Hounds Prepare For Football Marathon Today

I am writing this blog from the couch today, running a little late due to a lot of activity this morning.

My college football bowl games marathon has started for the day. I'm flipping between two channels watching two games.

I am more interested in the Rose Bowl at 5pm and a little less interested in the game tonight but I will watch the Sugar Bowl.


During these games for the next 8-10 hours, the hounds will assume the normal football game positions of the past week.

Sadie

Heidi & Stella

Heidi

It was a really busy morning ... very warm ... so we fit in two walks in BEFORE noon. I made a home cooked brunch, fought Stella for MY food, picked up some twigs in the yard and watched a little Rose Bowl Parade.

Stella gets in her first early morning scratch of 2017.

Sadie wanted to go for a walk as soon as she was outside but was turned down again because of lack of coffee.

Our first walk was in mid 40's, the computer said if 'feels' like 35° and it seemed to me that it was above 50°.

I don't mind the dark skies as long as it's warm.

Both hounds were out front and on a pace of their own. There wasn't much lagging behind today.

Stella would do almost anything if I would let her trot over to check out the wooded area behind the neighbors house but I can't let her start a new habit of always going in that direction.

She came running when I called her.

In this area I am assuming they are collecting a lot of deer scent.

Sadie was almost non-stop around the edge of the field. Stella had a few more things to check out in the deer area of tall dead bushes.

Without calling her, she took off to catch up with Sadie ...

She likes running in warm weather. She looks thinner than when I got her but she gets in 2-3 walks in per day and a lot more running than before I think. I am feeding her larger quantities of kibble but she burns it off.

Here I thought we were heading home ... Stella had other ideas.

She is stubborn and walks at a slower pace when she doesn't get her way ... LOL

After lunch Heidi made her daily outside appearance but it wasn't long before she wanted back inside, even in warm weather.

I was hoping that Heidi would join us for our walk at noon. I am not sure what had Stella's attention here but she never goes down the bank, and rarely is she looking that direction.

Once Stella saw me walking into the field, she came running but Sadie was already taking off.

They moved way ahead of me and were almost at the first turn while I was not even close to that point of the walk.

Then I get up to the edge of the deer area and the hounds take off again ... up along the back edge of the field.

When I made the final turned home I yelled "let's go home" and they both ran toward me. Sadie was beside me and Stella ran out in front of me.

She would really like to trot over to that wooded area behind her.

But eventually she came came home following her "Summer Route".

We will have another day of temps in the 50's tomorrow, maybe some thunderstorms later today ... then back to the 20's.

A great day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

The Hounds Daily Trek

The hounds and I hope everyone survived bring in the new year last night. Compared to many years ago, ours is not too eventful.

I'll not turn the tv on until 1 minute before midnight to watch the ball drop in NYC and then we head outside to take a look at the sky, the stars and wonder what's in store for the next 12 months.

I like to go back to this time last year on the blog to see what was going on. It was a sad time of year last year with Winston's health issue but there were some other things to read that were nice to compare to this year.

Sadie was giving me the stare early this morning, telling me she wanted to walk but I had not even finished my first cup of coffee and she had been outside just a few minutes earlier. She had to wait until the 2 cups of Seattle's Best coffee were finished. The temps said mid 40's but felt freezing to me. I was hoping to overdress with the heavy duty down jacket and ski gloves, since I have been freezing for the past few days even with the higher temps.

As I turned on my camera I noticed the low battery warning was showing up on the menu. I decided I would try to drag out the last few minutes of battery life by turning the camera on and off between pictures being hopeful the camera would work for the walk. Who knows, that might take even more battery life turn the camera on and off between pictures rather than just leaving the camera on during the walk.

Stella was just as interested as Sadie in today's 'trek' ... they investigated a few new spots and kept up a pretty fast pace.

Another nice crisp day with the sun shining. I can't complain about the weather this time of year. We may have a couple of days of rain starting later tonight but weather predictions are always pretty flexible in this area.

Earlier this morning I took off the car cover off of the Z4. I was going to leave the top up with the heater on and take a drive after the walk. It was nice to see it start right up after sitting for almost a month and through some single digit temps.

Stella was about to head to the right corner but when I yelled 'come on' she made a quick left hand turn and headed for the back of the field. Sadie came up behind us and followed Stella ... she didn't have any interest in the far corner like yesterday's walk.

Like I said earlier, both hounds were keeping a pretty quick pace today. They spent a lot of time in front of me instead of lagging behind me.

Both hounds seemed pretty content with the normal path taken. No urges and no looks towards the 'no-fly' zone and headed down the path.

 I was thinking of the 3-4 college football games I was going to watch today and tonight, then remembered it was Sunday and it would only be NFL games today. There is only one I am kind of interested in. The Green Bay - Detroit game will not be on until tonight ... so the day will be totally free.

I stopped by the library yesterday to pick up a couple of books I was interested in reading. I knew something was up when there were no cars in the parking lot, nor any lights on inside the library. They will re-open Tuesday.

I've noticed all three hounds have been spending more time than normal, licking and chewing themselves. There hasn't been any recent changes in dog food. Based on my allergies the air does not seem dried out from the electric heat and all the blankets they sleep on are washed on a regular basis. So I am not sure what the cause is.

While closing out my 'Monthly Mileage' spreadsheet, I wondered again why do I have two cars after seeing the total number of miles driven in 2016. I'd tell you that figure but you wouldn't believe me ... LOL.

My body measurements for the month remained the same, although I ate smaller portions of food, spent less on groceries and only fell off the diet wagon once for a large pizza spread out over two days. I started to do that to monitor any progress when I made some diet changes in May 2015.

In 2016 I blogged more than any other year since staring in October 2011.

I lost all my momentum on the detailed house cleaning. I still have the walls to do but at least everything is back in their places and I have made the annual drop off to Goodwill. I can't see anything else I can get rid of, it's down to my bare minimum.

I had a friend tormenting me yesterday via text ... she grew up in Indiana and knows about cold weather but she has lived in California for many years. She and her husband are vacationing in Barbados this week, meeting their son's future in-laws. Just looking at the pictures she was sending me of the beach, the sailing etc ... warmed me up.

I see where one of the blogs I follow, JD Finley has sold his Class A, and Jeep ... to live on a sailboat in the area of the islands. I look forward to reading about his transition from RV to sailboat living.

Well, I think I am headed out to the nearest car wash to get the 'Coachman' back to being clean before the rains tomorrow. Get some of the mud off of it. Sadie is wanting her 2nd walk of the day since lunch is over while Heidi has moved her afternoon napping spot out to the couch.

It should be a pretty active afternoon.

Another successful year of retirement is in the books, with my annual date in the month of April. The book I read years ago was right "You don't need a million dollars to retire" ... that changed my retirement plans to choosing an earlier date.

The hounds seem to love the new year 2017 here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.