Hounds Up Early Today

It was still dark outside, I could hear traffic and Sadie was standing next to the bed eye level ... already giving me the look that she wanted to go out. How long had she been standing there?

I tried not to subtract one hour from the actual time to make me feel even worse, with the recent time change. Since retired I never get up when it's dark in the morning ... never.

Today was different. After I became a little more conscious I realized I was just as awake as Sadie. Stella and Heidi were still in a deep sleep. As you can see, Stella wasn't even that thrilled being up and outside by 8:15am when there was some daylight. Sadie is wagging her tail ready to go within seconds of opening her eyes every morning or after a nap in the afternoon.

Stella liked that it wasn't raining this morning. It will tomorrow but this morning she was trying to sneak away from the start of the morning walk. Does she think I will not see her while I stand 20' away? That drainage ditch she visited a couple of weeks ago is in that direction.

After yelling her name a couple of times, she turned and headed back to us. Sadie was already off headed to the first turn and was quite active this morning.

Sadie was going in so many different directions, some of the pictures of her may be blurred due to her movements. Let's just say that she was getting a lot of good nose exercise in this morning.

I was surprised that Stella was on the path with us, walking without any commands or instruction from me. I was curious if she would lead me to the far right corner. There seemed to be a lot of recent deer traffic based on the actions of Sadie.

Once Sadie checked out what Stella had found, she was back to running from the left side of the path and then all the way back over to the corner. Nose to the ground, paws in the air.

There were so many different scents in the area she couldn't make up her mind which direction to go. She was everywhere, while Stella meandered slowly along the path that I take.

Sadie was back again on the far right corner and started running along the edge of the field. That is the path the deer take before they turn right, jump over the short worn fence and sprint through the corn field. I've seen them do that but not today.

Sadie was so focused during all of this she heard nothing that I said, nor paid any attention to what Stella was doing. She was 100% serious today.

Once they joined forces they had that look they were both headed to the 'no fly zone'. I was preparing myself mentally that I'd be sprinting after them, while hoping it would be a false alarm.

Yes, the deer move right along here ....

And jump into the field behind this one about right here ...

Before I sprint anywhere I always call their names. I am not running, let along sprinting anywhere if I don't have to. I was pretty happy that both of them turned and headed my direction from the 'no fly zone' then headed home back on the path.

Stella looks and feels like she is staring to gain her weight back. Those larger portions of kibble two times per day must be helping. The hound that eats the less weighs more, and the hound that is always hungry, eats as long as there is food ... is the skinny one.

She may have looked like she was heading home with Sadie and I, but she had to take one more look at the neighbor's house just in case there is something to chase or wander off to check out. When they look this way I always forget that they can hear 4x further than we can.

Without any bribes of food or treats, no threats of putting the 6' leash on her ... she turned and came our way.

Sadie had sprinted all the way back to the house by the time Stella and I walked into the driveway. She was making one last check there were no birds to chase before we came back inside. Bird chasing has been her favorite hobby this week ... Spring is here.

It's been a little over 24 hours since Apple updated their OS. I guess all of those times the past few months that I would click the buttons to send them a report when my iMac would reboot itself while in the sleep mode ... worked. So far in almost 36 hours, that error has not repeated itself.

I leave my computer in sleep mode anytime that I am away from it besides just a quick trip to the fridge or bathroom. Each time since the update it has NOT rebooted itself. When I click any key on my keyboard the computer wakes up without delay. I also have noticed it boots up faster than it did after the last update.

I did something different grocery shopping yesterday and it paid off quite well. I live near a government commissary store, same distance just the opposite direction from the grocery store I normally shop at. Evidently with a new fiscal year, new funding or something ... their small store was stocked with more choices than I had seen in the 20 years living here. All the brand names that I buy were there, including some new ones.

I'll not go into detail but to give you an idea on the difference in prices across the board, these items show the type of savings I was getting on the same foods I buy on a regular basis.

1. Greek Gods Greek Yogurt is $4.95 at the store, I paid $3.15 yesterday
2. Tyson skinless chicken breasts are $4.50+, I paid $3.88
3. Seattle's Best Coffee is $5.50+ where I bought it before, $4.59 yesterday
         -- I bought the cheapest bag on the shelf with over 8 popular brands
              to choose from.
4. Veggies and Fruits were 50% less than I normally pay.
5. Two New York Strip Steaks in the past were $10-$12, yesterday $2.96

I walked out with $50 worth of food that is normally $80-$100.

It was hard to do at the start but cutting out fruits that have too much acid, plus all fruit juices has eliminated indigestion. I love oranges and orange juice so that was hard not to buy them. As I compare how I have been eating lately to the spreadsheet of foods I pulled from the book about eating foods based on your blood type ... their lists of foods on what to eat and what to avoid has proven to be very accurate in my case.

Not much else planned today. Skies are overcast but rain is not predicted until tomorrow. I think I'll take the Z4 out for a spin. Later this afternoon after the grass is dryer I'll mow the small areas of the yard that has tall, thick green grass.

The hounds will get another walk or two this afternoon. Heidi will pass those walks up also since it is below her 70° threshold and nowhere near her 65° minimum option.

Final 4 Championship game on Monday with MLB starting their season the day before on Sunday. Life is good as I move my sports addiction into the spring and summer months. Cargo shorts instead of jeans are about to begin.

April 11 will be my 3rd year anniversary of retirement here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana. It's all good.

Hounds Have Cabin Fever

We knew it was going to happen but that didn't mean that Sadie and Stella had to like it. In exchange for warmer temps and the official declaration it was now Spring here in 'the tropics' ... the rains came. Sometimes it's been heavy but most of the time it's been light ... a drizzle.

That drizzle will cancel most if not all hound walks. Walking through mud is one thing but coming back home with two wet/soaked hounds is never fun. With Heidi being the smartest, she stays inside without complaint when it rains. She will dip under and behind the Yews next to the house to keep her dry while she dumps her tanks.

After only a few hours this morning Sadie is going nuts inside. Unlike last year, the bloodhounds are not wrestling with each other inside. Sadie instead tries different balls, or bones to start a game of fetch with me. If I don't pick one up after she tosses it at my feet here at my desk ... she will go get something else for me to try.

Sorry this next picture is blurred but I thought I had caught her just in time ... she was running faster than I could react.

Stella was somewhat confused what to do this morning after she stepped out into the yard earlier and felt wet grass and rain hitting her in the nose. So this next trip outside she got no further than the carport.

It's good to see her ribs are disappearing and she is gaining some of her weight back.

Honestly ... she really does have her eyes open.

{editor's note:  by adding the photos AFTER I wrote the paragraphs, there is an extra space below the photos above, where I have to delete a blank row between the last pictures and the sentence below them.}

Me ... I'm waiting for my Apple Photo's program to reload my photo library of 50,000 + photographs. That is just one thing that happens have you do an update to your operating system. I like to do the OS updates as soon as they are released for security reasons and am hopeful of one bug fix. With my free data between midnight and 5am I did the download and installation after midnight.

Those little notices telling me a phase would take 20 minutes turned into 45. Overall, the total process took almost 2 hours from start to finish. What that means today is, as I open programs up to work with I might have to retype my password or in this case wait for the photos library to update so it can then download my new pictures on this blog into my iMac for editing and storage.

With that wait I am writing this blog post the 'old way'. Writing first and installing pictures afterwards. Let's see how that photos library update is doing .... it's finished. I remembered yesterday as I looked at those rich green clumps of grass in only certain parts of the yard ... is where all the hounds dump there tanks over the winter.

With this rain my new grass seed is growing fast. This is the bank right behind the corner of my house and right below that old 75 year old fence post I spoke of last summer, with pictures.

I only did 13 pictures this morning. There is not a lot of enthusiasm when it rains, either from me or the hounds. We did do a couple of walks yesterday but one with the 25' leash for Stella. She does well on that leash, she will trot and check her her normal spots but is always within 25' of me. Some days that just feels better.

There was excitement on the afternoon walk yesterday ... Sadie did something very unusual and almost got in trouble. About the time that Stella (on a leash) and I walked into the field, Sadie took off sprinting toward the wooded area. I did not see any birds, cats or deer but she was GONE !!!!

She charged into the wooded area at full speed and DISAPPEARED OVER THE BANK !!! I went running and yelling her name expecting to drop the leash for Stella and charging over the bank, in the mud to chase Sadie.

Luckily as I got closer to the wooded area ... Sadie popped back up over the edge of the bank and came running toward me.

I have no idea what she was after but she disappeared over that edge you see just to the right of her hip. It's really steep and I would have had a very hard time walking back up the side of it if I had to go that far.

A couple of the blogs I read when they update on my sidebar, mentioned yesterday they were wondering what their future was in blogging after so many years. They had noticed a large decrease in blog visits recently, a lack of comments or reader interaction on their blogs and were wondering if blogging might be 'a dying breed'.

More people are on Instagram, where you can just post pictures and a few sentences. That and Pinterest seems to be even more popular than Facebook now days. I like to blog though because I like to write, even without proper English. It also serves as a great journal that can be looked at and read years from now ... I am assuming my memory may fade just a little over time, so a journal will come in handy.

I received my 2017 Indiana vehicle registration paperwork in the mail yesterday. I can do everything online and have my 2017 tags mailed to me. Instead of changing plates on the Mini Cooper Countryman to one of the ugliest license plate designs in state history ... just voted on by the people last fall ... I will keep the plain white plate with black letters for trucks 7,000 pounds and under. How can I do a truck plate on the Mini Cooper ??? The Countryman model is classified as a 'wagon', or SUV, so I can legally transfer the plate from the FJ to the Mini.

It matches the black color of the Mini also ... I like color coordination.

I like the temp increase but not real thrilled with rain. I have things I need to do outside and one of those is go into my crawl space (big moon crater) under the house and close the vents. After reading more and more about how crawl spaces should be set up, the experts NOW say that they were designed wrong 40 years ago and that the vents and crawl space door should be closed at all times.

I also like to inspect under the house every spring to see what's going on. When I thought of going crawling in the small window built into the foundation in front of the house, is when I thought again of removing the Yews. Were they blocking any potential air flow into the crawl space vents?

From my Google research on Monday I found the news about the vents but more importantly I found out that my Yews were one of the recommended plants that would NOT destroy water pipes. With that info I am assuming they will NOT destroy a concrete septic tank ... so the Japanese Plum Yews are staying where they are until further notice ...

Well it's a little after 11am. I'm sure if you are to this point of the post you are tired of reading my rambling, plus both hounds are sitting next to my computer desk chair letting me know it is time to eat lunch. I think later I'll head out to grocery shop and prepare for the Final 4 basketball games this weekend and the championship on Monday night. I run out of food but am never out of coffee and dog food ... go figure.

What then?  Well as of today Major League Baseball's regular season starts in 6 days ... just in time to keep my sports addiction going.

Directv will try to bribe me into buying their expensive MLB package by giving me a week of free access to 10-15 out of market ballgames a night. I'll take advantage of that and get to bed late every night for a week. Those games on the west coast don't start until after 10pm local time ... so you are talking between 1am-2am before they are over.

All is good today here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana ... because it's warm !!!!

Bloodhounds Take A Sunday Evening Walk

While sitting at the computer Saturday afternoon putting the last blog post together about Heidi, I heard sounds of a tractor slowing down out in front of the house. He knew the weather report as well as I did and was going to put on some anhydrous before it rained Saturday night.

It was perfect timing because by Saturday night was starting to rain and based on the looks of the carport floor this morning it had rained for most of the night. That mixture of ammonia and nitrogen is shot underground by the rakes being towed by the tractor.

So in the last two to three days they have spread fertilizer and then the mixture of ammonia/nitrogen before the rains came. I have not seen them put both on their field within days before.

When ever I see tanks of anhydrous I think of two stories. In the last decade but not so much in recent years, these anhydrous tanks were being stolen for meth production. It was so bad at the time they started parking empty police cars near them if the farmers were leaving them unattended over night.

The second story I remember is from sometime around April or May 1970. I had just turned 18 years old, living in a farming community and knew nothing about farming. The money paid was fantastic and I could drive a large John Deere Tractor. My friends dad always hired extra help and hired me to spread this anhydrous on his large flat fields just west of Indianapolis towing two tanks.

On this particular incident I glanced back and saw where there was a leak at the connection of the two hoses that connected the two tanks. So I stopped the large tractor, bigger than the one in these pictures and walked back to the hissing leak of ammonia and nitrogen.

Remember I was clueless about farming and this mixed chemical. I was able to stop the leak and tighten the connection between the hoses but not before some ice freezing cold chemical sprayed against my chest. I didn't know how lucky I was until a few months later a farmer had the same thing happen to him, only the mixture hit him in the face instantly passing to his lungs and killed him.

After a night of basketball of two really good ballgames Saturday night, I spent a few hours looking at those new Blogger templates again. I still don't see anything I like even after making a lot of changes to come as close to the design I have now. I still like playing around with that kind of thing so I'll probably continue to look or change the template to my Wordpress blog.

After a good night sleep we woke up this morning to warm temps, and the fresh smell of rain. Sounds of birds filled the air.

Notice the farmer parked his tanks instead of taking them with him. Why? He came back to pick them up Sunday afternoon.

They planted corn in this field and the field past those trees last year, so I am assuming they will be planting soybeans this year. I cannot remember if they alternate years or not but I'll remember once I look at the blog from May 2015. The two different fields are owned by different people.

I know the bank in back is not looking great but it's right on schedule for a non-professional job. I cleared out all of the wild overgrowth and burned it last November. Earlier this month I raked out and pulled all the roots, burning them. I may have planted grass seed too early on that weekend in early March when it was near 70°, only to have it drop below 30° a week later for a few days. So I planted more seed when it was warmer a few weeks later but that probably got washed away from the hard rains.

I planted more seed last Monday when it was warmer, watered it twice per day and with the rain last night I can start to see some new grass coming up. I'll keep mowing over this after it fills in and continue to seed it next fall. Eventually it will look like the yard on the other side of this fence. What I cannot mow I'll cut short with my weed eater.

Sadie wanted to walk early this morning but it was raining lightly each time we went outside. The ground was pretty saturated ... too wet to walk. The two basketball games today started early and both were over a little past 7pm. By the time the buzzer sounded ending the UK / UNC game I was putting on my hiking boots just in case we ran into wet grounds on our walk.

We headed out for our first walk of the day around 7:15pm ... the wind and skies looked like more rain was on the way.

Since Sadie had been waiting all day for her walk, she immediately took off and started her tracking. She loves these walks.

While I was taking pictures of Sadie I didn't realize that Stella was already heading for the neighbor's woods if not their yard. From the few hoof prints in the ground the deer traffic must have been heavy last night or this morning.

I had to head Stella's direction and trot toward her, calling her name because she was taking off on me. About the time I got about 10' from her she turned and started trotting toward me, then ran past me to catch up to Sadie. She must have thought I needed to get some running in today after spending all weekend on the couch watching college basketball.

She still likes to go her own pace even after catching Sadie. With her right front paw lifted you can tell just how slow she walks.

Sadie was into tracking though tonight so she was constantly moving.

Once she locks into a strong scent, she is pretty focused but I know that she will not take off on me and will always circle back to where I am walking. There are no problems giving her total freedom on these walks.

Sadie sprinted one direction, Stella trotted another direction.

Stella has a pretty good nose but not as good as Sadie's. She is more interested in finding stuff to eat, than to track.

By the time I approached the final turn home, Sadie had moved far to the right of the path we take, she was in the 'no fly zone' but came running to to me when she saw where I was.

Both hounds walked too close to me to take pictures for the rest of the walk home. Not sure if it is suppose to rain tonight but it definitely felt like it was on the way.

I don't have to mow anywhere near the whole yard but there is enough spots of heavy new growth that I will have to mow a few spots as soon as possible in between the forecasted rains this week. It was like this grass grew over night after the rains last night. Hopefully that new grass will overtake the damage done by the moles this past winter.

I still need to take my hand rake through the front yard one more time in hopes the rake can find the missing steel hinge pin that fell off my mower last November. You would think it would be easy to find but I have looked all over that yard and can't find it. I don't want the mower to find a steel pin while I am mowing the yard in a week or two.

Maybe I need to find a place that will rent me a metal detector.

There were some great basketball games this week. Some were won in the last seconds and with four teams left to play, one of them has never been in the Final 4 in their school's history and another has not been there in 70 some years. There will be some good games next weekend.

With time off until next Saturday night for the games to be played, I'll be back to reading books this week. I have a couple of new books I checked out from the library. If the weather is nice this week, I'll be outside starting on my 'to do' list for this year.

It's hard to believe that March is almost over here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Heidi Was Out First For Afternoon Walk

Normally I would have waited and included this in Sunday's blog post but I thought Heidi deserved her own post on her afternoon. There were quite a few readers that followed the blog when Winston was alive ... they were basset hound lovers. Since Heidi doesn't get out much there are only a few of those readers left and enjoy any kind of news about her.

When I announced that 'we are going for a walk' to Sadie and Stella, I heard Heidi jump off the bed and she went running to the door. Could it be true, that she wanted to go on the walk?

When she took an immediate right turn to the front yard I figured that might be all she wanted. Earlier today after lunch she spent over an hour outside by herself while enjoying the warm weather.

So I was somewhat surprised when I turned to check on her and she was slowly running toward me to join us on our afternoon walk.

Just 6 months ago most of that front leg was bare skin. It wasn't raw and sore like it had been the previous two years off and on but the skin was soft and supple, with no hair. With the recent change to SPORTMiX dog food, she has had more hair grow and growing on her four legs than any other time since October 2014.

Some of the other bare spots she was showing up on her rear have grown hair back along with the outside of her ears. There were a few spots on each ear that was losing hair for some reason. I think we are somewhere in the 3rd week of the dog food change and she has never looked better.

While the bloodhounds hung back Heidi took off on the path to gain the lead with her tail wagging and her ears flopping from side to side.

Stella finally passed her and took the lead. I think she tried to intimidate Heidi by walking as close as she could next to her but Heidi did not budge an inch and made Stella walk around her. Stella has even walked on my feet if I am in her way.

A slight uphill grade here and since this is only her second walk of the season I assume she is not in the best walking shape but even today Heidi would trot in different parts of the walk. It didn't take her long to regain the lead.

Does it look like she has gained some of her weight back?

She stopped to pose for the camera but once she heard that shutter pressed she was back to walking in a slow trot.

Sadie got a lot of running in this afternoon. She loves this field and loves her walks.

The best guess and that is all it is when it comes to Heidi's age, is that she will be 8 years old sometime this fall, maybe December. Since she was a runaway and not claimed at her local shelter, the basset rescue service did not have any of her birth records, or previous shot records when they picked her up from the shelter in June 2011.

She finds that walking on the path is much easier than the taller grass.

She looks quite a bit smaller than the bloodhounds but she is feisty enough to hold her own when one of them try to power by her. 99.9% of the time neither Sadie nor Stella will do anything to bother Heidi. I remember when I first brought Stella home, she wanted to get Heidi to play. Heidi wasn't interested and barked enough to let Stella know to back off.

So with a walk plus spending over an hour outside by herself today I think we can officially say it's Spring and we will be seeing a lot more of Heidi in future posts.

Another find day of retirement here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.