Stella On Her Own Today

I am anxiously waiting for that week of higher temperatures of 60-70°. I found out really quick this morning it had not started yet. We took our morning walk in 41° weather, but it was still nice.

A couple of trucks had partial loads of fertilizer dumped when we first went outside. By the time I started writing this post there were three more trucks show up and they tripled the amount these first two trucks delivered. One very important thing is ... it doesn't smell while we are out. That might change later but shouldn't be too bad.

Sadie didn't hesitate to let me know she wanted to go on a walk with her infamous stare. You have to admit she is consistent even when she knows I don't go anywhere until I have ingested at least one cup of coffee.

Stella was more than happy to come inside and curl up behind my desk chair for a nap as I scanned my latest sports news and the IU fan forum for the coaching search updates. As of this morning they were showing there had been over 1.2 million views on that forum post, just one post alone.

This was the first load that was delivered.

We headed out for the walk in cool weather but with no wind it was nice. We must of had a field cat in the area last night since both Sadie and Stella went to the same area as soon as they got outside for the walk. I do see a cat at night sometimes as I pull into the driveway. The headlights pick up those cat eyes while sitting in the dark.

I decided before we got outside today that I would let Stella do anything she wanted and go anywhere she wanted ... total freedom. You will see her path from this morning's walk but I am going to talk about different stuff than a verbal description of our walk today. Lots of stuff to cover and more pictures than I have ever added to a blog post, 37.

I have received some feedback from readers about the issue of the yews and septic tank along with the speed in which my blog loads into their computer, table or phones. I am almost certain that changes are on the way. Some will require a lot of manual labor but as I have been walking around the house this past month, surveying for any maintenance that might be needed, I can see that I am going to be a busy tired individual from a lot of manual labor.

I really don't have anywhere to plant them but I hate to let the Yews die while sitting on the burn pile for next fall's bonfire. I've been told that yews have very strong and a very deep root system. I'd have to look to make sure but I think I planted these about 6 or 7 years ago.

I didn't know at the time that my septic tank was right below the yews under the window to the right of the porch. It was described to me that the septic tank was in front of the carport and further down the yard. After finding an old diagram last summer among some house paperwork, I saw that the septic tank was right below the front edge of the yews, or 6' from the edge of the house and only 3' to the right of the porch steps.

Based on the diagram and written notes I am assuming they put in a concrete tank in 1975 with the clay type of pipe. So does it matter that the root system of the yews run deep with a concrete tank?

In today's world of high speed internet, many readers may have high speed with unlimited monthly data. Some may have slow internet speed that takes forever to load a blog like mine with a lot of pictures. I am one of those readers that pays too much for only 15Gb of data per month. I get 2 more Gb's from Verizon on my iPhone so that helps a little I guess.

Other readers have a lot less Gb's per month and when my blog is soaking up their data because of the amount of posts per page or the large numbers of pictures I include in my blog, it might be time to make some changes to the blog with the new Blogger templates available.

I did reduce the number of posts per blog page to one. Ed told me this morning that when he loaded the blog after that change it used half of the amount of data it took to load the previous day with two post per page setting. So that was good news.

I looked at the new Blogger templates last night, Blogger calls them 'themes'. A lot of them had the option that Wordpress has had for a long time, where you open the blog to see a list of blog posts. They have a short written summary with only one picture ... then an option of "read more" that opens to the whole post.

Or there is the option of having a single picture from each post, in columns with dates where you would click the picture to open up that specific post. Depending on how many posts I would adjust the settings to, would determine how fast the blog page would load I guess. I am leaning toward the theme with a list of posts, with short descriptions, one picture and the option to "read more".

That options sounds like it would help a lot of readers by using less of their data and loading faster into their computer, tablet or phones.

I did find a few of the new themes I liked with their default settings, fonts and colors. I would have the option to do changes to colors, format and fonts. Yet ... I like the way the blog looks now, the format, the colors, so it is a hard decision.

Still .... for longtime readers you know how I like change, how I like to mess around with templates, web pages, fonts, etc. Since it's cold outside and the first NCAA games do not start again until tonight ... I have plenty of time today to play around with new blog templates. Of course I will save this blog to my hard drive so if I decide to come back to the same design I can.

My other problem is and I apologize for, I can't seem to keep from loading a LOT of pictures in each blog post. This one has more pictures than I have ever done but I liked the pictures I loaded and only chose 40% from the total amount I took this morning. I put a few of the same pictures on my Facebook account for those few friends that don't read blogs but love the hounds. Stella's original owner and the young lady that gave me Stella like seeing her on Facebook. I don't know if they visit the blog or not.

Then I put a few on my Wordpress blog from this collection because I like that blog personally and have just a few readers that prefer less of my babbling and more pictures.

So let me know how you feel about changes to the blog. Feel free to send me any of your suggestions, complaints, or likes to me by commenting or sending me an email. Sure, I write this blog and it is mine as I have been told ... so "do anything you want" .. but really this blog is yours. You take time to come here and read or look through the pictures of the hounds and I appreciate that.

I like writing and I like taking photos of the hounds so it's an even trade off for all of us.

I go and have gone through periods where I don't feel like blogging but most of the time I have the urge to blog. It was interesting to read Al's process of how he puts his blog together. He too likes to spend time with photography, editing the photos and putting a blog together. I must admit though, after I read his process here I am not sure I would continue to blog on a regular basis.

His blog is fantastic and one that I look foreword to reading every night. His pictures are second to none. I am sure he spends a lot more time, in fact I KNOW he spends a lot more time editing his pictures than I do mine. We both shoot about the same number of pictures per day and we only post on blog post per day.

Yet we each have a different process of putting the blog together. As do ALL bloggers I am sure.

I have had only two people that have blogs, ask me how do I do mine blog on Blogger with the amount of pictures I post ... so here is my process.

1. Download pictures from camera card into my iMac's Apple Photos program

2. I edit each one by clicking the "enhance" button. That will change the color, lighting, contrast etc ... but not the sharpness. I can do that with a different option but usually don't because readers have better eyesight than I do and probably see the pictures being sharp anyway.

3. I then choose which pictures are going to the blog and export them to a folder on my desktop labeled "Blog Public". Due to Bloggers process in importing photos adding a folder to import from was the only option I had with the Apple Photo program.

4. I go into my Blogger dashboard to write a new post. Insert the title.

5. Something probably different than anyone, I load all of my pictures at once, in the order that I took them. Then I import them from the folder on my desktop.

6. I slide the first picture to the left and start writing. Then enlarge each picture as I write in between the photos.

I have been asked WHY do you load all of your pictures first?

I found out two things by doing it that way. It is much faster to put the blog together that way instead of inserting the pictures in certain spots of the content. The BIGGEST difference was getting rid of all the frustration of uneven spaces between pictures and paragraphs. On Blogger, sometimes the spacing between pictures and words would not be the same when I was inserting the pictures one at a time in between the content.

I find the time to put the blog together was much faster loading all the pictures at once before writing anything ... and ... the spacing is ALWAYS the same between written word and pictures.

I put my cursor below the picture, hit the 'return' key ... that creates the even space between the picture above and my paragraph. Then after I finish writing the paragraph the pre-loaded picture below is right next to my sentence, UNTIL I type the period and hit the 'return' key.

That puts the same spacing between words and pictures every time. When I get to the next picture in line, I enlarge it to X-Large, place my cursor in the space between the next pictures and hit the 'return' key.

So there is my blog lesson for today LOL. We all have different ways of putting our blogs together but for me this is the easiest and less frustrating way to do it.

Al, if you are reading this, you are to be commended on the way you do your blog. The time and detail editing you do is more than I could ever do I am afraid. I don't have that much patience.

That is why you have such a great following and a great blog, one of, if not the best blog that I follow. I appreciate all the effort you put into your blog and as all fellow bloggers know, there are times it's hard to put words to print ... even with great fast computers, so I know how hard it is sometimes.

So I am going to end all of this babbling and feed the hounds their lunch. It's already after 1pm local time. I have three hounds 'giving me the eye' so I know they are ready for lunch.

I see I have 37 new tweets about my sports and I am sure once I open my IU fan forum back up I'll have another 8-9 pages of comments to read to get caught up on our coaching change. I am pretty sure who it's going to be. I am a thrilled IU fan if that turns out to be Billy Donovan but I can still live with the other options listed too. Anybody but Tom Crean is good for me.

As you see Stella had a fantastic walk and got some running in, following Sadie more or less and I did not have to go out to get her with a leash.

I thought at this picture she was going to head to the neighbors so I stood silently watching but she had only found one specific spot that she was not going to leave.

Sadie and I left her out there and came back inside. By the time I took off my coat, poured my 2nd cup of coffee and started downloading the blog pictures ... she was still outside in the same spot.

As I walked out toward her calling her name, she looked up and started trotting toward me and then ran back to the house. She is a great bloodhound with a funny personality. I am still happy that I decided to pick her up in August 2015.

Remember to let me know if you like the upcoming blog changes and tell me what you would like to see or not see on the blog. Or any suggestions that will help load the blog faster for you no matter what tool you are reading from.

It looks like they will be spreading some fertilizer today with rain a couple of days away.

It took 2 hours and 7 minutes to put this blog together for those readers that are curious. It normally doesn't take that long.

Life is good here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

A Little Rambling Today

I decided I'd turn this blog post into one of my 'rambling' posts today. In the past some readers have swore I am crazy and even a few decided to let me me know by making comments or emailing me.

My theory has always been "you have to be a little crazy to keep from going insane".

I may ramble today but I will not be talking about current news, politics or religion. I woke up early today and immediately wondered what they hell was going on? It wasn't suppose to be this cold. The problem with that thought was, I wasn't even out of bed yet.

I called it Officially Spring in my last sentence yesterday. I threw out a little more grass seed yesterday on the bank that I am trying to cover and even thought of taking a Z4 drive with the top down today. Something was wrong. All three of the hounds were not only still sleeping, they had all curled up as close as they could next to each other to keep warm. Inside !!!

After I glanced at the temps on my iPhone I took a quick glance for the day of the week. I had Tuesday and Wednesday mixed up. I knew it wasn't Thursday yet because the NCAA games were not on yet, that I could remember.

That did not bother Sadie though. As soon as her eyes open she his hopping up and down to get outside. I'm never getting dressed fast enough for her and she will hop up and down until I open the door to let her outside ... then sprints to the field.

Stella? As we all know she is on her own time ... slow time ... nothing is fast with her unless she sees some deer to chase.

It took me a while to figure out why I was feeling cold today. It was bright and sunny outside, not a cloud in the sky anywhere but cooler than I liked. The winds out of the north was taking away any of my motivation to stay outside and do some things ... like get on the roof to clear off some small tree limbs and check to see if the gutters were clear. Too cold for that.

My obsession I spoke of yesterday has taken an immediate stop. The big old university sent out their social media experts and told a few insiders "enough" with publishing the leaks on their coaching search. Who knows whats real or fake information but it sure was interesting while it lasted.

That wasn't the only reason I stopped living on that message board. I lost the urge to sit hour after hour hitting the refresh button on that site, or checking the latest 28 new tweets on another open table while I had tuned into sports talk radio ... I've always been able to multi-task, even after retiring.

About the time I was about to step away from the computer this morning, I got a text from my old friend from my days in college, telling me he had tried to call but no answer. I had turned off my phone when I walked into the library yesterday but failed to turn the sound back on.

We are like two old people sitting around at the park in the sunshine solving all the worlds problems. The only thing is in of our worlds, current events and politics are not part of them. We had so much to discuss that my iPhone batter went from 100% to 39% charged ... hard to believe that was worth 3 hours and 13 minutes of pure BS. We both like to talk if you hadn't guessed.

The hounds and I had already missed the window for the first walk, so we didn't hit the trail until after 1pm. They still had their two meals in on time. I guess that 2nd walk of today will have to be a late afternoon walk ... wow, it's already late afternoon as I write this at 4:10pm and I have a lot more I want to type.

The reason I have been feeling cold all day is a sweatshirt is not enough when it's 42°. I had no idea it was that cold. That put Heidi back into MY sleeping bag for the day, only to rise long enough to eat.

Speaking of Heidi ... on our 2nd walk yesterday I told her that we were going for a walk and would be right back, as I always do. She immediately jumped off the couch and headed for the door. I was only taking the 25' retractable leash for Stella so I did not have the camera to catch the historic event on digital film.

She moved out front of all of us pretty quickly and led the pace until the 2nd half of the walk. Her skin is looking really good, she's heavier and seems more like her old self than she has been in the past year.

Not to change the subject but I thought I was about to see a nice eagle or large bird nest up ahead.

It was looking pretty promising at this point. As I zoomed in for a closer look I didn't see any birds. Yet, the nest still looked intact.

The hounds right below it didn't care and I could see why as I got closer ....

The nest was not usable, at least at this time.

Ed from "Ed's Blog" up on my left sidebar under "Other Interest" has to watch his data usage, even more than me. I track mine at all times with the Apple Activity Monitor. That has saved me at times with large files being automatically loaded that I was unaware of in the past. Now, none of my updates are automatically downloaded and installed. They can tell me I have updates but I decide when to click the key.

Since I like to use large size pictures and post around 20 per post (until today) I wanted him to tell me if my blog was using to much data to load. I had the setting to load only two posts per page.

He found out that my blog did use a lot of data to load but also different results when using his data saver when looking at a Wordpress blog. It's too confusing to understand so I will not say anything more about the tests we were doing ... but what I was getting at ... does my blog load to slow for you on your computer, tables or phones? Too many large pictures?

To help Ed out I changed the settings back to ONE post per page and that will cut the number of large pictures in half. Thus, the blog site should load faster after I post this today.

While in the area of blogs ... when I logged in yesterday Blogger was telling me they had added new themes (templates) to use. I forgot to blog about it yesterday. I haven't taken a look at them yet but plan to after the hound walk that will happen right after I post this to the blog. Sadie is already giving me her stare down.

I am NOT going to be changing the template to this blog. I like the color, the design, the fonts, etc. I'll leave this as is. I have already made too many changes to this blog by changing the subject matter, changing domain names, plus moving it back and forth between Wordpress and Blogger ... to the point I have lost 90% of my traffic these past 18 months.

So to try the new themes I think I'll start a new 'test' blog just to try the different themes and see what they look like out of curiosity. From the thumbnail pictures of the templates they look really nice and almost as nice as the ones I can choose from on Wordpress.

Maybe I'll become an 'anonymous' writer and write about "off the wall" stuff. Or after looking at the new themes, just delete the new blog.

I don't have Verizon internet service for my home computer. I have been "living" on the internet the past few days since there are no basketball games on tv from the NCAA's but there are games from the NIT (not interested) ... but after spending a lot of hours on the internet, I am not using more than 400Mb of data within the 24 hour period. I would have thought with the number of hours on here I would be close to 1Gb of data ... although it's all reading, no videos or games.

I want to thank Kelly over at the Bayfield Bunch for the suggestion many months ago to try McDonald's coffee. Their bagged ground coffee has great taste and it has slowly taken over as my #1 brand anymore. Starbuck's and Seattle's Best Coffee don't taste the same anymore. I still have to try Arbuckle's and Tim Horton's is alway a possibility ... it's the shipping that keeps me from buying them. It's just easier to buy coffee off the shelf while grocery shopping.

I just glanced at Wunderground weather and I am happy to see 7 straight days of temps in the mid to high 60's starting tomorrow .. I am sad to see that 5 of those days have a very high probability of rain and/or thunderstorms. I'd better get my mower ready for the summer of 2017.

I am sure there is something I forgot to write about and I'll remember it while I am walking the hounds. But this is enough ... quite boring I'm sure. Why I wanted to write about all of this is beyond me.

One last question .... I am thinking of taking out the Yews in front of the house and replacing them with potted shrubs or flowers. I have decided the it would be best to take no chances with their roots messing with my septic tank system. I was told it was more in front of the carport but found out last year when I had an old diagram, the tank was under that window and the Yews covered much of the tank and two inlets for pumping it out.

If I take them out on one side of the porch I feel I have to take them out of the other side of the porch too. Otherwise it would not look right. When a friend suggested planting them in front of the house a few years ago, when I asked for suggestions ... I had no idea they would get as big as they have.

This is the size of them when they were planted a few years ago. I do like having the Directv dish hidden. I am up for any suggestions on what to do about the Yews. I also don't have anywhere else I would replant them.

Or maybe their root system is NOT long enough and NOT strong enough to mess up a septic system. Anyone have thoughts on that?

The hounds and I are outta here for our 2nd walk of the day in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana. Sadie has begged long enough.

The Hounds Asked If Spring Is Really Here

I needed a break today from spending so much time outside, it's that nice. So I guess it's time for a little update on nothing in particular.

It really does make a difference to my mental state to be able to open the door first thing in the morning to let the hounds outside and not be hit with a blast of freezing air.

I am not a fan of the winter months but I try my best to find something good in them and get through the best I can. Having another mild winter definitely helped. With the warmer weather, there are more birds on the ground when we first open the door. That means Sadie starts off her day with a full out sprint from one step out the door to the yard chasing away any birds in her area.

They both wanted to take that first walk early this morning but I had to have at least one cup of coffee. It took some convincing this morning to get them to head back to the house with it being so nice outside so early.

Once that walk started, Sadie was so happy she took off running out into the field and down the edge along the wooded area. It was a rare time that she didn't try to grab my left hand with her mouth to lead me to the field, like she usually does.

The plan with Stella was once again, 'escort' her past the first turn and then let her do whatever she wanted. I am feeding her a lot more kibble per meal and I think you can tell she is starting to gain some weight back. I don't know the reason for the loss of weight this winter but she was getting too thin.

You can almost feel the warmth from the sunshine in this picture and it's still pretty early in the morning when these were taken.

Stella stopped to checkout the same location she stayed in yesterday while Sadie and I walked. She was about to enjoy another feast when I said "come on Stella" and shockingly she followed me and Sadie.

I don't know what it was but every time I called her she followed us today. There were even a couple of times she walked over to look over the small fence into the corn field, then turned around and caught up with us.

I was somewhat surprised that both of them kept up a pace returning home. I expected them to stay out in the field at different spots with the weather so nice today. They only stopped a couple of times and then trotted toward the house.

I always say that Heidi has a 70° threshold before she is interested in coming outside for any length of time. Yesterday I was almost certain she was not only going to stay in the yard for a while but might join us on our 2nd walk of the day.

I was wrong ... she had other plans and headed the opposite direction.

Today was a different story though. Their lunch kibble was fed a little later than the normal time today. I'll discuss the reason why down below at the end of today's post. The older thermometer propped up in the corner of the carport had the needed slightly above 60° ... Weather Bug app was showing 62° ... when Heidi walked straight out the driveway instead of heading for the front yard.

For those that are interested in how much my ground shifts due to the 7 acre field slanting toward the corner of the yard with underground water ... the top of that tree stump to the right of Heidi's head use to be at ground level just a 2-3 years ago.

As far as Heidi I think you can tell she is gaining her weight back. There is new hair growing on all four legs and paws. Her front paws are almost full of hair for the first time in almost 3 years. The edges of her rear shoulders have new hair and more trying to grow. All of those bare spots are very soft and supple skin.

This is the most improvement I have seen with her in 3 years. I am still feeding her the SPORTMiX lamb meal and rice that I posted about a few weeks ago. All the hounds are on the same food. It is manufactured by Earthborn Holistic Pet Food.

She was headed for a bath and shampoo right after these pictures were taken today. All the hounds will get their nails trimmed and ears cleaned while we are outside. They seem to be more cooperative outside when ears are cleaned and toenails are trimmed rather than trying to do it inside.

As I came back from the mailbox with my camera in hand, Sadie was almost positive we were headed for a walk, so she came running full steam ahead. Stella ... lol ... she was on a different mission.

She has that attitude this afternoon where "you guys can walk all you want, I have things to do"

As I walked around the yard today picking up some stray sticks, I thought that I have never seen my yard in worse shape as is in right now. I know the winter just passed but it was a mild winter. I know there will be some damage to the yard but always seems to recover after it is mowed a few times and is hit by the spring rains.

Due to major mole damage in the front yard for the first time in 19 years I am going to apply some grub worm killer at least in the front yard. With the field running into the backyard, it's an impossible war to win against the moles.

Since there is so much damage I am very very tempted to apply so Scotts Turf Builder. I have always hesitated in the past due to the hounds. I know that if I apply that right before it rains I will have to escort them and lead them with a leash to the front yard for 24-48 hours until that Scotts fertilizer is absorbed into the ground.

Or ... is it even worth it?

My neighbors have much nicer, flatter yards than mine and all have the same mole problems that I do. They have not found anything to keep them under control or kill the mole traffic. I have tried everything advertised over the years without much success.

So maybe I'll keep doing what I am doing ... mow and let the spring rains heal the yard.

I am pretty sure the freezing temps killed the grass seed I planted those few days earlier in the month with the temps in the 70's. So I tossed out the last of the grass seed I had today and watered it. There was enough to cover the bare bank in the backyard that I am converting from wild growth to grass that can be mowed and trimmed ground level with the weed eater.

This next part will be of little interest to any reader here if you are not into sports. It is my explanation why the lunch kibble was served a little later than normal, though. Plus an old obsession has come back.

With my team firing their basketball coach only five days ago, social media, basketball fan forums and message boards have seen traffic at an all time high. If you are the owners of those message boards, they are loving it because of all the increase in traffic to their websites. Believe me these fan message boards are popular nationwide for all college teams and are huge money makers. They are probably making about a half a cent per click paid to them by advertisers. Yes ... some huge amounts of money is made when only ONE thread that I am following about the search for a new coach just went past a million visits since last Thursday. That is only one of the many IU fan sites.

So I have been a 'little' pre-occupied following all the rumors, discussions and of course those small tidbits of information by those that have
'inside' sources close to the decision makers. Huge amounts of money are involved, power struggles by rich boosters and/or board of trustees, wanting "their man" to be the next coach.

Needless to say, time passes quickly hitting the refresh button all the time for the latest news. In a matter of minutes a 100 new posts can happen or 100 new tweets can happen from the few people that I follow on Twitter.

The old obsession I spoke of that has returned is the amount of time I spend in 3-4 different IU sports forums reading the latest. I use to pay $9.95 per month for what they call premium information but stopped that a few years ago. Can you imagine the amount of money made at $9.95 per month and thousands of paying members?

Through all of this excitement the hound's schedule does not change from any other day. They get their 2, now 3 walks per day with great weather, they get fed twice per day with an occasional 'treat' if I need to bribe them.

Yet, today time flew just a little faster than normal while on the IU message boards. Since I did not have the warning of Stella howling for food, I lost track of time and the lunchtime kibble was served an hour late. I couldn't believe that Stella and Heidi had slept through lunch.

The hounds must be happy this afternoon because they are all in a deep sleep and it's quiet enough in here to 'hear a pin drop'. Oh and yes I thrilled that the past IU coach was fired last Thursday. A nice man but a poor coach in my opinion.

I am concluding this by saying that Spring is OFFICIALLY here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana ... now back to those message boards.