Closing Out 2020

As you can see Henry keeps me pretty busy during the day. Those are sharp needles next to his nose but he loves the taste of potting soil so he is not stopped by a few needles. He has a great personality but I catch myself looking back to 2004 and trying to remember if Winston was this obnoxious as a puppy. He was six months old yesterday and is already waking me up at night or coming to get me in the day if he needs to go outside. Yet, I have to watch what I leave on tables and needless to say, my house is puppy proofed.

We Are Still Here

It's been not quite a month since our last post. I have been busy with some VW stuff, some hiking, hanging out in the warm sunshine and I admit, a few afternoon siestas. The hounds and the dog are okay. Heidi is a little gimpy the past couple of days so I am waiting to see if a vet appointment is needed. Her lower back is showing signs of old age and that is never a good thing. Walter and Henry play non-stop, sleep together at night and are still digging for gold or copper in the backyard when I am gone. Stella is just Stella as you will see in the photos below.

They Love November Sunshine

Normal routine here with some slight changes since the temperatures are finally normal for this time of year. That means more yard time for the hounds, a little more digging for Stella and Henry (easy to correct). Henry is getting longer by the hour. Walter is so heavy I can barely pick him up. Heidi and Stella continue to keep their sleep habit active. Took a Sunday drive down to Miller Canyon, then south on Hwy 92 to Hereford Rd and came back home on Moson ... country roads. It's been great weather, perfect in fact.

Arizona Skies Are Beautiful

The skies have been amazing the past few days while a storm blew through on Saturday night. No damage, none expected but the chair and camping table blew out into the backyard while luckily the new Mexican table holding my small Weber grill stayed intact. Sunday was too windy to ride a bike, 15mph-20mph with wind gusts that made it hard for me to stand up while standing in the backyard watching the clouds.

Quietness Among The Chaos

This morning's sunrise does not acknowledge all the noise. Hounds and the dog are fine.

Not Much To Report

 

As you will see from the number of photos and lack of activity, there is not much to report for these past few days that is blog worthy. Stella, Heidi and I do the daily walk without a camera. Walter and I take out the trash as he walks with me. Henry is growing faster than fast and Heidi has been camping out alone, inside or out. 

The Puppies Are Diggers

I'm sitting here tonight a little before midnight and the temperature for the first time this fall has dropped below 50° ... It's 37°. It's actually pretty nice the times I have  stood outside in my cargo shorts with bare feet while the hounds and the dog take their last trip outside. See those two right there? They are giving me a run for my money. They are puppies and they are quite the team. From now on when they do things together they will be called "the boys".

We Have Another Bulldog!!

Well it's been a busy week and I have been able to drive both VWs out of town. During my drive back from Love's Truck Stop by I-10 and Hwy 90 on Tuesday, I was almost to Hwy 82 north of Huachuca City when I see Santa Fe Arts & Patio Furniture on my right. The driver behind me probably didn't like it but I took almost an immediate right hand turn and didn't have time to turn on a turn signal. I great inventory to look at. I had never seen the place with inventory until then or I was blind in my previous trips.

The Hounds & The Dog Are Fine

I suspect that some may be wondering if I have come in contact with the virus since I have never taken it serious ... but I have not. I have been between busy and lazy. Some days I have not taken even one photo but had a great day and other times I don't see a photo that I would blog about. So ... that is where the hounds, the dog and I have been.

Virus Stats & Sleeping Hounds

Another beautiful day here in the "Wild West" but there are over 300 of them in a calendar year so it's expected I guess. I'm a little late tonight because the day was just that busy. From the photos below you would think otherwise but I've been the one being busy the past couple of days. So let's get started. 

The Hounds Keep Me Busy

Sunday morning, 57° and the sun is trying to peek around the neighbor's tree and over the Mule mountains. It was another great day here today with highs in the 80's and the AC never clicking on automatically since the windows were open all day today. I hope I never get to the point of taking this for granted. Walter had all of us up bright and early but even he slept in until 5:10am. Once Henry knows that food is on the way he is a ball of energy with his tail going a mile a minute.

A Month Of Heidi

When I picked up Heidi from Basset Rescue in June 2011, they thought she was a year and a half old but wasn't sure. They had rescued her from an animal shelter with no papers, and no idea what her age was. That estimate was from one of their vets during her initial check-up. So I unofficially put her birth date December 2009. In her recent annual check-ups since we have moved, the vets here think she is older than 11 years old. Compared to Stella who turned 11 years old this past summer, Heidi looks at least a couple of years older. Hard to say. I do know she moves slower, a little stiff when she stands after sleeping but can still do the .62 mile walk with Stella. She enjoys sniffing everything as we walk. The camera is never taken on those walks because they are on their own leash and I don't have enough hands to hold a camera. She has always been the perfect house dog. Here she is in the month of September 2020.

Hounds & A Dog Hang Out

I can't put my finger on it but for some reason I have been extremely lazy lately and that has rubbed off on the hounds and a dog. They have become just as lazy as I have. I check my vital signs on my iWatch, take my blood twice in a day and find nothing out of the ordinary. Has tv and radio media wore me down with political bullshit making me feel this way? Or is it the China virus  after seven months of more media bullshit? I even pulled out a bike the other day to go riding and turned around at the end of the block. Stella doesn't take walks everyday like she use to and Henry is just a bit to small to try the .62 mile walk.

Walter Turns Down A Walk

What dog doesn't like to take a walk? It was going to be Walter's first official walk with the retractable leash, with none of the hounds going with us. I needed to take Henry's stool sample over to the vet which is close enough for us to walk to. Walter never left the porch. I unclipped the leash and walked back to the side walk, telling him to come on. He turned and started sniffing the bottom of the front door to see if he could get inside.

Henry Goes Visiting

It took 12 minutes before I could write my first word on this blog post tonight. I was so mad I could have thrown Blogger through my computer if that were possible. In fact I am trying something entirely different putting this blog together tonight ... I am writing everything out and then TRY to insert the photos HOPEFULLY in the paragraphs I want. The problem is (1) Blogger froze after 5 minutes while trying to load photos into the post. (2) Blogger froze another 5 minutes while I tried a different way to work with my photos in their system. (3) Blogger froze again as I tried pulling the photos that were uploaded into their Blogger Library ... so I am trying this along with a different browser.

Photos From Yesterday & Today

It was right after I posted Sunday night that I remembered I had used my Nikon D3500 but forgot to download the photos. So, here is Henry yesterday playing with the favorite bone that he and Walter will play to get it. The bone is almost as long as Henry. This batch of photos on this post were taken with the same camera but I later used the Nikor 70-300mm lens. I did a few odds and ends today. Did not go anywhere and am so lazy right now that I might order groceries for delivery. (did ... should get them in a couple of hours)

A Lazy Sunday

A little after 6am ... hounds and the dog fed, coffee tastes great and 63° sitting on the patio. I told myself yesterday that routines were going to change starting today and they did. I think I fixed the spark plug wire that was popping off the spark plug in my 1959 VW Single Cab. At least the 10 mile test drive proved so. I took the 1964 VW Panel Van to Tractor Supply to buy a bag of dog food to add to my own inventory. Both old VWs ran great. Yet, as you will see below, there was a surprise today ... Henry Henry Henry.

Henry's Controlled Environment Working

It was quite a surprise how good the new "controlled environment" went for Henry on Friday. He did not have the run of the backyard nor did Walter. I was back to the way I use to train puppies, especially those only 12 weeks old. Once they eat, wake up from a nap or stop after playing hard ... I opened the patio door and he or they went outside. Just like he was taught before I bought him, he peed immediately. But this wasn't so much about house training but prevention of destroying my yard with his digging. I wanted to control what he did in the backyard.

Henry Likes To Dig

Well Blogger was good for one night I guess but today we are back to the screwed up way of blogging. I hate it. I am even using Google Chrome as a browser because Blogger is owned by Google. Shouldn't that count for something? Beautiful sunrise today as each is different but rarely a bad one happens down here. A few surprises today and one was not what I was wanting to see.

Blog Editing Obsession

Hmmm looks like Blogger has made some fixes since last night. They put my photos in the order I wanted and I was able to start a paragraph without deleting the image link and changing the justification to the correct position. Always nice when Blogger works. Anyway I wish I wasn't wired the way I am. Where everything stops until that current project is over. Remember a few years ago when blogged four or five days straight about pulling weeds in my driveway and bank? Well this adding photos from the posts that were transferred from Wordpress in 2019 has turned into that .. without blogging about it and without photos. I finished February today and have about 70 some posts left between March and April 2019. ~1,400 photos to go????

Drive By Shooting Yesterday

As you can tell by the number of photos today it was slow and not much was done. Blog editing, a siesta, lunch, more editing and the hounds and the dog slept a lot. I was told the air quality was poor at sunrise but better quality by late afternoon. We had a drive-by shooting yesterday in the middle of the afternoon on one of the main roads, Fry Blvd. Strange for such a small town of 44,000. Car and truck were side by side moving down the street when shots were fired. The 19 year old victim died later. It will be interesting to see the reason for it.

What An Amazing Day - Never A Dull Moment

Leaving off from last night, this is what I saw when I was about to turn off the lights. Those are all normal nightly sleep positions. Later on they move to the floor of the bedroom or the hallway if it is too hot for them with the windows open. Lately it's been cool enough at night they find the sleeping bag to sleep on to be beneficial. Little did I know that today would be such a busy day and as I write this post it's not over yet. I continue to load photos in the 2019 posts and am still in the month of January which had a total of 56 59 posts and most of them with 20 photos or more.

Brain Cells Spinning

We were up early as usual with nothing planned. Luckily the hounds and the dog have figured out that the days are getting shorter with sunrise getting later and they are willing to sleep a little longer. Walter was up patrolling the yard early to the point I had to use a flash to capture him in the backyard. The hounds were inside begging for breakfast to be served, while my mind clicked into what I had been thinking about before going to bed last night.

The Blog Has Changed

Spending the past few days uploading a lot of missing photos, not only can you see what you are uploading but at times what you wrote about. I can see changes in the format over time and I can tell the days I blogged when I didn't feel like it. It will be nine years next month that I started this blog with a few deletions along the way. There were very few pictures if any at that start. No hounds were discussed and I was starting my research into different RVs with plans of hitting the road. I didn't blog often back then either. I had the urge to write though and I always liked photography, so blogging could be a good thing.

Never Delete Blogs

It's not the first time I have transferred blogs from Blogger to Wordpress and vice versa. I haven't transferred lately but I forgot that I did back in 2017, where I ended up doing the same thing I have been doing the past two days. When transferring back to Blogger sometime in 2019, all of the photo files were on WordPress. When that blog was deleted, so were the image files that went with the posts that were transferred. When I deleted my blog a few weeks ago I forgot all about the work I did to reload the photos to each post that had come from Wordpress a year or so ago.

Hounds And A Dog Supervise

I could tell today was going to be a little bit different. After my too long of a bike ride yesterday I was taking the day off from riding but I also had a few things I wanted to get done around the house today. There isn't a lot of maintenance compared to the old house back in the tropics but there are things I want to finish. I had sprayed some Round Off on the other side of the fence a few weeks ago. Killing the folliage against the fence keeps the snakes away and the county mower that comes thru once per year cannot get up next to the fence. That Round Up does a good job except on Mesquit Trees and just like last year I had to cut the small branches down to ground level. Instead of walking a few blockes and around the corner, then those same blocks back to the house, I decided to use my ladder. One of the tools I brought with me when I moved.

Henry Finds Out He Barks

Henry found out very early this morning that he barks. He had barked on occassion a few time this week but today it was official. He barked, he knew it and he knew when to use it. Needless to day, the house is just a little noisier than the past. As you see, Stella is starting to adopt him a little more. By next week when Henry is tall enough to grab those long ears of Stella, she will be laying down some new rules for the puppy.

Past Photos On September 20th

I hate Blogger. About the time you figure out a process to work with their updates on loading photos, it reverts back to some of their old bad habbits. Luckily I can go into the HTML of the post and delete all that is posted, which are usually nothing but their code for the images. IF I load a small number of images at once, Blogger will load them in the order I want. There wasn't much to blog about this weekend. Saturday and Sunday mornings were perfect. I rode my bike on Sunday morning but not Saturday. Henry is still trying to figure out Heidi.

Henry Is Trying His Best

 

Henry is trying his best to get Heidi to be his fellow basset hound friend. She's a tough sell but is growling and running away from him less than she was before. She is slowly coming around. I did not make it to Big Nose Kate's Saloon in Tombstone today. There is still time left as it's not even 5pm but I know I will be winding down pretty fast even for a Friday night. Getting up between 4am - 5am does that to an ex-night person. I still got my morning bike ride in this morning, 26 miles total as I headed toward Tombstone out Charleston Rd. It's been a good day but a pretty quiet day.

Basset Hound vs The Bulldog

I was going to take the day off from riding this morning and hike either Brown Canyon or the San Pedro River. These photos are from late this afternoon but this morning the smell of smoke was in the air, a strong smell. I knew then why my watch had been pinging me with Air Quality Alerts ... they were having a controlled burn this morning. All riding and hiking would wait another day. I think I have over 30 photos today, from last night after my blog post to this afternoon. I realized something last night when downloading photos, too many of my blog photos recently were of the hounds and the dog sleeping. That will change as of this post.

The Crate vs The Backyard

 

We were up before the crack of dawn as usual. Perfect weather. The hounds and the dog assumed their breakfast table positions as I made coffee. Same routine as always, only today I took all the photos with my iPhone and left the Nikon D3500 on the counter. You are looking towards Bisbee to the southwest of the patio. I could tell before the first drop of the dark roast Columbian coffee that today was going to be a good day ... it was.

No Drama Today

 

I wrote the title before I started this post. Now the only drama is the new Blogger design icons for images. The plus and minus signs to increase or decrease image size isn't there. They now have a small picture inside a bigger screen ... I clicked that by accident and saw the choices with image size. Also Blogger loaded all the photos in reverse !!!!! I am not going to take the time to load them one at a time in the order I want. I guess you will have to live with what is shown and the verbiage will not go with the image. Really, I was in a good mood today until I saw how the images were loaded. 

New Blog URL

 

Some of you already know about this new blog url. Instead of 'deactivating" the blog where I could bring it back after making some changes, I hit the button called "permanently delete", where you don't get it back. So I started this new blog with an appropriate url "bhoundsandadog" instead of the old "bhounds3". I am slowly getting this blog designed the same as the old one. Before deleting the blog I did download all the files. Noticed when I imported that file to this blog it was missing pages, comments and the first four years when I talked mostly about RVs.

I Started A Fire - Rambling Involved

I heard a bark right after Friday's breakfast and when I glanced in that direction Heidi had jumped slightly doing a 360° turn into Walter wanting to play. Maybe her joint supplements are helping. It was quite a surprise to see so early in the morning. Not a lot of blogging stuff happened Friday but I did my best to make some people angry, that are not blog worthy. Ah, maybe a sentence or two about that later.

Hounds Enjoy Cooler Temps

 

A little after 6am you could still see the residue from the smoky skies in the west. That would only get worse by 4pm as later photos show. That did not keep Walter and Henry from starting their day with their normal energy. They eat early, rest a little and then get right to it in the playing department.

Henry's A Food Hog

We were up at oh dark thirty again this morning. It felt like the weeknd until I glanced up at the corner of my computer monitor and saw it was Tuesday not Saturday. After doing hardly anything yesterday I had some things I wanted to get done today. I had a short list of items to get at Home Depot for things I was going to do myself, as the "buyer" requested I have fixed. Looking at the list I knew for a fact I could do 6 of the 8 items myself. It reminded me of the maintenance I did back in 'the tropics' on the house the hounds and lived in.

Blogger is not playing nice tonight and I have 27 photos I want to add. Due to Blogger not cooperating, there isn't going to be much commentary.

Walter's A Deep Thinker

Normal routine this morning ... Walter is pretty consistent waking everybody up around 5:30am. That is about 45 minutes later than what Stella use to so I guess we get to sleep in a little now. After going outside first thing this morning, Henry decided he would wait from the door step for breakfast to be served. He likes to eat his 1c of kibble plus likes to sneak a few pieces from the other hound's bowls. How could you picture that look, a thief of food?

The Hounds And A Dog Sleep Off Saturday

As you will see, we didn't do a lot today. "The hounds and a dog" seemed to have been hit with a stick of laziness and about their only activity was moving to different sleeping spots. They DID shows excitement and motivation for their afternoon meal. My groceries were delivered once again and I found something interesting about the blogger issue I had. You might remember I mentioned anytime I hit the return key the cursor would go to the bottom of the screen. Well today, that was depending on which browser I tried.

Does Stella Have A Pulse ??

It does not feel like a holiday weekend. In fact it feels just like any other day especially since the life altering news last March. It has been almost 6 months since the news broke to all of us about COVID-19. Little did we know just how much that news would change some things in our lives, possibly permanently. Yet when I stepped out on the patio early this morning with this view and a cup of coffee in my hand ... all that 'newsy' stuff was the furthest thing from my mind.

Some Blogger Answers

I keep sending my questions and issues as instructed to Blogger "feedback" but have received no answers as of Friday morning. What I have found are answers on the forum. For bloggers wondering why Blogger is loading the photos the way they are, and not in the order you want ... it's because Blogger now loads the photos in alphabetical order based on your photo file name.

I had someone on the forum suggest that I change the file names and I tried a simple way of labeling them so they would show up in the order I wanted. The problem was, when I export the photos with those new file names to my folder on my iMac desktop where Blogger can upload them from ... Apple only uses the original file name once those photos are exported. So my new file names were not listed.

Henry Has Historic Day Today

I have sent more "feedback" to Blogger/Google about the issues I continue to have. I hate to complain over and over but it has come to the point it is a huge pain in the butt to put a post together on Blogger. I will leave a link on the "exit" post if I go to Wordpress blog that I have set up. I don't have a lot of time right now to spend hours putting this together. I think you will see what the title of the post is talking about ... he is one smart puppy that Henry is. Heidi acted as if she didn't see anything. Stella was asleep under my desk at the time and Walter was nowhere near that bag of dog food.