Unexpected Excitement

It was only going to be for a few days but the hounds, dog and I did not hesitate going into our winter hibernation mode last week. For me that meant doing nothing. Literally. Hours and hours spent on the computer, movie watching, watching the baseball playoffs and some more analysis on tv service provider. The dog (Walter) changed his routines slightly where he not only took over Watson's chair at night but decided sleeping on Stella's sleeping bag in the corner across from the bed wasn't warm enough for him. On the bed was better.

Hounds Decide I Needed To Work

I'm not sure what I would do if I didn't have Sadie getting me away from my morning coffee, out of my desk chair and out into the field every morning. She will always sit quietly at the doorway into my computer room. While sitting straight and proud, almost like a pose, she will give me her stare down letting me know that it's time for a walk. This also happens throughout the day no matter where I might be.

It's going to be another beautiful day here in the tropics. I've adjusted to the colder temps and have waved bye to summer. I love hot weather but I do like the change of seasons. There is a little bit of good in every season and each has it's highlights with likes and dislikes. The hounds? Same stuff different day and I'm not sure they even care about the changes.

You might notice my photos lately on these morning walks are a little bit brighter or better quality. I have had some strange adjustments to the Daylight Savings time change we did last weekend. Where I should be getting up an hour earlier I seem to be going to bed an hour later and getting up later. That slides the morning walk from around 9am to 10am or later, thus the change in lighting for taking pictures.

Whenever I see Stella ahead of Sadie on these walks and/or Sadie venturing into the heavy brush between the field and woods, I suspect there has been a lot of deer traffic in the early morning hours. The local news on tv and in the newspaper is saying there is an over abundance of deer in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. Some of the state parks are closing to the public, only open to deer hunters to thin out the herd of deer roaming in the area.

When Sadie was staring at the woods earlier in the walk I thought I could even hear the footsteps of deer moving over the leaves that had fallen to the ground. I listened really closely and thought it would be the chance to walk into those woods, look down into the gulley to see if I could grab a picture or two of them. The sound I heard though was not deer but the sound of falling leaves.

The worn path on the taller brush near the back of the field shows where deer move from this field, jump over a very short old metal fence into the field behind us. Stella was sure this is where they went sometime before we got there. She is right. I remember about 7 years ago in December, Sadie as a 2 year old took off  running in this same exact area, over that fence and into that field running as fast as possible for deer she saw. the 5-6 deer were out sprinting her by a mile but she thought she could catch them.

I couldn't catch her and it wasn't long before she was out of my sight. So I ran home to drive my truck around the the back of the field I had last seen her. I thought she might be sneaking around the huge turkey farm or at least see her wandering back home ... she was nowhere. I looked for an hour, it started snowing again and no sign of her. A little after 1pm I hear something hit my aluminum door in the carport ... there she stood ... 4 to 5 hours later. Needless to day she slept the rest of the day and almost missed her late afternoon meal.

So far Stella's periods of disappearances have lasted no longer than 45 minutes to an hour. She doesn't like to miss any meals and food is her real motivation for anything she does inside or out.

It's always interesting to observe the routines of all three hounds. They change their routines at times but most days I don't have to say a thing and they repeat the same walks day after day. As you know Heidi disappears from this blog and outside until cold weather is over ... she has always done that since I picked her up in June 2011.

Even when we are on the 'alternate' path home I can see other narrow single paths of worn grass where the deer run at night. Maybe I need to buy and set up a couple of field cameras to capture the wild life between midnight and 6am.

For the second day in a row the moon was back again. I noticed that Al up in Canada on The Bayfield Bunch blog took the same picture I did of the moon yesterday. It's times like these I wish I had a longer lens to get closer to the moon.

On the way back this morning the hounds kept drifting further away from me. I was getting down to two choices. Either leave them and let them do what they wanted knowing they would eventually come home or walk over to Stella and tug on her collar to get her back toward my direction. Many times she will start moving once she sees me heading her way.

Yesterday afternoon I did attempt to rake some leaves but those first few that flipped over with the rake was showing moisture on them. I would prefer to rake them completely dry so they will burn faster and better. Today might be Day 1 of the 2017 Leaf Project. Until I looked at past blogs for the post about our Leaf Project, I thought we were late this year but that is not the case. In 2016 we were raking them this week. In 2015 we were getting all the leaves taken care of in late October.

Here is the 2015 Leaf Project Supervision Crew.

Stella lagged behind at the end of the walk but nothing major. She stepped inside the yard and had to stop for one of her back scratching exercises. Once she saw Sadie and I almost ready to make the turn into the carport, she came running.

A tentative plan was to rake the leaves once they dried out a little more, possibly this afternoon. While the hounds took their lunch break outside they decided that not only were the leaves dry enough to rake but the grass was tall enough to mow. If I mowed first would it mulch the leaves good enough to get me out of raking?

Stella has been staring off into space a lot lately as if there are new places she would like to check out if only I would let her, or if only there wasn't a highway in that direction, if only ....

Sadie checked for some fresh soft mounds of dirt to eat since it rained this past weekend. You can also see with her standing in the yard just how tall the grass is after a weekend of rain. I've been told the ground is still warm although the temperatures have dropped, so mowing season may not be over yet.

I'm posting this because I like it and it's just a little bit different for a photo taken in the middle of the day.

For doing yard work you cannot beat weather like this.

I still wasn't happy with the amount of leaves left in the yard after mowing. I need a new rake since my old one was missing a few teeth after I had the plastic rake to near to the fire last year. I headed to the local hardware store and picked up a new one. Of course when I got home I had to try it out, so that is the 'clean' area you see. The wind was blowing from the south as I raked into it. So it was a good place to stop and wait for better wind conditions before raking the rest of the yard.

The heavy storms on Sunday washed out some of my old mulch, so a short trip to the landscaping biz where I bought a few bags of new Cyprus mulch to add today. I had to work fast because Sadie kept disappearing on me today but would come running when called. She was always too far outside her boundary.

It's good I stopped when I did. As I sat in front of the computer afterward with a cold glass of water, I had an email I needed to reply to for confirmation. One of the parts for the Z4 has to come from Germany and is delayed. My other parts are in route and due to arrive early next week. That gives me time to finish the leaves for the year.

Tomorrow I will trade parking spaces with the FJ, which will give me more room to work. I'll either drive the Z4 up on ramps or jack it up high enough to slide some jack stands underneath it. I am thinking the jack stands might be the best option while I am working under the car.

At a website called realOEM.com I was not only able to find a detailed diagram of the parts I needed but also where they go and what screws, nuts, plugs or clips go with each part. I've printed those out. With the help of those diagrams and some YouTube videos I have a clear picture of what the process will be to replace the damaged parts under the Z4.

I enjoy this type of work as long as it's on occasion and not a job. It just proves how old I am sometimes when my knees and back don't enjoy being in different position under a car to reach to connect a screw or snap in a part. I've made sure I have enough Ibuprofen in stock.

It was a great day today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... much more done than expected.

Another Day Of Laziness

WARNING ... I started rambling unintentionally in this post. It was our normal routine after lunch is served. Even Heidi made an appearance outside long enough for me to capture a picture of her, just to let readers know that she still exists and has a pulse. She is into her winter hibernation mode earlier than I can ever remember. For Sadie and Stella I changed the camera setting back to "Auto-Area AF" for walk #2.


Heidi is in need of another bath, possibly an Epson Salt soak. I hid the wool blankets a few weeks ago thinking that was causing her skin to break out again. That does not seem to be the case and in fact may be just the time of year. Looking at her photos from October 2016 I saw the same changes to her skin after a summer of very little allergy reaction.

I am going to ramble about things in general this post, not even knowing when I will schedule it to publish. All of these photos were from our walk this afternoon (Monday). It's always nice the day after a storm blows through.

I've had another huge case of lack of motivation lately. I may have posted I was going to clean house, do laundry, rake leaves or whatever but none of those things have happened. I've been glued to either my computer with the large monitor at my desk either blogging, reading blogs, reading sports, working in my large photos library etc ... During the day I'll move to the kitchen table with a view and the permanent home of my laptop, to play Mahjong or write in my private journal.

There might be days where a siesta is needed from this fast paced lifestyle. You need all the rest you can get when you follow a nightly routine of ballgames from one sport or another and many times where multiple games are on at once. I did squeeze in a long movie last night instead of watching the NFL Sunday Night game.

It dawned on me during our afternoon walk that I have been using less data the past few days with internet speeds slower than Stella's afternoon pace. Does slower data download speeds equate to less data being used? I'll have to look into that later on the internet and see what I can find.

See it's questions like that keeping me at my desk in front of a computer. I have stupid questions like that all the time floating through my brain cells and the fastest way to find an answer to any of them is doing a search on the internet. Before you know it, it's 4pm and the day is gone.

Really though I am not in the mood for much more than I do most days, at least lately. So there are no feelings of guilt. It's kind of the lull before the storm as college basketball full-time viewing on tv starts this weekend as college football is heading for their last thee to four weeks of games before their holiday bowls and playoff games.

I have picked a couple of books off my bookshelves lately but stopped reading them soon after I started. my trips to the local library will probably not be a part of my week until the temperatures drop into the 30's and lower. The future weather in the next few weeks looks good for replacing the damaged plastic parts under my Z4. That should be a pretty easy fix, once the new parts arrive.

The pain in my jaw from a few weeks ago disappeared about as fast as it started. There isn't anything as intense as what I was feeling but I do have some occasional discomfort. After some jaw massage, or some heat and plus some ibuprofen, the jaw feels normal again. I still wonder at times what he cause of the jaw pain is.

From the few blogs I read that are showing snow in their area, it definitely proves to me I am not ready for that type of weather yet. I'll get through it when the times comes. The hounds will still get their walks. I will still wonder what we are doing outside with temps in the 20's or lower. I'll wear the same winter clothing I've worn every year since moving back to Indiana 23 years ago this December. Then before I know it, spring will be here and I'll be building my first large fire of the year, while burning the driveway bank full of dead ragweed and other wild brush.

I also remember over the weekend while looking back through my photos, it was October 25th last year that I traded the Voodoo Blue Toyota FJ instead of spending $3,000 to replace the catalytic converters and possible other repairs. I never planned to trade that FJ. It was the beginning of where I traded three cars within 9 months.

I'm glad those days are finally over since I have the only combination of cars that I have ever liked ... a sports car and a Toyota FJ. With the amount of miles I drive per year I don't need to trade cars ever ... and may not need even two cars. Yet with my constant brain activity it's always good to have options. So two cars are best for me.

My senior moment of the day was a little after lunch when I went to the fruit bowl to eat the last mango. It was gone !!! It was there last night because I remember seeing it while I ate the second to last one. I was about to interrogate Stella about the missing mango ... then realized that sometime around 3:30 am (yes in the middle of the night) as I looked at my watch, I was standing in the kitchen cutting the mango into slices ... eating my last mango in the dark.

A slight interruption here as I let you know that once again today, Stella spent a long time staring in the direction of the neighbor's woods and with hopes of seeing the yellow field cat that is larger than any cat you can imagine. She obviously smells or hears something over there.

I've been thinking about diets again lately. I've been eating healthy and just set an all-time historic event in the month of October for the first time I can ever remember. I did not make one trip through a fast food drive-thru and didn't spend any money eating out or ordering out for pickup.

That will not happen this month. I've spent the last three to four days thinking of the Chinese buffet downtown. It's around $8 for all you can eat. It is served every day except Monday's. It's hard to believe that we can have that kind of restaurant in a small rural town, out in the middle of nowhere, in the land of meat and potatoes. It's popular and has withstood all the economy has to offer for at least 15 years. It is one of my favorite places to eat.

With all the excitement and pounding my chest for the accomplishment of no fast food, there was disappointment at my monthly weigh in and measurement day on the 1st of November. Not only did I gain 4 pounds but measurements around my stomach and body fat also increased. That told me it's never a good idea to stop eating fast foods.  LOL

I continue to knock off one game at a time of Mahjong, completing that tile game under 3 minutes. I have 160 different Mahjong games to choose from, all different levels of competition. That is probably the best 99cents I've ever spent when I bought that app.

What does it mean when you are too lazy to get in your car and make a short trip to the store to buy the food you need or are craving to eat? Will those Amazon drones deliver to small town USA if you live outside of town?

Would that nice small round robot vacuum I see on every other commercial during the football games on tv, work well in my house? Or would it turn into a chaotic situation where the hounds chase it all over the house while it tries to be my maid? Would it be cost effective if it turned into a toy for the hounds with dog treats taped to the top of it? Does anyone know how good the suction is on those robot vacuums?

I wonder why these current hounds are growing more skin warts or skin flaps than any of my other hounds in the last 30 years? Food? Environment? Allergies? I think I have asked this question during a visit my vet but can't remember if they gave me an answer or passed it off as not important?

7 acres of field available to the hounds and Stella likes to walk very slow right in front of me. A huge stainless steel bowl of fresh water, enough for all the hounds. Yet, Sadie thinks enough of it to sleep next to it, protecting it from Stella and Heidi. Is there any food for human consumption that Stella does not like or at least feel it's not hers? Did her previous owners 'free feed' her?

Watching the tape of Dr Jeff, Rocky Mountain Vet last night ... they had their first Bloodhound patient. I have yet to see any basset hounds visit their facility on their tv show. This bloodhound puppy looked like Stella in the face but was what they call a 'black and tan'. He was accidentally ran over by the owner, breaking it's leg right next to the ball joint in his hip. They inserted three small pens with a prognosis he would be okay eventually. 14 weeks later, even with physical therapy, the hound was barely using his rear leg if at all. I hate seeing those kind of stories.

There is never a day that goes by that I don't think of Winston. He had the best personality of any of the basset hounds I ever owned. All of them had great basset personalities but his was much different. Hard to believe it's been almost two years later and I still find it hard to look at his pictures.

Well that's about it for this afternoon. I am not sure if I'll watch Monday Night Football or watch another movie. I know right now I'm going to grab a snack and play a few games of Mahjong for the first time today. I guess the trip to the grocery store can wait a little longer.

Life is rough in the fast pace lane of 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Enjoy Another Beautiful Day

This had to be one of the coldest days in recent weeks. It said it was 31° but felt closer to being in the teens. By the time we finished the morning walk I had frozen fingers under my gloves.

Sadie and Stella didn't seem to notice and were probably wanting to stay out longer than we did.

Last night as I approached the top of my driveway and was making the turn into the carport ... my headlights caught a golden-red cat sitting just at the edge of the yard in the center of this next picture. By the time I got out of the car and walked out to see if it was interested in food in the freezing night, the cat had already disappeared.

That explains a lot about the reason Sadie has been so interested in that area and down into that ditch these past few weeks.

With Sadie bothering me lately earlier and earlier for her first walk of the day, I put on all my cold weather gear and we headed out a little after 9:30 this morning. It instantly felt colder than 31°. There were some winds from the NW that made a difference in the wind chill factor.

Yet, it was clear skies and sunshine so I can't really complain just because the temps were borderline frigid. After all we are not walking through deep snow or on ice.

Stella ended up staying so far back that at one time I couldn't see her through the zoomed lens. I thought she might have moved into the wooded area but about that time I saw her rise up from the ground on the horizon. I didn't realize there was that much of an incline.

Sadie and I had already turned the corner, and once we made that turn ... it got a lot colder with a stronger wind. Once that wind hit me in the face I couldn't wait for the walk to be over.

I had no idea that Stella was coming up behind me, so when I took this picture I was focusing on only Sadie ... when Stella ran into the view finder about the time I took the picture. Her speed was much faster than what the picture shows.

They explored ... I continued to walk.

As we made the final turn home, they both walked so close to me that even the 18mm setting could not fit them into a picture. It wasn't long before they took off jogging in hopes of getting a little more exploring done before I got there.

Stella has set another new record of letting me leave the house without her showing any signs of separation anxiety. That is always a good thing but even after 16 months I still wonder when the next episode will be. There has always been a 'next episode'.

After some late morning errands, they had their lunch when I got back and Sadie was 'demanding' another walk ... it had only been a couple of hours since her last walk. Once they get that after lunch walk in, they normally will sleep the rest of the afternoon in different spots inside the house.

That is a very deep gully just a few feet into the woods. Luckily none of the hounds venture into that area because it is nothing but mud on the gully floor.

Stella took the lead for the afternoon walk. She was almost making the turn to the far right corner when I yelled the word "hey", she stopped and started heading my direction.

Then she and Sadie was off to the back edge of the field.

They both had a lot of 'nose activity' today.

Two things that Sadie has always chased are birds on the ground and flying leaves. Today she was not only chasing the leaves that were bobbing around the field from the wind but she was also approaching those that landed, with caution. You never know when those leaves might attack.

While I was watching Sadie and her leaves, Stella had almost snuck off to the 'no-fly zone' behind me. I had to go to the 200mm zoom because she was that far away from us. Something had her interest and she surprised me when she stopped and came when I called her. I thought for sure she had smelled something and was going to take off after it.

She is never happy after being caught trying to escape.

As we get closer to January 1, the college football bowl games have better matchups. I'll be watching college football for the rest of the afternoon and tonight it looks like. A crockpot of vegetable soup will be finished about supper time. Football and hot soup on a freezing day sounds good to me.

It would be a beautiful day to fly today ... not a cloud in the sky.

January 1st is right around the corner here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.