Bitter Cold

The sun was bright and early this morning. Just glancing out the windows I could tell how cold it was without even checking the weather apps.

A change of routine this morning since I went back to sleep after feeding the hounds their breakfast kibble around 7am. Once I was up officially, I started coffee but we took our first walk of the day before I had consumed even a drop.

Although I was dressed appropriately for the coldest weather, it was still a shock to the system as the frozen snow crunched under my boots with each step. It tried it's hardest to snow yesterday and last night but by this morning there wasn't much left.

Both hounds were off to a fast start.

Once again they both ended up going back to the same spot they have gone to for the past 7-10 days. I just kept walking the path and glancing back at Stella just in case she would take off on a wild chase somewhere.

Sadie came sprinting back to me as I headed down the back edge of the field. I don't know if she is checking on me or letting me know that she has things under control, namely Sadie.

While Sadie stared at Stella, it was getting a lot colder than when we started with the last half of the walk to go. When I left it was a bitter 22°, little wind and the sun did not make a difference when it came to warming things up.

I decided to take a picture from a different angle than I do most of the time of this farm.

I had not gone too far down the path when Sadie decided it was time to gather up Stella and head home. She must have been getting cold, because she ran most of the way home, finishing with a sprint all the way to the house outside of camera range.

I am not sure what the message is but whenever Sadie runs over and touches noses with Stella, she will always start moving toward me. Stella that is.

With my auto focus setting, it would not lock onto the planes I was seeing but at one time I counted five different planes within view as long as I turned a full 360°. I caught a couple of them crossing each other at different altitudes.

Sadie is running full speed toward the house.

I looked to the right to try to find what had Stella's interest. I saw nothing and no one. When I told her 'lets go' she followed me along the path. In the mean time I spotted two more aircraft south of me.

The hounds were happy to get back inside a warm house. The hot coffee even tasted better than usual and Heidi was buried all the way under the sleeping bag sunshine and all.

By mid-afternoon Sadie had bothered me enough to go out for another walk. The skies were still blue and the temps were a good 10+° warmer. I couldn't tell because I was still freezing.

This walk started off bad right from the start as Stella not only stayed back but went into a part of the woods she had not ventured into before. Even Sadie was curious on what Stella was doing.

I kept walking.

By the time I rounded the corner, I had barely taken this picture, as I glanced up Stella was sprinting across the field toward the woods. I turned off the camera, rolled the zoom lens back to normal position, grabbed the standard 6' leash out of my pocket and took off running for the woods.

About the time I got within a couple of steps near Stella, she started trotting toward me. I hooked her up to the leash and all three of us walked the shortest distance to the house not anywhere near our normal path.

By the time we got inside I decided it was a great time to head to the library. I got online, checked availability for some books I was interested and had just written down the past 24 hours. All three of the books I wanted were available plus I grabbed a couple of new movies off their shelf.

The rest of the day was movie watching and book reading. I fit some lunch in with steamed broccoli and baked chicken breasts. Why do bloodhounds think that everything I fix to eat is for them. They only get kibble but still feel that my food is their food.

I've been using Firefox as my browser the past few days. I like a lot of things about it compared to Google Chrome but the two things that irritate me always send me back to Chrome once I get tired of the two issues.

One of those issues is Firefox does not play well when I want my screen larger than 100%. Yes, I have tried all of the settings, a new app just to do that and plenty of reading on 'how to' on Google search ... but for example on this blog ... when I write in the area Blogger gives me, I cannot expand the size of it and my fonts just for typing purposes. Google Chrome makes that adjustment without any problems.

Also since I am semi-complaining about computer stuff, every since Apple's latest OS update last week, my computer has been shutting off and restarting while I am away. I shut it off at night but leave it in the 'sleep mode' during the day if I am not at my desk.

Well I'm headed back to my books and one last movie. Temps will be in the high 40's again in a couple of days, so everything is good.

Still plenty of time for a big dump of snow here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana ... last year February had a pretty good amount of snow.

Winter Is Back

After a couple of days in the high 50's, winter returned this morning to the low 20's. That temperature decent started yesterday afternoon and every time we went outside for a short break there was a 2-3 degree decrease.

With those higher temps came rainy weather. I was in somewhat of a predicament. After taking the Z4 out for a drive on dry roads the other day I did not put the car cover back on. With the rain on Monday and then a misty morning early Tuesday, the Z4 had light condensation on it, including the covertible top. I couldn't put the car cover back on with the car being wet.

The weather looked like rain about an hour away on Tuesday morning and by this morning those temps would be below freezing, in the low 20's. So if I did nothing I might have a car with frozen condensation or frozen mist covering the Z4 for the next week.

It was a good chance for the hounds to get out on their own and roam the field, while I took a chamois and dried off the Z4. It worked out and the car looked as if I had washed the car. After putting the cover on I decided to go ahead and wipe down the 'Countryman' although I don't expect to keep that car as clean on the outside due to it being my all-weather car and the black color.

It wasn't quite misting yesterday so the hounds and I did a test to see if the field was going to be too wet to walk. It had rained a lot the previous night and all through the night. I think Stella's facial expression tells that answer. We called the day off, while they slept, I read the books I got at the library.

This morning was a different story though. The ground had already frozen rock hard and Sadie was ready to go for her walk as soon as she went outside after her breakfast kibble. We know that is too soon because I have not had any coffee by that time. Plus today at 18°, we needed to wait a few hours for some warmth to hit our atmosphere.

It was still too cold at 10:42am, but Sadie was not going to let me forget what she wanted. It might just be me, but recently she seems to have become more demanding and wanting to walk much earlier.

A little after 11am we decided to take off. Sadie was thrilled and was hopping around doing 360° turns, too close for a picture ... while Stella took off for the field.

When Sadie turned and sprinted to catch up I could tell that both were high energy, which is usually common after they are shut up in the house for only a day.

I was only able to catch up with them on the way back. Only because they stopped to wait for me to catch up ... otherwise they were way out in front of me for most of the walk today. No calls for them to come on, they were on their own 'autopilot'.

About the time I walked to this point, the breeze from the NE picked up and I could feel the freezing wind. The prediction for snow tomorrow might happen. Although there is around an inch predicted that usually means half of that here in 'the tropics'.

Stella wasn't staying long in any spot today, so the scents must have been strong this morning. Even Sadie was finding it hard to keep up with Stella's pace.

Based on what I had seen so far, I thought it might be a possibility that once they hit the back edge of the field that they would take off non-stop into their 'no-fly zone'.

Stella locked into a scent and tracked it all they way down the property line.

After seeing that I was pretty sure they had found deer scents and would not stop until I yelled at them.

At about this point, I yelled "hey" ... that seems to be the new keyword that they pay attention to. They stopped immediately, both looked at me and then trotted my direction as I made the turn for home. It was colder than I could remember anytime this winter.

They flew by me sprinting, just like they started the walk ... but then stopped and waited for me to catch up.

After I moved further ahead of them, it turned out to be the perfect distance for these two pictures.

They didn't stop though ... not even at the corner ... they just kept on running, maybe they actually felt cold.

I picked up a couple of new books at the library yesterday and put one 'on hold', meaning it wasn't available at my local library but had 22 copies within the state library system. It will arrive at my library in 2-3 days. I am back in the reading mode with the holidays over, less college football and temperatures outside that are not to my liking.

I was curious enough to go back in my private blogs to read and find out what set off my urge to trade the last FJ. In fact I even went back to those few days in October when I decided to look for a replacement for the blue FJ and the reasons why. All of that information confirmed I made the right decision, I had forgot some of the reasons why.

Once I stopped scanning pictures that one Sunday a week or so ago, I guess I stopped completely. I haven't looked at the pictures since then, although they are sitting near the scanner and my keyboard. Since I have no plans for today or tonight except for a book that I can't seem to put down, I might scan a few pictures later today and come up with a new blog post about a past hound in the next few days.

I have several Arizona towns listed in my iPhone weather app where on one screen I can compare their temps/weather to mine. It's surprising to see just how cold it gets in the desert. Also it's not really hot anywhere that I can see but warmer than here.

I've gone way past the time for feeding the afternoon kibble. Sadie's face is about 2" from my right elbow as I type this and Stella is 3' away howling while Heidi has woken up and is outside the entry to this room barking.

Time to feed the hounds.

Freezing temps and sunshine here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Books And Laziness

One thing good about this old 40 year old house ... it's well insulated. As the temps dropped into single digits last night and the heat turned down or even off in some rooms, the house never got below 60°.  As I stepped outside with the hounds this morning I could tell by the sound of the snow below my boots that it was going to be too cold to do much outside anytime today.

It was the normal routine in the morning. The hounds went out for a very short time. In fact Stella started a slight limp from walking in the frozen snow. She was more than happy to get back inside. I can't say the hounds did much more than the photo shows ... a day of bone chewing.

Around 11:30 I got my email notice from the local library that a book I had requested was available.  My old college friend suggested it last week, called Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen. In the meantime I picked up a book off their "New Arrivals" shelf, called Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas. I started reading Concussion first and haven't been able to put it down today. Setting up an account at the local library a few months ago was one of the best things I've done this year.

Early Morning

Checking to see if we are going for a walk today

Stella slightly limping from the frozen snow

A late afternoon check on the weather outside

I'm not sure what it was, either being inside from the freezing temps outside, the book reading or the small lunch I had  ... but by 1:30pm I was almost in a comatose state that as screaming 'nap' at me ... I'm always up for a siesta so I tried that for a while. It was one of the most successful things I got accomplished today. I even took a 2nd one after about 2 hours of reading.

I am afraid that if the blog has become boring to me recently, it must be that for you also. If so, I apologize for that. Although the post about my friends 1970 MCI Bus brought a lot of interest. Some interested readers have contacted Dennis. IF....IF you do not get a reply to your emails, let me know and I will call him.

On of my readers can read my blog but is having email issues ... strange ones at that. Maybe I can find an answer for her in my Area 51 book. This is to let her know that I have been sending emails since last Thursday and in fact tried two today as a test ... one from my Yahoo account (Flickr), thinking Gmail was the problem.

I'm heading back to reading for the night here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. The hounds? They are sleeping again.