Hounds Survived Single Digit Temps

It will probably not be the last time we experience temperatures from -4° to 8° during the daytime hours this winter ... but we did over the weekend.

All three hounds didn't venture much further than the yard and only long enough to dump their tanks. Still, that didn't mean they just relaxed inside. Heidi did her normal winter routine of sleeping, eating and sleeping. Stella also slept most of the time except to remind me it was time to eat.

Sadie on the other hand had a severe case of cabin fever. That started as soon as she returned from her first trip outside after her breakfast kibble. She did not understand of course that the very low temps combined with frozen snow could harm her paws as we walked. Plus I wasn't really enthused that much either to be outside. Daily walks were canceled.

Today was different though. With the highs forecasted to be in the upper 30's by late this afternoon, it was already 24° when we got up. That felt like a mid-summer heat wave. With plans of some early grocery shopping, we took our walk around 9:30am ... the hounds were thrilled to be back on track.

They moved out fast as if they had to be somewhere. I glanced to the woods left of me and up ahead on the horizon to see if any deer might be lingering that would cause a sudden change in plans. I saw nothing ... but Sadie & Stella both either heard or smelled deer in the wooded gully area.

Once they stopped and looked into the woods and then took off running along the edge of the gully I was thinking deer were around the corner and the chase would be on. There are deer tracks all over the snow coming from the wooded gully area.

Once Stella made her stop and glanced that direction, I had my camera on and ready to capture any deer jumping out of the overgrown brush area.

Sadie was so agitated with what she was smelling or hearing that she went the deepest she had ever been in the brush. You really have to look hard but you can barely see her just left of center, with her tailed curled. I was yelling over and over for her and Stella to "come on, get out of there".  They both jumped out of the brush and looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

Instead of turning to the right corner and further investigating the area where there is always heavy deer traffic ... they sprinted along that edge only to run into the brush on the back edge of the field. By the way they were acting it's mostly likely deer were here running earlier this morning, but not now.

As I turned around to see where they were ... both of them were sprinting my direction and went right past me, heading for the 'no-fly zone'.

24° was feeling like summertime to these two today.

All of us made the final turn toward home but Sadie had another area to check out and identify.

Between the snow and warmer temps ... they started playing just a short time, did some running around outside of my reflexes to get the picture and then eventually headed home.

They both stopped to see which one would make the next move. It's funny how long they will stand like that, each waiting for the other to move.

Then they are at it again, but only for a short time.

Back to standing still waiting for the other to move.

They finally decided they had enough, it was just a bit colder since we were outside for almost 30 minutes. They sprinted down the return path toward home.

Even when Sadie stopped to sniff something one last time, Stella just kept on running .... all the way to the door.

It's suppose to rain a lot the next 4-5 days but with the temps in the 40's and 50's I'll not mind the rain. How wet the ground is, will determine just how many walks we get in and how many pictures we take.

I tried Firefox as a browser again yesterday. I was really liking it, seeing that it was blocking any auto play videos. Even with the settings at "do not auto play" I've noticed recently that a lot of these news or sports sites have smaller videos in their front pages that pay automatically no matter how you have your settings, thus increases my colored data use bar on the Activity Monitor.

I once again put Firefox on the shelf due to something running in the background yesterday, that used over 300Mb of data so fast I couldn't get it turned off in time. I am not sure what it was since I have all auto updates clicked off. It will notify me when I have updates but I am the one that decides when that will be updated, so I can control my data usage. I get free data between Midnight and 5am.

I tried Safari. I imported all my current list of bookmarks, then updated the browser. That was working out pretty well except it kept deleting the 714 bookmarks I had imported. All of my favorite sites across the top bar would vanish. After re-importing the bookmarks 3-4 times, I closed Safari and went back to Google Chrome.

Only this morning when I clicked the FlashBlock icon did I find that all of the settings were unchecked. Must have happened after an update of some sort. So after I rechecked those correct settings, Google Chrome has been blocking all video.

Not much I can do when I have a monthly limit on data unless I want to take a out a 2nd mortgage to pay for additional data ... it's ridiculous how much they want for just a few more Gig's of data per month.

I don't know how I started thinking about it ... maybe it was the single digit temps seeping into my brain cells ... but the spelling and use of the word "coUrse" or "coArse" came up. I had always used the word coUrse when writing on the blog but it would yellow out on a spell check telling me that was wrong and would accept 'coArse'. I used that for months if not years on this blog.

It never felt right, didn't look right.

All I would have needed to do was type either word into the browser address bar to get my answer. I cannot tell you why it took me this long to further investigate the proper use. I found out 'coArse' is wrong so today I am back to using 'coUrse' when saying "of course".

Maybe the discussion I saw on Facebook yesterday about the correct process in using a period cause me to step in the forbidden area of the english language. The discussion was about how many spaces were to be used after the period ending a sentence ... 1 or 2 spaces.

A century ago when I was in school taking a typing class I was taught to put 2 spaces after a period, and 2 return keys between paragraphs. They are saying now that is incorrect, that only 1 space should be used after a period. I wonder if I will adapt to that change or keep typing the way I type.

College Football will be officially over tonight sometime a little after midnight eastern time. Should be a good game with the same two college teams playing for the championship as last year. No matter what happens I doubt it will be as exciting as the Rose Bowl was last week between Penn State and USC.

Being the sports junkie that I am, I have now turned my attention to college basketball and I started really back in November when the season started. That will move me to April Final 4 games, ending college basketball just in time for MLB baseball to start. It's a vicious circle but someone has to do it.

I'm going to start a pot of Cajun beans and make some cornbread later, for tonight's 9pm kickoff. The hounds will be in the 'dream state' of sleeping by then but I'll still have to fight for my spot on the couch and don't dare get up and lose my seat.

Warmer temps here in 'the tropics of southern Indiana.

Single Digit Means Hibernation

We knew it was going to be cold again today but we didn't think it would be 10° BELOW what they are forecasting. That put us in the single digit temps for most of the day.

It had the feel of the frozen tundra that many feel further north of us. The hounds went out but only long enough to either dump tanks or eat frozen rock hard "poopcycles" ... why? why? why?


That meant Sadie would have another day of restless cabin fever. Heidi would sleep all day and Stella would sit around with her head lowered wondering what was going on. Why not the daily walk? It was 7° very early and was "up to" 11° by 4:30pm.

The hounds didn't get much further than the yard and never had to be called to come back inside today. They were more than happy to get back inside where it was warm.

By 4:15pm, the only thing the hounds had done all day was this ... the pic below. At least even in freezing weather they will go to the door to be let out or come and get me to let me know they need to go outside.

On our trip a little after 4pm, it felt warmer, the sun had been out enough to melt snow on the top part of the driveway so I thought it was a perfect time to check the mail although I saw no tire tracks curling off the road to approach the mailbox.

As I glanced toward the right near the bottom of the yard near the highway were either deer tracks or Sadie had snuck down this far in the yard. She never has done that before but I thought I'd take a closer look. I checked the mailbox (empty) and ran back up the hill to grab my camera sitting on the kitchen table.

Looking closer that print, it didn't look like a bloodhound because of the sharp cut out in the center. I was pretty sure it was deer. I could see more tracks further up the front yard, plus they always walk along the north edge of the yard coming from the field in back, then veering slightly toward the driveway near the bottom of their path.

That is also what the tracks showed and gave me an answer on why Sadie had been going to the north side of the yard, walking around the house and coming back to the door from the front yard yesterday and earlier this morning.

On the shoulder of the highway, in front of my driveway, these hoof prints matched up with the direction of those coming from the yard. This is their normal path that is seen when it snows. It's also a reason that most of the deer hits over 19 years have been right in front of my driveway or just to the south falling in the culvert.

By the time I walked back up the driveway to go inside, the hounds were running so fast toward the house I didn't have time to catch them with my camera and adjust my lens. Sorry for the border cutting off the top of Stella's head. You can see their urgency in getting back inside.

With all the time on my hands today, that meant more book reading and more internet surfing, than normal. Due to boredom I updated Firefox and used that for the browser today. Based on what I wrote down, Firefox uses twice as much data as Google Chrome. I came up with similar results the last time I tried Firefox a month or two ago.

Lately even with Flashblock installed, Google Chrome has not been stopping any kind of videos found on news or sports sites from playing automatically, even after the settings of 'do not play automatically". With Firefox they are blocked every time, same sites such as CNN and ESPN.

I stumbled over to cars.com to see if my old blue FJ was still for sale. It was but nowhere did I find the Black Cherry FJ that I traded on the 12th of December. I can check for that one by mileage or VIN. I did see a lot of FJ's that color within a 150 mile range from my zip code but noticed some looked like the same color but not as 'purple'.

After doing a google search I found the reason for that ... there were two official Toyota colors for the 2007 and 2008 models, which could have changed in the same calendar year but different model years.

2007 - Black Cherry
2008 - Red Brick

Close in color from a distance but much different up close or standing next to each other based on pictures listed on their ads. I would have kept the "red brick", never got use to "black cherry".

I may have already said this yesterday, can't remember, but the Mini Cooper S Countryman made it up my driveway in the icy snow with no problems. A few years ago my short lived 2011 Kia Sorrento did NOT make it up the driveway with front wheel drive.

40's and 50's are right around the corner. The hounds and I cannot wait for that to happen since it looks like we will get 7-8 days of those much warmer temps. I will not even care if it rains during that heat rush.

Freezing but all is good inside, in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

First Snow Of This Winter

It wasn't much snow but the experts were right with their forecast of <1". We have been up about 4 hours and the temp has not moved from 19° and the snow has not gotten deeper.

Our first trip out this morning there were big flakes gently dropping from the sky ... it wasn't a blizzard by any means. Stella was pretty hesitant about getting out into the snow. She started, then stopped. I am pretty sure she didn't pee this morning during her first trip out as I poured breakfast kibble. Sadie and Heidi always do but Stella is always more interested in eating food than anything else.

Of coarse Sadie was out and down over the ditch before I could tell her to stop. That is a place she is not allowed to go but has gone to dump her tanks lately. Stella on the other hand was remembering just how nice that warm bed felt ... she didn't get any farther than this.

Sadie wanted to stay outside more and play but I needed coffee after my late night/early morning book reading marathon last night. I had to force myself to put the book down and go to sleep, sometime a little after 2am.

It may have snowed a little through the night but nothing that was record breaking amounts. At times it pays to live in 'the tropics' when storms are involved.

With two cups of Seattle's Best Coffee moving all my blood cells around, plus Sadie having a severe case of "I want to go outside NOW" ... I decided that a "half" walk might work to bust that ball of energy she has had since the time she opened her eyes this morning.

Both hounds shot through the door to go outside and it was instant wrestling. Even a little bit of snow seems to energize them. As it did last winter.

Sadie wanted to make sure of the depth of snow before she would be attacked by Stella. As I have mentioned before, when outside Stella is the aggressor, when inside Sadie is the one that has Stella down on her back.

It's always good to see and hear that this is all in fun and doesn't lead to a dog fight.

Sadie making a move to win in the end.

Once my feet hit the field, they both sprinted around me and headed out. They didn't know that I had planned, due to the freezing temps and snow, to only do a half of a walk. They started running and didn't stop.

As fast as they took off and kept going I was sure they had found strong deer scents and my plan of a half of a walk may not happen. I wasn't sure they were going to stop and I was already pretty far behind them. This next pictures is with a 200mm zoom setting.

Stella stopped and almost headed to the left wooded area. She stood like a statue facing that direction so I started walking faster and looking toward that area in case any deer would jump out of the woods and take off. I was sure she had either heard or smelled deer staring back at her.

Once again I yelled their new keyword "hey" and they both turned their attention away from the left wooded area and started around our first turn.

I wasn't able to keep up with them today. Most of the time I wasn't sure they were going to stop but with 19° and a frozen snow, I did not want them staying outside very long. It wasn't feeling colder than yesterday but the digits were lower.

Right before they got to the turn of the far right corner, I make a left myself way short of the normal path and head back across the field to our return path, telling them "lets go home". They turned and followed me for a short time before moving out in front of me.

Sprinting again ... I wonder if feeling that cold snow on their paws makes them run like this, if they even feel it.

Sadie curled her sprint around and headed back to me. She rammed her nose/head into my knee to let me know I needed to walk a little faster, then turned and sprinted toward Stella. She has been nothing more than huge ball of energy since she got outside.

There was one last scent she had to check out before she turned for the house. Stella was already enthused about the "milk bone" words I has yelled. I don't feed them that brand name of bones but it's my words for their treats. They are not passed out a lot but they know what they are and where they are.

I am reading my 2nd book this week and it is just as good as the first book I picked up from the library this week. I read Bryan Cranston's new book in a 24 hour period. The current book is older but one I missed somehow when it came out. It has smaller print but a fast read as I started late but still had 100 pages read by the time I put it down.

I thought about doing a test run with the Mini Countryman today and find out how it handles a little snow while going up my driveway. Yet, after seeing that snow plows making a few trips up and down the highway spraying their salt/sand/chemicals mixture to clear the roads I decided the Mini would stay parked where it was. The highway is now clear and slushy with the melted ice and snow.

Temps in the 40's and rain are only four days away. I have the cabinets and fridge stocked with enough food to where I don't need to go anywhere if I don't want to during this kind of weather.

I didn't get any pictures scanned yesterday because I couldn't stop reading the book. I almost read through dinner time until I realized I had not had anything to eat since a bowl of oatmeal at breakfast.

Well the 'half walk' worked for Sadie. She has finally stretched out for a nap on the floor until lunch time. Stella just walked into the computer room to let me know it's 11:28am and that's close enough for her lunchtime kibble. She is currently sitting like an end table, with her eyes closed and head bowed ... it's her way of telling me that she is starving and hopefully I will feel sorry for her, enough to feed her.

It's a look she does many times ... when she wants fed or when she wants Sadie or Heidi to move off her spot on the couch. She never moves from that pose until she gets what she wants.

Nothing is planned for the rest of the day besides reading the rest of the book and possibly starting a new one. If I had not looked in the upper right corner of my monitor to see "Thur 11:31 AM", I would have had no idea what day it was.

Five days into January and it's been a very mild and warm winter so far in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.