Hounds Sleep Between Walk & Lunch

We had a little different schedule today based on my schedule ... called sleep. For some reason I was up really late last night (this morning) and when the hounds howled around 7:30am to wake me to let them outside, I knew then I was not up for the day. I didn't even feel like starting coffee. They went outside only for a short time because they love eating breakfast first thing in the morning. After that breakfast, recently they like to go back outside just long enough to dump their tanks ... then to sleep.

I decided today I would follow their schedule and go back to sleep. So that almost threw the whole day's activities off but you can do that in a moment's notice when you are retired ... it's a beautiful thing. I see now it's 12:22pm, already past their lunch time but none of the hounds are begging to be fed, not even Heidi. She is up exploring around the house, but Sadie and Stella are passed out after their late morning walk today. They had a pretty long run that I will describe later.

Like I said the other day, we might take the exact same path on the daily walk but every walk is different. That proved to be the case today.  This deer hoof print had something to do with it.

Consequently they had their noses to the ground and rarely lifted their heads. For me it was nice, no jacket required, camera was working most of the time but not all the time ... but enough that I decided there was not a need to buy a new camera today -- although I am very very tempted. When their tails are up and curled you can bet their 'radar' is locked in on something good.

With it being a warm 58° and a strong wind out of the southwest - the first thing that changed was Sadie was about to continue walking over the edge down into the gully. It wasn't the drop off part of the edge but where deer walk down into the gully. It is hard to see any distinctive points in the area photo but here it is. She came running after I yelled "no" multiple times.

After Sadie trotted back into the field from where she almost took off, Stella wanted to remind her she couldn't do that.

Stella kind of checked out her spot from yesterday where they had found something to eat ... nothing there so she moved up to the brush line. She wasn't there long either because she didn't want Sadie getting anything while she was away.

As we continued down the path to return home, Sadie took off left because something has raised her interest, Stella followed. I am not sure what they found, nor did I want to know what they found because they were both chowing down something. It must have been good because they were not concerned I was walking away from them. Even if I was getting further away ... they continued to enjoy their new treasure.

They glanced up a few times to see if I was still around ... then the last time they glanced up I wasn't there. I was out of their sight line by choice because I wanted to see what they would do. The camera worked 90% of the time as I tried to catch them running toward me. I don't know what they were thinking but looking up and not seeing me must have changed their minds about what they had found. I was well past the 'corner' where we turn and they were sprinting to catch up for me.

It could be the reason that Stella 'walked it in' at the end of the walk.

With heavy rain in tomorrow's forecast, predicting 2-3 inches, walks and photos may be few and far between until the field's surface/ground dry out enough to keep us from getting muddy on our walks. That rain is suppose to start tonight sometime and those 2-3 inches will get 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana back to where it should be in total rain accumulation for this time of year. After the sun hits the yard after all of that rain I am expecting to mow the yard for the first time in 2016. Grub worm killer will be spread later this afternoon so the rain can do it's thing.

My taping of games, movies and Indy500 races onto DVDs from my DirecTv DVR is going great. I do test each disc for playback after each recording before I delete the program from my DVD. I have only been doing that test on my tv to see if the recording is good. Today I loaded those recorded DVDs into my iMac to see if they would play on the computer and on a different device from which it was taped ... years ago I had a problem with that. Today was all good. You cannot record in HD but the picture quality of the SD video was pretty good ... at least good enough that there were no complaints from me.

That still raises the question, do I really need their updated DVR to replace the one I have that works but has a lot less memory available on the hard drive. I am finding out that I have a lot of programs to convert just on the DVR that I have now with the smaller memory capacity. Do I really need a terabyte worth of hard drive?

With the warm weather today, the hounds and I will be in and out many times today. I hope to get Heidi out into the field after lunch and let her walk around and at least see how see reacts. Her appetite is still huge, water consumption normal, sleeping normal, and starts her day with sprinting around the living room after breakfast. With the clean blood work report, I continue to see her as normal with a skinning frame that may never regain those 15-16 pounds.

Spring is here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Spring Temps Have Arrived

I could tell as soon as I looked outside with the sunshine just starting to break through the clouds that the spring temperatures in the forecast had arrived. Today was already a good day. It wasn't long after a cup of coffee that I went back outside with the camera. Once they saw me follow them outside they had one thing and one thing only on their mind ... going for a morning walk. It was 28° but seemed much warmer.

As we made the turn right I could hear the heavy equipment we heard yesterday. The hounds were really interested in what they were hearing and I was a little concerned they might try to run to where the noise was coming from. I stood there for a while trying to focus with the camera on what was going one but couldn't find anything where the camera would auto focus. I decided as long as the hounds stayed near me, we would continue instead of turning around.

By the time we got to the brush line the equipment was on the other side of the field, farther away from us.

The hounds were pretty laid back in the morning and did nothing but sleep until lunch was served. Heidi is looking good and also as active as normal. Yet she had no interest in the afternoon walk. Mid afternoon it was so nice with the temps near 60° I decided it was time to walk again. Great weather where no jacket was required.

This afternoon's walk was a little different. Sadie followed Stella off to the right. I'm not sure what they had found to eat but I wasn't stopping just to see what they would do. I was able to go all the way to the path where we make the turn home. You will see in the sequence of photos that Sadie finally decided she was getting left behind and started running. It wasn't long that Stella passed her as they both sprinted toward me.

They were both taking their time getting home. My burn pile is building and I still have a fresh supply of sticks to pickup in the yard to add to the pile.

It's a beautiful day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Heidi's Health Mystery Continues

After having a lot of days in a row of good skin, today after lunch I noticed that Heidi had chewed a spot on her upper right front leg. Plus her skin had redness on the rear legs again. Instead of doing the Epsom Salt soak, I decided I wanted the vet to see what the skin looked like when it was irritated. I also wanted to check her weight and get a check-up since her last trip to the vet was last June. Plus she was due for her annual rabies vaccine. I also wanted to see if they would cut her nails further back than I do ... I found out they cut just as much as I do, not more.

After seeing three different vets since October 2014 and no changes in her skin issues, I had decided for my next trip it would be back to the original vet that Heidi had seen since I got her in July 2011. For the same reason I chose to go somewhere else in September 2014 I saw and heard the same thing today ... very little discussion on skin possibilities, and was just going to give her an allergy shot without very little discussion. I told her she the last shot she gave did not work longer than 7 days. So no allergy shot was given today. I told her the different medicines that had been tried since October 2014 and what the results were.

It might have been me taking their attitude wrong but I had the impression as I was telling the vet this information, she didn't really care since it was done at a different vet clinic. Could that be possible?

The focus was more on Heidi's thin appearance and what might be the causes. No test was given on her thyroid because the vet said in the cases she had seen with thyroid problems, the dogs were extremely overweight. She was more concerned about her liver, kidneys functions and any possible tumors. She squeezed her stomach hard, pushed and probed ... found nothing and there were no signs of pain from Heidi.

She suggested blood work. I told her last year the test results were normal ... but go ahead and try again. The results came back with normal readings. Liver and kidneys functioning normal. White and red blood cell counts in the normal range. So the good news was ... the blood test showed nothing was wrong internally.

Heidi left the vet clinic once again with a clean bill of health and no answers about her weight problem.

Although she has normal stools, just to make sure Triwormer was prescribed. She also prescribed Hema A Spike which is a potent concentrated liquid that spikes red blood cell production, supplies essential irons, folic acid and Vitamin B12. It is also contains manganese, cobalt, copper and zinc. Basically it is for older dogs that just need 'a boost' as well as dogs that have had surgery or a serious illness. It will be interesting to see if there are any improvements.

At 35 pounds, her hip bones are extremely exposed, spine is expose but you can feel muscle mass on her upper rear legs, neck and upper shoulder area. She weighed 34 pounds in June 2015.

That's about all I have for today from 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Are Quiet Today

This morning was cool temps, little sunshine and a pretty quiet morning with the hounds. They went outside as usual this morning but didn't run, didn't play and really didn't stay outside that long.

I'm not sure why, maybe they are just wanting to relax or maybe they can tell it is a taping marathon going on in the living room ... they are pretty low key today.  No one was begging to be fed lunch, that is very strange. Before I even looked at the clock we were about any hour past their normal lunch time.

Still had time for a walk this afternoon. It's a nice day although not sunny and nothing close to the predicted high temperature today. I wanted to try something different on taking photos today ... every photo is with the 18mm-55mm lens.

 

Stella was interested in the sounds of the heavy equipment within hearing distance

Without going to her normal spots to the right side of the field, she followed along with Sadie for a lot of the walk.

 

She is still very interested in the 'no fly zone' and would love to get back in that area where she snuck off to the other day ... over that hill by the tower.

Sadie waits for Stella to catch up as she is lagging way behind today ... at a very slow pace. It reminded me walking with Winston and the pace he use to walk at.

I am going to be taping non-stop today and tonight since there is nothing on tv that I want to watch. I want to get as much of the taping done as fast as possible. I wondered today if I was never planning to keep all of my media on the DVR, then why do the upgrade just for more memory space? Of course it would be many more games, movies stored in an HD format.

The hounds and I are too lazy today in 'the tropics of Southern Indiana ... not much is going to get done today.

Recording From DVR to DVD

First of all I am making this as a separate post for two reasons.

The story that goes along with the process may help some readers that would like to take their programs they have recorded on the DVR, in my case it is the Directv HD DVR, and move them off of the DVR onto a DVD disc.

I am also writing this to me, as a reference that I can look back on in the future if I need to. I will be able to see how to connect the equipment, what will or will not work and the correct cables to use in case in the future I change equipment or lose my mind.

Currently I have used 90% of my DVR hard drive memory so if I wanted to keep those ballgames, a couple of movies or the last 3 years of the Indy500 Race I am going to have to move them to DVDs. My current DVD has 500Gb of memory and Directv's new Genie DVR has 1 Tb of memory. I have thought about upgrading to that machine for more memory where all the shows recorded would stay in HD quality.

From everything I've read, looked at on YouTube and talked to tech reps on the phone, the files on the HD DVR cannot be moved to the new Genie DVR like you can with a new computer. Either way, I have to move programs that I wanted to keep for future viewing onto DVDs. If I decide to go with the new DVR model, then I have a lot more memory to use.

In the past I had this same Toshiba DVD Recorder and I did tape programs from my DVR to DVDs ... so I knew it could be done.

The problem was I had forgot how to do the process from 3-4 years ago. I thought maybe the HDMI cables could be used in recording and keeping the file in HD format. (I was hoping) This might be something all of you run into ... each tech rep or customer service rep on the phone will give you a different answer to the same question. I am sure their answers are based on their experience. Also consider what I write here is just what I have found from talking to reps on the phone, read on forums for satellite tv and/or searched on Google and read for myself.

I'll try not to go into a lot of detail in this story but I will say that 2 out of 3 reps at Directv told me I could not record any programs on my DVR to a DVD disc. Maybe they were confused by my questions? Or were they thinking HD programs?

Right off the bat I will say that with the common user (me) and the $100 recorder you cannot record in HD because the $100 recorder does not have an "input" for HDMI cables. I am sure if I were an electronics expert and a top-of-the-line recorder for hundreds of dollars more .. it could be possible. I'm not an electronics expert and I have a recorder that cost me about $100 a few years ago. So the quality of the picture is not HD quality but still good viewing quality and I am freeing up hard drive space on my recorder.

My last Directv Technical Rep did say it was possible to do what I wanted to do, but could not tell me how to hook up the equipment so that it would work.

Here are the cable options:

• HDMI cables - are only 'output' capable only on the equipment and 'input' on your tv
• S-Video Cable - A single connection for all 3 signals - 'output' only and 'input' on your tv
• RCA Video Cable - 3 connections color coded red, white and yellow - has the only 'input' on the recorder

The 'Quick Install' Guide from the Toshiba Recorder showed connections of all 3 cables but they did not tell you that ONLY the RCA Cables were the only option to RECORD. I tried recording using each cable in the order the cables are listed. That was out of the box effort and before I called anyone or read any information online.

The HDMI cable is connected from the recorder to the tv and will not be an issue with recording as it is used strictly for playback. When I tried the S-Video Cable my tv did not recognize the recorder as one of many devices connected to my tv. Using the RCA video cables, the tv did recognize my recorder as a device.

Just like the older VCR recorders, you can set up the dvd recording modes of XP, SP, LP, EP and SLP - anywhere from 1-4 hours in length. Even though I am using the DVD-R disc I found that I could still record over any testing I had done unless of course the disc had been "finalized".

I am sure the younger blog readers and other media experts reading this are saying WHY BOTHER???? ... everything is now on YouTube, Amazon tv, Netflix or 'the cloud' and there is no reason for cabinets of DVD's. In fact in a few years DVDs may not even be sold. That is all true UNLESS you live in 'the tropics' of rural small town USA and have only satellite internet as your provider with a limited amount of data per month.

When I was looking at YouTube videos on just a couple of recording options ... my data graphs on my Activity Monitor screen were maxed out and the MB of data received were increasing so fast I thought I was looking at the gas pump when I fill up the FJ. Those videos were only 5-10 minutes in length.

So THAT is why I am having to go 'old school' by taping to DVDs and storing them in my media library. Like most of you I have changed from cassette tapes to CD's for music and still have some electronically on my computer. I just have too much music to convert everything electronically. Then it was VCR tapes to DVDs and hearing  yourself say "I'll never buy a new machine nor any of those new CD's or DVDs .... I HAVE TAPES!!!"  LOL

So .... in summary

• You can record programs from your DVR to a DVD disc -- just not in HD quality
• You can only record these in "real time" - meaning if it is a 3 hour race it will take 3 hours to record
• Owner's manuals, tech reps on the phone, customer service reps on the phone, forum experts, will all have different ways of doing this. Nothing is clear and easy to understand.
• Unless you have a very expensive recorder you will not have an "input" connection for your HDMI cable.
• It will record and shut off automatically if you tape long 3-4 hour programs as you sleep
• You can set your disc to "auto finalize' when the disc is full or when the specific time has elapsed
• The tv can be turned off during recording for those times you are taping while you sleep
• Sadie and Stella are more than happy to put their heads where you have yours to make sure you connect it correctly

If there are any electronic 'geeks' reading this and I know there is at least one reader that fits that description, feel free to comment and correct any information that is wrong ... or any suggestions that might make the process more efficient.

The hounds haven't done to much today ... it's foggy, overcast and a little cool. I believe Heidi and I will be making a visit to the vet this afternoon as the vet is only there today for a couple of hours.

A lot to do today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.