The Hounds Test Out 27°

It's good that the hounds are flexible since they live with someone that has a few crazy tendencies and being retired isn't the cause. Let's just say today it was great that they are flexible, but nothing too serious that would harm their routine.

A few months ago I couldn't get to sleep and would spend most nights staying up until 2 or 3 am and would still have to force myself to go to bed. I'm a 'night person' by nature, always have been. About two weeks ago all of that changed.

I started going to bed before midnight, then gradually that kept moving earlier to 10:30pm. It was pretty consistent until last night as I was reading while sitting on the couch, then laying in one half of the couch while Stella took up the other half.

I headed for bed and it was only 9:07pm. I don't recall being awake longer than a couple of minutes. Of coarse going to bed that early only meant I would most likely be getting up early ... but I didn't think it would be that early. I was wide awake by 2am, and tried to get back to sleep until 4am ... when I gave up.

I flicked on the lights, woke up all the hounds. They were a little confused but by the time the kitchen light was turned on and coffee was being made they had figured out it was time for breakfast ... even if it was pitch black outside.

Stella howls just as loud inside the house at 4am as she does at 7:30am. She knows the kibble has been poured out and all I have to do is sit the bowls on the floor in each of their spaces. Sadie and Stella finished their bowl in less than a minute, Heidi takes her time and finishes a couple of minutes later. Sadie was the only one that wanted to go outside. She was trained at 12 weeks old of going outside after every meal ... she continues that 8+ years later.

Stella and Heidi had other plans though. They could tell it was dark and that meant it was still not too late to get some sleep in before daybreak, so they both trotted for the bedroom full of Mexican blankets and sleeping bags. Sadie eventually joined them after she figured out things were not normal this morning.

I can say it's warmer outside at 4am than it is a t 6:30am. I like that time of day outside between 2am-4am. My inside thermometer may have said it was 60° but it felt much colder as we approached daybreak.

By 8am we headed out for an early walk with the weather apps telling me it was 27°. I pulled the Mountain Hardwear down coat out of the closet, traded the lighter gloves for my ski gloves and threw on a wook ski cap even though the down jacket comes with a hood.

Stella sprinted to the back of the field directly in back of the house.

It was within seconds that I could feel winter had arrived. It felt much colder and I am thinking this year I might have to buy a pair of lined jeans, new ski pants or some Carharts. Each year it feels colder than the last when we take these walks.

I could see fresh deer hoof prints in the frosted grass ... none of the four pictures I took of them were any good, too blurry. But the hounds knew they were there and acted like it was all new stuff to them.

I wasn't sure what there pace would be today but I knew what mine was going to be ... non-stop.

Sadie as usual will not be left behind.

As you can see, Stella is different ... no amount of calling her will make her move, until she wants to move. Sadie and continued around the first turn.

You could hear the frozen grass crunching while Sadie ran.

She found it first and Stella joined her soon after.

Stella letting me know they are going to be there for a while, don't bother waiting.

Those are only three of the six large barnes to raise turkeys. I was told over 40,000 but I can't remember if that is per year, per month or per quarter.

Sadie gives Stella a look but decided it was cold enough to sprint to me and then head home. She has seen enough.

Sorry for the blurriness of the pictures. I am not sure it was the thick ski gloves that was moving the camera or the glove fingers slightly moving it when I took the picture.

Stella is more interested staying there rather than getting out of the cold ... or so I thought.

About the time she got to Sadie and I, they both took off, not waiting to see if I was following them or not.

Still maintaining the distance in front of me. The zoom lens make them look closer to me than they were.

It must have been cold because Stella did not hesitate getting home. I barely caught her in this picture since she was trotting for the house, with Sadie already at the door to be let back inside.

Heidi in the meantime had a "Do Not Disturb" sign on her blankets. She was sleeping when we left and snoring when we got back. She will come back to life around lunch time or if she hears me fixing my lunch.

I had so much time on my hands this morning you may notice I added some old and some new blogs to the sidebar. Since I like most things equal, I also edited my 'label' section on the right sidebar and doubled the number of labels to make it pretty close to even with the left sidebar.

For the first time, I added a gadget that counts the number of visitors and installed that at the bottom of the blog. By the time I finished the daily ration of 2 cups of coffee near 6am I wondered if an afternoon siesta might be in store later this afternoon. You can do that as often as you like when you are retired ... I am still telling myself after 32 months, retiring was the best decision I ever made.

I may break the 2 cup limit and fix at least one more cup of coffee to have while I read. Even with the heat turned on, it just didn't feel warm enough so I pulled out one of my space heaters designed like the old steam registers. It wasn't long before Stella as sitting right beside it as close as possible getting her ears warm.

Only Heidi has ridden in the 'new' FJ. I still enjoy how clean it is so the bloodhounds have not been in back, nor have I folded the back seats down yet. It's nice to have a clean vehicle I guess but today may be the day they get their first ride. I need to get out of the house and they would just sleep in the back anyway.

I saw my old FJ on the Toyota dealership site for sale. Obviously everything is fixed and I do admit I felt a little buyers remorse when I saw it. I kind of miss the radial look of the Voodoo Blue set up compared to the stock look with running boards. Yet, once I feel how smooth this one rides and I glance to see I have almost 30,000 fewer miles ... I feel better about the transaction.

I guess as usual the hounds will dictate how much we do today ... but it's cold, really cold so that means a lot of book reading.

The tundra has arrived here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

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.

Stella Howls For A Walk

Yesterday didn't amount to much and I could not even dream up anything to blog about last night. At one time yesterday it was raining so hard you could not see. Of course when that happened I was doing 65mph heading down the highway to the store to replenish supplies.

The shopping trip was successful although a little higher cost than I like. You would think they could wait at least a couple of weeks before they raise the cost of most foods I buy. It was good to get back home and see that Stella had continued her streak of no damage while I was gone. It's been a while, longer than I can remember, that she damaged something with her separation anxiety.

During the times where the rained stopped the hounds would go outside to see if there was even a chance for their walk. Since the morning walk was cancelled they were starting to get a little cabin fever. It doesn't take them long to get bored with inactivity ... they are not like the commercial you see at times with a bloodhound laying on the porch.

Since it was always wet Stella didn't get much further than the cut grass of the yard.

Sadie just stared and knew what the rain had done. She could tell there wasn't going to be an afternoon walk.

With just a glimpse of sunshine, Stella took that as it was time to go. She started howling for the walk as it was too late to be begging for food. She had lunch hours before this happened. With her howling, Heidi started her barking routine thinking a third meal was being served.

This morning was a different story. It had rained most of the night. I could tell by the light highway traffic this morning that the pavement was still wet, therefore the yard and field was going to be even wetter than yesterday ... but the sunshine was out ... so that is promising for later this afternoon's walk.

Neither hound walked outside the yard. Not even a nose to see if the field was wet. We did attempt it though. When I saw standing water after walking about 5' into the field "the game was called" and we returned to the house, to write this blog post.

As you can tell from all the weeds in the driveway I have decided not to use any weed killer like I had thought about doing this year. With Heidi's skin situation I did not want her to be around any yard chemicals like that. She goes in the front yard most of the time but will walk and lay in the driveway when it is hot as sunny. The bloodhounds like to put their noses to the ground with Stella taking naps on the drive ... too close for chemicals.

So even though I would prefer a clean driveway like I had after pulling the weeds last year by hand ... this year I will keep them as short as possible with the weed eater and let the sun kill them later on this summer.

So with the standing water in the field there wasn't much they could do but return to the house for their daily morning siesta. Yes ... even after not being able to walk, both of them are sound to sleep with Sadie snoring.

I had two exciting moments yesterday not counting the blind rain storm at 65mph. It dealt with the SanDisk camera card. On the side of my iMac are two slots. The first one is a larger slot of DVDs or CDs and right below that is the slot for my camera card.

It's one of those actions you do everyday a few times a day so it's a habit where you you don't really pay attention when sliding the card into the slot. Only yesterday that almost cost me a card full of photos. I would have lost just the new photos taken since I download all of them to my hard drive.

How would I have lost them?

I slid the small camera SanDisk card into the slot for the DVD/CDs!!! It went all the way inside, behind the felt ... gone!!! I was actually shocked that I didn't go crazy when it happen but immediately wondered how was I going to get it out without seeing it. I took a steak knife thinking that was long enough to get back as far as I needed. The teeth of the knife was able to grab the top side of the card and I could slide it out enough for me to pull it out.

You would think that would be enough excitement for one day but "Murphy" was bored with all the rain and he had decided he was going to make my day with nothing but screw ups. With the SanDisk card in hand I went to slide it back into my camera only to see and feel I had put the card in BACKWARDS!!!!

Luckily I was able to pull that out with needle nose pliers with no damage to the camera or memory card.

So far this morning "Murphy" has taken the day off ... he had enough laughs yesterday. With the sunshine out and having the itch to go somewhere I think the hounds and I are headed out for a photo exploration.

No wind, no rain and sunshine here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Short Note Tonight

I added a page about Winston's life that includes around a 100 photos +/- a few. One is at the top of the page called Winston's Story and the other is on the left side under "My Favorite Sites" called Winston's Biography.

I am happy to see at the other hounds adjust quickly to normal life. Heidi has the chair full time now, although Sadie seems to have liked it the past few weeks.

The "twins" are back to demanding being fed on "their time", with threats of Stella howling for food if I don't feed them when they want. Regular feeding times do not matter to them.

A Small Pop In Winston's Back

Sadie and Stella start 2016 the right way by not even making it to the yard to wrestle, they barely made it past the FJ before they started. It must be the warmer than normal temps, it was 0° last year, high 30's today.

We barely stayed awake past midnight last night. I did anyway, all the hounds slept most of the night including Winston. At one time he was in the snoring stage and I take that as a very good sign. The good signs seem to be appearing more and more ... very encouraging.

The day started with the same routine as yesterday and really about the same time. Sadie came into my bedroom whining loud enough to wake me ... just to let me know that Winston was whining to go outside. It was 4:44am. It was about a second after I took the gate down and he started marching to the door while dragging his legs behind him. A "stop Winston" got him stopped so I could prop the door open and put the t-shirt sling under him to lift his hips.

He came back inside and went straight to sleep. That lasted another 3 hours when all the hounds let me know that it was time for their breakfast. When I put the gate down, he sat on his blankets wagging his tail ... a small bowl of water later ... we are "sprinting to the yard.

So now it's 730am I am still feeling I need more sleep but this time I took a chance and put him in the center of the bed. Here is where the next 'good sign' of improvement happened. As he sat up after almost 3 hours of sleeping, there was a small pop in his lower back ... like a chiropractic adjustment. Once again when he saw me getting out of bed he went to the edge of the bed ready to get off. He waited until I lifted him and carried him to his blanket.

Same routine to go outside dumping both tanks ... came back inside and went to sleep until Stella began howling to be fed lunch. His next laser treatment will be tomorrow around 1:30pm. I am thinking with the reduction of swelling around his spine, the small back pop today, more tail wagging these past few days ... this next laser treatment could be really good for him and speed his recovery even more.

With his legs up off the ground as we walked outside at 10:30am, I noticed a little movement with each rear leg in a walking motion, not just dangling free. His left paw was in the normal position while his right paw was somewhere in between the normal and hanging straight down.

As you can see Stella and Sadie are ready for their first day in 2016 to stand on alert with Winston.

One of the blog readers has a real interest like myself, in old steel bridges. So with all the rain we've had this past week along with the photos of the field across the highway flooding .. I decide to take a photo shoot break and see what was up with that bridge with flooded fields ... and to give him an update.

Here is where I talked about that bridge last May, along with some photos:  Click here:

I didn't get far today.

The first photo is the same road last May 2015.

Here is that same road to the bridge today on 2016 Jan 01.

Bridge Is Just Past That White Sign

Here is a current photos from late this afternoon of that field of yellow weeds (flowers).

Sometime around the normal "anytime after 12 noon", if Stella is sleeping she will wake up to let me know it is time to eat. They just had their breakfast at 7:30am so not quite 5 hours and they are wanting to eat. Even Winston was sitting in his gated area today wagging his tail while Stella begged to be fed. For the first time ever I was able to capture Stella howling ... it's a soft howl ... a bloodhound howl ... and I think it's her bark also. I have never heard Sadie bark ... ever.

Her ... "I want to be fed call"

Sadie seems to be looking at her wondering what the hell is she doing???

There were 3 things today that showed more improvements. They keep coming and that's a great thing to see.

1. While holding him up by the t-shirt harness, he peed in a squatting position (his normal) instead  of sitting on the ground.
2. While holding him up by the t-shirt harness, I let him walk to anywhere he wanted thinking he had to poop. He walked all the way through the field to the tree line straight back from the house ... then pooped while standing with me holding him up by the harness instead of in a sitting position. That's a pretty long walk with only his front legs. I carried him back to the house after that.
3. At the time I was bringing his bowl of food to him he was trying to do his patent 'mini hop' on his front feet. He does that when he is excited. 

I know for those readers that are not pet owners it might seem gross to talk about this type of stuff, but it's part of of owning a dog and in this case a dog that is in recovery from a back issue. He continues to do the best he can to get better. Basset Hounds are a stubborn breed and loyal ... Winston is no exception.

It was a beautiful first day of 2016 here in the "tropics" of Southern Indiana.