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.

Winter Is Back

After a couple of days in the high 50's, winter returned this morning to the low 20's. That temperature decent started yesterday afternoon and every time we went outside for a short break there was a 2-3 degree decrease.

With those higher temps came rainy weather. I was in somewhat of a predicament. After taking the Z4 out for a drive on dry roads the other day I did not put the car cover back on. With the rain on Monday and then a misty morning early Tuesday, the Z4 had light condensation on it, including the covertible top. I couldn't put the car cover back on with the car being wet.

The weather looked like rain about an hour away on Tuesday morning and by this morning those temps would be below freezing, in the low 20's. So if I did nothing I might have a car with frozen condensation or frozen mist covering the Z4 for the next week.

It was a good chance for the hounds to get out on their own and roam the field, while I took a chamois and dried off the Z4. It worked out and the car looked as if I had washed the car. After putting the cover on I decided to go ahead and wipe down the 'Countryman' although I don't expect to keep that car as clean on the outside due to it being my all-weather car and the black color.

It wasn't quite misting yesterday so the hounds and I did a test to see if the field was going to be too wet to walk. It had rained a lot the previous night and all through the night. I think Stella's facial expression tells that answer. We called the day off, while they slept, I read the books I got at the library.

This morning was a different story though. The ground had already frozen rock hard and Sadie was ready to go for her walk as soon as she went outside after her breakfast kibble. We know that is too soon because I have not had any coffee by that time. Plus today at 18°, we needed to wait a few hours for some warmth to hit our atmosphere.

It was still too cold at 10:42am, but Sadie was not going to let me forget what she wanted. It might just be me, but recently she seems to have become more demanding and wanting to walk much earlier.

A little after 11am we decided to take off. Sadie was thrilled and was hopping around doing 360° turns, too close for a picture ... while Stella took off for the field.

When Sadie turned and sprinted to catch up I could tell that both were high energy, which is usually common after they are shut up in the house for only a day.

I was only able to catch up with them on the way back. Only because they stopped to wait for me to catch up ... otherwise they were way out in front of me for most of the walk today. No calls for them to come on, they were on their own 'autopilot'.

About the time I walked to this point, the breeze from the NE picked up and I could feel the freezing wind. The prediction for snow tomorrow might happen. Although there is around an inch predicted that usually means half of that here in 'the tropics'.

Stella wasn't staying long in any spot today, so the scents must have been strong this morning. Even Sadie was finding it hard to keep up with Stella's pace.

Based on what I had seen so far, I thought it might be a possibility that once they hit the back edge of the field that they would take off non-stop into their 'no-fly zone'.

Stella locked into a scent and tracked it all they way down the property line.

After seeing that I was pretty sure they had found deer scents and would not stop until I yelled at them.

At about this point, I yelled "hey" ... that seems to be the new keyword that they pay attention to. They stopped immediately, both looked at me and then trotted my direction as I made the turn for home. It was colder than I could remember anytime this winter.

They flew by me sprinting, just like they started the walk ... but then stopped and waited for me to catch up.

After I moved further ahead of them, it turned out to be the perfect distance for these two pictures.

They didn't stop though ... not even at the corner ... they just kept on running, maybe they actually felt cold.

I picked up a couple of new books at the library yesterday and put one 'on hold', meaning it wasn't available at my local library but had 22 copies within the state library system. It will arrive at my library in 2-3 days. I am back in the reading mode with the holidays over, less college football and temperatures outside that are not to my liking.

I was curious enough to go back in my private blogs to read and find out what set off my urge to trade the last FJ. In fact I even went back to those few days in October when I decided to look for a replacement for the blue FJ and the reasons why. All of that information confirmed I made the right decision, I had forgot some of the reasons why.

Once I stopped scanning pictures that one Sunday a week or so ago, I guess I stopped completely. I haven't looked at the pictures since then, although they are sitting near the scanner and my keyboard. Since I have no plans for today or tonight except for a book that I can't seem to put down, I might scan a few pictures later today and come up with a new blog post about a past hound in the next few days.

I have several Arizona towns listed in my iPhone weather app where on one screen I can compare their temps/weather to mine. It's surprising to see just how cold it gets in the desert. Also it's not really hot anywhere that I can see but warmer than here.

I've gone way past the time for feeding the afternoon kibble. Sadie's face is about 2" from my right elbow as I type this and Stella is 3' away howling while Heidi has woken up and is outside the entry to this room barking.

Time to feed the hounds.

Freezing temps and sunshine here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.