Super Bowl LIII Sunday

It was nice feeling the weather warming up Saturday at noon. Still we didn't do much, at least nothing to blog about Saturday night. Right after the hounds took their break outside right after their lunch I headed to the local library to hopefully pick up some brand new books that had arrived. I receive a weekly email from them every Saturday morning on new arrivals for books, DVDs, audio books and CD's. These books are also new releases in bookstores.

Speaking of bookstores, a major brand, Barnes & Nobles Book Store in Bloomington is closing or did close February 1st. When I thought about it, somewhat of a surprise then I asked myself when was the last time I browsed the store with a hot cup of Starbucks in my hand? When was the last time I bought a book? When I thought of other people with similar visits or purchases as mine, then it wasn't a surprise that it was closing. Sad but not a surprise.

While I went to the mailbox and Heidi roamed the front yard, Stella didn't move from this spot the whole time we were outside. Only to get up and go back inside.

I was lucky to pull two of the books off the "New Books" shelf, one that I wanted and one was something that looked interesting. I then scanned their displays of interesting books sitting out on display and pulled another new book from that collection. The book that looked interesting is "Notes On a Nervous Planet" by Matt Haig. I read 26 pages late last night. The book I could not put down all afternoon was "Team of Vipers" by Cliff Sims. I read half of that book, with small print and a lot of detail. I'll finish it today before the Super Bowl game at 6:30pm. The third book I picked up was "The Deep State" by Jason Chaffetz. That looks to be another fast read once I start it tomorrow or late tonight, depending on if I finish the Team of Vipers book. I believe The Deep State does exist.

I finally pulled myself off the couch last night, put the book down and took Stella for a early evening walk after 6pm. The air smelled of smoke but I am not sure which of my neighbors have a fireplace. I took a few photos but all I really wanted was to do the walk as fast as possible so I could get back to reading. There was enough time when we got back to fix some dinner, baked salmon and steamed broccoli. With all of my fruit gone, I really crave sweets at night.

This morning was a different story. It was already close to 50° by the time we stepped outside, over an hour later than normal. The skies were blue and the air was clear of any smoke smell. It was an enjoyable walk yet I could still feel just how hard the ground was as we walked. It felt as if it was still frozen. Later I did see puddles of frozen ice. I also found the mole tracks in my yard were hard as a rock.

The Canadian geese filled the skies today. As I watched them, they seemed lost and were heading east instead of south or southeast. Stella had no interest in looking at them nor did she stand still trying to figure out what that sound was ... she kept her nose to the ground and kept tracking scent.

A couple of different groups still heading east ... but it gets more interesting in the next few photos.

Once they were in the skies above the field behind the field we were walking, they broke the group up and flew in circles, only to head back west out of formation.

I had no idea what they were doing ... it didn't look like they did either.

Normally at this point of the walk is when I can catch Stella running. I trotted to get as far ahead of her as possible but as you see ... she walked and didn't even trot ... just enjoying a Sunday morning stroll.

Obviously a lot of animal traffic in the yard last night.

Making that same right hand 90° turn so she can walk along the side of the house to finish her walk. How long will that habit last?

Of course none of the blue skies or warmer temps changed Heidi's daily schedule.

I don't think she was happy I woke up her taking photos a little past 9:30am.

I have not read or seen anything about the Super Bowl today. On purpose. I have no idea if there is a crisis going to happen, nor who the halftime entertainment is. In fact seven hours before the official start time (not the kickoff) I am still not sure that I am even going to watch it. I might tune in to see what is going on or I can check the score on my phone while I am reading books. IF it becomes a 'political statement' I will turn off the tv as fast as I turned it on.

What I will probably do is take advantage of this great weather today, go outside and pick up all the small tree limbs or twigs from the yard and add them to my burn pile. That is what the blue trashcan is for, collection. Plus it's flipped over in back of the house under the overhang too keep it from becoming a rain collector that would be solid ice even today. Or ... I'll spend all afternoon reading since the books are that good.

A beautiful Sunday here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Strange Feel Today

Just because the temperatures were warming up, that did not mean the hounds would lose any sleep. They were back in their afternoon mode of sleeping right after lunch and were not interested in any kind of outdoor activity Friday afternoon as you will see in the photos below.

Friday was going to be a day for melting ice. There was a lot of ice everywhere, in places not suspected and then more. I helped the process on this storm door as soon as the hounds  came back inside. With a metal multi-purpose tool similar to a putty knife I chipped away and moved the ice out of the bottom track of the door so the drain holes would not be plugged up. Anywhere I saw ice I scrapped of the surface of what I found it on.

Stella made it out to the field do to her thing but came directly back to the house after lunch. Even with a nice day around noon, she wanted to go back to sleep. It was much warmer than the previous 24 hours but still had a little freeze to the air.

The last of the snow was trying to hang on anyway possible. Any snow not in the sunshine stayed for most of the afternoon but by Friday night at sunset all the snow was gone.

Heidi did a slow lap around the house Friday and I could tell she was happy to be outside longer than just a couple of minutes. Sprinting was not part of her walk today. She had a lot of scent to catch up on and took her time doing it

Her coat is the softest and smoothest I have ever felt in the 8 years she has lived here. I don't see a lot of skin irritations this winter, so who knows where her allergies are this year. It's good to see her no longer licking her legs or paws into raw spots of skin like last month.

Once they decide they want to go inside there is no way you are going to change their mind. They will not move from there until I open the door.

This morning was a different story. I always feel a little off track when I wake up past 8am. The daily two cups of coffee didn't help and it almost felt like I was suspended in time while I sat reading all of my internet information that had dumped into my Feedly and Flipboard accounts. I had nothing planned for today because I did all kinds of stuff yesterday as far as domesticated home tasks.

For some reason this year I am not watching the normal amount of college basketball I have in the past nor do I have the interest having the games playing on tv in the background. That is really strange if you knew me.

It is one of those times I have zero motivation to do anything different and no idea what I want to do even if I was motivated. I guess I'll ride the wave of the day and see what happens with no expectations. That is usually the best way to get through this kind of feeling.

I mentioned yesterday on the morning walk Stella wasn't doing too much and followed the path. There didn't seem to be a lot of scent for her to check out Friday morning but this morning made up for that lack of scent. Her nose was in overdrive this morning and the walk had a feeling that we might take an hour to finish at the rate she was going.

It didn't come close to that length of time because of my verbal herding, as I call it. I must have said "come on" a million times within the 18 minutes we were gone. She ignored all of them, except for a couple.

The last of the snow was still hanging on this morning at 29° but it won't last as the temps climb to 50° later this afternoon.

As you can see Stella was taking her time and I didn't have much choice but to stand around looking at the sky, the tops of trees, down into the gully, on the horizon and really anything while she collected and filed all of the data she was finding. She wasn't eating deer scat this morning ... just smelling everywhere.

She thought long and hard about heading to the far right corner of the field. I could see fresh deer tracks in the frozen grass. I was even going to let her go that direction and follow her if she chose to but to my surprise she turned back on the path.

Sounds of geese or ducks could be heard but she wasn't looking in the same direction as I heard them. I am not sure what got her attention.

Back to the job at hand ... tracking scent.

While my fleece lined Wranglers went round and round in my dryer back home, I could feel the difference with a plain pair of jeans on. Much colder but nothing that was extreme. I layered a couple of all season light weight jackets instead of the down parka and it turned into a nice Saturday morning walk, as Stella shows us.

Something this high on the tree can only mean squirrel traffic, I assume

As I walked toward the house, she wasn't finished exploring.<

Funny how she made a right 90° turn in the middle of the yard so she could finish her walk next to the house. That has been her routine the past few weeks whenever we walk into the north part of the yard at the end of our walk.

The morning continues its strangeness as WordPress will not load the last photo I wanted to use due to some sort of error on the upload. I've tried different times with the same results.

For some reason yesterday I found that after Firefox's latest update it played well with the WordPress redesigned dashboard and used very little data. In fact it worked well with all websites and I only used 350Mb for the day. So many of the sports sites I read use a lot of data even with the app to block automatic videos from playing, so it was good to see a number that low when I turned off the computer at 12:36am.

I noticed on my monthly weigh-in on the first of the month I am lost a pound a week in January. All my carbs yesterday were all from two pears, a banana, one mango and the two tsp of sugar for my coffee. Around 145 grams of carbs just from that and I refuse to quit eating good fruit just to cut my carb intake.

Where I started out strong on this blog December 9th blogging two or three times per day, lately the words are hard to find. Maybe it was the recent weather combined with less time outside or perhaps it's a period of time where my brain has settled down a little. At least I have no urges to change the template of the blog ... LOL.

It's a nice Saturday here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

It's Great To Feel Warm Again

We had two surprises when we started today. There was just a little snow last night and yesterday was not Friday. The snow covered the driveway and our path, showing us the way to go and I spent all day plus last night thinking it was Friday instead of Thursday. Hard to believe I didn't realize what day it was after looking at my watch multiple times during the day yesterday.

It felt nice and warm this morning with no wind, no sunshine, and not a lot of highway noise. Stella started leading the walk but the further we went the more I felt she wasn't feeling good today. She had a lack of energy and as you will see, rarely veered from the path.

When I started the walk I thought of just letting her go on her own today for the first time in many months. Then it occurred to me that if I were to do that I would have very few photos for this blog post.

Once I saw she wasn't going to move, I gave up on the idea of total freedom for her and backtracked to go get her. I zoomed in to get this photo so she wasn't that close to me.

This is a pretty good indicator showing just how little snow we got last night. It is still in the mid 20's as I write this but that is still around 20° warmer than yesterday morning and that's a huge difference in my comfort level. It feels so warm this morning that Heidi might even make an appearance outside later today, just in time for the next blog post

Finally I can show you the deer path they use between the woods that borders the field to the woods behind my neighbor's house. It's hard to show it with mashed green grass but with the snow, their path shows up pretty clearly. It's interesting how curvy their path is.

I was surprised by the lack of activity from Stella at this point in the walk. Maybe there just wasn't that much deer scent to track. She seemed like she was not that interested in the walk this morning. She was looking more like she does on the afternoon walks.

I even stopped her a couple of times to ask her if she was okay. Every time I asked she would barely wag her tail, then walk around me.

Lately every walk we take, she will stop to scratch herself while sitting on the path and that gives me a chance to get pretty far ahead of her. It's the only way I can catch her running but the delay between photos doesn't give me a lot of time to take continuous running photos.

That is the same deer path I showed earlier, only from a different part of our walk.

We took the 'old' way home this morning. She waited on me to catch up with her, showing no signs of wandering away. She headed straight to the door once I caught up to her.

Before it was 8:30am I had completed five things off of my 'Reminder' list and that included a short trip to town for dog food. I bought some lamb and rice this time with hopes that might make a difference in Stella's scratching. I've looked everywhere on her for fleas and have found nothing like that.

Since I now know it's Friday and not Saturday I can't say that will make much of a difference really. In fact being the football addict I claim to be, at least for college football, I had forgotten the Super Bowl will be played on Sunday. I have not decided if I will tune into the game or not.

I never watch pregame stuff, nor the halftime. For some reason this year I am just not too interested in seeing the game. Maybe it's the teams that are playing that has decreased my interest. Sports talk show has been saying there isn't the normal excitement around Super Bowl Week like in the past.

I stopped by the library on my way home to check their 'New Books' shelf or other books of interest they set out on display. For the millionth time I found out, they don't open until 10am and it was 8:20am as I pulled into an empty parking lot.

I received a long email last night from the WordPress Support and Development Team. They had actually looked into my problem of their new dashboard gobbling up 800Mb of data or more at one time. It never did that until they started the redesign of their dashboard. It also does not do it if I use their old 'wp-admin' dashboard, by their suggestion.

They looked at my photo file, which they call the 'media library' and was aware that it was loading images each time I would open a browser for the first time that day and that it was using an abnormal amount of data.

I tested it this morning during my free data period and all three browsers used tons of data loading that same library. I even closed each browser after they were finished, and reopened each one to see the same data usage as they reloaded the library.

They claim the reason for it is the cache file space of the browser I use. Anymore you can barely find where to see the browser cache files and when you do find it, they will not let you increase the size of the cache files or at least override their default size.

Blogger does not take a lot of data each time you go into your account to post or to load new photos. I doubt that I ever go back to Blogger because I like this blog much better in the way it looks plus the way things are done in the background. Towards the end of my Blogger use, it was always hanging up while uploading only 20 or so images for the post, sometimes with less than 20 photos.

Sometimes those photos would not load at all and I'd close the browser, reopen it and start over. Too frustrating to work with and of course their Blogger Support email responses are like a huge black hole in space. You might send them a question but you will never get an answer.

It's nice to look at the calendar and realize there is really only one more month of extreme winter weather possibilities. Sure it can and will snow in March, maybe April but that is in weather much like today, not the kind we just experienced and some are still experiencing in the Polar Vortex.

It's warmer this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana and that's a GREAT thing !!!!