Hounds Ready For The Weekend

It might be Friday the 13th but we are off to a good start for the weekend. As you see to the left, the sunshine is back and that is always a good thing here in 'the tropics'.

The grass is still really wet with heavy dew and even with Sadie giving me the stare wanting to go for the 1st walk of the day, she is going to have to wait a few hours. It's their morning nap time anyway so a few hours will not hurt.


It could be close but it looks like the yard could be mowed again this afternoon, after just mowing it three days ago. With all the rain, that is how fast it is growing. Besides the normal hound morning routine, all of us have already made a drive to the post office and a swing by the Dairy Queen drive thru.

While I ate my bacon, egg and cheese biscuit at home, Sadie, Stella and Heidi had bully sticks. They were more than happy with that.

The hay was too wet for Stella but not Sadie. As you can see it's getting over 30" tall and in some places where they have dumped their tanks all winter, the hay is as tall as my chest. Out in some parts of the field it doesn't reach my knees.

Stella found something that she was trying to dig out of the ground with her nose ... not sure what that was but there was nothing hanging from her mouth as she raised her head. So whatever it was she did not eat it.

As you can tell she is pretty motivated to get her day started.

After the Dairy Queen breakfast, their bully sticks and a fresh application of water/vinegar sprayed on Heidi ... all of them decided it was time to go outside. I mentioned the other day that when we came back from our walk that Heidi was walking up the driveway almost past her boundary. I did not know how close to the road she had gone while we were gone. She has never gone down by the highway.

Today I found out where she had been. I moved out of sight just to see where she was going. She normally poops up by the top of the yard but today and in a couple of times prior, by the evidence, she has decided she likes the middle of the yard right now. She had just walked straight out from the yard to the driveway when I took this photo.

Of course Sadie was concerned and watched her all the way. She knows that is too far than the allowed boundary. She touched noses with Heidi at the corner of the carport just to remind her of the rules.

I am going to resist posting any photos of Heidi's skin until next week. I will say after just a few days of the water, vinegar mixture I am seeing improvement. The amount of vinegar amounts to 40% of the water weight. So in the batch I made, 48oz of water equaled 3.2oz of vinegar.

The spray bottle works much better and faster than applying it with cotton balls. After spraying an area I dab it with a dry cloth to keep it from dripping ... but the skin is still saturated with the mixture.

How can I tell it's improving? Her skin color is staying normal color up to nighttime instead of turning red by noon. She is itching a lot less. The yeast infected skin is falling off in large portions. She is more active and her tail is wagging more than it has. This morning when I asked if she wanted to go for a ride in the car, she jumped off the bed and headed to the FJ.

For the time being I want to keep her from doing the daily walk, just in case the tall grass, hay or wild plants activates her allergies. I want to give this water/vinegar mix a chance to work.

I've never had problems with Fridays that have dates of the 13th ... most of my self inflicted injuries over the years have occurred on or around cinco de mayo weekends.

It's a beautiful morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Were Lazy

From the start, all three hounds declared the afternoon was going to be more than just the normal slow pace. We started with weed eating as much of the drive as possible, along the north fence before the battery wore down. With clouds rolling in and rain looking probable, the car wash was cancelled.

Instead Heidi decided it was time to join us on a trip to the local Dairy Queen for a large Blizzard. We had to turn down the offer of a "pup cup" because that would be too much sugar and possibly affect her yeast infection ... by the way her skin looked all day today, we should have taken the ice cream when it was offered.

Stella moved her nap inside to outside. She put some serious thought into it and one photo catches her with her head up and her eyes closed. Can you see it?

Of course Sadie rarely lays down like that and always has to be on the move. With Stella sleeping and Sadie out in the field ... I moved inside to play with the blog template and change it ... I was bored, I needed something different and more tweaking may be involved.

It might be my eyes but the photos do look sharper to me in this template due to the dark background. Is it just me or can you see it also? Let me know if there is anything the new colors do that make it harder for you to read the blog. I am not sure if I like the color of the links on each sidebar.

It rained for less than a minute today ... huge drops of rain. Also another day of not finding any ticks on any of the hounds. Heidi has spent a lot of the afternoon rolling on the carpet, growling at herself ... and scratching.

I think I am feeling a quiet Saturday night here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Afternoon Was Cancelled

For some unknown reason our afternoon was cancelled. Had some of that NexGard gotten into my food supply and I was starting to feel some of the possible side effects? I am noticing Stella being a little lethargic after 24 hours since her first/last bite of the tick repellent ... maybe me also.

Or was it that trip through the Dairy Queen drive-thru for lunch that did it?

The hounds are becoming quite popular at the Dairy Queen. To keep them from getting their own ice cream addiction, they can look at my large Blizzard but don't touch. While waiting for my small order, Stella hopped into the front passenger seat, sat up straight with that same pose from this morning's photo ... where she wanted something.

I think about every girl behind the counter came over to the window to be introduced. Sadie shocked them by popping her head out the driver window just behind my head. Maybe we can work their popularity into some discounted prices this summer ... although I doubt that will happen.

We all felt like Stella did ... so why fight it ... I head to bed for a nice afternoon siesta with a gentle breeze blowing through the windows, to prepare for the thunderstorms later tonight. Stella will require a babysitter during those.

While we slept the farmer worked ... all my favorite "yellow weeds" were plowed under before we could come back to reality. He must have known it was raining tonight and not later this week.

I better get this posted. I hear thunder and the radar on intellicast.com doesn't look nice west of us. The weatherman is now changing his tune to thunderstorms "but not severe" ... I'll take that as we should expect loss of electrical power, loss of internet satellite signal and take cover.

Stella isn't a fan of thunder so tonight should be fun with her.

It cannot be sunny all the time here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Night Of Sickness

At 4:20pm EST, it was confirmed my “stop order” was seen soon enough. So both old and new blog stays as is.

A public service announcement: I may have not submitted the “stop order” soon enough to the WP tech to stop the process of importing all of the content and photos of the old blog to this one. She is having to manually correct the format that is occurring when I transferred it a few days ago and then deleted everything.

IF the import goes through and my ‘stop order’ doesn’t — this blog will have about an hour of blank pages during that import. No time estimate on when that might take place today or tonight. If do see that later, I am still here and the blog will return after the process.

Of course if she does stop working on it and leaving the blog as is, starting over with 15 posts, then my warning is what they say in basketball of “no harm no foul”.

I have gone back and forth on what to do with two options.

1. Start over from this blog – leave the old blog intact and the same domain name.
2. Move everything to this blog so readers could see photos and articles in the past 4+ years without having to go back to the other blog.
1. Reports show that very few readers go back to look at the older blog posts.

Leave a comment on what you would prefer.

As they say “sicker than a dog” not a hound, still I was pretty sick last night — my own fault — not the flu but the violent reaction to my intolerance to especially milk and some other dairy products but not all. I really cannot believe I did that again. Enough of that subject.
 
The hounds hung in there concerned but making sure I was ok all night. We were able to finally get some sleep between 8:15am and 11:15am. They were fed breakfast and those 3 hours were like their normal routine. We woke up to this … beautiful sunny skies and a bright sun. One of those days that is 20° but they say it feels like 13° … still felt warm outside.

 

For those that like that old steel bridge I walked over to last May and took photos of, you can see it still standing (no doubts) after the floods from a month ago. You can see the bridge just a little left of center. That one lane road use to be a major country road back in the day, used by many and even today some locals wish it still was.

You might be wondering what’s the story about the wooden sign structure but no sign. For over 20 years the local farmer that owns that property had a bright red sign on that structure for the Dairy Queen downtown. I thought the sign came down due to a change in ownership of that Dairy Queen but he later told me he had to take it down by a directive from the State of Indiana. It was on their property.

That reminds me of the question Contessa asked a few days ago in a comment she made. She was wondering if the state snow plows could block my driveway like they do with snow and ice. Yes they can. About ten years ago they rebuilt the highway with new asphalt and actually churned up the old asphalt down to nothing. All the way down the highway they built turnout areas that were paved … in some cases that meant moving mailboxes … yes my mail box.

Since the state still owns 50′ from either the side of the road or the centerline, I can’t remember right now, they were able to move my mailbox without asking. They did poor job of reinstalling it and at times I am still ticked off, when I see it leaning.

I personally dug the hole, set the pole in concrete when I replaced it after a drunk driver ran over it many years back. The state knocked off as much of the concrete they could (I watched them do it) when they pulled the pole out of the ground. They had laid new asphalt for all mailbox turnouts. They put the pole in a hole (no concrete) that was right next to a small concrete culvert. I guess they thought that was all would be needed to keep it straight and braced.

Wrong again. That concrete culvert didn’t come close to doing that, in fact made it worse. Since I haven’t been in the mood in the past ten years to dig a new hole, lay new concrete and reinstall my mailbox, I have used a couple of different fixes. After all I rarely receive any paper mail that is “real mail”, it’s just a deposit box for junk mail. So I decided I had better things to do than dig holes and pour concrete.

This post has gone on longer than I ever expected … sorry for the boring subject.

The only time the hounds went out earlier .. they were in and out just like that. Maybe if I am feeling better this afternoon I will post more of their activity today.

That’s about all from the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana today.

Goodbye 70° Hello Fall

I knew it wouldn't last forever but it lasted longer than I expected ... temps 70° or higher during the day. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up to very cold temperatures and that is when it hit me that fall was definitely here. I had left some windows open and when I glanced at my iPhone for the outside temperature, it was 30° outside.

Flicking the light on I saw the hounds were packed together to keep warm. Sadie has never wanted a blanket to sleep on in 7 years, she sleeps on the dog bed I bought for Heidi. Stella doesn't seem to like laying on a blanket either but both basset hounds not only love blankets, they like to bury themselves inside blankets. That was the case around 3:30am when the cool air coming through window woke me up.

I fell off the strict diet again around 7:30pm with a quick run to the local Dairy Queen. I am embarrassed to list all of the stuff I bought and ate. I'll just say that as my body was getting use to all of the foreign particles, around 10pm I catch myself nodding out on the couch during 3 really good football games. An overdose of carbohydrates, sleep was so over powering, that I set the DVR to tape the rest of two games and to tape a new game that was coming on at 10:30pm. All of those DQ carbs had me sleeping within seconds after going to bed. I watched all the taped football games this morning while drinking the morning coffee.

Since it was still cold this morning, the basset's didn't get outside but the bloodhounds loved it. Once they were outside on their first trip they didn't do much but sniff the area out, eat some frozen burrs from those dead stalks that you see in the field. I was hoping the local farmer would be back this month to bale the field like he did last fall but so far they have not come back.

All the hounds were fed early this morning with the new feeding schedule of twice per day. Of course once Heidi heard the food being poured into the stainless steel bowls, she was wide awake from her deep sleep and was at her bowl anxiously waiting for her breakfast. I am not sure they like their portions cut in half, but eating twice per day now does not mean they get twice as much food.

They act as if they don't know that policy.

A couple of hours later Stella's nose is at my elbow while I am at my desk at the computer. She starts to whine. When I mentioned she was begging, she started howling. I glanced at the clock and it was only 10:13am, way too early for their 2nd feeding that now takes place late afternoon.

It was different though today ... she wasn't howling because she was hungry, the bloodhounds wanted to go back outside. When I got up to head for the door they sprinted for that door, then sprinted outside and started playing immediately.

They even got in some sprints chasing each other. They stopped just as fast as they started ... headed back to the door to go inside and fell asleep immediately.

Glancing at the ten day forecast it will still be great weather but the high temps will be in the range of 55° - 62° most of the time.

A Rare Three Hound Photo Outside

It's been over a year since the three hounds were all in the backyard together. Heidi rarely goes in the backyard. When she goes outside she hits the corner of the front yard and then she might wander along the side of the fence line .. but for some reason she rarely heads to the back.

Maybe she is feeling better, although by her skin rash, there isn't a difference from the past weeks. I see a shinier coat, it's softer with the change to Earthborn Holistic No Grain, the Plains Feast blend. I haven't made the trip to the vet to use their scales but I swear I can feel some muscle coming back around her neck and shoulders. One of the photos from today looks like she is gaining some weight, I hope so.

I wanted her to lay in the sun for a while thinking that might help her skin rash ... then again, laying in the grass may activate her allergies and make them worse. I'll check her later tonight. She didn't stay outside long. It was 82° but the iPhone weather said it felt like 89°, all three of the hounds prefer air conditioning and went running for the door after the 5 minute photo shoot.

The dental work I had last Monday seems to have worked out this week. It was nice to get back to normal, get some sleep and also not having to tolerate any pain. The week was so slow I am really not sure what I did. Looking back on the past four days, I didn't take any siestas, I didn't waste all day on the internet but I did do a lot of book reading.

Each time I looked out the kitchen window or took the hounds outside, I'd see my garden of weeds along the driveway. They were almost overtaking the driveway, like I stated in my last post. I couldn't come to grips with paying more money for weedkiller, since it never lasts as long as they say it will. In fact it seems to me, the weeds grow back stronger and faster than ever after they turn brown.

So much for that black plastic material that is buried 6" below the mulch to keep the weeds from invading your flower beds. Does anything work the way it's suppose to anymore or is that just an advertizing dream?

Weeds Up Through The Black Weed Block

It's happened that was every summer I've been here, all 18 of them. You'd think I'd come up with a different plan by now. So I asked a friend that spends a lot of time working with her yard, flowers, plants, etc. She said she pulled her weeds. Of course her long driveway is asphalt, whereas mine is gravel ... so I knew my job of pulling weeds might take a little bit longer. It was something I'd have to think about.

I know that no matter what I do, spray or pull them, the weeds will always grow back ... but maybe I can control them. Besides, the idea of pulling weeds was making me very curious ... curious enough to pull a couple of the easy crabgrass weeds out of the gravel driveway. They came out of the ground, through the gravel easy. I decided to get my gloves and the 32 gallon trash can that I use only to gather leaves, sticks and now weeds.

These gloves remind me constantly that I am the boss.

Perfect Gloves For Pulling Weeds

So Friday around 1:30pm I decided why not? Let's see if weed pulling is all it is made out to be. Of course I had wasted the best part of the day with the cooler temps in the morning. It was already after 1pm, one of those sunny 84° days that feels like 90° ... but I like sun and I like heat, so I started at the top of the driveway. I was thinking about doing only the center of the drive .. but my thought process is never like that. Everything has to be even. So I would move down the center of the driveway a little way, then to each side.

Only after an hour of work, I had this much done on the driveway and my trash can was about 3/4 of the way full. With the sun is heading toward the front yard since my house faces west, It was getting extremely hot. I decided not to quit and just move my efforts to the shady side of the house ... in back. This took no more than 30 minutes.

Pulled one weed at a time, anything from large crabgrass to small sprouts of new grass.

Before

After

Not Quite 32 Gallons Of Packed Down Weeds

I had seen and felt enough so I emptied the trash can full of weeds on my burn pile for next spring and headed to the shower ... I was tired but encouraged by how much was done in less than two hours.

I had decided to start earlier this morning but due to a sleepless night and up until 4am ... I didn't get my 8am start on the weed pulling. I did start at 11:30, moving all the way down the center of the drive ... then toward the left to pull weeds over the culvert where the weeds covered my stone I installed a few summers ago. By the time I was about to move up the side of the driveway I decided it was just too hot at 1:30.

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I took a nice hour break inside drinking a lot of ice cold water. Stopping any kind of work outside is bad for me, because I lose my momentum, or I get distracted and end up doing something else. I wanted to do just a little bit more.  So I began where I started yesterday working towards the backyard. I was only going to get to where I was even with the front of the house and stop . I kept going longer.

I wasn't in the mood to wash the Mini Cooper, so I decided to go along the front of the carport, double arms length. I would have finished what was left, all the way to the yard but in the last 15 minutes of working, the bugs, and gnats decided to come out to bother me ... so I called it a day. I was still amazed how much I was getting done in a short period of time.

Before

After Saturday

Granted, it would be much faster to walk around spraying chemicals to kill the weeds but this week I am not in the mood to waste money. Maybe paying the dental bill put me in shock, i don't know ... but I don't feel like spending ... unless I go to Dairy Queen.

So tomorrow I plan on continuing my weed pulling. I'll finish up the end of the section I was working on, but I also want to finish each side of the driveway ... I'll do that first before the sun moves over the tops of the trees making that front side very hot. Once this end of the top section is finished and both sides of the driveway, I'll decide from there if I want to keep working or move to the top of the driveway on Monday.

I am pulling out by the roots, anything that is green .. large or small. In fact I doubt that I have missed very many small sprouts. So far I have 5-1/2 hours of labor. This little tool I found in a drawer this morning made things easier on Saturday. It was mouse tested, with some signs of chewing on the handle.

Another 30+ gallons of packed down weeds on Day 2.

Day 2

If you made it reading this far I'm surprised, it just shows you how slow life is sometimes in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana. I don't lead a thrilling life ... I mean this week after the dental work, pulling these weeds have been the highlight of the week. I have watched a couple of NFL preseason games on Thursday and Friday night ... will watch some more tonight. Then I flip back to the Cincinnati Reds - LA Dodger game in Los Angeles during the football game commercials or vice versa. The Reds games don't start until 10pm local time.

The hounds and I hang out mostly and take each day as it comes. I find it interesting that this is what I am blogging about publicly ... so I guess it was this topic or another day of no posting. At least there were some new photos of the hounds.

I will say I was amazed how sore my hamstrings were this morning after only an hour and a half of bending over to pull the weeds out of the ground.

I may fall off my diet wagon for an hour ... I have a strong strong urge for a Hawaiian Blizzard from Dairy Queen. That isn't all bad is it?? It has pineapple and coconut in it ... LOL