Sadie had a pretty rough July 4th. Just like days in the winter when the windchill is below 0° and a walk is not possible, when the 'feels like' is 105° late afternoon and there is also a 'Heat Advisory' sent out ... she has a hard time understanding when I tell her "it's too hot, we cannot go for a walk today". She finally gave up and crawled into her usual sleeping spot for late afternoons ... under the coffee table in the living room.
Past hounds you may not know are below.
Heidi was the hero of the day I guess. She went to the door to tell me she wanted out in the middle of the afternoon and stayed outside a whole eight minutes before wanting back in. I wasn't going to let her stay outside longer than 15 minutes anyway. It's good that I no long see her ribs anymore like a few years ago with the mystery weight loss.
Stella has me a little confused every afternoon. She doesn't leave the driveway, doesn't relieve herself and is back inside soon as possible. When we take that second walk of the day, mostly late afternoon or after 8pm ... she will stand at the corner of the house and not move ... if I try to let her go outside, she trots to the field to start her walk. No worries though, that routine change within a couple of weeks ... hopefully.
Today was a bit strange as we started the day but by noon a text I received changed the pace and interest. The day took off like a rocket and really didn't stop until I sat down to put this post together. Let just say that right before I received that text I was going to blog about something entirely different and had just loaded photos to go along with that story or topic ... which you will still see and read about below. Looks like he planted soybeans this year across the highway.
Early this morning when I opened the door to let the three hounds outside first thing in the morning while I pour their morning kibble into their dishes ... a ball of heat, very hot air hit me ... I knew the morning walk was canceled right then ... Sadie did not.
We waited to go out right after they had lunch and you can tell from the photo that all three hounds are not really motivated to move too fast nor did they want to go anywhere ... so we didn't stay out long.
Heidi went over to the shade by the fence to relieve herself and ALMOST walked into the yard. When she decided it was too hot to go anywhere and it was too hot to lay in the grass to soak up some sun, she made an abrupt left turn looked up at me and headed toward the door.
The hounds might be rated on the AKC list #73 and #74 in the department of intelligence for their respective breed but they are smart enough to know it feels a lot better in the air conditioned house compared to outside.
Sadie was stymied. She had waited all morning for her walk. She pleaded with her stares for me to break down and take her out but it was just to hot to do that. The heat index was at 107° and with all the hounds being a year older I am more cautious than last summer on when we take the walks. She didn't even go into the field, glanced at Heidi and followed her to the door.
Of course Stella as usual was on her own schedule. This just shows how great of a house dog she is. Due to the heat she had been "holding it". So even with the heat as it was at noon, she stepped out into the field to poop because she knows I hate mowing over it. Then she walked back into the yard to pee just to give the yard a little extra nitrogen to keep it green.
I agreed with her, that I needed to mow. The hourly weather site told me it looked pretty good temperature wise to mow late afternoon or early evening. I ended up mowing around 4pm when I saw gray clouds outside, storms to the north of us and a pretty strong wind passing through. By the time I finished mowing the temps had dropped to 90° and we were able to fit in our afternoon and only walk of the day in.
With this morning being so slow and no plans of going outside I decided to pull some photos of my past hounds and post one each. These go back to 1975, a lot of them from the 1990's and some from here. I've had a lot of hounds but at the same time I've had basset hounds since 1987 ... every year since I have had at least one but more than likely two or more. I'm sure you recognize who that is ... Winston.
Gretchen was picked up through a rescue service in Bloomington Indiana when I was attending Indiana University in 1975. She was half basset hound and half german shepherd. You would think that I had the only one in the world with that mix .... but a frat house had the male named Nick. Gretchen use to get all kinds of smiles, laughs and photos taken of her whenever and wherever we took a walk.
In 1987 I got a call from the Oak Harbor Washington shelter telling me they had not only a basset hound but a beautiful pure bred basset hound. I could not believe a hound that nice would be in the shelter with no owner. She was not a volunteer turn in but had gone unclaimed the past 14 days. We found out within an hour after we brought her home why she ended up in the shelter .... she was a 'runner' ... if the door was open an inch she was gone ... like in disappear gone ... nowhere on the horizon.
We use to have to search for her so many times we named her Sadie after the Beatles song, Sexy Sadie "where have you gone". In 1987 while living out by Ft. Ebey SP on Whidbey Island I bought a basset puppy from someone I worked with. Harry was my first basset puppy. He lived and traveled in Washington, Breckenridge CO and his last home was right here. He use to like to run off but would always come back. It didn't matter what time of day or late night ... if you let him out to pee, he was also gone but not every time.
Some of his naps were taken at the Oak Harbor BMV, the Oak Harbor Park down by the baseball fields and Bradfield's Landscaping just down the road from me. I can see the roof of their building from my window. ALL of these area's that Harry would sleeping, would call me and let me know that that Harry had wandered off and when I had time, he could be picked up by the desk or cash register counter ... but he was taking a nap so I could wait.
Barney was a Colorado puppy. He had spent time at my sisters for a while during a move I was making back to Washington. They flew him and Harry out to this house on Whidbey Island right on the water. So Barney did have commercial flying experience. Honestly he did nothing wrong ... didn't run away, didn't chew things up, did just normal basset hound stuff.
Arthur showed up right before I moved from Washington back to Indiana in 1994. He and Harry were pretty close but luckily Arthur was not a runner nor a wanderer ... he just liked to hang out. He loved kids in the neighborhood and didn't mind riding in cars ... so the 3,000+ mile trip in the 4Runner was not a problem for him.
No that is not Sadie, that is my first bloodhound Bertha around 2003, maybe 2002. I had another Arthur. This puppy was from the same breeder as Winston's, who I would pick up in 2004. Different couch but the same house as I am in now. Sadie and Bertha look a lot a like but they came from different parents and different parts of Indiana.
That's a grown Arthur a year or so later with Max (on right). Max was a rescue from the link on my sidebar "Basset Rescue" He was the biggest basset hound I had ever seen. He weighed 81 pounds and the owner told me "he only eats kibble if you put cottage cheese on it" ... while she said that I thought to myself "not in my house" LOL
He could barely walk to the edge of the yard and field without laying down, on his very first walk. We followed the same path then as we do today ... a few years later he was down to 62 pounds and could do laps around that field. He spent his last 5 years totally blind by never missed a walk and would play with all the other hounds in the yard and field ... an no, he didn't get scoops of cottage cheese on his kibble but he got to lick out the empty cottage cheese container.
Maggie was a lot like Heidi in temperament. I took this photo when she was really sick with cancer. I had to put her down a couple days later. You'll notice the large lump on the left side of her throat, well that wasn't the only lump she had. She was my first two tone basset hound. As a puppy my niece walked her in the Apple Festival Parade.
I always say that the three hounds I have now will be my last. As you can see that might not be possible. I have had hounds since 1987 and sometimes I had up to 4 hounds here at this house ... that's too many. So we will see what time brings. About the time you think you will never have another hound as good as the one that just passed ... a different shows up and is just as great as the previous ones.
So ... what was the text that turned my day into something entirely different?
Nothing major really ... just a surprise text from Best Buy telling me my amplifier had arrived and was ready for pickup. It came in FIVE DAYS EARLY !!!! So I was pretty happy to jump in the Z4, turn on the AC and leave the top up today, for the 35 mile drive over to Bloomington.
I had it hooked up, checked out all the inputs like the CD player, Cassette Tape Deck and even my Turntable, before taking time to mow the yard. I plugged my tv into it so I do have the separate speakers now but it's not a Home Theater by any means, nor did I want that. It has a few watts per channel less than my old Yamaha Amp but like I read during my research, the human ear cannot tell the difference between 150W and 100W per channel. The receiver comes with all the wireless features such as AirPlay (Apple), Pandora, Spotify, and others.
For those of you that use the new Firfox Quantum browser I think I have found something you can use to wipe out those videos that automatically play when you go to a news or sports website. Videos were still playing automatically with uBlock, AdBlockPlu running. I even use FlashBlock Plus and the videos were still playing when I was on Firefox. That was one reason I would not use it.
I loved the new browser. I wanted to use it as my default browser but Firefox was a 'data hog' and I can't waste data based on what I pay for. So today I did a little more research since it was a slow morning and I found this:
How To Prevent Videos From Playing In Firefox
I followed their simple instructions after I clicked that link. Then I refreshed Firefox without restarting it (not needed) and went right back to ESPN and FoxNews to see if the videos still played ... zapped, nada ... no videos. So I did the next test of going back to all the websites I visit ever morning over coffee and wrote down how much data Firefox used with that new setting that prevents videos from playing automatically and it was less than Safari or Google Chrome.
Firefox Quantum is my new default browser.
That is about all for today ... everything is done around the house, the hounds are asleep again and my AC is at full steam ahead. Vinyl LPs really do sound the best compared to CDs or digital downloads.
The days right now really do feel like 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.