Hounds Are Happy It's Friday

First of all thank you to all the readers that are veterans of the US military. They make or have made a lot of sacrifices to fill those positions.

Well it's been quite a week to say the least. I am happy to be back to just looking at news headlines and not reading their articles while I move my focus back to sports, hounds, blogs, and a little house maintenance to prepare for winter.

I am sitting here wondering just how long can a blog post be, with it not being too long. I wrote a post yesterday afternoon with about 15 pictures, saved it with plans to add to it and then post it around 6:30pm. But the afternoon changed and I forgot about the post until this morning.

This morning started out as always. Yet it was about 10° warmer this morning but that didn't mean the hounds stayed outside any longer. They know how important coffee is to my start of the day so they didn't stay outside very long.

Once I saw the temps rise above 50°, we headed out for a walk. They didn't wait on me either ... they were off as soon as their feet touched the field.

They had already dictated they were going on their own pace and I was fine with that. I was enjoying the clear skies without a cloud anywhere, no humidity of coarse and the temperature felt about right.

With Stella staying pretty far behind Sadie and I ... it was quite a surprise to see her running to catch up with us. I'm not sure what her reasons were but she sprinted fast enough that my camera could not keep up to catch all of her sprinting.

Sadie took another look in back to see if Stella was coming or not. As soon as she saw that Stella had stopped again, Stella took off for the right corner of the field.

Then again ... Stella came running to catch up with us. I'm glad that every day is different with her.

During our afternoon walk yesterday I caught this.

Earlier while at the computer on Thursday morning, I heard the warning beeping sound of a truck backing up. I went out to the large window to see what it might be. Due to yesterday's fog I could barely see a State Patrol car blocking highway traffic but could not see what was backing up due to the thick fog.

It looks like this might have been some of the equipment on the move. It would have been too long to make a left 90° turn but with the dirt road going the opposite direction to the old bridge across the highway, something that long can make some 3-5 point turns to back in that road to make the left hand turn.

This is an AT&T tower that has been there for around 15 years and it will be interesting to see if they are going higher or just adding more equipment to the tower. It's strange that I my house is that close to a tower but when I had AT&T a couple of years ago I could only get 3 bars max for signal strength. Even a couple of weeks ago I was told by AT&T they could not offer any wireless internet in my package.

This is what I saw this morning so there wasn't much change. Maybe it is waiting for the next phase of either repair or installation of new equipment.

Once I mentioned getting some 'food' to the hounds when we got home, they both were pretty motivated to get home.

Yet, there were enough places to stop and identify before moving on.

I'll implement some of the post I wrote yesterday afternoon and take a chance that I have not make this blog too long. At least for those readers that just scroll through to look at the pictures (nothing wrong with that), they will have more to look at.

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Heidi made a rare appearance outside to walk around instead of just long enough to pee. Her skin is actually getting better with the places where she has bare skin or little hair, is becoming softer. More hair is trying to grow back on all of her legs and paws. It's been a while since that has happened.

She will be getting a bath today (Friday) and her nails cut.

Lunch had been served with the normal routine of going outside right after being fed. Something that was done when house training Sadie when she was a puppy. Heidi and Stella were brought home when they were older dogs, so I am not sure if that was their routine when they were puppies.

I was going to let the bloodhounds wander the field and keep an eye on them but I saw 'the stare' ... the one that Sadie gives me when it's time or she wants to go for a walk ... which is all the time.

Once she saw me walking toward the field with my camera in hand she came running to escort me on the start of the walk as she always does. She will actually try to grab my left hand with her mouth as she is hopping up and down in excitement.

I tried to keep the walk moving and Stella came with a little coaxing. I am sure if I had not said anything Stella would have stayed back for most of the walk.

Around that first turn and we were headed to the right corner of the field.

Today I decided I'd join them in the area of that right corner where there are a lot of signs of deer activity. While the hounds stayed and did what they normally do, adding protein of some kind to their diet, I walked toward the gully.

You can see the tall brush that has been mashed. I know nothing about deer so I am just assuming they might spend time here sleeping, not sure.

I have taken pictures before trying to show just how steep and deep this gully is but I'm not succeeding to many times.

On the way back, Stella gave me a look that she had seen the neighbor. He was out on his riding mower sweeping up leaves in his yard. Their clothes were out drying in the sunshine so I thought she might take off again since she seems attracted to their clothes line.

Thursday afternoon turned out great with temps getting up near 60°.

College basketball starts officially tonight with regular games on tv instead of the exhibition games. Football of coarse continues through the first few weeks of January for colleges. I think I have my own little NFL boycott going on as I have been watching it a LOT less than I have in past years.

Another great Friday so far here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

The Hounds Prefer Public Blogging

After some discussion with the hounds, some thinking, analysis and adding some home security features ... the hounds decided they wanted to come back to public blogging.

It seemed like a good day to make the change since it's a Friday and starting a holiday weekend for those that celebrate Daylight Savings Time which also makes a change sometime around 2am Saturday night. I use to love that "fall back" when I was working but now it only affects the hound's eating schedules.

Stella has been starting her days off this week with some yoga while facing the west. I know she is in deep thought when her ears are laid back like that.

While Stella meditated, Sadie decided it looked like and felt like it was too cold and wet to be walking anywhere in the field and was more than happy to head back into the house, for me to drink coffee while they get a short nap in.

This past week had a couple of days of 10mph winds from the SSW. That was just strong enough to blow the leaves off the trees and out of the yard ... at least most of them. A little rain one night that week also helped clearing the trees. We are almost to the point for the last leaf roundup of 2016.

Stella has continued her habit of lagging behind on our walks. Usually by the third walk of the day I will carry the retractable leash with me in case she gets into a mode of totally ignoring me.

I could tell as soon as they made the first turn that the scents were strong and it might come to a point where I would have to make the trek north to bring them back out of the 'no fly zone'. Yet, it's Friday so why not let them do as they want and go as far as they want, just as long they don't head towards the houses which are near the highway.

This is when it became interesting as they both lock into something of interest and take off to the left, faster than I wanted to follow.

At this point in time I was pretty sure they were headed over the slight incline and were off to the races, following whatever scent they had picked up. I did not see any deer on the horizon but the noses of the hounds were certainly active this morning.

Sadie head over to touch noses with Stella signaling to her they need to get back. Soon after they both started running toward me. During this time I had not said a word, just kept walking along our path.

I've been pretty happy with the weight that Sadie has lost this summer. It's never good to have a bloodhound overweight. I'm sure the 2-3 walks per day help her.

Stella is a year younger than Sadie and has possibly gained a couple of pounds since she arrived in August 2015, but is still showing a trim waistline and is in the correct weight range.

From the 'far north' to the 'far right', they ran to their favorite place. They have both figured out the deer path that leads down into the gully. That gully is definitely off limits to them.

This picture will look about the same in a couple of months but it will be only 40+° colder and possibly white from a snow fall. I'd like for it to stay like it is ... high 60's, and sunny.

Just because we are on the last turn toward home doesn't mean that Stella stops with her purging of the field.

I slide the lens to 18mm to show just how far away she was from us. I turned to walk home without calling her to see what she would do.

When Sadie stood looking at Stella I knew things were turning bad. Stella was headed to the woods behind the neighbors house and that is outside the boundary for her. As I backtracked calling her name ... she eventually came running toward me. It wasn't that easy though, she didn't want to change direction.

The new 2007 FJ is doing great the few times I've driven it. I still haven't found the attachment to it that I had with the blue one. I guess I may have liked that 'radical' look better than the 'stock' look. Everyone likes the color of the new one.

There was still something bugging me about it, to the point I finally duplicated a side view picture of it, then blacked out the white lettering on the wheels so I could get a comparison with my vehicle instead of what I was seeing of others in Google Images.

I liked the black tires better than showing the white letters on the outside. I've never been a fan of white letters on the outside. I always try to buy all black sidewalls when I buy tires but in this case these tires were on the car when I made the trade.

So Tuesday morning I drove to the local tire store to have them flipped. It was good to hear the store manager's high recommendation for the Yokohama tires I had on the FJ. He considered them being a better tire than the Bridgestone Dueler AT that I had on my other one.

So I left Tuesday morning looking like this and returned home looking like the 2nd picture.

I like the look better. It does look like it sits lower than my blue one because the running board sits lower than the rock rails I had on the other. Overall I am happy I made the trade, it was a good decision.

My vegan diet continues. The urges for fast food runs, candy or ice cream are practically non-existent anymore. I had to buy jeans two inches smaller and will be replacing my current cargo shorts because they are falling off of me. The fat calipers showed on the 1st of November that just in the past 30 days I had lost 4mm of fat from my side, a few inches around my stomach and my weight staying the same.

I am thinking of adding yogurt and fish when I shop next time. I have also had some noticeable changes with that diet change on September 7 ... no sinus issues, no coughing, no indigestion waking me up in the middle of the night.

Where's Heidi you may ask?  Sleeping, hiding out, staying inside most of the time. She did come out a few days this week to explore the yard while the bloodhounds and I took our walk. She has ZERO interest in walking in the field. She had a bath yesterday with Burt's Bees for Dogs shampoo. I've started wiping her legs and stomach with a cloth full of water/vinegar now 3-4 times per day instead of just on occasion to see if that makes a difference in her continuing skin condition.

She does wag her tail a lot but like in the next picture, the camera rarely if ever picks up that motion of her moving tail. She was wagging her tail standing there as we returned from our walk yesterday.

Nothing else planned out of the ordinary. Once the final leaves fall from the Sycamore trees and dry out, I'll rake and burn them for the final time. No Leave Left Behind program will be complete for 2016.

I almost forgot to add that those that received the private blog by email will continue to get this blog in that email. I am not going to add the RSS feed back to the blog but I have added the email subscription block to the blog. It will probably take Blogger a few hours before it updates this post on those blog's that have me on their sidebar. To those that couldn't read the blog this past week, changing my settings was something I had to do until some changes were made here due to my 'surprise' visit from a blog reader.

It's still nice weather here in the tropics of southern Indiana.