Snow Is Melting Here In The Tropics

It might be covering the Northeast and the Eastern Seaboard but here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana, the ice cycles are running water and the snow is disappearing into the green grass. That is always a catch-22 for walking the hounds. Beautiful day to take the daily hound walk but the ground is too muddy and wet. Nothing like trying to clean the undersides and paws of wet, muddy bloodhounds while they are anxious to get back inside after a walk.

So we went outside to enjoy the afternoon sunshine, take some photos and sniff some new scents. Heidi of course refused to join us but didn’t hesitate later to sprint to the cabinet when the treats were being passed out. With all the food she is eating I hope that leads to her gaining that 10-12 pounds back that she lost last year.

The new websites seem to running smoothly so far today. They don’t see any comments from readers talking of things gone wrong. There are still some things to get finished to tie in the system of there. Finding out the NFL Playoff games are not until tomorrow, I should be able to get what is needed, finished.

The other day Al at The Bayfield Bunch had taken some photos of old fence posts out in his area with different barbed wire fencing. Some of you may have seen this fence post before in my past posts but there is a story behind this. It’s in my backyard near the area that I cleared last April and planted grass seed to increase the area of my yard.

My father who is now 87 years old was a teenager plowing the field for my great grandfather, that same field the hounds now roam. He claims that roll of barbed wire you see toward the lower third of the post has been there since approximately 1944, give or take a couple of years. I think that’s pretty cool that it has stayed intact for around 70+ years.

As you can see, the hounds and I didn’t get much done outside except enjoy the sunshine, warmer temps and melting snow.

The ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana is the place to be during these winter storms.

Hounds Have Dot Com Sites

After a lot of confusion yesterday and last night about building the 3 new websites for the hounds – each having their own .com domains – a friend mentioned something about how plugins worked and the cobwebs of my memory evaporated immediately. I remembered what to do. So I headed off for a good night of sleep, started again this morning and finished their sites in less than 4 hours time.

Here are the links that you will need to change your bookmarks to:

Heidi – http://heidithebasset.com

Stella – http://stellathebloodhound.com

Sadie – http://sadiethebloodhound.com

Now the reason you need to change your bookmarks or favorites to those links, I have to delete the .worpress.com sites each hound had because if I don’t, the google search engines say that each of the hounds have duplicate content. They don’t like that and would penalize the new sites of the hounds, thus they wouldn’t show up on the search engines.

Why did I build these sites and not keep the ones I made the last week?

Well the hounds are going to do a little affiliate internet marketing. They needed their own domain name to do that. They think it might be a chance to make some money online, buy a few more treats, maybe a camping trip here and there or save up for any unexpected vet bills they might have as they get older.

They don’t have the chance to join Obamacare, so they have to do something for some sort of health insurance.

Also, going to their own domain name makes it their site, they own it, they own their photos. Sure their slave Steve will have to do the work in the background, he has installed automatic updates so their sites are backed up without us even worrying about it. It will be the same type of work the hounds have me doing now FOR FREE … I don’t get paid by them.

All of the hounds are happy with the way things have turned out. They would like some warmer temps though.

This morning started out interesting. We normally go outside together to take the two normal photos for my personal use…the shot across the field and at the corner of the house looking back into the field. Just a sky shot to show what the weather is like.

For some reason this morning I didn’t let the hounds outside with me at the same time. I wasn’t going out that long, only to take 2 photos. During my first photo I picked up about 15+ deer running across the cornfield. By the time I focused the Nikon D3200, there were but 5-6 of them left. The last 2 turned and looked at me, then sprinted away when they heard my Nikon D3200 beep when it focused.

If I would have let the hounds out with me, like normal, they would have smelled the deer immediately before they did anything. Once they saw them, they would have taken off running after them, having to cross a dangerous highway to get to them … and they would have been “unconscious” during their chase. They would have never heard me yelling their names.

Nothing would have stopped them. So something prevented me from letting them out.

Afterward, they came outside for their morning trip, did a little snooping around and then right back inside.

Stella came when I called her name … she was happy to be back inside.

That’s about all from the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana this morning. I have more fine tuning to do on all of their websites, some double checking things to make sure they work and an IU basketball game on at noon I want to watch.

Be sure to check out their new sites, although, they have the same themes (templates) so they will look the same in appearance. Let me know if they are missing something you want or you find that something doesn’t work like before.

Thanks for visiting.

Sadie & Stella Have a Burst of Energy

It’s been one of those days here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana. Too warm to snow, cold enough to have to wear a coat, and the ground is too wet/soggy to go for a walk … but the bloodhounds had a sudden burst of energy this morning. I’ll let the photos do the talking.

I’m not sure they will get much more done today … they have been sleeping every since.

If you want to read about my efforts this morning or the 1st half of the day, to move Heidi’s blog and hopefully the other blogs to her(their) new dot com site, hosted by DreamHost then read from here on. There is some humor, a little frustration, few questions, a lot of head scratching and 2nd guessing.

First of all when I talked to a friend about this a few weeks ago, even before moving to WordPress, she told me “if you are not going to make money off of a site then why pay for a domain and a host for that site.” Estimated depending where you buy the domain and hosting service .. but a $100 – $125 per year.

So I decided to move my blogger blog to the free WordPress side. I liked the dashboard, all of the themes. I even found 4 different themes that I really liked for each blog. They all seemed to fit, if you know what I mean. In this story I am about to tell it will be important that you remember what I just said about ‘themes’.  :)

I had some good sleep Thursday night. No health issues like the night before. Stella wakes me Friday morning, I feel rested, a couple of cups of coffee and I am ready to move some blogs from here to their new domains, onto a host and publish online. Should be easy.

Over the years since I last did this type of work at home, everything seemed to be a one-click operation. I had Heidi’s blog moved within minutes. Her domain showed up online within 30 minutes which I thought was extremely fast. DreamHost had a WordPress app where with one-click it installed Heidi’s blog without an issue.

Luckily last week when I was uploading photos from my computer to WordPress’s “Media Library” I had made a folder for each hound. I did not find out until today why I did that.

I followed the steps furnished to me by DreamHost. Heidi now had a new WordPress.org site, hosted by DreamHost and showing up online with her .com domain. Once I uploaded the photos again from my computer, Heidi’s folder to her new WordPress “media library”, all the photos matched up with the imported blog posts and were correctly installed.

All of her posts were there, the categories, the tags, about page, contact page … EVERYTHING … but … the theme.

Remember what I said a few paragraphs ago about ‘themes’?

Sure they only showed 20 different themes to use in the default setting but after I clicked that “add more”, I had 2,168 themes to chose from and as I scrolled through not even a 1/3 of them I notice my data counter is spinning like you would see dollar/cents on a gas pump. When you only have 15Gb per month on your internet service plan and only had 700 Mb left for the month with 5 days to go …. data spinning out of control is NOT want you want to see happening!!!

The bottom line was, out of 2,168 themes available, NONE of the themes I am using on the free side of WordPress were available on the .org side of WordPress. They didn’t show up when I searched them, they didn’t get answers back when I asked on the support forums.

By the time I had noticed and shut off my browser due to data usage going out of control, I received an email from my internet service provider that I had used my monthly allotment of 15Gb’s. Of course there are options and that is an expensive option in my book … I can buy more Gig’s at $10 per 1Gb until my new billing cycle starts on the 27th.

Now that I have ran over my limit, I still have internet access but at “dial-up” speeds … if the page loads at all.

Or I can stay up from Midnight until 5am and use all the data I want, like I always can between those times of night. High speed will be the norm during those 5 hours, it’s called their “free data” on my plan.

Let’s get back to the blog issue and a domain name.

So I have a blog with it’s own domain name and that makes it look so official, yet there is not one theme that I want to use. I like the theme that Heidi has on her blog now, on the free side of WordPress.

I’m not sure I want to move forward on moving everything to a .com domain. Really what is the reason? Those words of my friend a few weeks ago, echo in my brain. I basically have 4 blogs set up the way I want them. All I have to do from now on is post, answer comments and “let it ride”.

Oh, I thought about all of this before and even from what I read I might have to rebuild some of the blogs that I would transfer to WordPress’s .org side of the house. Other writers kept saying it was just soooooo important that I own my own blogs, not letting a ‘free’ host keep control of them.

I just received an email from my forum question about my theme or the three themes. It’s sad that the solution is so simple. It is something I saw when I chose that theme early this week. The maker of the theme, WordPress.com has a “download” button on theirs to where all I need to do is download the them to my computer, upload to Heidi’s .com site. How easy is that … and how brain dead I am at times. LOL

So with that answer you can tell where this is going … back to Heidi’s site to get her theme uploaded. If that goes smooth then I will be able to move Stella’s, Sadie’s and even mine by the end of today.

Of course that changes all the domains again. I will will post them here and on the hound blogs once I know for sure that each site works.

Back to my Exede Internet provider. Due to my location I don’t have any other choice but satellite internet. Believe me I looked and called every possible provider in June 2014. This is it. My speeds will eventually trickle to where I can’t even load an email or a website, even though they tell me that’s not possible because I will always have access, just not high speed access.

It will become so slow I will have no choice but to buy more data or have to stay off the internet until January 27th. That might actually be a good thing … lol … a little vacation.

Now I’m headed back to some computer work and it should go fairly fast now that I know how to get those themes loaded. Will I have the internet speed to do it??

A Night Of Sickness

At 4:20pm EST, it was confirmed my “stop order” was seen soon enough. So both old and new blog stays as is.

A public service announcement: I may have not submitted the “stop order” soon enough to the WP tech to stop the process of importing all of the content and photos of the old blog to this one. She is having to manually correct the format that is occurring when I transferred it a few days ago and then deleted everything.

IF the import goes through and my ‘stop order’ doesn’t — this blog will have about an hour of blank pages during that import. No time estimate on when that might take place today or tonight. If do see that later, I am still here and the blog will return after the process.

Of course if she does stop working on it and leaving the blog as is, starting over with 15 posts, then my warning is what they say in basketball of “no harm no foul”.

I have gone back and forth on what to do with two options.

1. Start over from this blog – leave the old blog intact and the same domain name.
2. Move everything to this blog so readers could see photos and articles in the past 4+ years without having to go back to the other blog.
1. Reports show that very few readers go back to look at the older blog posts.

Leave a comment on what you would prefer.

As they say “sicker than a dog” not a hound, still I was pretty sick last night — my own fault — not the flu but the violent reaction to my intolerance to especially milk and some other dairy products but not all. I really cannot believe I did that again. Enough of that subject.
 
The hounds hung in there concerned but making sure I was ok all night. We were able to finally get some sleep between 8:15am and 11:15am. They were fed breakfast and those 3 hours were like their normal routine. We woke up to this … beautiful sunny skies and a bright sun. One of those days that is 20° but they say it feels like 13° … still felt warm outside.

 

For those that like that old steel bridge I walked over to last May and took photos of, you can see it still standing (no doubts) after the floods from a month ago. You can see the bridge just a little left of center. That one lane road use to be a major country road back in the day, used by many and even today some locals wish it still was.

You might be wondering what’s the story about the wooden sign structure but no sign. For over 20 years the local farmer that owns that property had a bright red sign on that structure for the Dairy Queen downtown. I thought the sign came down due to a change in ownership of that Dairy Queen but he later told me he had to take it down by a directive from the State of Indiana. It was on their property.

That reminds me of the question Contessa asked a few days ago in a comment she made. She was wondering if the state snow plows could block my driveway like they do with snow and ice. Yes they can. About ten years ago they rebuilt the highway with new asphalt and actually churned up the old asphalt down to nothing. All the way down the highway they built turnout areas that were paved … in some cases that meant moving mailboxes … yes my mail box.

Since the state still owns 50′ from either the side of the road or the centerline, I can’t remember right now, they were able to move my mailbox without asking. They did poor job of reinstalling it and at times I am still ticked off, when I see it leaning.

I personally dug the hole, set the pole in concrete when I replaced it after a drunk driver ran over it many years back. The state knocked off as much of the concrete they could (I watched them do it) when they pulled the pole out of the ground. They had laid new asphalt for all mailbox turnouts. They put the pole in a hole (no concrete) that was right next to a small concrete culvert. I guess they thought that was all would be needed to keep it straight and braced.

Wrong again. That concrete culvert didn’t come close to doing that, in fact made it worse. Since I haven’t been in the mood in the past ten years to dig a new hole, lay new concrete and reinstall my mailbox, I have used a couple of different fixes. After all I rarely receive any paper mail that is “real mail”, it’s just a deposit box for junk mail. So I decided I had better things to do than dig holes and pour concrete.

This post has gone on longer than I ever expected … sorry for the boring subject.

The only time the hounds went out earlier .. they were in and out just like that. Maybe if I am feeling better this afternoon I will post more of their activity today.

That’s about all from the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana today.

An Afternoon Of Study

It’s been almost 10 years … 10 years? Yep, 10 years already, since I last worked behind the scenes of a website inside a control panel. It could be long tedious work for those that were not ‘geeks’ or ‘experts’ …. like me.

So today with the hounds sleeping their normal hours, the temps colder than I prefer, the dog food bought, the FJ filled with some gas and a fresh bag of coffee … it was time to refresh how to set up websites hosted by someone other than Blogger or WordPress.

I’m still not finished, but making progress and actually remembering more than I thought I would.

The hounds want to go “.com”

Today still included the periodic trips outside. It was clear blue skies and sunny … still the hounds didn’t go far nor wanted to.

After some consideration I decided I was not in the ‘teacher mode’ this morning with Stella and was willing to take the chance with her shut in the bedroom with Sadie while I made a short trip to the ‘big city’ … just downtown.

She passed in flying colors, just like she use to and was thrilled when I was walking in with a 40# bag of dog food. She thought it was all hers.

The feedback seems to be very positive about the hounds each having their own blogs. Ownership of the photos are still in negotiations. Sadie, Stella and Heidi are unwilling to budge in what they are offering for exchange.

I think tonight is going to be watching a movie from my collection unless I find a movie on tv … doubtful. I pay Directv for more ~250 channels and rarely watch more than 7-8 of them.

All is good though, with a couple of bags of M&M’s with peanuts, Keebler’s Pecan Shortbread cookies and some ice cold milk.

It’s a pretty quiet night here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

Still Did The Dog Walk

It’s been one of those days no matter how much heat you have turned on inside, you can feel cold, freezing air from somewhere. Once we stepped outside for the afternoon walk around 2pm, it was bone chilling crazy. Heidi almost went. I was really hoping she would back out just because it was too cold for her.

She had been out earlier right after lunch and you can tell by this photo, the concrete floor was too cold for her.

Stella and Sadie went outside but they were not going far … that is until we went for the afternoon walk. I had the Mountain Hardwear Down parka on, with the hood fastened in front of my face with the velcro ends. It was warm. No photos of the walk and it was a good thing I didn’t take my camera.

We were not a 1/3 of the way into the walk when a series of high powered rifles sounds were coming from some property surrounding the field. Sadie stood and stared. Stella laid her ears back and that 25′ retractable leash was maxed out in 2 seconds. She was going to get out of there no matter what. I guess her chances of tracking deer that have been shot are slim and none.

We completed the walk with no problems. Stella finally calmed down the second half of the walk. By the time we finished all of use were freezing and sprinted to the house. Heidi met us by raising her head off the Mexican blanket in the large chair in the living room, where she continued to sleep.

Last night during the Denver/Pittsburg NLF game, I finished a jar of peanut butter. Before I could toss it to Sadie to clean up, Stella grabbed it out of my hand to lick the rest out with her tongue as far as it could go inside the jar. She finally gave it back to me later, so I could rinse out the jar and recycle. At the time the photo was taken she was not letting go of it. Then about the time I took the photo … she moved.

It was a good day here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

Getting Back To Hounds & RVs

I noticed very late last night after I had deleted all of the blog posts I had transferred from my old Blogger blog, the last 4 out of 5 posts were not about Hounds nor RVs. It was all about the attempted blog transfer, with WP questions/frustrations.

I then wrote on Friday about things in general, while posting some old photos never seen before on the blog. I had nothing else to write about. So I decided it was time to get back to writing about the hounds along with occasional thoughts on RV. Believe me, those traveling thoughts are always with me.

First let me tell you about an outstanding post written by Lynne over at Winnie Views a few days ago. I read it yesterday morning for the first time and it made my eyes wide open. It’s long, detailed, but is loaded with information about what is taking place with the wildlife refuges throughout the USA. It’s news you will not hear on the mainstream media unless there’s something the networks can show to increase their viewership and make money, like the Malheur occupation up in Oregon.

It’s Sunday, where’s my temperatures in the low teens? and that snow storm the snowing has started. Stella’s new wake up time seems to be 5:49am. She will go around poking me with her nose and quiet whining. At that time she is also waking up Sadie and Heidi. She also expects the be fed breakfast after she makes her first trip outside. That is what she is really wanting at 5:49am. It’s the only time of the day that I don’t have to yell for any dogs to “come on” when they are outside. They return to the door on their own. Even Heidi.

Being retired I don’t want to start my day at 6:10am every day. I don’t mind it sometimes, but not every day. So the routine after they come back inside, is to shut off the lights and head back to bed for a little more sleep. Then we will get up and they are fed breakfast. I turn on the computer and make coffee as it boots up.

For the 2nd day in a row it felt much colder than the thermometer was showing, the hounds have not had a real interest in staying outside long. They haven’t played outside for days and sleep inside most of the day.

So there hasn’t been a lot of photos of them in ‘action’ lately … because there hasn’t been any action .. lol.

I forced their hand this morning. After my 1st cup of coffee, with the ground of the field in back finally solid after the snow melted, I not only asked if they wanted to “go for a walk” but also grabbed my trusty Nikon D3200 with the stock 18-55mm (didn’t work again!!) 55-200mm lens. By the way, Sadie and Stella have never said “no” to that question. Sunshine would have been a nice additional feature but we are in a period of gloomy dark skies here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

Just about the time we stepped outside, there were snow flurries but nothing major. With my 20 year old Mountain Hardware goose down parka w/hood I knew we could handle any weather change in the next 20 minutes.

Just About To Turn The Corner

Deer At Times Around This Corner

As we walked I had the retractable leash to Stella in one hand and my camera in the other. She was pretty good about stopping each time I focused in to take a photo.

Just to Sadie’s right on the photo above is the route taken by the deer sprinting and jumping over a mashed down fence sprinting flying across that field. When Sadie was younger and the field was full of deep snow – she followed those deer as fast as she could. I couldn’t catch her nor find her later but she came back to the house 5 hours later.

As we made the turn at the halfway point to head home I could see on the horizon the snow as coming down harder but not really a lot of snow. Almost a sideways direction but very small flakes. This storm wasn’t going to amount to much.

There is deer traffic that cross this path on the way home. They come from that tree line you see when we start the walk and then into a small wooded gully in the direction that Stella is facing. Always good to have her on a leash for times just like these, when something has peaked her interest.

What Does She Hear or See?

Add caption

It’s was getting a lot colder. I may have worn my down parka but I forgot my gloves. Evidently Sadie was in as much of a hurry to get back inside the house as I was.

Really ??? Another Photo?  "Let's Go"

Where was Heidi during all of this? … where smart basset hounds choose to stay in weather like this … in bed covered in blankets sleeping. She never snores.

Nothing planned this afternoon but a couple of NFL Playoff games. I cannot imagine any of these games being more exciting than the one last night in Phoenix Arizona. It will be some coffee at times, and a fresh bowl of Cajun Beans have been made along with some cornbread.

Life is good here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.