Heidi Shows Basset Hound Initiative & Major Ranting

Heidi caused quite a stir from the blog posts yesterday, on this blog plus her Wordpress blog. People seem to think that is her on the poster that was was posted. She wants to clarify that it's not, that she is much more energetic than that basset hound. She did want to show that she is quite flexible in the morning hours where she only eats and sleeps. She changed her direction this morning, facing north instead of south, while sleeping on the couch. Not until after her lunch was over did she get a bath and manicure.

A warning for some readers while others like it ... so an announcement there is some MAJOR ranting and rambling in today's post.

Stella tried from the start to fake me out this morning. She made an immediate left turn at the corner of the carport while Sadie and I were walking to the field. Sadie was running after something as soon as she realized the walk was taking place. Stella trotted along the back side of the house then made her immediate turn and joined us in the field. She was enjoying her morning today.

With the grown bushes and tree limbs filled with leaves I think this open space and a small path into the woods is used by deer during times the hounds are not outside. Same spot, different angles.

It was good to see Stella break into another trot, her second of the morning. Was it the cooler temps or are her hips feeling better. At the age of 8, she may be starting to get a little arthritis so she is no longer in the mood to run like she use to.

At this time I thought she and Sadie had locked onto something and were about to take off.

I continued around the first corner, switching hands as I held the camera and swatting mosquitoes with the free hand. I don't recall the last time it was so bad trying to walk with a mosquito war taking place. Are the recent announcements about DEET accurate or are the medical journal articles??? I am to the point of not caring and will apply DEET to my arms, legs and back of my neck for tomorrow morning's walk.

Have a better alternative ... email me or leave a comment.

Stella had more energy this morning than I had seen the past few weeks. Hopefully the health 'bug' she has had maybe finally be working it's way out of her system. Like the vet said in April, dogs can catch things fast but they take a long time to get rid of it. I remember how bad of shape Heidi was in a couple of years ago. She had lost 13 pounds out of her 45 within 6-7 months but has come back to being healthy again. In fact she may be a little heavier than that 45 pounds.

This is the only 'yellow' I see in the field so far.

As I kept following the path home, Sadie and Stella would have none of that. They headed their own direction walking diagonally across the field toward my north property line pole. As I have mentioned before, I believe this is the exact path the (seen only once) black field cat roams at night.

Notice how Stella did not walk directly through the green wild flowers but squeezed and turned herself in between the white Queen Anne's and the property line pole. She knows what she's doing, she just wants me to think she doesn't have a clue about things. She is much smarter than the AKC says the bloodhound breed is.  LOL

I added a little color to one of my stones in the yard. I should be able to miss the stone when mowing the backyard now ... plus it's for one of my most favorite hounds of the past.

Last night as I made my 'coffee run' grocery shopping trip, they had paved one lane of new asphalt heading west. The eye opener was the new "Flagman Ahead" signs lined up along the road from town, in front of my house and beyond. At first I thought they were preparing for the same road construction but this morning as I heard trucks braking out the window ... I saw the line of stopped traffic. All taken from inside the house.

This one is taken out that small kitchen window where the Yews grew below.

When I saw traffic stopped coming from the other direction and at the intersection where they were running new electrical power lines last week ... I am thinking this is Utility Lines related and hopefully not major highway rebuild in front of the house. They rebuilt this highway in 2005. I can miss it all by doing all of my few errands at night. There are no traffic issues then.

I knew while I was walking this morning that this afternoon would be "Hound Day" ... a bath for Heidi and nail trimming for all the hounds, Sadie included. Although last time it was Sadie letting me cut her nails with Stella was howling bloody murder and then sprinting away. She had never done that before and usually lays down in the grass to let me cut them.

Sorry no pictures captured the best Hound's Toenail Trimming of all time, not enough hands .... I was shocked how easy, fast it was. The smell of dog treats in my pockets may have help in the department of cooperation. Sadie for the second month in a row let me cut hers without doing sprints to get away from me. She likes to stand as I curl each paw as if she is walking, one at at time and trim them. Hers are easy because from all the walking she does there is open space between the quick of her nail and the tip of it.

I fed her the award treat as soon as she was finished but not Stella and Heidi. I was hoping if they watched they would catch on faster what was required to get the treat. Before I've always awarded the dog treats after all of them had their nails trimmed.

Stella laid right down on the warm red blocks we call "Winston's Patio". By the time I got to her last paw I swear she was sleeping, I had to check to see if she was still breathing because she was in a deep sleep while I held her paw upward. While Heidi stood right next to me waiting for me to pull another treat out of my pocket. Stella stood up when I was finished and I handed her the treat.

It was funny because as soon as Stella stepped off into the grass ... Heidi moved around my legs onto the warm red blocks and laid down without asking. LOL She has never been a problem getting her nails trimmed which is surprising because they are so long. She came from basset rescue with long nails and I have cut them on a regular basis but her quick never recede. So even after they are cut back to where I can see the quick, they still look long.

By the time we finished traffic was backing up in front of the house again and Stella had to take a closer look. Luckily she stopped at the edge of the carport and went no further.

Once I saw they were working across the highway on the new power lines heading west across the creek I knew then that the traffic flagman was for Utility work and not highway repair.

It took me a few times looking at this next picture of the raised bucket with no one in it ... for me to finally figure out they were only using the bucket to HOLD the power lines up as they worked. My mind was fried before looking at that picture and I'll explain why later.

What I wouldn't give to know what goes on in Sadie's mind since she seems to always have her nose to the ground, anywhere outside. I remember now that I took a picture last week of a rabbit hopping in that same area before she stopped to pose for the camera.

New pole and new power lines ... some customers are going to be happy ... or will they notice any differences?

I'm not sure why but as I stood under the large Sycamore tree by the driveway, I was pulling a very long thin hanging limb down and decided it was a neat picture to take. I had looked up to see what this limb was hanging on and also to check if anymore were caught in the limbs much higher.

I made the call today for the local Utility company to come out an trim the tree back that has grown very close to my electrical lines and transformer. Now before those of you will say it is my responsibility and my cost to trim the tree limbs ... in this state that is the wrong answer. Over the years I have had not only had them come out to pull blown limbs out of the transformer but years ago they decided to clear out about 40' of my bank (NO warning) that was solid trees because they were under the power lines.

My neighbor and I each had a clear open view of each other's house after that, one that neither of us wanted. Once they cut large trees down on that bank it changed the whole dynamics of soil erosion because they also tore out what was left in the ground and burned everything. The trees that had held the bank together for over 50 years years were now completely gone. It's the part of the bank that now has all of the wild ragweed growing.

I don't follow news on tv or online and haven't for months. Sports yes, anything else no. Yet the gracious owners of Facebook and Twitter have decided for me what I need to see even if they go around my privacy settings. So I have been seeing more and more news items show up on both of my social media accounts even after I either block those on Twitter or tell Facebook I'm not interested in those types of posts.

I guess from what I see there is a total shit storm in DC. Luckily my only semi-stress is that I am tired of watching a losing Major League Baseball team with a player minimum wage at $500,000 per year. I have seen young kids play better Little League baseball than what I see on tv.

Can you tell I am getting warmed up for my ranting ???  :)

At times I have to try really really really hard to keep my mouth shut and don't make comments on other blogs, Facebook or Twitter ... otherwise my email inbox fills up faster than any flash flood. Last fall before the election when I did NOT keep my mouth shut and made comments at various social media outlets and forums ... from reading my emails you would have though I WAS THE Anti Christ.

Before I go to a blog I want to mention, I will say that Apple Mail does a very very good job of filtering my emails and deciding before I see anything what is junk mail. I have my two gmail accounts forwarded to Apple Mail.

A couple of years ago my blog contact email got hacked. Why do I say hack????  Because before I could shut off my Apple mail that morning when I turned on my computer ... before I could blink my eyes let alone take a sip of some hot coffee I had over a 1,000 emails dumped into my Junk Folder and there were 1,000's more once I opened my email program later that day.

So it's interesting what kind of emails that are being caught by the Apple Mail System currently and correctly IDing them as junk.

I also was curious when I was checking my blog stats in Blooger's traffic program this morning, that I clicked the button for 'All-Time'. The countries of Ukraine and Russia had taken over 2nd and 3rd place in total visitors, and building a wide margin over my Canadian readers.

So to this blog I was mentioning. Oh how I would love to make a comment over there at The Adventures of Tioga and George. His blog is on my blog sidebar and is actually is the #1 blog of all the blogs listed in my readers clicking to read. So, many of you may know what I am about to say. Maybe you feel like commenting over there to but are hesitant.

I admire his desire to continue traveling at the age of 80. I also admire his experience living full-time on the road in Mexico for many years and know that he has much much more experience than I when it comes to RVs. Yet after reading these past year I personally believe it's time for him to hang up his keys ... before he kills himself with an accident or kills someone else.

Everybody goes through that type of decision in all walks of life. It didn't take me more than 50 miles and parked for the winter, a Class C I owned for only 7 months. I realized during that short time that there were too many moving parts for me to keep sorted out and ran properly. Sure, I would have gained knowledge the more I worked with the Class C ... but when you read my post from this past weekend about how I can't remember how my missing socks were found buried in dirt as they pulled the Yews out .... then the chances are not very good I am going to remember if my RV fridge runs on propane or electric no matter how many miles I have traveled.

The fridge is not George's problem. It's the little accidents that either the trailer, like today's post, has come unhitched multiple times while he was driving, thankfully at very slow speeds in town. Or the number of times the tow vehicle and trailer have met each other hard enough to add costs and repairs to each. Self inflicted crashes.

At some point in time you have to realized maybe, just maybe, it's time to go back to your apartment living. Sitting in a park or on the side of the road more and more frequently lately, trying to decide "how did that happen" is not the answer.

It amazes me sometimes what I have read over the years on other blogs with people pulling trailers as they discuss their disaster or near disaster. Yet what I see on a regular basis right in front of my house, hearing trucks pulling trailers running off the road onto the gravel shoulder close to my house .... then it doesn't surprise me.

But the thing is in all their cases ... they can hurt or kill themselves or hurt someone else very bad if not kill them because of negligence in towing a trailer or a boat.

Go ahead and rip me if  you want because today I am in a mood that I just don't give a ****.

That don't give a **** attitude may be from the poisonous venom (LOL) from those two bees that stung both my ankles while mowing the grass. They were not yellow jackets or those vicious ground hornets I mowed over a long time ago ... but what I thought were honey bees. It either hurts a lot after 4 hours or I am turning into a wimp. Probably a wimp.

I did get the lawn cut because it has a great chance of raining by morning before I open my eyes. It's the worst the lawn has looked, that I can remember. The summer sun, the heat and the yard moles have ruined it.

Getting back to that memory of mine ... I have an app on my iPhone called List ... where I list everything I need to buy as far as groceries or other stuff. So how did I forget last night to buy ice tea bags. I"M OUT OF ICE TEA !!!!!! and too lazy to go back 12 miles just to buy some.

So I decided to think positive with my bad attitude today and setting all time records playing Mahjong while my ankles throbbed below my seat .... While I am out of ice tea and too lazy to go buy some, it would be a great chance to cut that sugar habit called ice tea (homemade sweet tea) and go strictly ice water.  Yes ... the same stuff I give the hounds WATER ... we'll see how that works out and I'll let you know. I hope it's not like trying to quit caffeinated coffee.

I thought my inbred neighbor that moved away 3 years ago was a full fledged idiot but the neighbor of Contessa's up in Canada is the all-time winner of the idiot award. With forest fires all around, record breaking temperatures in the middle of summer and anywhere in the North American continent .... WHO cleans a driveway with GASOLINE ??????

I'll just leave it at that since I am in a very strong opinionated mood today.   LOL

I love it when I get this way. To bad I don't have a job where I could release all this pissed off attitude on some co-workers I didn't like.

An old friend called the other day and seemed to want to reminisce about old times that featured the parties we either attended or had there in the beach house in Carlsbad California. I tried to talk over him and tell him I no longer party like that nor is there was any way I could party like that ever again.  He seems shocked when I told him I would turn down any invitation to visit him and his friends in Carlsbad just for that reason.

I let him know that when I have the urge to party like 'old times' or like those times you remember all I do is turn on my DVD player and watch the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street". That is the only way I party now, is watching that movie and wonder how did I ever get this old ... 65.

Who would have ever thought you'd party more in the military than in college ????

It's late afternoon and Sadie as woken from her nap. That means she is bugging me with her stare down to walk. But I am going to have to wait with the heat index at 100° right now .... I can't do that to her. Besides, Stella would rather stay inside and keep cool and I need to cut out those bee stings. (j/k)  :)

I think I covered about all I wanted to.

Ah ... internet data use.

I have come to the conclusion after a couple of months that there is a data "leak" somewhere not only on my HugesGen 5 home service but also my iPhone Verizon account. With only 20Gb of data per month for HughesGen5 I keep an activity monitor open on my other other monitor all the time. It shows how much data I have sent or received. It normally matches what Hughes is telling me ... yet ... for reasons I cannot find ... I'll have "bursts" of data usage as 'received' putting me over my daily estimate ... like just this afternoon, Blogger went over 128Mb of data just opening my blog. It did not do that this morning so it's not 6 years worth of blogging data and pictures.

Verizon are nothing but pirates. Luckily I only pay for 2Gb per month and use it very little to where I get unused amounts of data carried forward. Sometime I don't use those in time before I lose it. Yet their sudden "bursts" of data usage is very mysterious ... basically it's called profit.

Are they so broke after buying Yahoo that are moving my bill paying date up 3 days earlier staring in September ???  LOL

Just remember it could have been a LOT worse but I've tried to remain "politically correct" in my content. But I am so close of "letting it rip" and I'd feel a lot better. I probably need to call my friend that loves to hear my ranting, live on the phone. His wife will listen in on speaker at times and will laugh in the background. Deep inside his wife thinks I'm insane ... LOL ... or at least I think she does.  LOL

No worries --- Everything is okay here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

Heidi Will Pass On That Morning Walk

Life is pretty rough being a Basset Hound. They have a reputation of being lazy, sleep a lot, shed a lot, a deep bark if they bark at all ... but they have energy and can run fast enough not to be caught if they spy a rabbit. Heidi has a few spots throughout the house where she can take naps during the day or sleep at night. She will get up for breakfast kibble but is back to sleep within minutes ... thus ... no morning walks for her.

It is not Heidi in this poster but it explains pretty well what she has to put up with as a Basset Hound ... LOL

It was one of those days that just felt nice as soon as you woke up. The sounds of birds woke me up soon after 6am. It was a relief not to feel allergies after sleeping with the windows open. I could feel some time was going to be spent away from the computer today and a lot of time outside.

Nothing started of course until the two cups of coffee were consumed. Sadie and Stella didn't mind because they like to catch a quick nap after their breakfast kibble, waking up when it's time for me to put some boots on and start the walk. Stella was showing more energy than normal today.

Sadie bolted out in front of both of us and never looked back. If she had not stopped for investigate some scent I would have never been able to move in front of her for this picture. By the time I hit the first turn I had killed 10 mosquitoes on my arms and legs.

The only plans for this morning was to walk, have my normal breakfast of two eggs fried in butter and water my new plants. I didn't take a photo of it because I wanted to see if it would open up later in the afternoon ... but I caught the Purple de Oro Daylily trying it's hardest to open a bloom in front of the living room windows.

While Sadie headed east to check out the path of deer scent.

Stella headed north across the middle of the field searching for new 'natural protein' that she likes to add to her diet. I am NOT tempted but I wonder what that deer scat taste like to her or is she eating only as a way to identify what animal has been in her field?

As Sadie and I was about to make the final turn home, Stella shocked me by trotting fairly fast behind us to catch up. That did not mean she would walk beside us, it just meant she was in our general area and was aware we were heading home.

She will always do her 'own thing' on her own time. There is no such thing as rushing Stella to do anything.

While Sadie might lag behind at times, she will always catch up without being called.

It felt so nice not to feel the sticky humidity this morning. The grass is not tall enough to cut yet and that may not need it until next week. I am going to wait and see how the recently plants react to living a clay. The hole I put them is was all top soil surrounding their root ball but this whole area is nothing but hard clay dirt ... they should be okay, plants have grown there before.

I have gone back to taking pictures with no lens filter and just a lens hood. If I decide to add a filter it will be a UV one that polarizes. I just found the Circular Polarizing filter too hard to work with for pictures I was taking on the move. Sometimes to catch the hounds in pictures I don't have time to fine tune filter for a better shot.

For those readers that didn't notice, I added some early evening photos to the post on Monday night. I took the camera with me while picking up mail and took some of the house from the street level. Of course Sadie had to inspect everything ... Heidi only went to the front corner to pee but that was all.

With the Yews gone, she had not gone out into the front yard at all.

Not much took place this afternoon. I did one thing different than usual, I never looked at the temperatures today ... I just wanted to enjoy the weather. I did some weed eating until the battery for the weed eater died. It was about time to go back inside anyway.

We headed our for our afternoon walk a little after 4pm and had a surprise ... Heidi decided she would stroll the field on her own.

I usually let her go her own pace once she reached the field. She does a lot of exploring with her nose and rarely decides to stay with us. She is more into investigative work than getting aerobics in.

Her nose is actually pretty strong for finding rabbits, just as Basset Hounds are bred to do. Today though she was just enjoying being not only outside but out in the field.

I was also going to let Sadie and Stella do whatever they wanted. They had slept inside the AC rooms most of the afternoon. The day was pretty casual. I moved back from my 2048 game back to Mahjong. After a two month vacation from playing any Mahjong I was getting a lot of games finished under 3 minutes and 30 seconds today.

Before I had the problems with my 7 year old iMac in May and forgot that I was erasing my Mahjong history when moving everything to a new computer ... most of the 160 games were finished in less than 3 minutes and only a hand full between 3-4 minutes. So I have had to start over. It's good hand and eye coordination for someone retired. At least that is my excuse for spending so much time playing it.

I'm getting to the point I need to go grocery shopping. I am out of coffee so that is one important reason to make the trip. I'll go later tonight after the highway crew has put all their equipment away for the day and traffic is back to the normal 2-way.

They spent a month or more backing up traffic on a major highway for almost a mile, withe a flagperson letting traffic proceed one lane at a time. They were digging up the road and refilling their 3' side ditch with new asphalt. I have no idea of they were fixing water problems or installing high tech sensors ... could be since they were doing this about every 10'.

I was happy to see them finally finish that work and traffic was back to normal during daytime hours. It wasn't two days later on Thursday that I am sitting in traffic again for 10 minutes down to one lane .... the idiots had taken out all of the asphalt for 15 miles, both lanes and reapplying new asphalt ... OVER THE WORK THEY DID FOR 45 DAYS !!!!!

So after I sat in traffic both ways last week I decided any trips to the store or heading west, I would only do after 8pm to make sure their work day was over. The few people I asked locally had no idea what they were doing and way they decided to go back and rebuild 15 miles of highway.

I was told to water the Azaleas every other day but the Daylily's didn't need that much water, lite watering was required. I did the watering this morning after our hound walk. While it's easy to get into the crawlspace, I need to go under the house and look at things. I like knowing whats going one and use to do that at least once per year but I've missed a couple recently.

When I saw Heidi way behind us and was moving toward the woods ... I figured we would catch her on the way back.

They didn't stay together long. Sadie sprinted to the rolls of hay while Stella hung out around that first corner.

I don't even want to think about what Sadie is eating .... I just turn away and kept walking.

At the same time Stella was walking up the path toward me. She was taking the short cut or was trying to tell me she was hot and wanted to go inside.

With Sadie pretty far in back of me, I was able to get another couple pictures of butterflies this afternoon. If she is around she will run after them.

On the horizon I could see that Heidi had slowly made it back to the yard.

It didn't take long after I put the weed eater back into the shed that Stella showed up, walking slowly up the path to the yard ... with not a care in her world ... just cruizin.

Another night of Reds baseball and ice tea ... plus a little reading.

Another fine day in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.