Hounds And Dogs Move Into Fall

It has been a nice transition from those high 90's temps day after day into low 80s with it in the 50s at night. The AC has been turned off for weeks and the windows have been open 24/7. Not only have I enjoyed the change in weather but so have the hounds and dogs. Basically we are living a life of leisure the past month or so.

A few weeks ago when there was a rumor of rain, I spread some Scott's Turf Builder on the yard. Since both professional lawn care trucks stopped at each next door neighbors houses to do the same, I figured it must be the right time. I followed the "number" for the spreader that is on the back of the bag, even when it looks like not enough is being applied. I don't want to burn the lawn with chemicals but I see what I did apply worked for the grass that had been hiding most of the summer. I kept the hounds and dogs off the yard until the next morning.

With 3" of rain in 18 hours and over 5" of rain for the month of September ... things perked up in the yard. I had also planted more seed in the bare spots but it is really hard to get seed to grow on hard clay even with a mix of topsoil. Last week I bought bags of manure compost for my next bare spots repair.

What are these and where do they come from? Outer Space?

Here is some of the Tall Fescue that has come back with a little fertilizer and a lot of rain.

The marigolds seem to like this spot. They came back from being dried dead steams, feed water every morning from the dog's water bowl, if any water was left. I change the dog's water every morning. 

This will all be cut down again this year, walked on to mash it down but left for rabbits, squirrels and what ever else to have a home for winter. The squirrel traffic has seemed to decreased a lot this summer. I rarely see them in the trees, none on top of the fence nor on top of the internet cables like before. Where'd they go?

I have always had some clover in the yard but the last two small bags of seed was 50% clover. Not sure if this is from the new seed or not.

Calendars say no color in the leaves here in "the tropics" until the end of November if that.

Have I got another dog that is on the smaller size of the scale for their breed? Walter's the other.

Henry laidback as usual.

Watson turned four years old this April. 

I never liked streaming tv. That seems to be the only way of getting the channels you need to see the games or shows you want. I decided last month to go back to Directv and they sold me streaming instead of their satellite service. Well I tried it for a month, called them to cancel and convinced them I needed to use the dish on the roof. Of course they had to send out a technician to hook up their new DVR and get me connected. All of their installers have been contracted out.

I got tired of the tv picture hanging up or buffering, waiting to be reconnected to my internet ... especially with my team on the 4 yard line getting ready to score a touchdown and not getting my picture back until the kickoff after the TD is done and a commercial before the other team gets the ball.

So far after two college football weekends, I am very happy being back on satellite tv.

This is one of the last oak trees in my neighbors yard. She said they use to have 5-7 of these oak trees that covered their backyard and side yard.

Doorbell rings, dogs and hounds go insane ... I let them do their thing hoping the two people at the door would leave. They eventually did. At first I thought they were Jehovah Witnesses but I have never seen them driving a Dodge Challenger the same color as a yellow highlighter .. LOL

A few hours later they come back. Now you may be asking yourself why is this story below that AT&T Fiber internet junction/splice box above my fence???

Well during my 3rd MLB Playoff game, they were back at the front door. People that know me, know that if MLB Playoffs or college football are on tv... don't bother me ... obviously the two at the front door did not know me.

I rushed from the couch, through the garage and out the side door to see what they wanted. They wanted to sell me AT&T Fiber Internet after I told them I did not have time to talk or be sold that I was watching baseball. I looked on their website later and saw they had a deal for Fiber Internet, $34 per month. About $6 cheaper per month but I will stick with what I have until next spring when there is only one sport going on that I watch ... baseball.

Of coarse why wouldn't they hunt me down and try to convert me to AT&T Fiber internet ... I had just hooked up Directv Satellite and by the emails for setting up my auto pay they are still under the AT&T umbrella where their streaming service was not.

Some may remember that Ava got some professional dog training here at the house. She started off good but once she saw the pest control man in the backyard a few weeks ago, she fell back into her old habits and had him by his pant leg in no time flat. Luckily he has a grown German Shepherd at home and knew exactly why she was doing what she was doing. He found my crawl space to be clean and dry free of pests and he got away without suing me for the dog attack.

All these photos were taken today ... so where was Walter on such a beautiful day? Inside. Sometimes it's hard to tell if Walter is just lazy or is he feeling bad. His water intake is normal, only filtered water and inside, and his appetite is normal as his he loud snoring ... so I can only assume today he was just lazy.

At the start of September I noticed my blood pressure was higher than normal consistently. Within their range they gave me on discharge day in June. I called the VA cardiologist about what I was concerned about. Of course I can never get through to her and they can only pass my message along. For a change, her NP called me back in an hour and said to keep taking my medication and they would see me at my next appointment in 13 days.

Well that answer wasn't good enough for me. Since I was thinking the medication she told me to take was the problem.

I hang up the phone and send an email to the NP of the cardiologist that did all the work in June, all the surgeries. Within 10 minutes of sending that email, she called me back telling me that the doctor wanted to see me the next day and to "bring your blood pressure spreadsheets you brought in before" ... at least someone looks at them.

There I was the next afternoon at 3:30pm talking to the doctor that did all the work. He looked through my blood pressure readings. Asked if I had been stressed out lately or feeling any pain. I answer "no" to both questions.

In one of my columns I put the first initial of each medication I am taking ... he asked me "what does "M" stand for" ... Metoprolol. 

"Why are you taking that?" ... I told him the VA cardiologist had diagnosed me with PVC and double the dose of what she prescribed before all of my heart work, for heart failure, back in May.

"Stop taking that, you don't need to be taking that" ... strangely but not surprising after I stopped taking that my blood pressure dropped back to where it was and my ECG's that I take with my watch (1 of 3 things the FDA approved) .. they went from being erratic to normal.

He told me my PVC would go away eventually as my heart got stronger with the new stent and new aortic valve.

I did go to my next VA appointment 13 days later with the spreadsheets and print outs of my normal ECG and those when I was taking Metoprolol to show him the comparison. Obvious difference but the NP basically blew those off as not valid.

Since my Medicare and Tricare For Life will pay for visits to the cardiologist that did the work, I am considering dealing directly with the hospital from now on and eliminating the VA Cardiologists appointments. My next one with her is in December.

The excitement of the month wasn't the doctor's visits ... it was trading a 2024 Subaru Forester Wilderness for a car 10 years older ... the mint condition, with the original owners manuals in the glove box ... 2015 Toyota 4Runner. You must be asking why? I don't have the space on this post nor the time to give you an answer.

I will just say it was one of my best decisions in trading cars.

I will take the prescribed low dose Bayer Aspirin and the Plavix to keep blood clots away from my stent and valve but I always favor foods over meds on the other stuff that has terrible side effects with food doing the same purpose at those other meds. 

This is the perfect description of me walking Watson and then Cletus on separate walks.

You need your protein if you are getting ready to attack weeds and crabgrass in the yard.

The perfect storm is that weed puller pulling up the crabgrass in one piece.

Over 32 gallons of packed down, mashed crabgrass just in the backyard and I wasn't even finished with the side yard in front of the shed or to the right of the patio.

I cannot afford the $26 per pound T-bone steak often but when I can Dewig's  is where I go. Yes, I ate all of it, including the fat.

The Directv DVR with 1Tb of storage. Nothing stored on the cloud. 

Zoysia grass is the way to go. I wish I had this in the backyard. Two or three owners ago put Zoysia grass in everywhere. It might turn brown in the winter but it handles the heat it the summer and dog urine does not kill it. 

This is Cletus every morning after his breakfast. 

I had just one picture of the main water shutoff valve from the house inspection in May 2021. I wasn't sure where it was and I needed to find it the other day because I was replacing the kitchen water faucet and installing some shorter water lines under the bathroom sink.

But before I was going to get in the crawl space, crawling around looking for this red valve I had seen in the photo in 2021 ... I thought my Nikon with the zoom lens might do my work for me. So I opened the crawl space door in the garage, laid on the floor with my camera lens pointed in an area where I thought it had to be. I took the top photo, this photo and the one below it with the Nikon.

I guessed the valve would be close to where the water was coming into the house, like that left wall, the front corner of the house. Sure enough, there it was straight ahead just left of this pole near me. You can see it better in the photo above this one. The red lever.

I could crawl on my hands and knees there and back. The plastic was dry as a bone and unbelievable that the hard clay under that plastic was dry and hard as a rock. We had just over 3" of rain a few days before ... and that ground was still hard? 

With plenty of room to work under the kitchen sink, I had the old faucet out in a few minutes. 

The Moen faucet was on sale at Lowe's for $149. I got the last one on the shelf. One spot on two different rows were gone, all sold. 

My test showed I had high water pressure and two forms of water. I could now put all that stuff in the background back under the sink.

I forgot to add, I had HOT water coming out of the kitchen faucet for the first time that I can remember. I use to get warm water if I waited long enough but never hot water. I have that now. This was probably the fastest home DYI I had ever done since owning houses. 

This 20" line came out of the bathroom, that only needs a 8" line ... still rust seems to be the problem.

So that is about it for this post. With my Reds out of the playoffs, not a surprise, I pulled out my Padres hat off the closet shelf last night as a "rally cap" but they still lost to the Cubs. That Ekrin massager does wonders on sore necks (faucet job) and sore legs, plus the lower back.

Beautiful weather here in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.