Heidi Does Her Own Walk !!!

That 'to do' list I spoke of a few months ago is getting an early start this year and I am not waiting until the hot weather in July or August to start this year. Plus there are some other things going on, where I am really really busy and blogging has slid down the list of priorities to the bottom. I have a lot to do, so my blogging will be very sporadic for a while and it might be longer than a week between posts. This morning I am off to a slow start so I thought I'd update what the hounds have been up to.

It wasn't raining nor had it the night before but Stella wasn't sure she was going on a walk. On Thursday when she did this I turned around and went back inside just as she did. She didn't want to walk any time on Thursday so we didn't and the weather was great.

Friday morning was a different story but I had to yell while she stood there to "come on". We have also started our walks from the north part of the yard on the return path, such as she would do if it were raining or wet. New routine and I'll follow it if that is what it takes for her to go on a walk.

There have been a few times we have walked without the camera because I just don't have time to break up my day once I get started. I have to take advantage of my motivation and get the work done while I am in the mood for it. No matter what we do though, the field is growing taller by the minute, I'm still mowing every two days between the rains and I am trying my best to focus on one project at a time.

Around 7pm last night it sure looked interesting in the western skies. I turned around and Heidi was gone, out of sight, left, right, in the front yard, next to the southern bank ... nowhere. So I took off on the path in the field and when I got to the back, straight ahead ... she wasn't there, no sign of her.

I veered left following the path that parallels the edge of the field and woods as if Stella and I were taking our afternoon walk. Then JUST BARELY I see the tip of a white tail moving left to right. It was her and her white tipped tail was doing exactly what it is designed to do ... help find a basset hound in the field when they are hunting. I'm serious about that.

I didn't want her to see me because I wanted to see how far she would go. She was taking her time sniffing and investigating different spots along the path but never walking off the path. I stayed around 30 yards behind her the whole way. She walked as far as she normally would with Stella and I, when she usually lets us walk on and she stays behind.

It looked like the same exact area. About that time SHE TURNED AROUND !!! She was heading home and I didn't want her to see me. So I trotted to the house, went inside to grab the camera for her return entrance into the yard. I could see her white tail tip moving through the field

She stood there for a few minutes before she figured out where I was and then came running. I could not believe that she came to me inside to let me know she wanted to go outside, only to take off on her own walk while I was looking at the weird skies.

>This morning Stella was ready to walk but still heading out to the north side of the yard

Well I have to get back to the next listed task. Like I said, we will not be around much but will post some photos when I can.

Very busy times here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

From Sunshine To Storms

Just like anywhere else in the USA, weather can change in an instant. I know my weather changes from yesterday afternoon to this morning are nothing compared to those having severe weather up in the Dakotas, Montana, and the Central Midwest yesterday. I caught some of the national weather stories last night. My worst weather of the day is not suppose to start until around noon, about the time I tune into my IU game. How will the satellite signal do in high winds and thunderstorm conditions? I am hoping the forecast is wrong

So anyway, back to yesterday. It was beautiful. It got up to 72° and as you can see Stella and Heidi were in shock. They couldn't move, they couldn't think clearly to figure out if this was a dream or was spring really here. Stella and I did take an afternoon walk but it was without the camera because it was a spur of the moment ... I didn't know I was going for a walk when I went outside with her. She decided we were.

Heidi heard me ask if she wanted her toenails cut. I wasn't sure if I was going to have to pick her up to take her to the backyard for that task or if she would eventually agree with me that her nails were way past due. I thought I'd give her time to decide, I didn't want to force anything on her. She is the best of all the hounds I've had when it comes to trimming her long nails. Winston was the second best, and Sadie was 0 on a scale of 1-10.

I was a little surprised that neither hound sprinted to the backyard and head dove into the grass with excitement. They acted their normal slow, analytical self, deciding just where they were going to go. I decided I'd walk around the yard enjoying the warm sunshine, maybe they would follow me.

By the time I returned Heidi has almost decided it was time. I went inside and traded my camera for the nail clippers. Without me saying a word, she followed me to the backyard, laid down and rolled over on her side ... true story. Within a few minutes all of those extra long nails were trimmed back to where none of them touched the ground when she was standing. She sprinted for the door because she knows a dog bone is always her reward after getting her nails trimmed.

Stella was not as cooperative. She use to like having her nails trimmed but after three of them she decided she had enough. I had to get a few more while she was sleeping on the couch last night but even that woke her up. I have two more paws to do today, someway.

They say we will get high winds today with our thunderstorms, but in our area that is only 20mph - 30mph. That will still make a howling sound up here on the hill though. That sound is what woke me a little after 2am.

You can see from the rain we received last night there is some flooding starting to show. He installed a huge drainage system a few years ago that starts behind that corner of trees on the left, diagonal in that low area to the trees on the right ... but by this afternoon that will be flooded as if his drainage system is not working.

The crushed egg shells continue to get whiter as it rains more. We are currently above the average for rain/snow this time of year and will add another inch to that surplus today. I better get my lawn mower ready for a lot of work this spring.

This shows why I am filling in all of the worn, low spots of the carport floor this spring. 44 years of wear will do that to concrete I guess.

A sure sign that all hound walks are canceled for today. The field was still soft from underground saturation yesterday, it will be muddy today. Stella doesn't like getting her paws wet and I don't like water running up the sides of my boots either.

Yes, these low spots will be filled in and repaired this spring.

As you can see my blog design has changed again this morning. I like the format, I just can't decide what colors to use, header image or no image. I even changed my computer back from Apple's "dark mode" to "light mode" and both desktop photos ... I put their desktop picture of Yosemite on my other monitor. I think it was the National Geographic channel a few weeks ago that was showing the movie "Solo" for free ... quite a movie and quite a climb for "free climbing."

I was in the mood to watch some movies late afternoon yesterday. Inserted the first DVD, the player changed my tv input to the blu-ray player input as it should. Then the screen went blank. After trying many things, reading the owners manual for the dvd player, I finally went online and found out that it was a common problem with Samsung DVD players ... I had just been lucky the past few years, having no issues.

By the time I tried their troubleshooting steps a second time ... my remote for the dvd player would not work. NOTHING worked. I went to the Best Buy website, put "Sony Blu-Ray Player" in the search and had a few to choose from. With $40 in rewards that I had forgot about and an expiration date of March 23rd ... I guess it happened for a reason.

I bought a Sony 4K Blu-Ray player with a lot of stuff I won't use for a pretty low price after my $40 discount that they showed at the final step for checking out. Instead of driving to Bloomington to pick it up I took them up on their offer for free shipping and a delivery for tomorrow. (Friday) That was the second Samsung dvd player that has stopped for the exact same reason.

I use to have a Samsung tv, so I bought the Samsung dvd player at that time.

I can hear the wind and rain off and on outside while I write this. About all I can tell is that I will be watching basketball at 12:30pm hopefully without signal interruption, and explaining to Stella why we are not taking any walks today. She will figure that out soon enough when she goes outside this morning. Heidi may not get off the carport at lunch if she sees and hears the rain and wind.

While I tried to post this at 9:30am, I lost my HughesGen 5 satellite internet signal.  :)

I added these recent photos after I posted this morning. This is right after their lunch, and Stella was not interested going out into the yard. Luckily she dumped her tanks first thing this morning before her breakfast.

At least it is not snowing and single digit temps here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

8 Days Until March !!!!

Sunshine always makes a difference, no matter what the temperature is nor what month it is. It just makes a difference. I had not even started my first cup of coffee when I could hear the birds outside singing to each other like it was a Spring day. It was 29°. Again we all started our day later than a few weeks ago but none of us minded sleeping an extra hour. I couldn't stop reading one of the books last night, just picked up from the library yesterday. Can you guess which one kept me up past 1:30am reading?

With the high today going to climb into the middle 40's, all of the frozen puddles of water were starting to melt in the yard. Although the large puddle inside the carport remained water. I was happy I chose the North Face snow boots to wear this morning. I use them as my rain boots also ... because I am cheap. LOL

Stella had her own plans this morning. She veered off the return path and headed to the middle of the field. As long as she was heading in the general direction that I was on the path, it was okay. I kept an eye on her while I enjoyed the great morning, a little past 10am. The air was filled with different kind of birds chirping away, the sky was blue and the sunshine was bright. A perfect morning.

I was wearing layered clothing with my light down jacket, not the parka. I really didn't even need my gloves but wore them anyway. As I walked, so did Stella at a pretty brisk pace.

Slowly without any input from me, she gradually moved toward me and about the time I got to the first corner, she cut me off, walking in front of me over to the brush area next to the woods. She was so close to me when she cut in front of me she almost stepped on my boot !!!

After I moved out in front of her, I glanced behind me and didn't see her!!!! She had walked down into the woods maybe 6' before I barely saw her. As I walked over to find out where she was plus prevent her from getting further into the woods and then down into the gully, she turned and walked toward me like nothing happened.   LOL

As we moved into the part of the field that was no longer frozen but extremely saturated, I could still hear the sound of the leaves and long grass breaking with a crunching sound with each one of my steps. Water came up along the sides of my boots with each step. Stella stayed just to the side of the path to keep her paws dry as possible.

I let her move along the back edge of the field at her own pace. I walked up ahead of her and had moved over to the path that Stella was walking on.I had not walked along the edge of the field in back for many months. It was also drier up there compared to the path we use every day.

I was able to take the same photo of the turkey farm and AT&T tower but it looks so much different today because I was standing at the edge of the field about 20' closer to the tower. In my eyes it makes a huge difference while I used the same zoom setting as I always do. I could not believe how different it looked.

When I told her "let's go home", she was happy with that and headed out on the path, with a few stops along the way. She is such a funny bloodhound. No plans, no focus, and walks as if she goes from moment to moment without any thought of a plan. To say the least, she is a pretty laidback bloodhound.

This does not happen often ... she beat me to the yard this morning.

What is she thinking ????

LOL ... I have no idea. Classic pose for Stella, obviously in deep thought.

With the morning so nice, she and I spent some extra time right there in the north backyard. I picked up some new limbs and tossed them into the overgrown brush area. This is the area I'd like to light a match to and burn about 20 years of dead limbs, dead leaves and give the ground some new area for new growth.

See .... she can be a nice bloodhound when she want's to be. She isn't stubborn all the time. How can you resist that kind of look?? Yes ... she does get everything she wants, at least 99.9% of the time.

For new readers or first time visitors ... that fence post and rolled barbed wire has been there since the mid 1940's based on the story my dad told me.

Stella still continuing to move to her right to finish her walk along the side of the house.

Just because it was beautiful outside Heidi still had sleep to catch up on and wasn't happy when I woke her up. Later she came out, inhaled some water and went back to sleep on the big leather chair. It's the same chair that Winston use to use, then Sadie and now Heidi. It's a great comfortable chair and I sit there sometimes for hours reading.

With the great sunny day outside at noon you would think that the hounds would have gone outside and stayed for hours enjoying the great weather. I was willing to stay outside that long. It was up over 40° and sunny. I think you will find the following photos shocking. I'll let them tell the story. No .... neither went any further than the photos show.

Heidi seems to like Oikos Triple Zero blended greek yogurt. The brand by Greek God's is a little too sour for her and she will not lick the last of the container. As you can see with the Dannon brand she has no problem burying her head inside the container to lick the bottom of the container. I always share it will both hounds.

I like Plochman's Mustard but I hate their container. I keep the nozzle clean so it spreads the mustard evenly. The problem is the mustard blocks the opening of the container and prevents the flow of any mustard, no matter how clean the nozzle is. So to fix that .... I poured half the Plochman's container into a French's mustard container, which never stops the evenly smooth pour when the container is squeezed. Is that politically correct to do in today's society?  (joke)

That just shows you some of the exciting activity around here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. I tried again, giving the hounds a chance to go outside to enjoy this weather but Stella did not wake up and Heidi went outside just long enough to pee and came back to the door.

Because of that I can almost assure that there will not be enough hound activity this afternoon to blog about. I will not get many more photos than what I have right now. Therefore I am going to post this now as my only post of the day instead of waiting until 6pm, thinking or hoping I'd have more photos to add.

So which book kept me up until 1:30am, where I had to force myself to put the book down and go to bed?

Hero Dogs by Wilma Melville with Paul Lobo.

I started the Bernie Sanders  book first yesterday afternoon because I was really curious what I would find. I started the book with an open mind and read 79 straight pages. It was interesting because many of the things that he wanted "his movement" to accomplish ... Trump has done since January 2017. Granted, Bernie wrote this book and what he wanted before the 2016 election but the fact still remains a few things have been accomplished by a man he hates.

Although I had read 79 pages without stopping, two names of people that he respects (in his own words) made me stop reading and my first impression of Bernie Sanders was correct. This is a man I want nothing to do with. Those two people? ... Linda Sarsour and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (my favorite dingbat)

Like all the other far left Presidential hopefuls, he wants to tax the rich and give more free services to those in need, middle to low incomes or those not wanting to work, plus of course ALL immigrants, legal or otherwise. Yet with millions of dollars in his bank account, and three luxury homes, I find it hard to believe that Bernie would like to give himself that same tax increase.

What he preaches against he has ... wealth.

Would he make the last ten years of his income tax returns public like he wants President Trump to do? Would any of the screaming Democrats make their tax returns public? Doubtful. Including Trump they have all followed the US Tax Code, I have no doubt about that but I also beliew a few people walked away paying nothing in taxes just like Amazon because they have top notch tax accountants.

Here's a tidbit about Bernie ... enjoy reading it:  Bernie's A Fraud !

Jussie Smollett ???   I can't stop laughing. What "a piece of work" .... let's see just how far they follow the letter of the law because I can bet my ass if that was me, I would be convicted as a racist, hate crime offender and would be behind bars the maximum amount of time allowed. Just mailing that hate crime letter to himself should put him behind bars based on Federal Law. Prove to me that I am wrong with that assumption.

A beautiful day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. I'm going back to my book.