Stella Doesn't Miss Afternoon Walks

Unless it's raining really hard or the temperatures have dropped to single digits ... Stella does not miss her afternoon walk. She doesn't beg like Sadie's stare down and I always have to ask if she want's to go. Once she hears that word "walk", she is whining to go. Nothing but photos after this paragraph ... like it use to be on this blog.

In The Middle Of The Night

4:10am ???

My eyes are wide open in a room filled with darkness and two sleeping hounds. There isn't a sound anywhere. No wind, no rain, no trucks on the highway, nothing. I can remember something about a dream but nothing of what it was about. I tap my watch face and can't believe the time of day.

I'm wide awake.

I give it my best shot to get back to sleep but I know within seconds, it's not going to happen. No, I didn't go to bed at 7pm nor 8pm, not even 9pm but here it is now 4:25am and I am flipping on the light and changing clothes. I'm wide awake and well rested! Within the 15 minutes I spent trying to get back to sleep, Heidi had woke up and did her normal full body shake with the sound of her ears flapping. It happens every morning, no matter what time it is. Stella for once was not moving, not awake and she is usually the first one of three of us to wake up. Obviously in a deep dream state as her paws were moving in a high-speed run through the field.

What am I going to do at 4:30am?


Same thing as always. Hounds out, kibble poured, they eat, I make coffee, they go back to sleep in the bedroom, I am on my computer reading.

Flipboard is a free app where you can choose what categories of news or articles you want to read. I do not have any categories that deal with news ... sports news, yes ... not news. A lot of these articles are what I call "off stream media" ... Flipboard does all the hard work it would take me to find these articles.

The only other option would be, signing up for a newsletter from a hundred different magazine, blogs, sports sites, dog sites, camping sites, technology, gadgets ... you get the picture.

All my reading was finished by 6am. I was a little surprised how active the highway is at 5am with people going to work 12 miles away or catching the Interstate and heading to work 30 miles away. I remember there were times 13 years ago where I would be one of them. I'd be at my desk by 6am, getting more work done between 6am - 8am, then I would between 8am - 5pm.

Winston was just a puppy then and Sadie had not been born yet. Bertha was the bloodhound of the house at that time. On Friday's they could go to work with me and meet the other dogs from 20 different co-workers. All but a few had dogs for pets. Or, I'd make a trip home for lunch and let them out mid-day. They probably spent more time alone than with me ... but they were inseparable.

So sitting here a little after 6am, I asked myself, what am I going to do now?

I could and am writing this blog post, at least up to this point but that presents problems. I now have to insert one picture at a time between the paragraphs that I choose. It is much faster to post all the pictures first and then type content between them. Really it's faster than what I will be doing today.

Another reason I started this early ... it's been raining lightly the past hour. It's strange that the Intellicast Radar shows the whole southern part of the state free of any rain, snow or clouds. So maybe our walk at 8am will not be postponed after all.

What am I going to blog about? It's only 6:33am and I have nothing to do.

What I ended up doing was scan some pictures of a basset hound I had in the past. I will be blogging about her and it will be the post this evening. Maggie was a lot like Heidi or I guess I could say that Heidi is a lot like Maggie was 17+ years ago.

The radar was clear, but there were signs it had rained sometime. I could tell that by the landscaping blocks in front of the carport. Stella and I decided we would at least start the walk and see how wet it was. I am going to pull those four stepping stones up and have the landscaping business bring me a large rock to place there. It's a place where the rain has aways dripped from an overflowing gutter or collected heavy rain. That rock will help keeping the ground a little more stable.

These boots are too good to being labeled snow boots. I wear them as rain boots or muddy field boots too. They are very lightweight, comfortable and fit much nicer with a slightly thinner pair of wool socks.

Stella was back into exploring on her own, at her pace. It was wet and cold but no wind, so it wasn't that bad. I did not catch her eating any deer scat and most of her 'nose to the ground' work was collecting scent data. Instead of following her this morning I decided I'd let her go while I stayed on the path and hopefully we would meet at the point where I would turn and head for home. She was close as she walked just a few feet in front of me, not quite to the final turn.

As you see, she was back in the brush. A place that still has sharp thorns, and enough wild growth that she can get tangled up trying to get back out into the field. Being strong, she just marches through any thick thorny brush.

We are mentally preparing for this Sunday's single digit temps. Not 'we' really ... 'I'is more like it. Where last year we went for over 30+ days straight not having a high temperature more than freezing at 32°, this year almost all of our high temps have been 38° and higher. This is almost exactly the same kind of winter we were having in January 2016.

There she goes ... let's see if she and I can meet up after taking two different paths with no verbal herding.

She is there ... can you see her?

She thought she was headed for the fence line, the path the deer take, but I told her I was going home so she stopped, stared at me and then turned left to follow me on the path homeward.

A foggy day for that AT&T tower.

The walk always seems slower than the last, as she spends more time exploring but by the time I turn off the Activity App, total time is always within two minutes each day.

With me already having a post put together for publishing tonight, I'll be out doing some shopping today. The last of the coffee was used this morning so that dictates a grocery store run no matter what I want to do. I have added the 'new' way to shop to my Any List app so I'll not forget coffee or the water filter. If I did not have a grocery list on my phone, I wouldn't remember half the food I need to buy. With both hounds sleeping until lunch, it's the perfect time to sneak away. I'll be back in time before Stella could go nuts wanting lunch and attempt another breakout.

There may be a government shutdown going on but I received both of my government sourced funds this month electronically and an email notice that my Federal Tax Return was received by the IRS. It's interesting how they pick and choose what will be closed. When I worked for the government they use to keep 'essential personnel' working even when a department was shut down like this. It sounds like Trump is not giving in and the 'tag team' of Chuck and Nancy aren't either. They must have deepened their tan in Puerto Rico last week with all the other Democrats that decided to leave DC instead of work. Can government personnel file for unemployment? Honestly I don't know.

Well I am out of words ... scrambled thoughts ... and I've lost my train of thought ... that happens when I have things to do I guess.

It's cold, wet, foggy and quiet this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.