Over the 14 years I have had this blog there have been a few times I wanted to quit. Yet two things keep me going. (1) I like to write, even ramble at times but those times have been fewer since last November. (2) Readers still enjoy seeing the hounds and dogs.
It's cold this morning at 8:46am ... 44° but at least the sunshine is bright after three days of rain. I can tell by this first photo that the 40+ photos did not post in the order I took them, nor in the order I uploaded them. So the stories might jump around a bit and seem out of order as you look and/or read.
My friend sent me a photo of the pizza she had made over the weekend. Can you believe that pizza crust is made out of shredded chicken. She sent me the recipe from a keto chef on Instagram.
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I thought while I was taking a break between tasks on my constantly changing "daily" to do list, I'd catch everyone up on what I've been doing as well as a lot of photos of the hounds and the dogs. Yes, Walter made an appearance outside today, it is that nice of a day.
I continue to check off things on my house "to do" list but also have time to take photos of the hounds and dogs over the past few days. I've been asked "how do you handle so many dogs" ... well I walk them individually except Walter, who will not walk.
They basically take care of themselves during the day and are usually asleep for the night by 7:30pm every night. They play together, sleep and then surround me anytime I am sitting outside or lying in the middle of the bicycle room floor. We do that daily. Handling five of them is pretty easy actually.
So, nothing but photos this post.
With the high temperatures dropping back down into the normal range of the low mid 80s, it has been nice working outside. It has been a battle this summer trying to keep some sort of grass in the backyard. My friend up north said she has never seen it like this and has the same issues I have here. With all the rain/heat/humidity it was the perfect storm for weeds and grass to grow out of control. I spent Sunday pulling out the Plantain, almost filling a large 34 gallon trash bin full of it.
I have decided to write about this personal experience of mine with hopes it might help someone out there in the universe that might read this or have a friend or family member send it to them to read. Maybe like me, they don't have symptoms of any heart issues but can feel something isn't right. I hope my story can lead them to getting checked out and possibly saving their life.
I'll warn you, not many photos, no photos of the hounds and dogs with very little information. This is just a short post to start the month of August and hopefully 30 days of cooler weather. That photo you see is a MLB field inside a NASCAR race track in Bristol TN. Not normal and not really a fan of this idea, but another money grab by MLB, where they have sold 75,000 or more tickets. Some seats are so far away that it will make baseball players look like little bugs running around. Game is on Monday Saturday night if interested, Reds vs the Braves.
Why?
The hounds and dogs are hunkered down inside to escape the heat dome. Until late afternoon, they do not spend any time outside except what they need to clear their systems. Then they run back, all five of them, to the patio door. They drink all of there water inside, in the mud room.
This post is going to be more about my changing styles of eating and why. Not a diet but just adjusting things I am eating now compared to say, two months ago. Nothing dictated it, except me ... I feel best eating this way.
High protein, high fat, low carbs. Since I don't get enough protein most of the time, even eating a lot of beef, I like this Whey protein in an afternoon smoothie with blueberries and ice. I used this in recent years as a post-ride recovery shakes.
It is hard to explain how things work out in life at times and in Ava's case it is almost mind blowing. In the early part of June she was snapping and nipping at my friend's ankles and feet as he tried sitting on the couch. The more he tried to get her to stop, the more aggressive she got. I yelled "Ava Crate" and off she went. Yet the sound of her barking was indescribable and shocking.
I stopped by the Old Fashioned Butcher Shoppe yesterday on my way home. I was looking for some boneless beef fat as a supplement for Cletus. It was suggested that might help putting some meat on those bones of his. He eats non-stop if I would let him, but doesn't gain the weight he needs.
This is a smaller bone size, one bone each for Ava and Walter. The other bones were slightly bigger cut and just the right size for Henry, Watson and Cletus. So far after 15 minutes there have been no fights nor are they wanting someone else's bone. Watson and Walter are here in the computer room with me chewing away, Cletus snuck to the bedroom, Ava ran for her crate with the bone in her mouth and Henry chose a sunny spot in the great room.
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With the snow/ice storm in early January a fairly large tree limb had fallen on the berm, luckily parallel to the fence and not across any utility or cable lines. Besides that tree limb I also needed to cut back all the overgrown bushes along the berm before they started getting leaves again. I'm talking around 140' of work.
When I left you on Sunday, we had some snow on the ground after our rains. It snowed more after midnight Tuesday and this week has been very cold. Like single digits overnight and through mid mornings. I spent my time watching 8 seasons of Dexter while only staying up late one time. I finished that show yesterday a little after 5:30pm. Today was different ... bright sunshine, 7° when we got up but heading towards 30° it felt like it was time to spend outside.
The forecasted rains showed up late yesterday afternoon. They were not heavy rains but were steady and lasted through the night. By 10pm it had let up enough that all five of the crew ran outside to do what they needed to do. Which is worse ... warmer temps and a flooded backyard or single digit temps and a yard hard as a rock? I'll take the warmer temps.
First of all I'd like to apologize to any readers that have possibly had a hard time reading my blog due to the "gray" color font. I have no idea when that changed. I have no idea if I made the change and if I did, how long ago? So this morning I changed the font color to black. The blog posts should be easier to read now.
As it warmed up on Saturday, into the 40s ... I grabbed my rake, trash can and pruning saw to get that tree limb out of my side yard. If found out not only were two of the limbs were buried deep into the ground after falling around 50' ... but after cutting off limbs, the trunk of the limb was heavy. So heavy I could barely drag it to the back berm.
Yet, within 45 minutes the yard look like this instead of the photo below.
Political ranting at the end of the post. This is a LONG post.
It's cold everywhere. My friend sent this yesterday from Southport NC. She found out late yesterday afternoon she had close call catching her house on fire. Her heater had stopped working a few days ago and was finally able to get someone to come out and look at it. Her house had cooled to 49° inside with no heat and freezing temps outside. Something that town is not use to.
A plastic junction box in her attic had melted. It connected to the air handler/return but her circuit breaker did not flip off to stop the current. Thus her heater quit working. I know I have one of those in the attic. Too cold today but with a high of 47° tomorrow I plan on getting up in my attic to look around.
This photo is used only for blog purposes. It was the truck that came to fix my neighbors fiber last week after "I called my friend for a favor to get my internet hooked back up and repaired". The neighbor was born and raised here, knows many people.
This post will be short. This is an email I received at 1:04pm today from AT&T Maintenance Request center and is just UNBELIEVABLE. This was their reply to my email on January 21 when I let them know they may have closed the work order as complete but the work was never done.
Hi Mr. Floyd,
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We basically just do validation of the issue and escalating them to the right department. Since we have verified in our system that this ticket is already completed by the technician. What we could recommend is for you to contact Care at 1800-288-2020 regarding this one.
Thank you,
AT&T Maintenance Request Center
"We basically just do validation of the issue and escalating them to the right department"
Then they tell me to call that number ... what happened to their stupid "escalating to the right department"??? Why do I have to call if they have escalated it to the RIGHT Department???
That 800 number they recommended I call is the same number I called when they assigned the work order in question. That number assigns work orders. I have called that number and received FOUR different worker order on the different times I have called since May 26.
Luckily the last time I called that 800 number the other day, like my last post said, the man on the phone said there was no reason to issue a new work order again, just write these two phone numbers down that I give you for your local repair center supervisor. Which I did.
But that clock is ticking and something tells me Scott Johnson isn't going to get anything done either no matter how long or recent he has been on that job. Was he just promoted? Don't know.
Do me a favor and spread this post out far and wide ... share it everywhere.
July 17 .... January 23 --- Work never completed --- Lied to numerous times.
My reply to their email was not approved for blog content. Too much cussing but I did tell them I rated AT&T right up there on my list with Verizon and that I would never return to use their services EVER!!!
Pissed off in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.
The AT&T saga started May 26th. I know that because it became so bad back in June trying to get repairs completed that I started a spreadsheet to track my calls, the work orders issued and what was or was not done by AT&T, BOi, Astound, and CenterPoint Energy.
I thought I had all the clothes I needed to stay warm in 11° weather with a chill factor around 0°. But I didn't and that led to the problem for my mistake.
Garage door is open. I walked back inside to get my ski gloves to replace the ones I was wearing due to my hands freezing within minutes.
As I walked into the mudroom from the garage, I closed the door behind me, evidently it did not close all the way for whatever reason. I am on the other side of the house, getting those gloves from a closet and notice the electrical power cord is pulled out of my router and is laying on the floor.
Watson likes to sleep under my desk sometimes so the wire must have gotten tangled in his foot and was pulled out when he got up from under the desk. Like any hound or dog, if he felt any resistance or that cord on his foot ... he would have ran to break free, thus pulling out the electrical cord.
I plug the cord back in the router, grab my gloves and head back outside the way I came, through the kitchen. Just as I get to the middle of the kitchen I see a wide open door in the mudroom that leads to the garage and one of the garage doors are open. Instant panic and adrenaline overwhelmed me.
It has gradually warmed up this week and it is forecasted to rain tonight after midnight. Then almost a 100% chance of rain on Saturday. Does that mean all the snow that is covering everybody's yards will disappear? Then to top that off, the paper this morning was warning everybody of "dangerously cold" weather that will start when I get up on Sunday with windchill's below 0°. That's a drastic movement in weather after a day of rain. Sounds like fun but those kind of changes in weather are typical of Indiana weather.
Two things I wanted to get done on Saturday morning was shoveling the snow off the ice on the front porch, sidewalk and driveway. I would let the sun do its own work on what was left on the driveway because as you can see, I had no trouble before cleaning it getting in and out with my car. The snow was wet and heavy. The other day the snow I shoveled on the porch and sidewalk was light as powder.
When I left you Friday morning it was still snowing but only later did it turn into larger flakes and and a heavier fall. It looked like were were going to get the amount of snow predicted for today. It was supposed to stop around 5pm-7pm.
After five great hours on Tuesday where we had power for some reason, we woke up Wednesday morning to 11° outside and 51° inside. The old sleeping bag I found worked great since it is rated for cold temperatures and I had a good night of sleep. That bag was not in with my camping stuff but I found later in a closet. I must have put it in there when I moved in.
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We did not make any resolutions for 2025 because I found out over the years I never kept them. But Fred out at Out West Bassets looks like he did. Some of you might remember that Fred is Henry's dad. If you go to that link and scroll toward the bottom of the page you might recognize a photo of Henry as a puppy. I sent Michelle a photo of Henry soon after getting him in August 2020, of him sitting in the doorway to the patio in Sierra Vista, AZ.
