The Hounds Battle Hotter Weather

As the temperatures get hotter every afternoon this week, our routine didn't change much. Fewer photos were taken and there was less interesting things to write about. I continue to be on the fence on deciding a few things. So here are a few photos from the last few days that I didn't blog.

Every day after her lunch Stella likes to take a 30 minute nap in the sun. Heidi sprints back inside as soon as she relieves herself and Sadie roams the field. While Stella wanders the field during the morning walks, Sadie will get her running in as the grass gets taller and taller all over the field.

Each time Sadie finds Stella over by the neighbors house. I've been letting her do what she wants since our last post here. I have been basically lazy and haven't done anything besides two walks per day, nibble food during the day only when I feel hungry, without fixing what you would call a meal. Then every night I watch Reds baseball on tv and while the hounds sleep.

With my food supply very low it was time to find some groceries and the perfect time to get serious about what kind of food I was going to start eating. I went back to logging all my food intake on Cronometer.com It will break each food down into the micro nutrients and track your protein, fat, carbs and calories plus all the vitamins and minerals. If you click on one of those topics, it will list from the highest to the lowest food in that category. I can see now why my weight was starting to creep upward while I ate less food before this recent change.

So far I am losing a pound per day after three days. Most likely that is just water weight. I can make it from breakfast to the time I go to bed without feeling hungry. Basically no grains, no pasta, no beans, a few nuts or seeds and dairy is allowed but not much because that kills your required low carbs count.

On the Friday morning walk I didn't see Stella anywhere on the horizon and she wasn't near the edge of the woods behind the neighbor's house. So I told Sadie "go find Stella" and she took off with her head in the air as high as she could get it.

She stopped once looking in all directions, then moved left toward the last place I saw Stella. About the time I started walking that direct she turned completely around and started running toward the neighbor's backyard.

Sure enough, there was Stella right next to the woods in their yard where they throw food scraps out for the field cat. Stella was scarfing down food as fast as she could. I couldn't take any photos of that because I was trying to get to her as fast as I could. That included jumping over their small drainage ditch that goes along the edge of the yard.

Sadie headed her back in the direction of the house ... the afternoon walk I had Stella on the retractable leash to keep her near us.

Late Thursday night I logged into my two week old Instagram account and deleted it. Then I logged into my Facebook account and deleted that. All in the name of downsizing my internet footprint and spending time on this blog and my private blog whenever I feel like writing.

I still have a Twitter account which I will keep. I use it as a reader mostly for all my sports teams. I do follow James Woods, the actor, because he comes up with some great stuff to remind people just what the truth is in this time of constant manipulated information.

For some reason the Z4 has not left the carport for the past three days. I had a big workout mowing the yard on Thursday afternoon late. It was hotter than I had planned on and 52 minutes later I finished and then stood in front of a fan to cool off as fast as possible. My highest pulse rate during that time was 82% of my max and for the past week my resting pulse rate has averaged 49. I think that shows  have a healthy heart. Now to get rid of some of this gut.

When I put some gas in my FJ the other day it was the highest prices I had paid but was still not higher than prices were in 2013 based on my checkbook register entry that I do on a spreadsheet. I have done that on a spreadsheet since 1997 when Lotus 1.2.3 was the spreadsheet to use.

I did think about starting a blog where I could rant yell and scream about anything that made me mad. Plus I would talk about life in general, ask questions I wonder about at times. I even talked it over with a friend of mine that is also thinking of downsizing his blog activity and social media.

The more I thought about what he said and what I felt, I decided I did not want to have a blog like that. I want my life as simple as possible, the fewest conflicts as possible and computer time online the least amount possible. That might change next winter when it's single digits outside.

I'll be prepared this winter though. That same friend I was talking to me, mailed me a full length Carhartt Coverall that fit me perfectly since I am two inches taller than he is. Last winter at times on the walks I found out that high quality ski underwear and jeans were not enough to stay warm during that half mile walk. The Carhartts should change that drastically.

Sunday will start with the daily hound walk, then back home in front of a tv by 9am for the F1 race at Monaco. After that I will flip over to ABC to watch the Indy500 at noon with the hounds being fed and out for a pre-race pee. I will not watch all of the preliminary pre-race stuff loaded with commercials.

I am thinking of stepping out on the 'thin ice' and expanding the "Other Stuff" part of the blog title and possibly bring some life to this boring blog where no topic will be left behind.

All is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana because I LOVE hot weather.

The Hounds Start A New Week Of Warm Weather

Even though it will be in the high 50's by late afternoon that does not meat that Heidi is changing her recent routine. She is outside first thing in the morning with the bloodhounds while I pour the breakfast kibble. As soon as she eats its back to 'her' sleeping bag and she will stay there most of the morning until lunch is served around 11am, adjusted for DST. Her routine will not change much this winter.

It's hard to believe by this afternoon I'll be hand washing my car along with changing the oil filter. Yes, I found the correct tool ... not online but at O'Reilly's Auto Parts just 12 miles away and open on Sundays. I decided to do more research online for the correct tool that would remove the cap to the oil filter. The Z4 has a different type of oil filter where the filter itself slips into a permanent casing on the engine. So removing the cap on top was the tool I needed.

Many of the online auto parts stores agreed their part would fit my 2003 BMW Z4 3.0i, but they were showing the same incorrect part that I was shipped twice and was the wrong one. The diameter was too small and would not slide down over the 86mm cap. Only by a description for that part on Amazon noted it would not fit the Z4 but if you needed that part to click here. I clicked the link to find my answer.

Since Amazon also lists other sources for the product you are looking for, there was a picture for a 36mm socket that would fit over the nut on top of the cap that is built into the cap. A quick phone call to O'Reilly's, speaking to someone finally that 'knew' cars ... he confirmed not only would that part work on my car but had one on the shelf for $9.99. I drove right over and bought the part, after checking to see if it would fit in their parking lot. When I got home I let the engine cool while I watched the Colts blow another 4th quarter lead and then used the new tool to loosen the oil filter cap.

Sadie seems to be getting more demanding (by staring) as she gets older for the times she wants to go on a walk. That is a minimum of 2x per day and most of the time 3x per day. She and Stella was go outside for short roaming trips around the yard or the front of the field near the yard, in-between those walks. So this morning she is sitting in the doorway staring me down for the first walk at a little past 8am. My first cup of coffee had not been consumed yet, so the earth's rotation had not started in my world.

She waited.

The temperature was great for an early Monday morning walk. Stella let me know soon into the walk that she was on her own schedule as was Sadie. I kept walking with my camera ready for any action shots. There wasn't a lot of action this morning but it was a good walk.

I wrote about it on my other blog yesterday how Sadie and I changed our path for the afternoon walk. Stella was left behind just like this morning but I heard the neighbor mowing his yard for the last time this year. I thought that mower would entice her to check him out to see if he needed any help and I didn't want her tempted in leaving the field. So Sadie and I cut our walk off before the first turn and walked toward the corner of the woods behind the neighbor's house to wait on Stella to migrate over to us.

If she would follow her past trips while Sadie and I walked up ahead ... if we stood there a while, Stella would eventually show up by walking right to us with her nose to the ground. She didn't disappoint us and that decision worked out well. By that time the neighbor was in his part of the yard that borders the field.

This morning Sadie and I moved on. She didn't hardly raise her head today as she explored the edge of the field. She was walking a constant pace as these photos were taken.

As I walked along the back edge of the field I saw a shadow moving up behind me at a rapid rate. Sadie was sprinting by me and then put her nose back to the ground to collect more information about who, when and what had been in 'her' field while she slept.

As I looked at the horizon I did not see Stella anywhere. She blends in well amongst the dead light brown hay.

In times like these I always ask Sadie "where's Stella" ... she will always stop what she is doing, scan the air with her nose and then take off running in Stella's direction.

It was not until Sadie was almost to Stella did I see her through the lens.

Once the job of locating her is over, Sadie moves to her own exploring.

Even with Stella within 5' of the path I am walking, she will not come when called, ignores me and then slowly walks to the yard on her own time. She has taught me how to have patience in the short 27 months I've had her.

She has another walk in the books, another new week starting and a new 40# bag of kibble to be opened for lunch. Life is good in her eyes.

After our morning hound walk yesterday I took the Z4 out on my 42 mile loop through the country side. It has country highways along with a state highway where you can see forever and a good spot to do a high speed run. I wanted to push the limits on my newly installed grille and that was the highway to try it on. Luckily there is plenty of clear space where I can see if any State Patrol cars are parked on the side of the road with their radar locked in on me.

I got home, laid down in front of the car and checked every piece I installed last week. Everything was tight and that's a good sign. I even had a few rough spots on the country highway that I went over doing 60mph. So the new installed parts have a little over a 100 miles on them and everything seems to be okay.

As Sunday moved on I kept feeling better after my short intense sickness. I knew I was back to normal late last night as I decided to change all of my spreadsheets back to Microsoft Excel from Apple Numbers. It was just a few months ago that I moved them from Excel to Numbers.

Why the change??

It's that time of year where I make new sheets for the upcoming year (2018). For those that don't know, I love spreadsheets, just short of the line of addiction. I've had these personal spreadsheets for at least 19 years, all the way back where Lotus 1,2,3 was THE spreadsheet software to use. So why the change? I was setting up new ones for the new year in advance. When I started inserting simple charts and adding their data source Apple Numbers was too long to do and too confusing.

I had to Google to find ways of setting up the data sources for the charts so I was already spending more time than I wanted and I still could not figure out how to do it. I tired copying the Numbers 2017 sheet and pasting it for 2018 but that did not work like it does on Excel.

In the amount of time I spent looking for answers online, I converted 24 spreadsheets back to Excel and set up data sources with a click of the mouse, or in my case a tap on my mouse pad. I found the few short months I used Numbers there are things that I like where one program uses it but the other doesn't ... yet overall I like Excel. Since my spreadsheets never leave my computer, sent to anyone via mail or messages, I am still using the Microsoft Office for Macs 2011.

Microsoft announced last summer they would stop supporting that version with updates "leading the sheep" to buy their 2016 or newer versions. I'm not going to do that since I only use Excel for very simple designed spreadsheets only on my computer.

Social Media was in action last night and may have set history outside the Presidential Election last year. The University of Tennessee was about to announce their new football coach on Sunday night when Vol fans caught the information online about who was being hired ... a Twitter storm erupted. Even state congressmen got involved. Long story short ... by the end of Sunday night the university let the coach and his reps know they had changed their mind and the offer to be their head football coach was being rescinded.

When I look at my iPhone weather app it is showing temps in the mid to high 50's for the next week. I'll take it without complaint.

Could be 3 walks today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana and that could mean another post sometime later this afternoon right after another Z4 drive.

Stella's Energy Level Continues To Increase

Okay ... I know this picture does not match the title of this post but she gets her rest when she can ... LOL. That was late yesterday afternoon. We had two walks in the books, one with just the 25' retractable leash, one with the camera. There was a cool breeze and seemed like a perfect time to sit outside and let the hounds do what they wanted.

It did not take long for Sadie to inspect her yard and then head out into the field.

Stella had other plans though. It was a little after 4pm, she had been sleeping most of the day away inside but that doesn't mean she would not take advantage of the hot sunshine. I'll let the photos tell the story but this is her normal process for taking an outdoor siesta. She puts a lot of thought into it.

Sadie is totally opposite. She rarely sits or lays down in the yard ... her nose is woking 24/7, inside or out and seems to be more active as she gets older. She will be 9 years old this month.

She slowly migrated across the backyard while Stella remained sleeping, and slipped into the tall grass ... this always reminds me of the movie Field of Dreams, where the baseball players are moving into the cornfield only to disappear after a few steps.

With the information from Tom's comment on yesterday's post I had to make a fast 45 minute drive to Best Buy to pick up something I had been thinking about for the past two to three weeks. I'll talk about that later after I give it some time to collect data and shows me how accurate it is.

With the temps at 63° when we went out to take our first of mostly like three walks today, I tried to show just how wet the field was with this next photo but it did not turn out as well as I had planned. It didn't matter, extremely wet and the reason I wore my North Face snow boots instead of the waterproof hiking boots.

Again I was going to let Stella go where and when she wanted. Not one time was I able to catch her when she was doing a faster trot but on three different occasions she almost broke into a run like she use to. At the first start she trotted from the house into the field then right after this picture she trotted over to catch Sadie.

You never know what the plan is when these two hounds put their heads and brains together.

Each time I brought the camera up in focus to catch her trotting, she would stop.

She hung back as Sadie and I moved out in a little faster pace. I couldn't keep up with Sadie and by the way she was acting and the sounds I heard in the wooded area I was pretty sure that rabbits were scampering to get away. Sadie is not a rabbit chaser though ... birds are a different story.

With this being our last day of cool temps, I could feel the heat of the sunshine as we turned the corner and headed east.

Each time I looked behind us there was no sign of Stella as I expected but that didn't stop Sadie from looking back in her direction wondering where she was at. At the time that Sadie looked, Stella was nowhere in view. I have to keep reminding myself when she looks this way it's not her eyes she is using but her nose and ears in looking for Stella.

If you look really hard like I did, you will see Stella almost dead center in this photo. I was happy to see once again that she was not over at the neighbors checking out their newly trimmed maple trees.

Sadie was sure that Stella was in our area of the field but that was not even close. She zigged and then zagged looking for her, with no luck.

Once Sadie took off running ahead of me I knew she had found Stella and it was just a matter of time before she would run full speed, tap noses with Stella to let her know it was time to head home.

Stella has moved back to left of center of the field and since we were walking in the sunlight to the north corner of the yard, a little different return path I have been taking lately to stay dry, she was fairly close to us once we walked a little future. She came right over to me when I said "lets go home".

It is still strange to me how all of the white flowers are so small and the yellow ones are not what I consider full size.

This shady part of the yard will be the best later today and this weekend.

For those readers that like following my field pictures and commentary I am including this today. This view use to be my daily picture for the blog but when I went to the different format of compressing each post to have more visible on the home page I decided to change pictures every day.

You can see that the corn planted BEFORE the floods is doing very well and looking the best I've seen. The back half of the field and a half mile to the right is starting to grow. It will be interesting to see if they wait for it to catch up before the pick the corn this fall. I guess they will.

Still no plowing on the field to the left known as 'the field of yellow' nor the huge field behind the one we walk in.

I've been doing a little retraining with Stella using the 25' retractable leash in the afternoon walks. Once she gets the 25' away, I tell her "over here" and lead her toward our direction gradually by retracting the leash IF she does not move that direction on her own. I can tell a difference when she walks without the leash when given that command in only a few short days of training. She had followed that 'over here' command the majority of times before the training but not all the time.

I was going to wait until later today to post this for one long post but this looks like it might be 'a two post day' ... I'll include some afternoon photos and maybe a little rambling for my later post.

Sunny and a cool breeze this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.