Stella Cancels Morning Walk

From the signs of puddles in the carport and in the field across the highway, it rained pretty hard last night as the forecast said it would. I didn't hear a thing even with the windows open. Evidently Stella knew exactly how much it rain and just how wet the field would be because no matter how hard I tried to coax her into walking, she refused!!

It was still nice weather though. About 25° cooler than yesterday morning, a little more windy but there is an expectation of sunny skies later this afternoon. That will put the lawn back to mowing height for Saturday afternoon.

What I wouldn't do to be able to crawl inside the brain of a bloodhound to see what's in there, how it operates and how they think. It is one of the funniest breeds I've owned yet there has only been two breeds in 32 years of hounds. The basset hound and bloodhound is as far as I have ventured into the world of dogs.

I knew when I turned around to take this photo of Stella, there was a 'slight' chance she wasn't going anywhere.

When I saw this familiar look, I KNEW she was not going anywhere. Was the ground of the field really that wet? Standing water in spots along the path? How does she know?

I was even willing to let her lead the way, expecting her to turn left along the side of the house, veer up the small incline heading toward the north end of the yard and possibly walking on the 'return' path to start our walk. I would follow her along the way with no problem.

She did an about-face without any hesitation and headed for the door to go back inside. In fact she was so quick that by the time I turned the corner of the house trying to take a photo of her heading back to the door, she was already at the door waiting for me to open it.

So ... there will be no bloodhound walk on Friday morning. Maybe later, maybe not.

I started my day in a fog, it didn't feel like I slept that soundly. The hounds were not going to let me have more sleep, they wanted breakfast. I usually get between six to seven hours of sleep per night and close to half of that is sound sleep. Yet, that new bag of Seattle's Best Coffee (not Starbucks), smelled fantastic as I took a whiff inside the bag. It tasted even better and before I knew it, my brain activity rapidly increased.

I had the urge to drive the local area and look at some dog food, different from what I have been feeding the hounds since February 2017. If I were to go to the local farm supply store which has a wide range of dog food brands, grain-free and otherwise, I could also walk the aisles looking for something new to buy for lawn care or maintenance.  Maybe some winter vests or jackets would be on sale, which I don't really need.

Basically it's just a restlessness I get sometimes.

I like the dog food I have been feeding the hounds. It has limited ingredients and helped Heidi with her allergic reactions with raw chewed skin a few years ago. Stella is my new allergy puzzle though. It's never a fun puzzle to figure out either.

Could it be the dog food or those Glucosamine supplements I give her?

That's the million dollar question. If I don't give her the supplements, she has a hard time walking sometimes, well yelp on occasion and has a family history of bad hips based on what the previous owner told me. A vet a few years ago when looking at Heidi's skin issues told me his studies on dog food allergies resulted in finding out that dog food is not the major cause of allergies in dogs.

That makes the puzzle all the harder to solve.

An old friend of mine living in Phoenix has an older Mastiff that started having some severe issues with his skin. Luckily it took only one vet trip for him to find a solution. It was something I had never heard of during the long time I have had hounds. "Hypoallergenic Protein" was the key word and the key to solving the Mastiff's problem.

Dog foods that are good for allergies always try to stay away from chicken, beef, dairy and eggs. My ingredient lists of every dog food I used, listed on a spreadsheet showed that even the best limited ingredient, grain-free foods with a protein source other than chicken or beef .... ALWAYS has some sort of chicken (flavor or meal) lower down the list.

Maybe it's not chicken that is bothering Stella. There are no kinds of meat in the GlycoFlex Plus supplement. But there is some chicken flavor in her lamb meal and rice food.

The symptoms of an allergy can include skin rash, hives, itching, paw biting, obsessive licking and sometimes nausea or vomiting. She shows only those highlighted in bold print. Especially the paw biting and itching. I have scanned every inch of her looking for fleas ... I did not find any on her or me.

So I am very tempted to go the route that my friend took with his Mastiff because he saw a sudden change within 8-12 days after switching to a dog food with hypoallergenic protein. Basically that is food with lower protein, lower fat and more carbs. His vet still tells him to feed the food for two months as prescribed before they decide what food to move to.

Looking back through photos of blog posts of Stella in the past four years that she has been here (August 2015), there have been times she has stopped in the field to scratch. So then the question is .... environmental allergy? That is a major cause of dog allergies. We tried weekly shots with Heidi to combat environmental allergies with negative results in 2015. She only improved when I went to the limited ingredients dog food I use now.

A blog reader suggested last month that I splash a little yogurt on her food every meal. Just a teaspoon of it, recommenced by her vet and that showed results. A few containers of yogurt is a lot cheaper than a 20 pound bag of Hypoallergenic Protein dog food ... unless I started eating the yogurt.  :)

I admit I am not a fan of trying to solve dog allergies. My curiosity to try different foods will get the best of me. Plus I need to walk through the aisles of that farm supply store and tell myself no a million times when I ask if I really need this.  LOL

As long as the Cincinnati Reds continue to win, weather and dog allergies are not a factor in my day. Strange how sports can do that to you mental outlook. It's like I told that California State Patrolman in 1984, on a Sunday afternoon celebrating Cinco de Mayo cruising the coast highway back home to Carlsbad. I was driving my 1967 mint condition VW Bus, with the stereo blasting loud enough that I didn't hear his siren through downtown Encinitas. My friend saw him in the side mirror and said "Floyd, I think that guy behind you want to talk to you."  :)

As he arrested me he told me I was the happiest drunk he had ever arrested. I told him "my Reds are on a 7 game winning streak!!!!" ...

The winning streak ended THAT NIGHT.

Well I am off to look around at Orschein Farm Supply store .... maybe I'll buy a new lawn mower instead ... and some hypoallergenic dog food for Stella  :)

All is good this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Day Of Changes ???

As you can see I had a hard time coming up with a title for this post. It might even change before I publish it, who knows. It's one of those days. I mentioned yesterday I might change the look of the blog. Nothing happened until last night around 10:30pm. I turned off the movie Woodstock and sat back down in front of my computer. I looked at only a few themes, tried one, the same one I changed too for an hour a few weeks ago. I was basically too tired to make any kind of decision nor did I feel like putting in the time to make the small adjustments after I would activate the theme. So, I ended the night and started today with the same theme as always. Why do I need to change it all the time?

Winter will not hit us until Friday.  A long time blog reader out in the Kansas City area always likes to test the weather we get here in 'the tropics' before it arrives. So sometimes, not all the time, I will get a warning a few days in advance of what to expect. She is more accurate than any weather online radar or local tv weatherman. I don't think she told me about this though ... the fog. She did tell me that temps were half of that 64° I mentioned and that was true this morning. I put my wool socks back on, the sock hat, my gloves, but stuck with the light four seasons jacket as a test. After the first photo from my doorstep, the low battery light started flashing. Could we finish the walk with enough photos?

I decided the best thing to do was to turn the camera off after every photo I took. Some might say that would wear the battery down faster but I remembered from last time just how little time I had left after that blinking battery icon a few weeks ago. I didn't have more than two to three photos left after that. So I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Off, on, off, on, off, on for over 25 times. I liked the fog this morning. It gave the walk a little feeling of mystery as Stella and I walked across a field fully saturated. There is more rain on the way this afternoon and tomorrow. It could be perfect weather for making blog changes.  :)

I also went to bed last night with my Apple Watch battery showing only 13% left. Would that get me through the night? I decided to test it and knowing I would be awake and up within the next six to seven hours, I thought the 13% of battery life would be plenty. I found out this morning, a night of poor sleep took a little over 1% per hour. I had 3% left as I let the hounds outside for the first time today. So ... two batteries needed to be recharged as soon as possible this morning if I was going to be able to operate like I normally do. Sad isn't it ... an electronic life. But ... a good life it is. I love electronic equipment.

Another change took place very early this morning. It's the first time in maybe two years that I am feeding the hounds lamb and rice instead of chicken and rice. I made the change with hopes that Stella will itch less, since I cannot find any fleas on her and there are no signs of raw skin or hot spots from any kind of allergy. Who knows, maybe she is allergic to deer scat? That's a joke ... at least I think it is. I did ask myself, what happens if Heidi's skin allergies flare up with the change in protein? Well if that happens I'll immediately go out and buy the bag of chicken and rice for her and let Stella finish the bag of lamb and rice. Remember, the vet told me two years ago that in his study on dog allergies, dog food was the cause only 3% of the time. Maybe Stella's scratching is a habit since it seems to take place in the same areas inside and outside. Strange.

Another change this morning, I went back to my old blog on Blogger, Bhounds And Other Stuff, and took off the private setting then checked all of the settings in the dashboard. Google always does this, someway settings that I set a long time ago were changed. For some reason the ticks had changed to where search engines were not allowed to index the site. The comments setting was changed. The number of posts on a page had changed. I thought at first all of those happened automatically when I changed the settings to 'private' the other day, but after checking my other two old private blogs, that was not the case. You can go there to see the blog list that updates each time a blogger posts something new. On WordPress I can list those same blogs but they do not update each time a post is published. WordPress keeps the list of blogs or websites in alphabetical order. It's that list of blogs that keep telling me I need a blog template that has the side bar on the home page or at least on the page that has the post.

Not quite halfway through the morning walk and I still am able to take pictures of Stella and the fog. The technique of turning the camera off an on is working so far. Later I'll look at my screen on the Canon camera to see if I can tell how much battery life I have before I get the warning so I am not in this same situation again. While walking I am still thinking about blog changes, or taking photos around my local small town that has some pretty sad buildings empty for the past few years. They all tell an interesting story and one that makes you wonder if the economy is really as good as the experts tell us it is. Or are they possibly proving just how hard it is keeping a brick 'n mortar store profitable year after year in the world of e-commerce? In a few cases the old businesses have gone out of business because of the owner's death but a couple more told me they could not stay competitive with online e-commerce. Other's just retired and could not sell what they had.

I could have gone lighter on this photo but I wanted to keep the overcast sky with fog as the main attraction. The tall grass really is that color next to Stella and there is something about that tall power line tower that keeps me taking photos of it. Over the years I will see an occasional state helicopter flying above the lines, going southwest, checking the lines but in the 21 years I have lived here, I've never seen anyone doing any kind of maintenance or repair.

As I walk this field I feel many mole tracks scattered within the half mile walk. That told me years ago, no matter what I put on my yard to control yard moles, they will always be a problem to my landscaping ideas. I saw one surface on top of the snow one year but other that than I've never seen them. I've tried everything on the market to prevent them from destroying my backyard. I rarely see them in the front yard. I remember in 2014 I dug 6" deep in the flowerbeds, then laid out the black plastic or net to prevent weeds from growing. I covered it up with 6" of river rock in back, mulch in front ... only to see dirt pushed up through the mulch or rocks, above ground level from mole traffic. I hate those little bastards.

No AT&T tower to see today ... the PNW has arrived in 'the tropics'.

Stella did not run again this morning but she did to a little short trot to catch up and pass by me. I keep forgetting that she will be 10 years old this summer.

Just as I snapped this photo, the screen on back of the camera went black and the lens automatically retracted. I had made it on a low battery for over 25 photos and 17 minutes of walking. So besides charging my watch, the Canon battery and finishing my second cup of coffee ... I had two decisions to make. (1) publish this now or wait until later today. (2) spend a lot of time and a lot of data, looking for that one blog theme that I wanted to change to.

The only search words I will use to choose from those 308 WordPress themes are "page wide photos", so the photos will remain as large as they are now with a different design. Besides the large photos on the post page I am looking for a sidebar either on the home page and/or the post page, where I can list those blogs of friends that I follow out in the open, plus other information. This theme puts them at the very bottom of both the home page and post page. I'm not a fan of that placement. Traffic reports show that for some reason there are not a lot of clicks on the past posts on the home page where all the photos/posts are listed, compared to my older Blogger blog. Some of that is by the way the blog is designed for phones and tablets. With those you have to scroll to the bottom to see the other posts. I tried it the other day and told myself "I'm not doing that" and stopped.

So we will see what happens to the blog design today. Maybe nothing.

I still have books to read. I will NOT be watching the State of the Union address tonight nor will I watch all the expert opinions afterwards. That reminds me, the other reason I want a sidebar ... I have four new websites I want to have on the side of the blog. Two of them were mentioned just the other day and two others were sent to me by a friend a few months ago. I read those two very informative blog in my Feedly account. So it looks like I have something to do this morning ... blog design. That also answers option number one above ... post this now.

See how easy life in retirement is. No approvals needed. No meetings to discuss those options. No outsourced input. I'm in charge and that's a good thing here in 'the tropics'. No .... I am NOT putting that period inside that quotation mark !!! :) Besides I am not really in charge here in 'the tropics' ... the hounds are the ones in charge.

I read somewhere yesterday, ah yes, in Team of Vipers. It's very well written and the author is very conscientious about what he is reveling about his time working in the White House. All the reports, the news, the chaos that goes on under the Trump administration does not bother me and does not surprise me in the least. Like I said a month or so ago, I use to work for a family owned business and one of the owners of the company was a twin of Trump ... he acted identical to him. He made decisions the same way, some good some bad. I found it to be typical business. People forget or don't want to remember, a businessman was elected not a politician. So why should his administration be something people and news stations are familiar with or like all the past presidents? It's not complicated for me to see and I'm not the smartest person around.

Well Heidi has moved her sleeping operation from the bedroom into the living room. Stella has joined her with a few hours to go before their lunch. That will give my Canon battery plenty of time to charge. Like I said yesterday or in the past ... I really like that smaller Canon G9 X with the Nikon D3200 as a backup or for those days I need a change. :)

It's foggy but still nice this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella Gets A Half Walk

As the afternoon progressed we had a 'heat wave'. I kept an eye outside while I played Mahjong at the kitchen table, watching the one field become flooded as time moved on. It looked beautiful outside with sunny clear skies and it was very tempting to go for a walk.

Right after the hounds lunch we did step outside but it was only a short time. It was 15° and damn cold. Neither hound wanted to get much further than the carport. We were all back inside fairly quickly. They slept, I fixed some baked wild salmon and steamed brussels sprouts for a late lunch or early dinner. I kept the tv on in the background but it was tuned to a sports talk on FoxSports 1, Colin Cowherd.

Stella and I took off a little after 4:13pm, not really knowing what to expect. I decided we would go until we got too cold or high freezing winds hitting us once we made the first turn. We didn't make to the first turn before jumping over on the return path and heading home.

We were gone a total of 7 minutes.  LOL

With what I think is increased scratching by Stella, I looked back at photos of her to see if I could tell when this irritating habit started. Besides the weather changes, starting from the summer moving to fall, there were only two things different as possible causes.

I started giving her a monthly supplement of the GlycoFlex for her hips and joints plus I decided I would continue their monthly heartworm chews year round, just not through spring and summer. Could it be the heartworm meds that she is allergic to?

When I was taking Heidi to four different vets trying to solve her skin issues a few years ago, the same vet that had been involved in a study of allergies in dogs, told me they found the beef in the heartworm medicines spiked an increase in allergies. While dog food alone was only a cause in 3% of dog allergies

I've gone many years not giving my hounds a year round heartworm chews. The past two summers the incidents of heartworm in dogs in this area has exponentially increased. It concerned me when I heard the total number of cases just in the office I changed to in September.  I decided I'd rather have them take a chance having allergies instead of coming down with heartworm.

Of course it could be something else that is causing all the scratching. I am going to change their dog food from a chicken protein to a lamb protein in their next bag of dog food. Fish? The last time a tried a salmon blend of dog food, Heidi's skin allergies went off the charts, so fish will not be an option.

Stopping again to scratch. Even when it's freezing outside.

She was still happy to get outside. While Heidi has spent all day on the couch in a spot where the sunshine targets that part of the couch. Like a magnifying glass, that spot is pretty warm. Basset hounds are not stupid when it comes to sleeping in the sunshine, inside or outside.

I decided to answer an email question I received today, here just in case other readers are wondering. Someone asked me today by email if this blog was going to turn into a political blog. They didn't care for it. They only wanted to see the photos and read about the hounds.

So to answer that reader's question and for those that might be wondering ... NO, it is not. In fact yesterday's post will be my last about politics or anything government. I will also no longer be reading the news or watching the news just like I did from October 28 to December 9th.

That should give me plenty of time to read, listen to music or watch taped tv shows. Plus I will have less chances to get mad, irritate and mumbling to myself. There is nothing I personally can do about anything politically so I am going back to being a non-participant, until it is time to vote.

All is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today ... ballgame on tv tonight!

Stella - Heidi & The Canon G9 X

{Over 40 photos today ... Heidi & Stella} Today has had a pretty good start. It's not raining!! As we ride the 'yoyo' weather here in 'the tropics' Stella and I had one of our best walks in a long time this morning. She didn't eat deer scat and I didn't have to do any verbal herding. She walked at her pace, I walked at mine. The skies were clear. We saw the moon, passenger planes and a flock of geese. With 3" or more of snow on the ground just a couple of days ago, and ~12 hours of nonstop rain I wasn't sure what to expect on our walk this morning. 

Which boots to wear? ... hiking or the snow/rain boots. You would think with all the melted snow and all the rain this week that the field would be saturated beyond belief. One solution to that is have a temperature of 20° with a windchill of 14°. We had a chance to walk the half mile without getting my boots wet and Stella's paws wet. I put on the snow/rain boots just in case.

When I looked out the window a few minutes before 8am as Stella hydrated herself before the walk with the daily routine of gulping water as I put on my parka ... it was still pretty dark outside, a little overcast or so it seemed. I thought if I was going to get good photos for the walk today then I should take the old reliable standby, my Nikon D3200. I used that camera the other morning on our walk. Then I decided, "no ... this is what we do. We take a daily walk at 8am with a camera in hand, as long as it's not raining." I've made some adjustments from the reviews I read yesterday so "lets see if the Canon G9 X is going to work for what we do or does it go back to the store." As some people would say the Canon G9 X Mark II and I had our "come to Jesus meeting" or others might say "let's see it when the rubber hits the road."

It was either going to work or it wasn't. I turned the dial to 'M' on top of the small camera, like always, or at least most of the time. I did not plan on going past the limit when zooming and understand that I have a 84mm zoom lens for the max, not the Tamron 18-200mm lens. I would also make sure that Stella was in those green squares that were telling me the points in focus. Even if that put her off center. Basically I was going to work within the limits of the camera and see what the results would be when I got back to my desk. I could see that Stella again had some early morning energy.

I have to admit this photo of the moon isn't bad. Zoom'd within the camera limits and handheld. The moon was dead center of the green focus square.

I moved the lever to the left to reduce the zoom distance. Sure, I'd like for those trees to be more in focus but they were not the point of interest. The moon was. I can live with the burred surroundings because based on the lens type, the price range of the camera, it is doing what it is designed to do.

With each step I could hear the crunching sound of the frozen turf. I could even hear that same sound as Stella marched through the frozen grass. She was on what I call our return path and a little zoom added to bring her closer to the camera.

I need to start remembering just to hold the shutter down when I am trying to capture her running. When I don't, with the 2 second delay in processing the photo and getting refocussed, she has ran by me. I have the setting for 'continuous' so it's just user error that I did not have more photos of her running since the camera will shoot 8fps.

Once again she wouldn't let me stay in front of her. Each time I took the lead she would walk around me ... then stop to check something out. Notice the bottom half of her tail is a 'black and tan' from a parent. Bloodhounds are either 'black and tan' or 'red'. Because her tail is like that plus the added story as a puppy where she got loose in a garage, getting her tail mixed in with some automobile oil ... she arrived at my house after our 4 hour drive in August 2015 with the name of "Dipstick" ... She adapted to her new name Stella within hours without any problem.

As we approached the first turn I was willing to let her go anywhere she wanted. After all it had been months since she has gone next door, years since she took off running after deer or anything else of interest. Plus she does not run sprinting speed anymore but she will run faster than I can. She didn't disappoint as she moved way ahead of me.

I thought it was interesting that she was staying on the path this morning with all of the fresh deer tracks in the usual places between our path and the woods/brush line.

The frozen ground did a pretty good job recording the deer traffic from this morning.

She was still walking on the path ... I zoomed out to 35mm to take that photo.

She knew the deer were following this path and heading this direction this morning before we even thought about being outside.

Another thing this Canon G9 X has shown me ... it was not the Nikon that was crooked, needing adjustment ... it's my hands holding the camera about 2° to the right. I can always tell when I take a photo of this cell tower, because I have to crop the photo to get the tower straight.

I stood and watched what she was doing and where she was going. She was well past our turn towards home. If I would have let her go, she would have followed that deer scent around the tall power cable tower, and north all the way to the woods.

I wanted to keep the ground dark to capture the sunrise a little after 8am.

As I moved the camera closer to the frozen puddle of water, it automatically changed the landscape of the photo to a vertical position.

Again I didn't think about just holding the shutter down to catch her running. She was so fast that she was up on me just like that, within seconds.

Does she hear the small barking dog again? See or hear the school bus like yesterday? No ....

She heard the flock of geese heading SE. I decided not to crop the photo because if you didn't know it ... I have not edited one of these photos today. They are just the way they were coming straight out of the Canon G9 X into my computer photo editor.

You can tell by Stella's ears and the flipped front paw ... she is at high speed running away from me. The lens is at the safe maximum of 84mm.

You can barely see the 'Y' in our return path. Either straight ahead to the north backyard or to the left, and follow the 'old' way home. That path is right above the word "or" in this sentence if you cannot see it.

I usually let Stella make the decision on which path we take. The old path is just left of her and left of the tall grass ... so it's the 'old' path to take home today.

She is in her 'strolling pace' ... no hurry and no worries ... just another day to her.

I moved my lens into the "Digital" zoom for this photo. That means on the progress scale I passed the 'yellow' caution area and went all the way to the 'blue' Digital Zoom area. I tapped a little color and some definition for this photo.

Again she was faster than the speed of light this morning. The VetriScience GlycoFlex supplement seems to be working for her. It was just a few months ago where she yelped trying to get on the couch one night and had been walking gingerly sometimes on our morning walk. Looking at the product facts on the package I am tempted to try one of those small soft chews myself.

I zoomed a little on this photo ... but nothing on the one below.

Last night she was in prime form. I was watching the National Geographic channel where I have my DVR set to tape all of their National Parks shows. I was also eating an apple. Heidi and Stella love apples but before I give them the core I remove the stem and go to the kitchen to cut out or pry out all of the apple seeds. There are times I don't want to stop the show or the ballgame to make that trip to the kitchen and I don't do a good job getting those seeds out with my fingernail .. so she and Heidi will only get a little apple from the pieces I chew off.

This is Stella's patented look telling me she wants not only a piece of any kind of food I am eating but she wants ALL of it. She will sit for as long as it takes if needed. During this stare she never blinks, might drool, doesn't move her head ... only looking at that piece of apple, a carrot, almonds, whatever I am eating.

On the opposite end of the couch Heidi barely raised an eyelid when she heard the sound of me eating an apple. After assessing the situation she decided that sleep was her higher priority and didn't move from that position, only lowering her eyelid and going back to sleep.

Stella decided if she got closer to the two apple pieces, I slid into my side pocket you see there in the photo, that might help her getting the apple core that still had seeds in it.

She gave up trying from the right side. Slowing walking in front of the tv, she decided it was time to try me from the left side and again ... get as close to me as possible. She sat here for about five minutes before getting up on the couch to put her stare about an inch away from my face. Even a good macro lens would not have been able to get a photo of that. That stare lasted the time it took to go from one commercial on tv, view the show, then to the next commercial. This look is borderline between begging and pouting.

Finally she gave up and decided it was time to call it a night with a nap while I finished watching multiple National Park shows.

All of those last photos inside were taken with my iPhone 8+ camera.

I was about to write my closing paragraphs and post this when Heidi woke up from her morning nap. She always comes to my desk chair to let me know she needs to go outside. This is her daily routine lately. You will see she ends it with a sprint to the living room and some aerobic exercise.

The best bbq around is from that black trailer.

All photos of Heidi were taken with the Canon G9 X, NO EDITING, a flash was used inside.

One of my morning readings is all the articles collected automatically from categories I choose on Flipboard. Today there was an interesting article about Grain-Free Dog food. That was a product I used for years as I tried to figure out what the cause of Heidi's skin allergies were. The cost was not a consideration and over a 2 year period I tried all different kinds of protein sources with no grain. One thing interesting in this article was they mentioned that most allergies in dogs are NOT caused by food. One of the four vets I took her to told me he had completed a study on causes of allergies in dogs and their study found that only 3% of allergies in dogs were caused by food ! In February 2017 (?) I went back to a basic dog food with Chicken Meal and Rice ... this specific brand or blend of food cleared up her allergies.

For those that feed Grain-Free dog food ... here is some information to consider:  Stop Buying Grain Free Food.

We have all thought it ... maybe. How do I disappear from the Internet?  This might help to show you how:  Delete Yourself From The Internet.

Well the sunshine is out, it's already almost 11am as the hounds walk near my computer room to remind me that I fed them breakfast at 6:30am and it's time for their lunch kibble. Not sure what I am going to do today but it might be nice to take a drive in the local country and take some more photos.

The camera? A keeper?  I think after this morning's photos on this blog, it has shown me it's a camera I can use and the photos are of good quality. Case closed.

Time is flying these past few days in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.