Cool Temps - New Blogs - Some Fetch

With house rules stating that after April 1st, clothing will be t-shirts and cargo shorts, it's days like today where there is a temporary bending of that rule and a sweatshirt is allowed to be worn. Why? 52° at 2pm is why. How the weather experts said it would be mid 60's today, makes me wonder if I should come out of retirement for part-time work.

I'll get to the new blogs I found today, and other stuff I did today but first a short story on how my two bloodhounds are different. They look the same in color but that is about the only thing they share in common ... except sleep and eating.

Some of those differences are ... Stella will not fetch a bone, Sadie loves it. Stella can and will open doors to go outside, Sadie will wait for me to open the door for her. I found out just today that Sadie will not touch a banana but Stella will gobble it down as fast as possible the first time I turned my head and wasn't looking. Stella will howl for food while Sadie will give you "the stare" for me to feed her. They are great friends though.

When I realized it was still too wet for a walk in the fields, I just wasn't in the mood to have soaked shoes and cool temps combined ... it was time to play fetch with Sadie. As you can tell she was really excited (joke) as she saw me walking out with my camera and her bright orange bone.

She started off well but just like me she has a very very short attention span. It wasn't more than a two or three runs that she went into her pose that tells me "come and get it" ...I held out until she brought it back to me.

Whoever thought a bloodhound would love to play fetch? She has since she was a puppy in 2008.

This is the pose I was telling you about. Yes, you have seen it before, it very similar to the pose she has when she is demanding a walk in the field.

I held out though and then when she laid the bone at my feet, I threw it the opposite direction. As you can see, Stella doesn't like playing fetch, unless it's a frisbee.

The last toss to the left proved to be the last of the day. She lost her attention, found a different smell, focused on that and headed for the house ... without the bone.

Stella was still hot and heavy on a scent she had picked up underground. Maybe a yard mole track since they don't operate I'm told until 7pm or 7am. Luckily Stella is not into digging holes or craters trying to capture moles.

It was late this morning as I was finishing all my online reading and a cup of coffee. I was about to log off the computer and get up when a blog on someone's blog sidebar caught my glance ... "Encinitas" was the title. I had to click it since that was my old neighborhood from 1977 to 1984. Before I could even finish reading the first post, click here, I decided to start reading their blog from the beginning.

It wasn't soon after I started that with more coffee that I saw they had visited and stayed in other areas I had lived over the last 40 years. Those being the Pacific Northwest and around the area of Dillon Lake, Breckenridge Colorado. Needless to say the mind was flooded with old memories as I read and looked at their photos.

It's a great blog to take a look at. It has an interesting story along with great photos, plus a few places that you don't see on other travel blogs. The blog has been added to my sidebar and it's name is Trekking With The Bs.

Of course that blog had one listed on it's sidebar that looked interesting. After opening it up I had seen it years ago and through all of my blog changes I had lost their link. Today I saw they had 24 posts on the topic "Indiana". She had taken some photos of buildings that I have seen multiple times and a few places I'd been to before I started blogging in 2011. Like one does sometimes when it's local ... you take places or buildings for granted when others see the beauty in them. I need to get out more without the hounds.

When the weather is not optimum sometimes it means more time for book reading, online reading or doing stuff on the computer with spreadsheets or changing the blog design. I am still not finished with my template design although I have decided again that the current fonts, the crimson and white color combination is what I like. I would like some separation between the posting area and the sidebars.

I don't have the programming knowledge in how to draw a thin single vertical line between the sidebars and posting area. I assume I could do that in Blogger under their css section of the template adjustments. I see other templates that has each of those in their individual section. I'll am going to take a look at those templates, replace it with my fonts and colors and see if I can some up with something that works.

So I've played around this afternoon with that. It's still a work in progress.

Heidi really has me stumped today. Just a few days ago I thought I was seeing progress in her terrible skin issue. Then it exploded a few nights ago. Nothing had changed in her diet, bedding or activity ... it just went nuts with redness and chewed hot spots.

This morning her skin was so bad that as soon as I started to pet her, she rolled over on her back so I could see how bad her skin looked on her stomach, legs, paws and armpits. She had a bath a couple of days ago so shampoo might be the cause although it has been used before with great results. I think today it will be a 20 minute soak with Epsom Salts, a cold water rinse and a night off from the ointment to see what tomorrow brings.

Thanks to the people that commented or emailed me their thoughts on my blog changes. The feedback helps in what needs to be done.

It's football weather in May, here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

Took A Mid-Day Drive

While we waited for the grounds to dry out enough for a walk, I had the urge to take some photos of the local area. So we piled into the FJ. The hounds took their usual seats with a destination a few miles west where the land goes from hilly to nice and flat.

Even Heidi was ready for a little drive. She wagged her tail and trotted to the door when I asked if she wanted to go for a ride. That is rare for her. Sadie and Stella are a different story ... they want to go all the time. They never hesitate to jump in when the back door is open.

A little blurry on this next photo, but I was holding the camera up while driving, shooting blind and not knowing if I was even getting Heidi in the photo. I couldn't pass posting it even with the blurriness. She doesn't pose like that in the car often.

I think you can tell a difference right away from our drive in the middle of April. The farms are larger and the land is flatter. All of this is just a few miles west of us. With all the recent rain it was too wet to see anyone working their fields today. There was standing water in a lot of the fields we saw.

I was hoping those were snow capped mountains I was seeing behind those out buildings ... but they were just clouds, telling me I was still in the Midwest.

Like the movie Hoosiers ... yes, a lot of barns have basketball GOALS not RINGS (Ted Cruz) nearby. The local small school in this area is a combination of three different schools and has had numerous basketball players play for Indiana, Purdue and Butler at the D-1 level.

I was pretty sure where this road would end up, it was nice to get off the highway.

I like the design of this house, with the added brick for the porch foundation and the bottom of each post ... the decision was whether to crop out the dumpster but I wanted to keep as much of the house as possible.

Throughout the drive we saw a lot of these natural gas stations.

At least this line of train cars were parked but I have been stuck in traffic at the railroad crossing for this train that seemed to have gone on for miles.

With all the recent rain plus some this afternoon after these photos, their sprinkler system will not be used for a while.

Maybe next time I'll turn in and get some close up shots of airplanes at our local airport. Yes, I'm serious ... it's an airport.

Surprising but about this time I was shocked to hear both of my bloodhounds were whining. We were not even close to Dairy Queen nor any kind of bbq smells. I took that as they were wanting to cut the trip off short and head home.

So we did.

Heidi Joins Us On The Walk

The day was really nice besides the weather. That was fantastic and still is the sunshine has not dropped behind the fields and trees yet. I'll get to the local drive photos but I wanted to talk about Heidi joining our daily walk today for the first time since October 7th, 2015.

This is her last October on that same day. ... skin looking the same.

Sorry that I don't have any photos of today's walk .. I used a retractable leash for her for only one reason. It was the only way I could get her off the couch and no longer not wanting to go.

NO force was used.

In fact as I slipped her collar on, and connected the leash right there where she was sitting on the couch, she stood up, wagged her tail, jumped off and trotted to the door like she wanted to go.

She made it the whole walk ... we went at her speed. Sadie and Stella did their own thing but then Sadie would come back at different times and touch noses .. where Heidi would take off trotting. The time walking, her tail was up and curled like a hound on a scent ... instead of lowered like many of her photos show.

So there is a new plan that hopefully get her back to her old self ... doing what I she use to like to do. She showed no signs of discomfort nor any weakness while walking.

Earlier this afternoon when I asked if she wanted to go in the car .. she walked over to the drivers door for me to lift her inside, while the bloodhounds stood in the back waiting for me to open 'their' door.

We took off on a road I have always wanted to take just to see what was out there. I use to see cars coming out or turning off the highway to take this road as I went to and from work. We stayed on paved roads all afternoon, when there were plenty of gravel roads branching off this road to take.

Al over at TheBayfieldBunch has motivated me to the point of taking these local trips. He doesn't know that. My photos are not as good as his, but it was really my first time where the plan was to take all the photos on the move. I followed his process by taking the 18-55mm, setting it at 18mm and shooting out the windows while driving.

Excuse the dirty windshield.

We covered about a 45 mile loop. We started in land of small hills, some steep hills, to land that was extremely flat and where the farms were bigger. I came back with 126 photos. Many were bad ones but I grabbed a few good ones. I think with more practice, the photos will improve.

(I just pulled off a tick crawling on me from our early evening walk. That is tick #17 for me since March 15.)

In the immediate vicinity of my house the majority of farms are small, old and fields are where ever you can fit a tractor, planter and combine, no matter how hilly the land might be.

Heidi spends most of the drive in the sitting position with just enough room to see out the window. She is collecting a lot of different scents.

All of these photos were taken while driving .. like Al, just holding the camera up in the general direction and editing the photos later, while keeping my eyes on the road. There is not one photo where I stopped and stood outside to take the photo.

This is the same power line that the hounds and I walk under but probably around 15 miles away from our house.

If you notice we have gone from hills to flat land. Of course the fields are bigger and those power lines keep going the further we drive.

This field will be corn or soybeans by this summer.

I did not notice the owner of this property mowing his yard until I was editing the photo. It took a lot of chopping to delete my side mirror, window frame ... I wonder what he thought of a weird looking foreign SUV, driving by with a camera pointed in his direction. They only drive Fords and Chevy's out here.

Heidi still enjoying the drive.

I wanted to get more photos of this property. This was the last one in a long line of 20 or more tractors and pieces of farm equipment, this age. I would have stopped but the family was having a large mid-day picnic with a great fire going, enjoying the outdoors on a 76° Saturday.

This land goes for a long way to the left. It is nothing but fenced in grass for cows to graze before being loaded and shipped to market. It was like a temporary holding area before the semi's would show up at night and take them away. I'd see a field full of cows when I came home from work and by the next morning, they were gone. There use to be a really nice tiny home to the left of the barn. The property is for sale thus less cows and a barn empty of large rolls of hay.

The hounds were happy with their trip and happy to get home, as always. All three of them like riding and Heidi did not look like she was car sick today. She looked out the window the whole way, enjoying the drive.

I read after we returned from the drive about dogs that are depressed. That article gave me the idea to "help" Heidi to do the things she use to enjoy ... thus, sliding the collar on her, attaching the leash and taking her on our walk. She may not have wanted to when I asked her but by the time she walked out the door heading to the field on her own ... I could tell she wanted to go on the walk ... for the 1st time since last fall on October 7th.

A fine day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

I Finally Get Out Of The House

That title means I actually got in the FJ, took a drive, took some photos and visited a place I've never really explored after living here for 18 years. I've been getting out of the house with the hounds but only in the yard and taking the daily walk. I even took days to buy some groceries ... but lately nothing more than that. A rut? Maybe ... maybe not.

It was a great day to take a drive. As you can see the leaves are not turning bright like they normally do. As I drove around the countryside there was still a lot of corn to be harvested, yet some farmers had already harvested their beans, corn and had disc'd their fields to be ready for next spring planting.

The hounds started out the day with their normal routine of a little yard and field snooping first thing in the morning. Right about the time I finish my first cup of coffee, Sadie is always by my desk giving me the look to go outside ... then she and Stella play most of the time. Winston will search and Heidi only comes out if the temps are 70°.

Since the temps were in the high 50's by the time we got outside, Heidi stayed in bed sleeping, not waking up until she heard the dog food being poured out into the stainless steel bowls sometime after 1pm.

Winston started out refereeing the wrestling between Sadie and Stella but became bored and headed out on his own little trip.

I decided somewhere during that first cup of coffee that I was going to drive to one of the local small rural towns just to take a drive. The leaves do not have any color anywhere this year so I didn't get any photos besides holding the camera on top of the steering wheel while driving.

Before I headed north out of town I stopped somewhere I had been inside just a couple of times in the 18 years I've lived here. I was never there long, once to fax and once to check their computers. Today I wanted to explore inside, see what they had and sign up for a library card.

I got more than I bargained for. This small town library was connected to a large statewide network where any book I am interested in, I can check out, have transferred to my local library or just download it into my iPad to read electronically. Besides that they had a huge collection of DVD's and CD to choose from.

I may have grown pretty naive about modern day libraries over the years from my lack of use, so my excitement may be over the top to some readers here. I was still surprised with all that was available. I didn't go overboard on my first trip, I checked out a new book I wanted to read and a new James Taylor CD.

Once I was home I set up an online account, set up the Overdrive app and added a lot more books to my reading list along with audio books, DVDs and CDs.

Some might be asking why I never take the hounds with me on these short trips in the FJ. They all love to ride but they all have one thing in common when riding ... within minutes all the hounds are sound a sleep. I guess I could take them, but they would only be sleeping while we drove somewhere.

When I got back we headed outside to enjoy the sunshine. Winston found a great spot, gave me a look  that said don't bother me ... then laid down in the grass and slept for about an hour, or until I went outside to call him inside before the baseball game started.

This is one of the best times to live in southern Indiana. The days are sunny and the temps are cool.

I'm not sure if Winston is losing some of his hearing due to old age but he does seem to be ignoring me more than I can remember. He has a bad habit of eating something so I have to keep an eye on him most of the time he is "roaming" with his nose to the ground. Today I caught him in one of those periods he was in the ignore mode as I was calling his name.

I really got lucky when I got Stella. I was really expecting some sort of issues, some bad habits, do something wrong .. like a typical bloodhound ... but she has been nothing short of perfect since arriving August 30, 2015.

This is about all the color I have around the house right now. Last year I had a lot of bright colored leaves along the drive ... so things are running a little late this year, but the leaves are not staying on the trees very long after they start turning colors.

I was surprised the farmer across the highway was able to harvest any beans out of his field that was underwater last May. I couldn't tell at the time in May what was planted but he was able to get a couple of truckloads of beans out of that field.

Heidi finally came outside after dark ... a couple of different times, but I think she is getting a head start on her strategy for El Nino this winter ... a lot a lot a lot of sleeping.