The Bloodhounds Supervise My Saturday Morning

Stella did not run off during the 4 hours she was outside while I worked. She started by sleeping in the sunshine on the backside of the house, moved to laying in front of the Z4 to nap while I pulled weeds in the flowerbeds, then moved to the deep corner of the shaded carport while I washed the car. By the time I took this photo she was ready to move back inside for her afternoon nap, laying right in front of a floor fan.

By 1pm I was finished with a few things I wanted to get done. I washed the Z4 in the shade but pulled it into the sunshine after I dried it off so the top could be completely dry before I lowered it on my next drive. Since it's washed it will go under the car cover when it's not on the road. Actually all three hounds were outside for most of the morning. Right after the morning walk I pulled both vehicles outside so I could get the ladder out of the shed, for me to use to get on the roof.

If you remember Sadie cannot just lay down outside and relax like Stella. Her nose keeps her active but even she did not wander out into the field after our morning walk. While I was on the roof she inspected the burn pile. While I pulled weeds, she went back inside to see if there might be some bits of kibble that may have been missed for lunch. While washing the car she stood in the shaded carport watching my every move and finally gave final approval of my sweeping the Z4 parking spot. She never laid down once in the 4 hours were were outside.

We had an early walk this morning for the first time in a long time. I was up early because I went to bed early (11pm is early). At no time during the day did the AC ever turn on with the thermostat set at 74°. All the windows were open to pull in the cool temps.

I knew as soon as the morning walk was over I was going to get on the roof to check the gutters since I had some rain overflowing the side of the front gutter. The downspout was plugged with wet leaves on each side of the house so that was an easy fix. I also like to inspect the roof at times since my shingles are getting near their shelf life. I think they can make a couple of more years before I need to have a new roof put on.

From the way it looks, from 9am to 1pm looks to be a great time to finally get some things marked off on my 'to do' list. If the weather continues to be as good as it has been and as good as predicted I might get everything finished on that 'to do' list before my first college football game on September 1st. My world basically stops once college football starts and will start spinning again normally after the Final 4 game in college basketball next April. So things have to get done between April 7th an September 1st every year.

Stella was pretty active this morning with her nose. She didn't run anywhere nor trot but a few spots during the walk grabbed her attention. Of course verbal herding was needed to get her to move to get Sadie and I back to the house.

Sadie was of course herself just like every walk she takes. A million scents to check out and only one nose within our half mile walk.

Stella was positive there was something she just had to eat buried under a clump of mowed hay (June) and possibly at dirt level. She pawed at the spot first then moved her nose to get as deep as possible. I am not sure what it was because I saw nothing below her nose on the ground and when she raised her head she had nothing in her mouth.

Getting back to those weeds in the flowerbed. I never sprayed them with the weed killer I had because I had planned to always pull them out by the roots. With the base of cedar mulch and the black landscaping ground cover below the mulch ... pulling all the weeds out was pretty easy. I have changed to watering the Azaleas and the other flowers I planted last year (can't remember their names) in the mornings now instead of late afternoon/early evening. They are so far under the overhang they don't get a lot of the rain water when it rains.

As you can tell, Stella was in no hurry this morning. The temperature was cool, in the 60's, so she was going to take her time getting back to the house.

By late afternoon I had watched the last real race of the Tour de France that was taped early this morning. Tomorrow is the last day but is more of a ceremonial trip in Paris. Then I took the Z4 out for about an hour drive through the hills and curves on the highways in my local area. I have a lot of different routes I can pick from and a couple are fantastic sports car roads. The car ran as smooth as it ever has. Not bad for 15 years old car.

Early game tonight in Cincinnati, so it might be another night of getting to bed early, at least for me. I am thinking that tomorrow morning after the hound walk, I will finish a job I started in May 2017 but didn't finish due to hot weather last summer, then college football season on tv, the the frozen winter ... that is scraping the trim where needed all around the house, apply primer after that and then paint the trim color on Monday morning. Most of that work will be inside the carport.

The days continue to be fantastic weather for this time of year in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Great Weather Makes It Hard To Blog

What can I say ... the weather has been fantastic which leads me outside more often and for longer periods of time along with the hounds. I find it harder than past years to sit down in weather like this and put a blog post together. So, just a warning, my blogging this spring and summer may be less frequently. The weather is not the only reason though.

I find I get more done on my to do list if I print out the list on paper and put one copy on my refrigerator door and one near my computer as a reminder, then putting a thick black "Sharpie" line through the task as I complete it. I have some of them listed on my 'reminder' app that came with my computer but the printed page shoves me into action more than an electronic list.

I have twice as many things to do as I did two years ago. With my font at 14 and spacing between lines at 1.5, I have a page full of things to do ... 26 of them. Nothing is hard but almost every one is time consuming. It looks like between getting some things done on the list, walking the hounds 2-3 times per day and watching ballgames ... it is going to be a busy summer.

I can tell the hounds like the warmer weather. Stella is trotting more and ignoring me more.

Sadie is add the 'far right corner' to her daily walks, morning and afternoon.

At this point when I saw both of them running toward that corner I was hoping they would not go down into the gully following the path and scent of the deer.

Stella was out of bounds and was in the thick brush heading deeper into the gully and further down the hill. I had to run after her to get her to turn around.

Otherwise it was a great afternoon walk.

It was perfect weather and a perfect time to pull the car cover off the Z4, put the top down as the engine idled and take a drive through the country. It was (is) another beautiful day.

The hounds are getting 3 walks per day in this kind of weather here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

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.