Heidi's Historical Event

When the rain did not start last night I took a look at the forecast to see the storm had moved to Wednesday. The hounds and I are going to be seeing temps in the 70's but in exchange for that it could rain 6 of the next 7 days starting tomorrow.

IF that were to happen, the weather forecasts would have to be accurate and I would have a yard to mow on the first day of sunshine after the rains stopped.


Yesterday afternoon turned out to be great weather, a lot of wind ... we did nothing. Not even a walk.

Yet, there was 'a historical event' taking place. Heidi always goes to the door when she wants to go outside and for the past many months those trips have been few and only long enough to go outside and dump her tanks in the front yard.

Yesterday I was in shock. Instead of turning right after she walked passed the parked cars, she took off left and headed for the backyard ... on her own!! I was thinking she was headed for the field or least the middle of the backyard. As I walked further in front of her to capture this 'historic event' on my camera ... I turned ... started to raise my camera to my eye ... SHE WAS GONE!

By the time I turned the corner of the house she was at the door to go back inside and headed for her favorite chair, to sleep an afternoon of great weather away ... she had seen enough. I have no explanation what took place there.

After a night of high winds from the S/SW we woke to sunny skies and 58° that felt a lot warmer. After a cup of coffee for me and an hour nap for the hounds we took off for the first walk of the day a little after 9am. I had been out earlier this morning and it was warm enough to wear camping shorts and a t-shirt. It's hard to believe that winter passed through with very little snow and warm temps.

I have a lot of these type of sticks to pick up throughout the yard after a windy day yesterday. They are from that Sycamore tree that I like so much. (joke)

Looking at the spreadsheet I use to track my monthly utility bill and use ... it was the warmest winter since 1997, the year that I moved into this house.

After the hounds had to sprint to me yesterday, they did not veer off much this morning. I could tell their searching and exploration was not as intense as yesterday. As we turned the corner Sadie thought she would check out the edge of that gully again but as I yelled her name she turned and came running back to the path.

Stella did not trot to her normal spot to the right corner of the field but stayed ahead of me on the path. In fact both of them turned on the path to go home before I even got to that spot. I knew they would probably revisit the area from yesterday that they wouldn't leave until they didn't see me in their sight lines. They did veer that way until I called their name.

Stella was not real happy that she had to leave and head back to the path to walk home. In protest she lagged behind all the way home and walked as slow as she could. If I didn't know any better I thought I could hear her feet dragging in the field as she walked. Back inside they were all asleep within minutes.

I am at a crossroads with my transfer of programs taped on my DVR to DVD disc. The DVDs are not in HD quality. They have good quality picture but after being used to watching everything in HD these past few years it's hard to go back to a Standard Definition picture. So do I continue to clear off the other 65% of the DVR hard drive. That is roughly 65 hours of ballgames that are left on the current DVR.

Or do I take the DirecTv offer of keeping that DVR as a 2nd machine and leave 65% of the hard drive filled with HD quality viewing? A backup on DVDs are nice because I would lose everything if the DVR ever broke. I hate writing that because it's been years since that happened and has not happened on this current DVR.

On the other hand, I can keep this machine and close out my 2016 college basketball season by taping them to the current DVR ... then have DirecTv install their upgraded receiver that has a 1Tb of hard drive space. Since I do not keep every movie or every game or tv show, that I record to the DVR, that amount of hard drive memory would last me for years.

To give you an idea, on my current DVR I have games that I taped in 2012 ... that's already 4 years ago. With 4x as much memory, I could have over a decade of ballgames, Indy500 races and a few movies saved in HD quality. For that, it might be worth paying DirecTv an extra $6 per month for that 2nd machine .... risking it all, that the machine would never break. Or ... maybe with new technology I would have unlimited data and storage on the cloud, where I would only need a basic receiver.

Decisions ... decisions ... such as life in retirement while living in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... I am doing yard work this afternoon.

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.