The Hounds Love Fridays!

It's going to be a beautiful Friday here in 'the tropics' today. Our whole schedule started a coupe of hours later than normal. The skies were overcast when the first photo of the field across the highway was taken from my door step. I am not sure why but I always like having that same photo each day on the left margin to start the blog.

In it's separate folder it's nice to see the changes  in those photos from day to day, month to month or annually. It will be interesting to see how the spring operates after such a mild winter here.

I was reading last night about ways to shore up my bank along the driveway. In one spot it is borderline dangerous. A serious weather event (straight line winds) that happened in June 2008 started the demise of the bank along he drive. Those winds pulled up large trees all the way down the bank like weeds and spread them across my frontyard, through the fence.

Add in the issue of a 6 year fight with the neighbor on property lines. He couldn't read and understand even with help from my lawyer. A few springs ago I wake up on a Saturday morning to the sound of chainsaws. The neighbor had decided after his chat with my lawyer that he would hire some of his friends that needed money to cut down every tree that was left on MY bank ... plus pull out any roots.

Talking to him about erosion that would take place after removing those trees from my bank were way above his level of intelligence. Luckily this *$^@##(N moved in July 2014. Add in the fact that the local utility company decided about three years ago they would institute their right of public domain and cut all the large trees on MY bank under THEIR power lines to MY house .. so it's safe to say over the last 8 years MY bank as gone from a 125' bank with solid large trees to keep the bank intact ... has changed drastically. I have some work to do with large riprap rock this spring and maybe summer.

How did I ever get going down that direction ... LOL ???

Anyway the hounds and I were a couple of hours behind schedule today. That means they will have lunch a couple of hours later than normal. It doesn't matter to them as all of them are sound to sleep after their morning walk. Except Heidi. She is asleep but refuses to walk until the temps get warmer than 42°.

The skies turned blue and I could tell from the start that Stella's nose was working a little better than normal.

How? When her nose is working better than normal ... she ignores my calls to "come on".

Then she wanted to walk into the wooded area that is off limits to both bloodhounds because of the huge drop off into a valley about 10' into the wooded area. She did come when I called for her to get out of there ... then Sadie and her trotted down along their path. A few times Stella headed to the middle of the field based on what her nose was telling her. She had a lot of interests today while walking.

She went even further than normal to the right side of this field than she normally does. Once again my Nikon D3200 decided not to work during the times she was sprinting towards Sadie and I to get caught up. I was able to catch her running on just one photo.

With both hounds really giving the area along the fence line extra attention I knew I was going to have to watch Stella as we approached the turn to go home. This fenced area is where deer jump the fence and sprint through that field toward those barns. The times I have seen them do that, they are usually in groups of 5-8 deer. So you can see both hounds have a real interest in the area today.

As I turned the corner to go home, I looked to see Stella's nose in the air and her attention pointing to the "no fly zone". I could tell she wanted to go back and almost did until I yelled 'no' to her. She didn't run to me immediately ... she stopped a couple of times to look back to the area she wanted to visit again.

She gave in and came back to join Sadie and I but she didn't seem happy about it.

Between the camera not working all the time, plus the amount of time both hounds walked close to me, we didn't take a lot of photos on the way back. You will see though they both explore the ground from the field through the back yard all the way up to the house ... their noses miss nothing.

After I watch a game of basketball at 2:30pm today, I am going to hook up a brand new recorder that will record all the ballgames and the last 3 Indy500's I have on my DVR to DVD discs. I need to clear off that DVR not only for space on the hard drive but I am also considering getting a Directv DVR upgrade to their Genie model, that has 1Tb of memory. I bought this recorder a few years ago after a huge power surge destroyed my other recorder. I was able to find and replace the exact same model.

I don't keep all my recordings but a few things I would like to keep and have in the past on DVR for future viewing.

We might fit in an afternoon walk today since the weather is nice. Heidi's skin is looking the best ever this morning, at least the best it has in the past 18 months. So I hope to get some photos of her skin improvement, if I can ever talk her out of sleeping all day today.

Life is good today ... in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

An Afternoon Of Study

It’s been almost 10 years … 10 years? Yep, 10 years already, since I last worked behind the scenes of a website inside a control panel. It could be long tedious work for those that were not ‘geeks’ or ‘experts’ …. like me.

So today with the hounds sleeping their normal hours, the temps colder than I prefer, the dog food bought, the FJ filled with some gas and a fresh bag of coffee … it was time to refresh how to set up websites hosted by someone other than Blogger or WordPress.

I’m still not finished, but making progress and actually remembering more than I thought I would.

The hounds want to go “.com”

Today still included the periodic trips outside. It was clear blue skies and sunny … still the hounds didn’t go far nor wanted to.

After some consideration I decided I was not in the ‘teacher mode’ this morning with Stella and was willing to take the chance with her shut in the bedroom with Sadie while I made a short trip to the ‘big city’ … just downtown.

She passed in flying colors, just like she use to and was thrilled when I was walking in with a 40# bag of dog food. She thought it was all hers.

The feedback seems to be very positive about the hounds each having their own blogs. Ownership of the photos are still in negotiations. Sadie, Stella and Heidi are unwilling to budge in what they are offering for exchange.

I think tonight is going to be watching a movie from my collection unless I find a movie on tv … doubtful. I pay Directv for more ~250 channels and rarely watch more than 7-8 of them.

All is good though, with a couple of bags of M&M’s with peanuts, Keebler’s Pecan Shortbread cookies and some ice cold milk.

It’s a pretty quiet night here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

Stella's Personality Begins To Show

One of the most important tools for a sports addict that does not have enough televisions to keep up with all the football and baseball games that are currently shown at times simultaneously ... is the tv remote control. In my case it is the DirecTv remote control. Believe it or not, from the photos, this remote control still works perfectly and will be used until it doesn't. Then a quick call to DirecTv's customer service and they will ship me a new one free of charge, no questions asked.

It all started sometime Saturday as I was sitting at the computer. Both bloodhounds were in their normal positions on the floor next to each other, chewing on various dog bones that have been bought over the years. There is a familiar sound when they are chewing on nylabone or a real bone. So it was pretty obvious to me when I heard a different sound, something was up and that sound made me get out of my desk chair to investigate.

What I saw shocked me!! I mean she is 6 years old and this was something you would see if she was 6 months old maybe. That DirecTv remote was held between Stella's two front paws and I could tell she was enjoying how the soft plastic felt as her large molars bit down. There was enough force from her jaws that both halves of the remote had popped open. My only concern was, did the remote still work before the games started within the hour, since I had 14 hours worth of games to watch and needed to be able to change channels from my seat on the couch.

I took the remote from her, said "no" loudly and gave her one of the dog bones, which she started chewing immediately. If you could have seen her face when she looked up at me with the remote between her paws, there was no way you could be mad at her.

I snapped the two haves of the remote back together, wiped off the bloodhound drool from the sensor in front of the remote and gave it a try. It worked perfectly.

Wasn't it just a few days ago I had mentioned I was waiting for her to do something, anything bad? I see now I should not have said that. It's like going on a long trip hoping and verbalizing you hope you don't get a flat tire and then for the first time in years, you have a flat tire on the trip.

I wasn't mad at her because she is simply a great and well mannered bloodhound. Every day or at least every week, as time passes ... Stella's personality continues to show. Just like any dog that is in a new home, it takes a while for them to get use to their new environment and routines. She is now whining to go outside when she needs to. Just today before I wrote this blog post, she started that bloodhound howl when I asked her if she wanted to eat.

It's usually Heidi that barks to let me know it's time for the hounds to be fed and she was today ... Stella decided to join her.

Not a lot going on but a lot planned. House cleaning, doing just a few dishes from last night, maybe some laundry today, but probably tomorrow ... the most important ... a run to the store to pick up some coffee and sugar.

Temps have been in the high 50's and is again today. Heidi was shivering when she came outside this morning. Still after the brunch, she came outside to lay in the grass in the sun. All four hounds seem to find the sun on a regular basis.

Stella and Sadie have been so focused on being fed today, they have not even played at all today. Currently all the hounds are asleep since they have been fed and made their after meal trip outside. Normal routine for them.

Here are a more photos from this weekend and today.

Heavy frost Saturday morning

Winston is eating dirt like pictured below

What is it about this dirt he likes to eat it so much????

"I wasn't doing what you saw me do"

Some Saturday morning playing ... then just like that they stop and go off searching new smells.

Some Monday early afternoon sunshine.

Stella even has Sadie laying down now ... she never did before

While I raked leaves in the backyard again Sunday, Stella stayed in this position for the hour. I had to rake around her, she never moved.

Another fast paced weekend in "the tropics".