Day #229 in lockdown in Mumbai, India hotel…A commenter writes a criticism of me…Elephant close-ups…

It was a rarity for us to see impalas in the garden, but several stopped by to partake of pellets. No doubt, they are hungry at that time of year, put aside their apprehension of humans, and came to call. This adorable girl was chewing pellets when I shot this photo. Too cute for words!

Today’s photos are from this date while living in the bush in South Africa in 2018 and visiting Kruger National Park. For the story from this date, please click here.

No words can express our joy when our readers write to us via our comment section at the end of each post or by email. Many hesitate to post a comment, but please keep in mind you can do so anonymously if you prefer or even leave your first name.

We were saddened to see who we named “Wounded.” He was stabbed in his near eye by another animal’s horn or tusk.

This morning, I noticed there were hundreds of comments I’d yet to reply to after discovering that our new site wasn’t set up to send me a notification email informing me that a new comment was posted. This will be fixed by Monday. If you posted a comment and I haven’t replied, please be aware I am working on responding to all of these over the next few days and will soon be caught up.

As for the comments, we were thrilled to see the amount of kindness and support from so many of our readers. Although I recognized the names of a few long-term readers, most were from readers we’d never communicated with in the past, many of whom may have been new readers over the past many months in India.

We got as close as was safe while we waited for 40 minutes for him to move out of the road in Kruger National Park. He wasn’t about to move for us, nor did we honk or bother him while we waited. After all, this is their territory, not ours.

Many commenters were from India, Indonesia, China, Germany, The Netherlands, South Africa, and more. Of course, like most blog sites, we receive our fair share of spam, which includes advertisers for various products and services, and most annoyingly, pornographic spam to which I quickly report as “spam” and immediately remove from the system.

Oddly, one reader wrote on this post here, “You overthink.”  We both laughed out loud, no offense intended to the commenter. Nor am I offended. Yes, I admit, I do overthink. However, excessive thinking allows me to develop a new post 365 days a year and today writing post #3009.

We got as close as was safe to take some close-up photos of him.

It takes some serious thinking to be able to prepare, edit, and upload a new story with photos every day of my life over the past more than eight years, only missing some days due to travel days, WiFi, and power outages, and 2019s open-heart surgery and subsequent other surgeries due to complications, when I skipped over two weeks.

When I’m not preparing posts, am I “overthinking?” I try not to. While walking for over 90 minutes a day, I listen to podcasts and don’t think much other than absorbing what I’m learning from the information on hand. Once I’ve finished the daily post, I spend the rest of my afternoon working on the edits for the 3000 posts, leaving little time for thinking other than what’s in front of me.

We noticed as we waited that he had a hole in his ear which could have been a result of a fight or damage from a tree or bush while grazing.

From 3:00 pm to 3:30 pm each day, we start streaming our favorite shows, which doesn’t leave much time for excessive thinking, other than enjoying the shows on the screen and stopping in between shows to finish my walking for the day. My daily goal is to walk one mile, 1.6 km, five times a day.

Yesterday, we signed up for Hulu, which has tons of shows we haven’t seen, such as “Dancing with the Stars,” The Bachelorette,” America’s Got Talent,” and “Shark Tank,” all of which are mindless drivel we can escape into during this challenging period. Not much thinking is going on then.

The diameter of his foot was astounding. An elephant’s foot can range from 40 to 50 cm (1.31 to 1.6 feet in length).

In the evenings, we’re working our way through one of the most entertaining shows we’ve seen since, Amazon’s “Man in the High Castle,” which is “The Walking Dead.” We steered away from zombie shows for years, never able to grasp the concept. But now, this 10 season show with 115 episodes has been exceedingly engrossing, oddly enough. Not much thinking there.

As for the middle of the night, years ago, I trained myself to not overthink and worry during the night when it has such a significant impact on quality sleep. If I awaken during the night and can’t return to sleep right away, I’ll read a few things on my phone with the screen dimmed or play Scrabble with others who may be online at the time until I’m sleepy again. This works well for me but may not for others.

The end of the elephant’s tail has hairs that act as a small brush, suitable for swatting flies, bees, and other insects.

So, yes, dear reader, I sometimes do “overthink,” but that too works for me, especially when striving to keep those thoughts positive and worthwhile to share here the following day. Please keep those comments coming and know that as we advance, we’ll make every effort to reply to each one.

Have a safe, healthy, and fulfilling day!

Photo from one year ago today, November 7, 2019:

The world-famous Atlantis Hotel in Nassau, The Bahamas. For more photos, please click here.