Kodak Slide Scanner Works!!

Warning: Lots of photos and story telling involved.

If you remember last week I received my missing Kodak Slide Scanner but there were two issues that made it inoperable. The SD card would not lock in the slot which is needed to save the photos to that are converted from slides or negatives. Photos from that SD card are then transferred to your computer or TV screen, your choice. It also would not work once plugged into three different computers. I took it back for a refund, then ordered another one. I did not want to ship it to my house but to ship to the Best Buy store where I could pick it up. They texted two days earlier than planned for me to pick it up.

We Still Have A Pulse

Has it been almost a month since our last post? Hard to believe because we really haven't been that busy doing things. The weather has been fantastic for this time of year yet when I look back through these photos ... nothing out of the ordinary has been going on. I guess ... just watching football and waiting for the leaves to fall. As you can see Walter is pretty content with his fast pace way of life.

Pizza And Baseball

Thanks to Barney suggesting the other day I do some research on backlit photos, that led me to go over all the settings on my Nikon D3500 and I changed a few things from what I found. Consequently my photos today look just like they did when the camera was new. I had not been happy with the quality of the photos for a long time. Of course these were taken mid day on a bright sunny day, so lighting made a difference too. Still I can tell a big difference in quality.

Baseball Ice Tea & Dog Bones

My period of non-motivation continues as the hounds and the dog and I float through each day drifting at sea. No plans and those that were are not started. I need food but don't want to shop for groceries and not sure I want to take the time to order online. So I guess I will live on ice tea, coffee, David's Pumpkin seeds and baseball. That is really too bad because we just had a week of great weather with high temps in the mid 80s and only sunny days. It is suppose to rain tonight and tomorrow so maybe I can get jump started on Tuesday.

Winter In April

It was less than a week ago where I was washing my car after mowing the yard wearing a t-shirt and cargo shorts. My brain was sure that "spring is here" with the hot temps of summer right around the corner. As Stella and I finished our walk this morning, the "feels like" temperature was 31°. It felt colder than that as we marched through the wet field.

Stella Cancels Morning Walk

From the signs of puddles in the carport and in the field across the highway, it rained pretty hard last night as the forecast said it would. I didn't hear a thing even with the windows open. Evidently Stella knew exactly how much it rain and just how wet the field would be because no matter how hard I tried to coax her into walking, she refused!!

It was still nice weather though. About 25° cooler than yesterday morning, a little more windy but there is an expectation of sunny skies later this afternoon. That will put the lawn back to mowing height for Saturday afternoon.

What I wouldn't do to be able to crawl inside the brain of a bloodhound to see what's in there, how it operates and how they think. It is one of the funniest breeds I've owned yet there has only been two breeds in 32 years of hounds. The basset hound and bloodhound is as far as I have ventured into the world of dogs.

I knew when I turned around to take this photo of Stella, there was a 'slight' chance she wasn't going anywhere.

When I saw this familiar look, I KNEW she was not going anywhere. Was the ground of the field really that wet? Standing water in spots along the path? How does she know?

I was even willing to let her lead the way, expecting her to turn left along the side of the house, veer up the small incline heading toward the north end of the yard and possibly walking on the 'return' path to start our walk. I would follow her along the way with no problem.

She did an about-face without any hesitation and headed for the door to go back inside. In fact she was so quick that by the time I turned the corner of the house trying to take a photo of her heading back to the door, she was already at the door waiting for me to open it.

So ... there will be no bloodhound walk on Friday morning. Maybe later, maybe not.

I started my day in a fog, it didn't feel like I slept that soundly. The hounds were not going to let me have more sleep, they wanted breakfast. I usually get between six to seven hours of sleep per night and close to half of that is sound sleep. Yet, that new bag of Seattle's Best Coffee (not Starbucks), smelled fantastic as I took a whiff inside the bag. It tasted even better and before I knew it, my brain activity rapidly increased.

I had the urge to drive the local area and look at some dog food, different from what I have been feeding the hounds since February 2017. If I were to go to the local farm supply store which has a wide range of dog food brands, grain-free and otherwise, I could also walk the aisles looking for something new to buy for lawn care or maintenance.  Maybe some winter vests or jackets would be on sale, which I don't really need.

Basically it's just a restlessness I get sometimes.

I like the dog food I have been feeding the hounds. It has limited ingredients and helped Heidi with her allergic reactions with raw chewed skin a few years ago. Stella is my new allergy puzzle though. It's never a fun puzzle to figure out either.

Could it be the dog food or those Glucosamine supplements I give her?

That's the million dollar question. If I don't give her the supplements, she has a hard time walking sometimes, well yelp on occasion and has a family history of bad hips based on what the previous owner told me. A vet a few years ago when looking at Heidi's skin issues told me his studies on dog food allergies resulted in finding out that dog food is not the major cause of allergies in dogs.

That makes the puzzle all the harder to solve.

An old friend of mine living in Phoenix has an older Mastiff that started having some severe issues with his skin. Luckily it took only one vet trip for him to find a solution. It was something I had never heard of during the long time I have had hounds. "Hypoallergenic Protein" was the key word and the key to solving the Mastiff's problem.

Dog foods that are good for allergies always try to stay away from chicken, beef, dairy and eggs. My ingredient lists of every dog food I used, listed on a spreadsheet showed that even the best limited ingredient, grain-free foods with a protein source other than chicken or beef .... ALWAYS has some sort of chicken (flavor or meal) lower down the list.

Maybe it's not chicken that is bothering Stella. There are no kinds of meat in the GlycoFlex Plus supplement. But there is some chicken flavor in her lamb meal and rice food.

The symptoms of an allergy can include skin rash, hives, itching, paw biting, obsessive licking and sometimes nausea or vomiting. She shows only those highlighted in bold print. Especially the paw biting and itching. I have scanned every inch of her looking for fleas ... I did not find any on her or me.

So I am very tempted to go the route that my friend took with his Mastiff because he saw a sudden change within 8-12 days after switching to a dog food with hypoallergenic protein. Basically that is food with lower protein, lower fat and more carbs. His vet still tells him to feed the food for two months as prescribed before they decide what food to move to.

Looking back through photos of blog posts of Stella in the past four years that she has been here (August 2015), there have been times she has stopped in the field to scratch. So then the question is .... environmental allergy? That is a major cause of dog allergies. We tried weekly shots with Heidi to combat environmental allergies with negative results in 2015. She only improved when I went to the limited ingredients dog food I use now.

A blog reader suggested last month that I splash a little yogurt on her food every meal. Just a teaspoon of it, recommenced by her vet and that showed results. A few containers of yogurt is a lot cheaper than a 20 pound bag of Hypoallergenic Protein dog food ... unless I started eating the yogurt.  :)

I admit I am not a fan of trying to solve dog allergies. My curiosity to try different foods will get the best of me. Plus I need to walk through the aisles of that farm supply store and tell myself no a million times when I ask if I really need this.  LOL

As long as the Cincinnati Reds continue to win, weather and dog allergies are not a factor in my day. Strange how sports can do that to you mental outlook. It's like I told that California State Patrolman in 1984, on a Sunday afternoon celebrating Cinco de Mayo cruising the coast highway back home to Carlsbad. I was driving my 1967 mint condition VW Bus, with the stereo blasting loud enough that I didn't hear his siren through downtown Encinitas. My friend saw him in the side mirror and said "Floyd, I think that guy behind you want to talk to you."  :)

As he arrested me he told me I was the happiest drunk he had ever arrested. I told him "my Reds are on a 7 game winning streak!!!!" ...

The winning streak ended THAT NIGHT.

Well I am off to look around at Orschein Farm Supply store .... maybe I'll buy a new lawn mower instead ... and some hypoallergenic dog food for Stella  :)

All is good this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Good Feel To Today

It was a few ticks below 60°, all the windows in the house were open, birds were singing and both hounds were sound to sleep after waking me up a little past 7am to eat breakfast. With a forecast of 80° today before we are bombarded with thunderstorms tomorrow, I didn't hesitate putting on cargo shorts. Once I heard Stella shaking in the bedroom I knew our walk was just a few minutes away.

It felt warm outside with the old carport thermometer needle just past 50°. While Stella got her plan together I had already decided I would follow her today in whatever direction she took. She was going to be on her own with the whole field available. Totally unexpected, she started the walk in the normal way ... taking the path ... after a couple of days of needing verbal herding to get her to walk in that direction.

With that tall green grass, who could resist a little added breakfast food on top of her kibble a couple of hours before?

The past few days I had my hiking boots getting fully saturated from the heavy field dew. So this morning I slipped my North Face snow/rain boots over my low-cut summer socks. Just like Stella taking the normal path ... my boots didn't take on any water as the field had dried out along the path plus there wasn't any dew on the grass.

You can see the brush line getting green. While I was out mowing the other day I heard two of my neighbors doing the same thing and my next door neighbor mowed his yard as soon as he got home from work. I am anxious to see if this spring will be as wet as last year, where I only had a few days between rains to mow the fast growing yard. So far so good on the number of rain days.

Of course, just because it was a nice morning that does not mean that Heidi wakes up earlier and gets her day started. She will eventually walk out of the bedroom and start her stretching and move into the living room big leather chair sometime around 10am ... That will also be her norm during the hot summer months.

With a Cincinnati Reds game on tv at noon today, it will our normal time right after the game for the afternoon walk. Heidi will at least spend some time outside, whether she roams the yard or joins Stella and I for a little exercise. She enjoys time alone outside in the sun, just sitting there.

Even with all the freedom I was giving Stella for her walk, she didn't deviate too far from the normal path.

Like the other afternoon, for some reason she stopped out of nowhere and sat there. I have no idea what she heard, or saw ... maybe she was just in deep thought. With the pollen count increasing, even little bit, it's time for the daily wiping of Stella's eyes with a warm washcloth. I normally do that a couple of times per day for her and Heidi.

Right after I snapped that close up of her, she stood and leaned down on her front paws like she wanted to play then took off trotting away from me. Her and Sadie use to love wrestling along with running full speed a few years ago. Her running is a rare thing anymore.

I complained again to Chewy about how bad FedEx delivery was last month. I get Stella's glucosimine supplements from them. When I started last fall I'd get my shipment within two days. That gradually moved to five to seven days. So this morning I took a look at the tracking information and see that my shipment was picked up yesterday and will be delivered today. It will be interesting to see if the FedEx van pulls up the driveway to drop that small package off on my step.

Not a lot of eating today but a lot of data collection.

Close to getting back home and starting the day. The highlight of the day will be sitting inside watching the Reds baseball game. They are on a two game winning streak and could make it three today. That is quite a turnaround after starting the season 1-8.

She trotted a few times today but I was never able to catch her soon enough with the camera.

Not a lot going on as she entered the yard.

As usual, she walked right up next to the house as she finished her walk. You'll notice I have a clean car now. It was hard getting the dried bloodhound drool off the sides of it and the rear bumper. That stuff is harder to get off than tar or bugs.

Well I am headed to recycling.

A beautiful morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

It's Friday - Now What??

It was pitch black, completely quiet as I woke from one of the most strangest dreams I've had. Of course I could remember nothing about it as I lay there for the first few seconds. I did hear something familiar though ... that bloodhound whine just to the left side of my bed. Stella was standing next to it waking me up. How long had she been trying?

Then I heard another familiar sound ... her stomach gurgling. It was 4:13am.  :)

She returned from outside in about 5 minutes, walked in and went straight to her dog bed and went back to sleep. I was still awake but I wasn't going to get up that early and start blogging. I did that in December when I first moved my blog here on WordPress. Not today though.

Luckily the hounds let me sleep a little later than normal, just past 8:30am. The daily routine changed drastically and really, it already had at 4:13am. We took our morning walk before I made any coffee. I was active without my two cups of caffeine. That was strange.

You forget how nice things are until you don't have it, then it returns ... Warm Weather !!!

Since it rained all night, starting while I was watching the baseball game on tv, the path was pretty soft but it was not slick with mud and leaves under my boots. I could see how fast wild bushes and the grass is greening up. If the sun were to every get hot during the day, all of this would be growing much faster.

I wasn't sure what I had planed for the day but the only thing I could think of was some minor lawn mower repair. The mower old but runs great. There have been too many times of mowing wet grass, where I didn't clean it after I mowed. So here many years later I have a few small holes worn through the metal bucket. I might be buying a new mower but I want to try something I read last fall about repairing it.

An article from "Handyman" website, shows that I can sand around each of those holes, preferably to bare metal, then apply some Gorilla Tape. My choice whether to paint over it to match the color of the mower. That will be my one thing of the day to do. Then the first test to see if it works will be early next week after it stops raining.

It was good to feel that the 800mg of Ibuprofen I took right before I went to bed, sucked all of the muscle soreness out of me. I felt nothing this morning as I walked the path alone. I had let Stella go off on her own, thinking I would meet her somewhere on the way back home.

As I was on the last part of the walk home, you can barely see Stella just left of center.

No doubt she has found a fresh spot of deer scat.

She evidently was happy with the freedom I gave her this morning. She walked right over to our path when I called her name. She is only a stubborn bloodhound when she wants to be and hears me perfectly clear. She just chooses what she wants to hear.  :)

Shaking a little more of the ear cleaner out of her ears this morning. Yesterday was Hound Ears Cleaning Day. She has much cleaner ears than Heidi.

It was extremely quiet this morning has we walked. I knew it was a Friday but traffic noise from the highway sounded like a Sunday.

It looks like I missed one of my small raked piles of leaves and twigs the other day.

I haven't heard any ideas about what to do with this area along the back side of the house. Mulch, river rock or replant grass all the way up to the edge of the house? I have ground swell and I remember digging out that 'flowerbed' area about 5" deep before filling it with rock. The level was below the edge of the house.

Not only does she walk near the house when she finishes her walk but also as close as possible to the car .. every morning. As long as the rain is in the forecast for the next few days, washing the car will be on hold.

I love having the windows open again. Just barely above 50° but feels warmer. A hundred different birds are talking. Other than that it's quiet as I finish my second cup of coffee. There's that woodpecker again.

A month or so ago I read the latest book about Howard Schultz. After reading about who he was and what he was about I had a feeling that I could vote for that man if he were to run for President. Last night Fox News had a "Town Hall" with Howard Schultz. Of course I have no doubt that all attendees are screened as well as all the questions but once again after watching the show, I had a feeling I could vote for that man. I hope he chooses to run.

He has some good ideas on how to heal the country if elected. He has experience talking to world leaders as he expanded his Starbuck's business. His business was the first to give free health care to all employees, fulltime or partime. He can work with people from different backgrounds, have different colored skin, male or female.

As I sat there listening to him answer the questions fired at him, I kept wondering if it was even possible to have both sides of Congress work with him as President to finally get something done. I kind of leaned toward the word "no" ... I have no doubt the Democrats would be pissed even if he was elected because they didn't put their "chosen one" in office. I don't know who that is.

They will be very angry if he announces this summer that he is going to run. They feel that is handing another 4 years to Trump because Howard Schultz will NOT run as a Democrat. Like he said last night, "I didn't leave the demorcratic party, the party left me." He also thinks he can win those 8 states that determine who is president in every election.

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out by November 2020.

In the mean time I will go back to watching my Cincinnat Reds, who are playing much better baseball this summer but still have a 1-5 reccored because they cannot score runs and cannot hit a baseball. Last year it was just the opposite they couldn't pitch but could hit. They started last year 1-13. It's a long season, the bats will warm up but it's never good digging yourself in a hole at the start of a season.

Of course they are ONLY YELLING a lot in Cincinnat with the poor record, a new manager with analytics but they are not JUMPING OFF BRIDGES like they are in Chicago because the Cubs are also 1-5, but they are suppose to win the World Series and not suffer through another bad season.

A perfect overcast day this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.