As I decided to do a little mid-day rambling, I also decided to defrost my refrigerator. It's old but I am sure it was suppose to do that by itself.
Frost built up in the freeze and strange noises told me otherwise.
It's the month for strange noises I guess, from the FJ to the fridge? I remember doing this in the past. The worst case is shopping for a new replacement no earlier than Monday.
I thought it was strange last night when I went to download my photos from the computer into Google Photos and Flickr, that I use for backup and save hard drive space on my iPhone and iPad. That is working out very well. The thing was last night I had only 3 photos downloaded for the day ... I guess I've had a lot on my mind since this morning I found out I forgot to download the camera card from the photos I took during the first of two hound walks.
As you can see I was getting ready to mow just as many leaves as I did grass Thursday afternoon. I'll still have to rake them and there is a lot of leaves still on the trees so all of this is going to move into November, while last year I think we were cleaned up for the year by the end of October.
With temperatures in the mid 40's this morning, both hounds were happy to get back inside after they dumped their tanks. I was to and those cooler temps made the coffee taste even better.
You can see the mower was set in the mulching mode instead of blowing grass and cut leaves out the side. They will be easier to rake also. But following my retirement policy of doing only one major thing a day IF I do anything ... defrosting the fridge is the main attraction today. Leaves? ... maybe Monday.
Around 11:30am, Sadie came into the computer room to let me know it was time for a walk. Stella was asleep but jumped up immediately when she heard the word 'walk'. Heidi has initiated her 'winter routine' and hides out on her camping sleeping bag. Even though it was washed last year, she probably smells some of Winston in there.
Stella started off going on her own walk. I let her do whatever she wanted but like yesterday, this afternoon's walk she will probably wear the 25' retractable leash with me not taking the camera.
The change of camera setting to 'single point focus' is doing exactly what I wanted for my pictures. I'll get bored enough in a few weeks to go back and study taking pictures manually again, then try that for a while. My old friend that has had Nikon's since I met him at college told me he has never used a lens hood. While I sometimes wish I had gone into coaching like I wanted when I was in school, he wishes he had taken that photographer job with National Geographic in the early 1970's. I guess we are both at an age to second guess career choices.
Leaving Stella behind on her own pace, I was walking the path with Sadie up ahead ... when I felt a nudge by a nose ... that is Stella's way of telling me she wants something. She will try to poke me with her nose to get my attention. If she is trying to open a door or FJ window she will poke that door or window with her nose.
As I was going over some last minute checking of the blue FJ for cleanliness before I drove to make the trade, I noticed up by the handle above the driver's window, the felt had light brown smudges on it. It finally came to me that Stella must have had dirt on the end of her nose when she was poking around the window looking for a way out.
This morning when I glanced back at Stella she was headed to what I called the "deer highway" a few weeks ago. As I was about to start walking her direction thinking I was going to have to keep her from going down into that gully ... I yelled "hey" and she turned toward me. She made the walk that much easier.
Overall she is a very very good bloodhound but stubborn as hell. More stubborn than Sadie or Heidi. Winston use to have a stubborn streak but its part of the bloodhound and basset hound breed.
I guess this is about all the leaf color we are going to get this year. Still time to change and still a lot of leaves on the trees. The temps will be back into the 70's next week so that might be too warm for them.
Stella is heading back to meet me and Sadie on our path. She knows there is deer scat up toward the corner of the woods up ahead. Lately they have both been running up there and eating before I can get there. Pretty smart for bloodhounds.
By the time we were getting back close to the end of the walk, the field was still extremely wet and my Oboz waterproof hiking shoes were working out great. I should have started wearing them a long time ago.
It looks like I have a lot of leaves that I will be raking in the future.
Well I think this "blog by invitation" is finally being worked out. I've had a lot of response to it, people seem to be okay with the process. I am pretty sure I have this right and if I don't, those of you that have Blogger blogs can correct me.
By me approving your invite confirmation -- all that does is give you access to the blog. I don't believe just because I have approved you with my invitation, that you will get automatic notices that I have posted something new on the blog. It just gives you access.
- I have been told that if my blog is bookmarked/favorite and you have approval, then the blog will open as it did before without any additional login by you.
Some of you that had subscribed by email or the RSS feed, have requested to be notified by email when I post something new. That is possible but Blogger tells me I can only add a total of TEN people for that Blogger automatic email feature.
- When I added my email address to test that notification, I received an email as soon as the post went public.
- Whereas the subscription by email or RSS feed took 6-24 hours after the post had been published to receive that notification.
- If you receive and read the blog from that email blogger sends, you have to go to the blog website to make comments, otherwise if you reply to that email you comments go only to me in my inbox, not on the blog.
- For some reason their first invitation did not work but the second one did without issues.
- For those that have the email sent to them, you still have to reply to the invitation that was sent to you, for me to approve so you can get into the blog. If reading the post by email is enough for you, that is fine.
Heidi's skin has stabilized over the past 12-18 months ... its still messed up, it comes and goes as far as irritation. Different dog food, with grain or without makes no difference. In fact, looking at dated photos, then looking at her Excel log to see what kind of dog food she was eating during those times ... dog food doesn't make a difference overall.
Bloodhounds are more attention driven than basset hounds. Stella wants more attention than Sadie and Sadie wants more attention than Stella. They both go to sleep though when I give all the attention to Heidi.
I took the Z4 out yesterday afternoon after mowing the yard. Top was up, windows closed and the heater about blasted me out of the car because it was so hot. It will be driven during the winter, but never on roads that are wet, or snowy. I do remember years ago in my other Z4, I put my down coat on, put the top down and drove my 42 mile loop on Christmas Day ... it got a little cold but the sunshine was bright.
People seem to like the color of the new FJ .. it's growing on me. The stock look instead of the radical blacked out look is also growing on me but at times it looks "too normal". It still has that new car smell that only dealerships have when they detail a used car. Stella continues to probe with her nose trying to get the back door to open. She knows there is a way for her to get inside.
I found out while looking at some older photos in the program that Apple furnishes with their computers, called "Photos" that a lot of my transferred photos from their old "iPhotos" had lost their original file. Typical. So I did a little reading online and found a iPhoto Library Manager in my Apps folder which fixed all the issues with the missing files.
While I was looking through iPhoto I came up with some photos of past bassets and bloodhounds I've had over the years. I have more hounds not seen here but I have to scan their old print photos first. Here are a few of them.
This is Arthur, who was Winston's Uncle. They had the same mother different fathers. It was interesting that Winston look almost identical to Arthurs father instead of his own. They were both two tone, whereas Winston's dad was almost all black.
No, that isn't Sadie ... it's Bertha, the bloodhound I had before Sadie.
Arthur looked different than Winston of coarse since his father was different but they had identical personalities. Ironically it took a sad accident where Arthur died for me to even think of buying Winston that following summer in 2004.
This is Kila. She was a Mini Dachshund that was my niece's. At times we would be her pet sitter. She loved the larger hounds and did not hesitate eating their kibble out of their food bowls when I poured it out. She thought their food was her food ... no questions asked. She basically 'took over' the house when she stayed her.
It looks like my couch has aged more than I have the past 13 years. Yes, that's a younger Winston laying next to his good friend Kila. They would sleep together the times she stayed here.
A whopping 5.5 pounds of brutal strength. She would have to be muzzled to have her nails cut and there was never a vet she didn't like to bite.
I picked up Max from the same basset hound rescue service I bought Heidi ... only about 14 years before Heidi. He weighed 84 pounds at the time and barely could get into my Miata when we made our 4 hour drive back home.
By getting him off his daily cottage cheese to to a better dog kibble, then getting him on our walks into the field ... he lost 21 pounds over time. He was just a big big basset to get much lower.
This first photo is after he LOST the weight.
Same field different hounds. At that time I had Max, Maggie and the bloodhound was Bertha.
Even though he spent his last 5 years blind ... she still liked to run on his daily walk as long as I had the leash on him.
That's Winston as a puppy laying next to Max while Bertha is letting me know its better inside where the air conditioning is on. Sadie is a lot like Bertha's personality.
Well enough rambling ... I need to go check out the fridge and see how that dreaded task is coming along.
Another nice day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.
