No Surprises In Weather -- It's July

Yes .. you did see this page before it disappeared ... I didn't want to 'publish' until this afternoon or tonight but by mistake hit the 'publish' button instead of 'close' ... so, you are correct, it was here for a few seconds this morning.

As I return to blogging, I am thinking that my normal post time will be late afternoon or early evening around 6pm at the latest. That seems to be the best time not only for me but I am able to capture photos or thoughts that happen that day. Otherwise I leave out what happens that afternoon, photos included. I am still not sure if I'll post daily and am planning to post when I feel like it ... could be daily, could be a few times per week. {A little early today}
When I was blogging back in January with the temperature 7° and a windchill below 0°, I wanted this weather we are having now. Now I am not sure I wanted this extreme heat, but it's much worse in other parts of the USA. It's normal for July yet the 'system' has definitely changed. Stella doesn't mind ... she still tries to head due north every morning ... I call her name, she veers our direction.

For you Mac users I am trying out the Beta version of the macOS Mojave. It's is going to have a much different look for you unless you go into your Apple preferences and change it to 'Light'. I'll keep the surprises under wraps since I hate when people tell me about the whole movie before I see them. One thing I am having trouble with is keeping signed in on Blogger.

I have to go to the laptop that still has the previous macOS High Sierra, to reply to your comments or for me to make comments on other blogs .. because it keeps me signed into Blogger all the time.

Not much has been going on out of the ordinary routine this past month or so. I had a break from doing my 'to do' list when a DYI article fell into my inbox. It listed most of the things I wanted to do, are not to be done in humid weather. I guess 95% or higher on that scale is good enough for me to wait until fall before I attacked a few things out of vengeance as well as required before winter.

You might notice a different collar on Stella. The one I bought for her two years ago became too small for her. I couldn't adjust it to be longer so I looked inside the closet door that has old collars, different 6' leashes and a few bicycle tools hanging on a small rack ... I still had the longer, bigger collar she came with in August 2015 ... a pink collar with John Deere icon on it. With a bumper crop of corn this summer, the John Deere collar seemed appropriate for her.

After a year my neighbor that works the Texas oil fields, decided he needed to move closer to the lake 30 miles away. Luckily his friends decided to buy the house and they moved in a few weeks ago. A young couple that likes to keep the place clean, the yard mowed and the nights quiet. It's good to finally get someone in the house that seems like they will be there long term. The hounds have not realized they have new neighbors and that's a good thing. I like to keep them in the yard and the field if possible ... less chance of them finding something interesting in the highway to inspect.

I am finding out that when electronics get old, they break. They don't last forever, nor should they. It's hard to understand I am sure in this day of 'disposable' electronics but my Yamaha stereo was bought in July 1984 ... yes 34 years ago. My computer speakers, a pair of Bose Companion 2 Series II were bought 8 years ago and needed replaced.

Of course one of my friends that is into music big time, an ex-music store owner, younger than I ... was pushing me to move my large collection to digital. That was a lot like the plan I had in 2014 of moving all my music, photos, filing cabinets of paper files all to digital ... it turned into a huge job and not one I wanted to finish.

I still think my music sounds better in those tall Polk Audio speakers with two 12" woofers, 4-mid-range speakers and 4 or 6 tweeters. Heavy and have moved all over the USA in the past 25 years but they still put out quality sound. With my old Yamaha Control Amp C-40 only playing the right side I needed a new amplifier. Things have changed over the years I found out while I looked for a replacement.

Rare to find separate components so my choice was an integrated amp or a receiver. A home theater did not interest me yet I wouldn't mind plugging my tv into the amp to use those tall speakers for movies, hear the crack of the bat in baseball games or F1 racing moving across my living room. So I found a receiver to buy and it will be here next Tuesday.

With one of my smaller computer speakers sounding scratchy, as if it I had blown it out ... I needed a new set of those. Of course I am old so any young sales rep at Best Buy assumes I know nothing about computers or electronics and he told me a $9 set of audio cables would fix my problem. I was pretty sure that was not the answer but decided to try his way anyway.

I returned those cables a day later and picked up a new set of Bose Companion 2 Series III.

Before they cut the field and rolled the hay, there wasn't a weed to be found anywhere. The seven acres was almost all grass. Now the field is full of what I call 'weeds' ... stuff like this is all over the field and I am sure it's not the healthiest stuff a cow or horse would want to eat if it were baled. I am guessing again this fall they will NOT cut the field a second time and let the winter freeze kill off the weeds before they cut the field in June 2019.

Back to those small computer speakers and digital music ... I did decide to load my CD collection (large) into iTunes so I can play those on my computer or when/if I travel. With all the CDs in iTunes I will be able to access those with my phone or tablet as long as I have an internet connection. That is one thing I don't do at all ... listen to music on my phone. I guess I was not part of the iPod generation when it came out years ago.

I saw the other day that 95% of the US population will have temperatures above 90° this 4th of July weekend. I know it's hot when I hear the AC running in the middle of the night. It's also a sure sign when all the hounds oversleep their normal wake up times.

It's not why I stopped blogging because it had happened a couple of times before. The "Grammar Police" sent me some emails giving me some help on clearing up my use of the English language in grammar and spelling. Obviously they had missed what I had written just months before that the blog will have misspelled words because the Blogger spellchecker can't catch everything and will be confused sometimes. I proof read but obviously not well.

I also explained it was my personal preference on how I use quotation marks with the punctuation OUTSIDE the last quotation mark ... because to me it looks better. But that (just like starting the sentence with But) irritated them enough to email me their advice and corrections ... that I didn't asked for.

It's my blog ... the grammar and spelling errors will continue.

A little after 12 noon the hounds went outside for their after meal trip. Stella did nothing but stand in the middle of the driveway wanting to go back inside where the AC was running full steam. Sadie got no further than the edge of the yard and Heidi inspected the mowing job next door.

As you can tell, we don't do much mid-day and will now keep busy inside until after 8pm or later for the next hound walk in weather like this. I've been in the reading mode lately so soaking up time between walks or ballgames is not a hard thing to do.

With the large amounts of rain this spring, then hot sunshine, with some humidity, its a perfect storm for maximum weeds. After the rain forecasts move out in the next three days I'll try more combinations of natural weed killer. As you can see not many are successful. I am also doing a test along the driveway bank of letting a section grow to see if that helps in preventing erosion but I don't like the look of it.

It was a decision by committee ... all three wanted to come back inside when I asked them.

I decided to post a little early today. It will be ice tea, a Cubs game on tv by 2:10pm and dinner soon after. I didn't see anything else that would be exciting enough to write about.

All is good and it's really really hot here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Blog Is Back In Action

I guess maybe I only needed a break from blogging. It's been around 37 or 38 days since the last post here where I announced the blog was over. It might be time consuming but I enjoy writing and I enjoy taking photos of the hounds. My problem is only internal as I fight my own demons of obligation and 'all or nothing' type of feelings. So we will be back to posting again, maybe only photos for a while, may not be every day ... we will see how it goes.

These are photos from as far back as May 28 and in order they were taken if Blogger placed them as they usually do, in sequence from the oldest to the newest photo. I have rebuilt the blog sidebar and re-labeled it as just a reading list since there are some websites mixed in that are not blogs. A new site I have added is Fact Checker ... a legit site that seems to be honest and can separate what is fake news and the actual facts.

If you think of other blogs I have had there that you followed but don't see them let me know. I know that I am missing some of the old ones. Maybe my memory cells can align later and I can remember them.

Sadie did some 'sparrow chasing' ... but Stella is just taking it easy and trying to survive the heat.

My friend's Mini ... named "Boogie" ...

All the hounds are good. Sadie turned 10 years old in June. Heidi is back to her hot summer hibernation and only goes out long enough after a meal to relieve herself. Stella loves the AC and Sadie doesn't care how hot it is, she wants to walk twice per day.

I'll catch up more later in the coming days ... nothing major has happened. All is good in retirement.

Just A Few Pictures

I have basically stopped blogging but felt like posting some photos of the hounds from the past few weeks.

This Blog Is Going Out Of Business

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.

The Hounds Battle Hotter Weather

As the temperatures get hotter every afternoon this week, our routine didn't change much. Fewer photos were taken and there was less interesting things to write about. I continue to be on the fence on deciding a few things. So here are a few photos from the last few days that I didn't blog.

Every day after her lunch Stella likes to take a 30 minute nap in the sun. Heidi sprints back inside as soon as she relieves herself and Sadie roams the field. While Stella wanders the field during the morning walks, Sadie will get her running in as the grass gets taller and taller all over the field.

Each time Sadie finds Stella over by the neighbors house. I've been letting her do what she wants since our last post here. I have been basically lazy and haven't done anything besides two walks per day, nibble food during the day only when I feel hungry, without fixing what you would call a meal. Then every night I watch Reds baseball on tv and while the hounds sleep.

With my food supply very low it was time to find some groceries and the perfect time to get serious about what kind of food I was going to start eating. I went back to logging all my food intake on Cronometer.com It will break each food down into the micro nutrients and track your protein, fat, carbs and calories plus all the vitamins and minerals. If you click on one of those topics, it will list from the highest to the lowest food in that category. I can see now why my weight was starting to creep upward while I ate less food before this recent change.

So far I am losing a pound per day after three days. Most likely that is just water weight. I can make it from breakfast to the time I go to bed without feeling hungry. Basically no grains, no pasta, no beans, a few nuts or seeds and dairy is allowed but not much because that kills your required low carbs count.

On the Friday morning walk I didn't see Stella anywhere on the horizon and she wasn't near the edge of the woods behind the neighbor's house. So I told Sadie "go find Stella" and she took off with her head in the air as high as she could get it.

She stopped once looking in all directions, then moved left toward the last place I saw Stella. About the time I started walking that direct she turned completely around and started running toward the neighbor's backyard.

Sure enough, there was Stella right next to the woods in their yard where they throw food scraps out for the field cat. Stella was scarfing down food as fast as she could. I couldn't take any photos of that because I was trying to get to her as fast as I could. That included jumping over their small drainage ditch that goes along the edge of the yard.

Sadie headed her back in the direction of the house ... the afternoon walk I had Stella on the retractable leash to keep her near us.

Late Thursday night I logged into my two week old Instagram account and deleted it. Then I logged into my Facebook account and deleted that. All in the name of downsizing my internet footprint and spending time on this blog and my private blog whenever I feel like writing.

I still have a Twitter account which I will keep. I use it as a reader mostly for all my sports teams. I do follow James Woods, the actor, because he comes up with some great stuff to remind people just what the truth is in this time of constant manipulated information.

For some reason the Z4 has not left the carport for the past three days. I had a big workout mowing the yard on Thursday afternoon late. It was hotter than I had planned on and 52 minutes later I finished and then stood in front of a fan to cool off as fast as possible. My highest pulse rate during that time was 82% of my max and for the past week my resting pulse rate has averaged 49. I think that shows  have a healthy heart. Now to get rid of some of this gut.

When I put some gas in my FJ the other day it was the highest prices I had paid but was still not higher than prices were in 2013 based on my checkbook register entry that I do on a spreadsheet. I have done that on a spreadsheet since 1997 when Lotus 1.2.3 was the spreadsheet to use.

I did think about starting a blog where I could rant yell and scream about anything that made me mad. Plus I would talk about life in general, ask questions I wonder about at times. I even talked it over with a friend of mine that is also thinking of downsizing his blog activity and social media.

The more I thought about what he said and what I felt, I decided I did not want to have a blog like that. I want my life as simple as possible, the fewest conflicts as possible and computer time online the least amount possible. That might change next winter when it's single digits outside.

I'll be prepared this winter though. That same friend I was talking to me, mailed me a full length Carhartt Coverall that fit me perfectly since I am two inches taller than he is. Last winter at times on the walks I found out that high quality ski underwear and jeans were not enough to stay warm during that half mile walk. The Carhartts should change that drastically.

Sunday will start with the daily hound walk, then back home in front of a tv by 9am for the F1 race at Monaco. After that I will flip over to ABC to watch the Indy500 at noon with the hounds being fed and out for a pre-race pee. I will not watch all of the preliminary pre-race stuff loaded with commercials.

I am thinking of stepping out on the 'thin ice' and expanding the "Other Stuff" part of the blog title and possibly bring some life to this boring blog where no topic will be left behind.

All is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana because I LOVE hot weather.