I'm Stuck In The Land Of Laziness

With a forecast of a possible high of 70° today, Heidi was thinking it might have to hurry up to get that high by the way it felt a little after 10am. It was the coldest 58° she had felt and she wasn't sure what she was doing outside when the only reason she was barking nonstop inside was for lunch to be served. Lunch kibble at 10:15am is just a little too early. She stayed and explored the yard while Stella and I did our morning walk.

Stella was all over the field this morning, hopping in the air when she wanted to change direction. I took a lot of photos to capture that and only one of them barely caught her with her rear feet raised off the ground.

I saw this morning that Dog Food Advisor had the Sportmix Wholesomes food I have been feeding the hounds rated as a 4-star food. (chicken meal & rice) It was the food that cleared up Heidi's skin issues in February 2017 and put weight back on Heidi and Stella. I found it by accident at my local hardware store, who was observant enough to start carrying dog food after the local feed store went out of business due to the owner's death.

What I did find out before using this food was that it was made by the same company that makes Earthborn Holistic Dog Food, in factories only 90 miles away. With low shipping cost a 40# bag is only $31.99 and was one reason I was skeptical of the quality. Another reason of skepticism was it did not list Chicken but Chicken Meal as its first ingredient. I had spent top dollar on the Grain-Free foods for years or the higher priced foods with chicken and rice included. I never could clear up Heidi's skin allergies until I tried this food. Plus Stella had lost close to 20 pounds that same year.

It was good to see all of the activity Stella was doing this morning. I take it as a sign that the yelping in pain Saturday night was just for something that happened short term like a twist or tweak of her back, maybe her hips. I still keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary for Heidi and Stella.

It doesn't look like a day of 68°-70° today does it?

In 2008 I had two other Sycamore trees just as tall as this one ... only one large trunk for each tree and located down along the side of the driveway bank. In June 2008 I had straight line winds from the southwest but some way turned due north right at the bank. It pulled two of those 100'+ Sycamore trees out of the ground like weeds and laid them across my front yard parallel to the house.

That is one reason you saw my tv satellite dish mounted to the side of the house in a photo of Heidi the other day. The winds demolished the Directv dish they had mounted on a pole in the front yard. The tree is due south of the house. I have a quote to trim the trees but the only problem is some of those tree trunks are on my neighbor's property. Actually the property line between our yards is a right away from an old railroad company that had tracks at the bottom of that driveway bank.

Stella tried to test me toward the end of the walk this morning by gradually walking out to the center of the field. That is okay because she likes to end her walks by walking past the pole on the north side of the yard. When I was watching her today, she was going to the center of the field but also was gradually turning to head to the neighbors yard or the woods behind their house. She turned back toward the house when I yelled 'No' ... just a little test I guess to see if I was paying attention.

These photos of Heidi show a sad basset hound as we return from the walk. They couldn't be farther from the truth. She was wagging her tail nonstop and then started barking as we got closer. She was happy to see us, and happier to get back inside.

For a few seconds it looked like Heidi and Stella were going to play with one another in the yard but they only tapped noses. Stella was just starting her run toward Heidi.

Right after that nose tap Heidi turned and sprinted to the door.

It's really hard to believe it will be November this Thursday in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Windy And Cold For The Hounds

Heidi decided soon after lunch that the temperature might be a lot higher but with that 20mph wind blowing freezing cold air ... it was just as cold as yesterday. Her stay outside was no more than 10 minutes if that. Her and I dream of those 80° days of summer.

Not many words today, so I'll post some photos from this afternoons walk ... plus a couple from last night. Stella wanted more room on the couch to sleep and following the Bloodhound Laws, she figure this was the best way to get Heidi to move. Once she found out that Heidi was not going to wake up to move, she had no other choice but to share the couch.

Maybe tomorrow will be warmer in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Heide Checks The Weather

The needle on the old thermometer may have been close to 40° but it didn't feel anything like that. Windchill was in the low 30's. Still, right after lunch Heidi thought she would give me her first pose with the new iPhone camera. She doesn't pose like this too often but she seemed happy doing it ... or maybe she was just cold?

While doing some laundry and cooking tonight's dinner, I continued to read more and play again about the new iPhone 8 Plus. This phone probably does more than I will ever get around to trying or using. I cannot say at this time I am happy with the photos that I zoomed at 10x but that might have to do more with my shaking hands than the camera itself.

Yes, it looks unstable as hell, about to fall over, but it doesn't move an inch in either direction. Years ago I had it straight as an arrow, planted in some solid concrete and ir would have lasted for decades. The the Indiana State Hwy Dept decided the highway needed to be dug out and new asphalt applied with new shoulders at every mailbox for mail carriers to use when delivering mail.

That meant they dug up my mail box and moved it to the current location, no concrete was used. Consequently after 10 years or so, I have a leaning mailbox. That is probably caused by the soil sinking, just to the right of it.

My idea of picking up sticks while the hounds were outside after lunch lasted all but 5 minutes. It was too cold with the wind blowing and I lost interest fast. Heidi lost hers to stay outside and beat me back to the door. She has been asleep under her blankets every sense.

After the laundry was put in the dryer and the stove looked like it wouldn't burn the house down while cooking dinner, we thought we'd give this new toy another chance on our afternoon walk. Sadie is always ready for a walk while Stella quietly agreed.

I've mentioned before that for the past 9 years and a  few months, Sadie hops up and down on two occasions every day of the year and year after year. Those two events are being fed kibble and going for walks. This is the best I can do catching her in that hopping up and down action.

It might look warm in that picture with the sunshine out but it's nowhere close to jacket weather nor t-shirt weather.

The phone does not have 'macro' capability but I wanted to see what it would do if I held it pretty close to the target of the photo.

Again, I did not do any editing to color, sharpness, definition etc ... but I did crop some of the photos.

I am down to one problem that might not have a solution yet. After the phone was all set up and fully operational, my Garmin VivoSmart 3 would not connect. That meant not only would it not download my activity, sleep hours and heart rate throughout the day to the phone but also to the other devices I have with that app.

I went to Apple Support and read. I went to Garmin Support and read about that model of watch and it seems connecting by bluetooth became a bigger problem than normal, after Apple did their iOS 11 update. I was one of the lucky ones when I was able to connect it to my 6s after that update. Garmin says they are working on a fix.

I forgot to mention this morning some of the other benefits I've seen in the short time of using this phone. My signal strength went from 3-4 bars to a solid 5 bars all the time with the same Verizon service. I had a call last night from a friend that was doing her walking for exercise while talking to me through her phone's mic ... the call was so strong and clear you would have thought she was in the same room ... much different that past calls.

I mentioned the A11 chip makes everything lightning fast and most of the time close to instantaneous. The battery life is so much better than the 6s I had. I've had it on since early this morning, have taken a lot of photos, surfed the internet, answered emails and I have used only 7% of the battery at 5:00pm.

My journal project is progressing okay. I am in the stage now of scanning old photos that I took during that trip and will upload them into my Pages document once the scanning is complete. I still like the idea of using a page on this blog because I like the formats of blogs more than I do documents. I am probably missing something in all the design options I would have keeping it in Apple Pages.

I thought the position of the clouds were interesting in this picture.  Once again, any blurriness is from my hands moving, not the camera.

It was about this spot right here that Sadie would do what Stella does ... ignore my calling of her name.

So I continued my walk home when she finally realized I was serious and wasn't going to stop. No zooming here, just trying to keep her in the center of the photos.

That gave her a workout for the day and to keep her in shape this winter.

Stella saws us walking past her so she caught up with Sadie and escorted me back to the house. On a day like today they both wanted to make sure I was around to let them back inside a warm house.

Another successful walk for the afternoon, the 2nd of the day and probably the last one due to me being a whiner when it comes to freezing weather. Cold weather makes me want to drink coffee in the late afternoon so I may pay tonight for the 12 oz of coffee I had this afternoon.

I guess if I can post one selfie I can do another. This was the very first picture I took with the new phone. I had just pulled into the parking space at Mother Bear's Pizza. I was honestly shocked at the quality of this photo and how real it looked.

On to more reading, researching plus scanning photos for the journal ... and a few games of Mahjong fit in between while I am on break.

How soon will the snow start flying here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana?