Stella's Frozen Paw Confuses Her

I knew when I saw the storm door frozen and the latch was frozen, that was really cold, like single digits cold. My thermometer said 12° and it's usually about 5° warmer than the weather sites online.

As the hounds put their paws on the yard, I could hear the snow "crunching" so that was another sign it was more than freezing.




Sadie charged through the field. I was following her through my 200mm zoom lens. When I noticed her raise her front paw I knew their paws were going to have problems.

By the time I glance at Stella, who had not walked more than 20' into the field ... she was limping. I took the following poor quality photos and sat my camera down to go out and bring them back into the house by hand.

By the time the camera was sat down Stella is trying to walk to the house with looks of confusion and her left rear paw raised above the ground. Surprisingly she was pretty light and easy to carry. She did not put up any kind of fight and was probably happy about getting a free ride back inside the house.

By the time I went back outside to get Sadie, she was standing at the door to be let in.

I hope those 40° temps get here soon.

Around 11:30am the hounds woke up from their morning nap ... except Heidi. I looked outside and saw blue skies, checked the temps on the thermometer and noticed the 12° increase and took the hounds outside.

I don't usually post photographs like this next one, this will be my first and last ... but it's not always "fun and games" here in the "tropics for the hounds. Great personalities but just like any other dog. I'm just happy they always dump tanks in the field.

The cameraman was getting cold, so their stay outside was short. They didn't hesitate to sprint for the house when I said "come on".

I am enjoying working with WordPress here in the "tropics" of Southern Indiana.

This Blog Has Moved

This blog's new location is at:

http://www.houndsandrvs.net

That title might confuse, surprise and cause "I wonder what he has done now?". My post yesterday talked about possibly moving to Wordpress for various reasons. I had used Wordpress for some blogs years ago, so I was a little familiar with the process. It had a slight learning curve and one that was pretty frustrating, which was my first blog on the other site.

I went back and forth with the decision on whether to transfer this blog to my new one. I was reminded on January 21 that if I did that, I would need to delete this blog because search engines will penalizes websites when they find "duplicate" information. That would be the case here if I left this blog online and moved all of it's content to my new blog.

So the new blog on Wordpress is like starting over. Still about Hounds, RVs and Other stuff. It's only coincidental that the move to a new blog happened right after I put Winston down.

I like coming back daily to read the updated blog roll on the left side bar. I like reading the older articles from 1, 2 or even 4 years ago. I like reading the articles about Winston and seeing his photos.

So to make this rambling short ... as far as I know I will be staying with the Wordpress blog and will stop blogging here after this post. Everything here will stay online, under the same domain that you have, there just won't be new posts after this one.

Why move and why will this blog remain online?

1. In Wordpress the photos are clearer, sharp and when you click on any photo in a Wordpress post it, enlarges to the original size and even sharper for you to see.
2. Wordpress has thousands of free themes (blogger calls them templates) to chose from.
3. Wordpress has a dashboard that is very easy to work from
1. Photos upload right into your blog from your computer or editor extremely fast
4. The way that Google tracks your every move and those of your blog readers

One reason it will remain online is information on this blog is indexed and found in search engines used by others looking for certain information about hounds or RVs. Plus a lot of work by the hounds and the blog author doesn't need to deleted. Who knows I may need to come back sometime.

So, bookmark the new link at the top ... http://www.houndsandrvs.net

LET ME KNOW EITHER HERE ON COMMENTS OR BY EMAIL IF YOU HAVE ANY ISSUES THAT NEED HELP FIXING DUE TO THE TRANSFER!!

Seven Hours Flew By With Little Accomplished

I don't have anything tonight but 6 more photos and only 5 of them are of the hounds. I didn't get started working on Wordpress until about 10am. It's is 7-1/2 hours later and really I don't have squat on that blog.

It's fun to do that type of work, setting up a site. At the same time it is frustrating. I will say though .... THE PHOTOS ARE SHARP - LOOK MUCH BETTER THERE THAN HERE!!

So is that a tease or not? Almost like the game of golf. You play a round of 18 holes, and even if you are a 32 handicap or a 7 handicap ... you are going to hit only 5-7 great shots that will keep your addiction to the game alive and you keep playing.

When I saw how sharp and clear those photos were that were uploaded when I was rebuilding the pages, 'My Hounds', 'Winston's Story' for example - same photos and look better - enough that you can tell a difference, I was surprised in the difference. That is just one of the things that keeps me from quitting all of the tweaking/building of the site.

The skies turned blue about 11am, the sun came out, only the bloodhounds went outside because evidently Heidi has canceled today. She was up to eat lunch at noon, after her first trip outside of the day at 6:03am, and she has been hibernating every since.

Sadie and Stella did their normal recon in the field after lunch. Dumped their tanks, looked for any deer scents and came back when I called them. When their tails are curled like that - their radar is locked in.

Later in the afternoon when I had to go outside to talk to myself, mumbling all the way ... they followed me outside of course but didn't get out of the backyard area. By the time they both came up for air, their noses were probably frozen but they didn't feel anything. I think they were only smelling under the snow and nothing was eaten since there was no residue hanging from their jaws.

They returned inside to sleep the rest of the afternoon.

They feel no pain - They're Bloodhounds!!

Take a look at my first post, the layout, the design and let me know if you like it better than this blog. I still have to add my blog roll links on the new blog. I can also change the theme (blogger calls it a template) but I cannot changes all the colors on that page to make it the same as this page. I would need upgrade my WP account to Premium. Take a look here.

A beautiful day here in the "tropics" of Southern Indiana.

To Move Or Not To Move??

Don't panic for you long time readers ... not moving from the house ... I may move my blog to Wordpress. Just like waffling on my decisions of the past 4 years of what kind of RV to buy, or a trailer, or should I travel, or should I sell my house and move west, or ... or ... or.

The list goes on and on ... written about right here on this blog. Just remember if you decide to go back and catch up reading my "rollercoaster" thinking, that "you have to be a little crazy to keep from going insane".

It all started with the 'little' issues Blogger gives us at times. Similar to my Nikon D3200, but I'll not go into that today. There are many bloggers that have used this platform a lot longer than I have (4y 3m) and probably have a 1,000 more photos than I have but Spotted Dog Ranch made a comment here a few days ago, saying that Google is now wanting to bill her for any more photos she adds to her blog.

I thought I saw somewhere that Blogger gave us unlimited storage on Picasa for photos uploaded to our blogs.

Add in the post I made yesterday morning about most people will have to have a google account to make comments, maybe read or follow the blog (I'm still confused on that) although I have my comments open to everyone, even anonymous with word verification to keep the spammers at bay. If I read it correctly everyone would need a google account. Feel free to correct me if I am not understanding their statement I posted yesterday.

Add in the times I have clicked on an older post, only to see all of my photos for that blog post are gone and nothing more than a big white screen where the photos should go. Takes a lot of time of going back and uploading old photos, as they are not always located "in this blog" file.

Still, even if the Blogger templates are a little barbaric in the land of blogs and websites today, I must say that I like my current blog template design, the colors I chose and the fonts. So it really is a tough decision to move my blog to Wordpress.

I have experience in setting up a host for my domain, loading this blog's backup files into FileZilla to upload into Wordpress. I never enjoyed it. Very time consuming, at times frustrating when either the site didn't show up, or an additional plug-in needed installed by me for it to work.

I don't want to be a website designer ... I just want to blog.

So after talking to my GoDaddy rep, where I bought my domain years ago, he verified what I thought the process would be if I would want to transfer my blog to Wordpress. Let's say I did not go outside in the dark, jump up and down in the snow .. screaming "I can't wait to do that!"

So I have two options. (1) Keep my blog here, there aren't that many issues I guess. (2) Use Wordpress's free version.

The only way I can move this blog and all it's photos and posts is to use the paid version of Wordpress so I can use the FTP to transfer files. I can leave this blog here, with a final post directing visitors to a new location on Wordpress's free version and start a new blog starting within the next few days. I would have the time to cut and past all my January 2016 posts, plus the photos into Wordpress if I chose to do that. That's just me ... I can't start a blog on January 12 when January 1 seems like a much nicer way to start a new blog.

That is similar of mowing just the backyard last summer and letting front yard go for a week or two. I couldn't go through with it.

Wordpress templates are plentiful and professional looking ... even the free ones. They look 'clean', the dashboard is very easy to work with, their photos load really fast and in fact may just look a little nicer in quality ... but with old eyes, who really knows if I am seeing that or not.

So I set up a free Wordpress account late yesterday afternoon. After two hours of working on a new blog design I didn't have a lot done. I still had not decided on what template to use and don't even know this morning. I did do two pages, the 'About' and 'My Hounds' pages. I could have everything set up in design and ready for my first real post by noon today ... I think.

I do like messing around with website design. I like changing my default browser on occasions. I mean what else is there to do while being snowed in besides playing fetch with Sadie (going on right now), reading books, surfing the 'net or taking naps. So I will probably get back into Wordpress after I publish this post and see what I can do. I can also find out if the move is worth all the time it will take.

In the meantime leave your thoughts about this move in the comment section and keep coming back here because this blog has not moved yet and maybe never will.

The hounds have been in their normal routines again this morning. Snow flying sideways as I type this. Of course Heidi went out early, like at 6:03 am, then to the living room chair until lunch ... pretty smart basset.

The bloodhounds have ran, sniffed the snow, played outside, played inside, Sadie played fetch with Stella tackling her while bring the bone back to me ... and they have slept, like now ... it's quiet.

Snowy, warm with just below 32° here in the "tropics" of Southern Indiana

The Hounds Enjoy Monday

Heidi knew as early as last night that it was cold outside. She headed to bed early and borrowed my Marmot sleeping bag, even with a warm room and the heat turned on. With the ballgames over, and I'm not being a big tv watcher, the evening ended pretty early. Sadie and Stella decided they were too comfortable to move from the living room and spent another night sleeping in the same spots they took hours earlier.

The daily routine is slowly stepping back to the one of the past two years. The hounds are still waking me up a little earlier than I like but that seemed to have started with the Daylight Savings time change in November. So they wake me up, they go outside quick for their first trip of the day. They always think breakfast is served when they come back inside, so they do not stay outside long.

At 6:00am or 6:30am, their breakfast is not served ... nor at 5:35am. What is different, recently Heidi is up before any of them, with a full body shake and enough flapping ear noise to wake me up. She has actually been going outside every morning with the other two hounds. That has not happened in months, if not years. She was a sleep until lunch type of basset hound.

We return for about an hour of sleep with breakfast being served around 7:30am. The thing that bothers me is not the hounds waking me up but when I glance out the window and see it is so cold that the storm windows are completely covered in frozen condensation. That means the temps are low teens if not single digits.

With bloodhounds temperature will not make a difference. They don't want to wear jackets, sweaters or shoes ... just nose to the ground or inside the snow and away they go. One thing I have to be really aware of though is Stella is starting to expand her traveling past a "house rule" boundary. One of those "give 'em an inch they take a mile" type of things.

Luckily the couple of times I have had to scream her name as I am running toward the suspected location - she will turn around and come sprinting towards me.

There wasn't much done this morning with the temperature at 9° our first trip outside and 13° at the 9:15am trip outside. Heidi never even opened her eyes when I asked if she wanted to go outside for the 2nd time of the day. She had moved to 'her' other spot, on the chair in the living room.

Sadie and Stella though charged outside for about 15 minutes of searching, sprinting and a little play. Once again my trusty Nikon D3200 failed when trying to focus to take photos of them playing. I cannot say that after a year and some months being a Nikon owner that I am a happy customer. I just realized that in my recent posts this past week I may have said D3100 instead of D3200. The D3200 is my correct model number.

I would go back and edit those posts but I have a fear that Blogger will move that old post to the most recent post after I click "update" ... that seems to be an issue lately. Is it time for me to seriously consider moving the blog to WordPress?

I started making some afternoon coffee with the temps hitting a high today of 24°. I found out I was down to my last cup of grounds so it was off to the store buy some, a 25 mile trip. Maybe I'll start buy coffee online and keep one bag of coffee ahead. Plus, stay warm.

There was still time for some afternoon jogging by Sadie and Stella. About all Heidi did for the afternoon was a quick trip behind the Yews to dump tanks and come back inside.

Sadie had been pretty nice to Stella since she arrived last August, they are great friends ... that is until Sadie has "her" container of The Greek Gods Greek Yogurt to lick out ... I don't think she is into sharing that.

Later on they still wanted to go out one last time for the day and double check that no one had been in their field while the snow flew. They would probably be able to stay outside all the time because they love it so much ... in the end they are always happy to come back inside where it's warm.

Yes, it does feel different without Winston around. He loved the snow and loved licking out the container that had the very last part of  yogurt, cottage cheese  or on a rare occasion ... pudding.

It's heading for the 40's here in a few days in the "tropics" of Southern Indiana .. all that snow will turn to mush and a really wet and soggy backyard / field.

Blogger Policy Change Effective Today

I don't know how I missed this announcement from Google Blogger, but it was on my blogger dashboard this morning. I was going to state the policy change in my own words but thought instead of just copy and pasting the notice. In a nutshell, for some readers it might change the way they follow my blog and other blogs.

Please read the statement below:

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In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.

Posted by Michael Goddard, Software Engineer

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Feel free to email me if you have questions or need help making adjustments. I know I am a little confused by what they are saying. Basically all the big companies want control of their sites and traffic.

Sad.

First Snow Of This Winter

I see that Blogger is having issues again. I posted my last blog post on Saturday afternoon January 9. I see after I made an edit to Saturday's post this morning, Blogger changed the date of my Saturday's blog post to today January 10. I know it's nothing ... really ... but stuff like that drives me crazy.

Woke up in the middle of the night, but it wasn't Winston's whine I heard. It was a snow plow barreling down the highway with me hearing howling winds up here on the hill after that snow plow passed the house. So I was pretty sure the local weatherman was a few days off with his prediction the other day of snow showing up in the middle of this week. Even wunderground.com, my weather channel, predicted snow Wednesday.

So as I opened the door at 5:21am to let the hounds outside I saw my Mini Cooper S covered in wind blown snow. A few friends have suggested to me over the years living here, to convert my carport into a garage, it would prevent wind blown snow settling on my vehicles. I'm "old school". I like that the house still has the original but painted aluminum siding. I like that all the cabinets and counter tops, along with the stove that almost caught fire a few weeks ago ... are the original 1975 feature.

What has kept me from changing that to a garage is a different reason besides being the original design. It would block the view I have out the large window when I sit at my kitchen table either eating or being on my laptop.  I remember in 1979 my great aunt and I sat there drinking iced tea as I took a break in the summer sun while painting the overhangs. I never knew I would end up living in this house back in 1979. I am not from the area but my parents, grandparents were.

So Stella, Sadie and Heidi sprinted out into the snow at 5:25am. Of course Heidi stayed under the overhang and wasn't outside more than 30 seconds. The only reason Stella and Sadie came back to the door so fast to be let in after their trip outside ... Stella thinks it's time for breakfast.

It wasn't. Not at 5:30am. We all caught a few hours of sleep before we were up for the day. As you can tell, as it probably does with  your dogs, snow seems to give them more energy. Stella and Sadie played as soon as they stepped onto the snow covered driveway.

Just as fast as they started ... they stopped playing and sprinted a few laps around the field. I would have had more photos of that but my trusty Nikon D3100 that I told you about a few days ago ... was back to not working for a short time.

Just a side note:  At 10:43am Stella is whining beside my desk chair wanting lunch. Not going to happen. The photo below is what I call her Phase II of begging to be fed lunch. Phase I is the whining beside my desk chair and Phase III is when she is howling. Phase II .... she lays her ears back and looks as pretty as possible ... "look at me, I need to be fed".

 

She tried to enlist Sadie to help ... but Sadie doesn't care

 

 Heidi comes out in 15° weather - Believe me, she wasn't outside long  :)

Between the two NFL games, ALL the hounds had their nails cut. Only Sadie needed bribing but all of them got a peanut butter bone after they were finished.

Last time I looked the snow was flying horizontal outside ... so the hounds and I spent the rest of the afternoon hibernating inside.

That's it from the "tropics" from Southern Indiana for today.