty much followed my own path.

Based on just a few past comments and emails I have received, my traveling decision seems to be more important to them than me ... I find that very strange.

So, yes I am talking and thinking of traveling again ... dogs and all. I am also seriously considering selling the house and moving west and have thought of that most of the winter. I just need to complete those 2-3 things on the 'to do' list that I've been needing warm weather to complete. Then I can turn the house over to an real estate agent. I don't need to be around to sell the house. With no mortgage payment, I can leave the house empty, put my furniture, computers and bikes in storage and hit the road. They can show and sell the house empty. That seems to be my most consistent thought.

I still think it would be a quick sell based on price, size and location. There are not a lot of good quality houses around here in the price range of the asking price. It would make a great house for a young or older couple. The area has extremely low property taxes and the house requires little maintenance but more than I am wanting to do. I'm just not into the normal house maintenance that is required with ownership.

I've looked at willow.com, realty.com and houses.org for houses in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah recently. Once again I can't really make a decision where to go until I could get there and check the areas out. I am also not sure I want to be a homeowner once my house would sell. I'll decide that later.

I had a friend wanting to buy my Mini Cooper and all was looking good until she couldn't find someone to give her a loan. That seemed strange to me because she works where I did and is paid well. Two income family with two kids and a house. After she later told me that she had just had transferred $20,000 of credit card debt to a loan, the answer was pretty obvious.

The Mini Cooper will sell quick after I detail it, get the winter grime off of it, park it down by the highway for all to see with a for sale sign on it. I will also list it on Craig's List. Over the past few months of my blogging vacation and reduced computer time, things have getting downsized again, some detailed inch by inch house cleaning, and some minor repairs fixed.

Computer time has still stayed low. I survived the winter using little heat as possible, thus heading for a big refund in May for overpayment of my utility bills. I pay a fixed amount every month and then settle up every May. My vehicle license plates are due in April as well as my property taxes ... so basically all of the small stuff will be taken care of for the year before I hit the road.

Before next spring I would expect that my legal residence would change. With my military retirement health plan, TriCare, luckily ObamaCare is not an issue for me. With that not being a factor I can still have about any state I want as a legal residence for full time traveling.

All I know is I am tired and have been of the daily routine living where I do and the responsibilities of home ownership.

Yes There Was a Post That Disappeared

Last week I posted that I was back to blogging. Even Greg made a comment on that post ... so it was there on the blog at one time. A few hours later, I deleted it. I can only guess I deleted it because I didn't want to start blogging again. I've enjoyed my time off the computer. After 3 years on this blog I still wonder about the reasons to continue since I am not traveling right now, nor did I buy an RV.

I should have left that post up I guess because I can't remember much of what I had written. I see a few blogs I follow, their authors are either taking a blog vacation, writing less frequently and a few have even disappeared without a trace. Since people still email me asking about Heidi's condition, how are the hounds, etc ... I feel an obligation to keep blogging. Yes, I've discussed this here a few years ago and came up with the same answers.

I really do enjoy writing and posting photographs.

So, here's an update ... with possible duplicated information from last week's post that I deleted.

All the hounds are great. Heidi is slowly improving with weekly injections of RESPIT, 40 days of Ivomec and a "no grain" diet. She does not get her normal morning treat of a "Milk Bone. Her treat now in the morning is a hand full of her 'no grain' dog food, while Winston and Sadie continue to eat their "Milk Bone" treats without any skin issues. All of them are eating Taste of the Wild dog food.

Contrary to the rest of the country north of me and to the northeastern coast, my winter has been pretty mild. Temperatures became really cold just a couple of weeks ago. We had our first major snow dump of about 4" a couple of weeks ago, followed up with 3"-4" more a few days later. That is not a lot of snow, unless you are a basset hound and your legs are shorter than the depth of the snow ... then it could be a problem.




By the end of the week more snow came, so it was higher than Winston's legs. I pulled the snow shovel out and cleared out a path for him and Heidi.

Since Heidi doesn't like temperatures lower than 55° and if the ground is wet with rain or snow ... that is not an option ... she follows the dry mulch under the overhang and around the bushes for her bathroom duties. She is out just long enough to get the tanks dumped then sprints back to the door to be let in the house. A nap soon follows.

We tried the baby socks to keep her from licking off the zinc oxide lotion .. didn't work. She had the socks off within 30 minutes of me putting them on. Constant battle that she eventually won. Luckily the vet gave me liquid zinc oxide to use and it's working out much better. I will post later about her change in treatment in January and February.

Sadie in the meantime could stay outside in that snow and single digit temps forever. I have to call her or go out to get her back in the house. Her latest hobby is chasing birds that came back to Indiana a few weeks too early, expecting spring time weather. I do remember a few years ago it was t-shirts and shorts weather the first week of March but I really doubt that will happen this year ... in fact, not a chance of it happening.

As I said before, during my blog vacation I got a lot of things inside the house finished that were on my "to do" list. I have a couple of more things to do once the weather warms up. I've read a lot of books, took some afternoon siesta's, played some Mahjong and watched a few movies ... all with the computer off. The majority of time was spent doing more downsizing, cleaning every inch of the house inside, rearranging what was left and trips to the recycling center.

I'll have more photos to post as the weather becomes warmer. I'm not really an outside person when the temps are below 20°. Basically the hounds would rather sleep most of the time when it's freezing outside.