The Hounds Overslept!!

Something was different. It was not only daylight but bright daylight. Instead of a warm house it was really cold after a night of warmer outdoor temps in the 20s. Both hounds were passed out, sleeping soundly. For once they were not waking me up but I would wake them up once they heard me.  Is this a dream?

Tapping my watch face confirmed what I was seeing or feeling was true. It should be bright daylight because it was 8:35am !!!! The app "SleepWatch" loved it. All kinds of exciting icons for getting more than 8 hours sleep in one session. It was the first time in months that sleep was more than 8 hours. I have no idea what happened since there were no warning signs from any of us that we would oversleep.

Consequently the schedule slid a little. Nothing planned, nothing needing done, made it quite easy to slide that schedule a few hours. The hounds still enjoyed their food later than normal and they had the same exact routine after eating ... they went back to sleep.

I had my normal two cups of coffee, read the latest internet news and sports, answered a few emails and traded a few texts. Stella came into the room about an hour later to see if we were walking today or not. It was nice to feel warmer outside. The snow was still deep but it was 30° which meant there was a really good chance that Stella would complete the half mile walk.

She had a 'bounce to her step' this morning ... energized.

Little did I know that as she trotted in front of me that she would not stop. I just passed the first turn and she was already in back of the field !!

I called her name from a distance just to see if she would hear me. I had no plans of running to catch up, nor walking any faster. It didn't look like she was into eating deer scat today, just exploring ... so she did her thing and I walked my pace.

You can tell by her legs that the snow is fairly deep but still probably not more than 3" or 4".

She was right on track with the deer tracks. With Sadie I would have heard her jowls making noise as she inhaled each breath and her tail would have been up and curled at the scent she was collecting. Stella is more relaxed when she tracks. It's just a stroll to her.

Any bare spot in the grass was ice covered. It's hard to imagine by tonight around 8pm it's going to start raining and not stop until sometime on Thursday. By tomorrow morning's walk Stella may need rain boots because this field is going to be one big saturated mess.

It wasn't the dog barking this morning that caught Stella's attention. In a driveway fairly far away, a school bus was pulling into their parking spot behind a house. Schools must have opened a little later today due to weather. Hilly country roads around here take time to get cleared for safe travel by school buses.

Facing the East, it looked like good weather.

It took a while for Stella to move from the north yard to house. I didn't see any prints in the snow that were not ours but she seemed to feel she needed to sniff every inch along the yard and field border before turning for home.

With the temperature reaching the low 40's today, this is not going to be around much longer.

Waking up late and sliding the daily schedule a few hours kind of puts me into the middle of no man's land when it comes to blogging. I don't know why I've been blogging twice per day but there always seems to be more than enough photos to include for two posts and too many for one post.

I guess it falls into my blog plan I spoke of last month, "blogging when I feel like  it."  So instead of waiting to post this tonight, I am going to post what I have now then see what the afternoon brings. Heidi is still sleeping in that same position you see her in at the top of the page. She's adaptable when it comes to routines.

It's nice to feel warmer in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella Tests The Afternoon Temps

Just as predicted the temperature started increasing about the time the sunshine came out. It was almost too bright today and for a second I thought I might need to wear sunglasses on the walk based on the bright sunshine. While I was taking pictures of the snow, the ice, trees etc, Stella had snuck out to the field just behind the land of burrs. It was still pretty cold outside so I was curious to see how long she would stay out.

I could tell when I saw her doing that type of walking she was not going to be out too long because either her paw was cold or there was snow between her toes. She wasn't limping getting back to the path but I could tell her walking motion was not a smooth stride.

As I called her name she was more than willing to head back to the house, slightly limping. Of course she always has time to sniff at scent along the way.

Then she stopped to raise her rear leg. I was about to turn off the camera, slide it in my parka pocket and walk out to get her. At the same time, she started walking again toward the yard. So I waited to see if she was going to need to carried back to the house.

This is the pose of confusion. She can't figure out why she can't or doesn't want to walk. I kept calling her name to make it the rest of the way. You can see she is almost raising her rear leg again.

Back inside gave me time to do some house cleaning. The dishes were done by 9am so they were out of the way, laundry was last week, so the only thing left on the list today was trimming hound nails, cleaning hound ears and brushing them. I kept looking at my watch for the temperature outside as it creeped to 20°. I wanted to get outside today for the afternoon walk.

A little past 2pm it was 22° but a windchill of 11°. Would that be too cold for Stella to take a walk? How far would we get? Actually in the sunshine it did not feel too bad and she was already trotting away from me. She was showing a lot more energy than just a couple of hours ago.

One thing about snow is you can aways see the deer tracks, especially since we had not been out in the field since the snow on Saturday. As you see on the right side of the picture plus those I've included below ... a lot of deer traffic the past two days.

More deer tracks coming out of the woods, right of center of the picture.

Just to the left of me I noticed these deer tracks circling and then taking off diagonal across the field.

Those are not Stella's tracks nor mine.

As we made the first turn into the shade the temperature dropped at least 10° instantly. It was so much colder than where we had walk from. It was now that I wasn't sure we would complete the walk today.

More deer tracks going into the woods.

This walk is over !!!!

Notice how the right rear leg is lifted high? I knew we were going no further today and hopefully she'd make it back to the house with me having to carry her.

Once she figured out what was going on, she turned toward me, got on the path and started heading home. I didn't say a word.

Getting back into the bright sunshine really warmed things up. She stopped limping and walked a little faster than her normal afternoon pace. She must have remembered from two hours ago that a warm floor inside the house made her paws feel better.

Both pictures show new deer tracks.

As we walked into the yard with a blanket of smooth snow I could see there had not been any kind of animal traffic in the past two days.

I am not sure if Stella was thinking about sitting in the snow to scratch or what she was thinking. I turned and didn't see anything out in the field in the direction she was looking.

Slowly but surely she headed to the door.  After we were inside, she and Heidi finished the last of the bone treats ... those strange grain free with the bacon flavor. Are those "keto" for dogs??  LOL

With the really cold temperature this morning I still can't complain about this winter. The temperatures have been right at the average for this time of year with highs in the mid-30s. We've had a lot of days in the mid-40's also.

I picked up a new show to watch that is only six episodes long. It's on the National Geographic channel, called Valley of the Boom ... about the start of the internet, explosive stock gains, a little corruption and the war between Netscape and Microsoft. Netscape use to my favorite browser back in the day and I hated to see it end when it did.

It was a cold but sunny day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

4° To Start The Day

If I thought Sunday morning was bad I must have forgot what last year was like. Everyday for a month it was below 32° and most days within that month period were below 15° and many in single digits as the high temperature of the day. I glanced at my watch at 5am and it was 3°. By 6am it was up to 4°, needless to say both hounds were at the door wagging their tails when I finished pouring their morning kibble.

It was not a surprise because I had seen the weather hourly forecast. On another note, I hope that you were able to step outside late last night and see the moon and lunar eclipse from where you live. It was fabulous, although I did not know I needed to wait an hour longer.

While I watched the last NFL game last night, Stella might have changed positions while sleeping during the games, but that was the only time she moved.

It was the same for Heidi. In fact she never moved from that corner of the couch except for switching which side she would sleep on. She stayed tucked into that corner for almost four hours of solid sleep. Luckily I still had a seat after getting up during the commercials.

Stella decided early in the first game at 3pm that my leg was going to be a pretty good pillow for her. These were all taken with my iPhone 8+ camera. Each time I would come back from the refrigerator or bathroom, during commercials, Stella was still asleep. I'd lift her head to slide back into my seat and she never woke up.

Just as I planned I spent most of the afternoon and last night watching both NFL Playoff games. Both were great games but both had major official blunders that decided the New Orleans outcome for sure. The other game showed why the NFL needs to change their Overtime Rules, especially in a playoff game where the winner goes to the Super Bowl.

Why should any team be penalized by not having a chance in overtime just because they lost the coin toss. A coin toss that decided New England would get to choose to take the ball first? The rule is either a TD by the offense or defense ends the game immediately with no chance for the team that lost the coin toss to tie the game.

The game was not quite over when Stella sat up. I thought she was going to get off the couch to do her stretching but she was only trying to figure out a way to move from her right side to her left side and go back to sleep. Once she did that switch without getting off the couch, then moving into this position, I knew she was out for the night.

For the first time in many years I am not sure I'll be watching the Super Bowl this year. It's happened in prior games over the years for various reasons, some of them were out of my control. I had two other friends text me last night right as the game ended, telling me they had no plans to watch the Super Bowl either.

I never watch the media buildup during the two weeks before the game. I never watch their halftime shows either. It will be a pretty quiet Sunday unless I change my mind and watch the game. Then, it will still be a pretty quiet Sunday like all the others, as I watch the games and the hounds sleep.

It was too cold to set up a tripod with camera exposure set long enough to capture the moon, but at 10:10pm the yard and field were lit up like it was daytime. I took some snapshots with and without a flash. I could literally see the crater formations from where I stood on "Winston's Patio", the 6 rusty color stepping stones at the corner of the house. It might have been the wrong time of night but I did not see any redness on the moon. {I found out this morning what times that would occur.}

I know this isn't a great picture but I wasn't going to sit outside in 8° weather with a tripod and a long exposure setting on my camera to get a perfect picture of the moon. I remember what I saw.

I did nothing to edit this picture. It looks just like the backyard, the next picture, with the moon so bright. Yes, it really was close to 10:30pm here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. In fact based on the picture file, it was 10:16pm when I took this.

Those are Stella's prints from Sunday afternoon under the moon's bright light. She did step outside with me after I took these pictures for her last pee of the night. It is really strange to see her go to the same spot every night on her last trip outside ... because it is the same spot that Winston and later Sadie would go to during this time of year. It's barely in the yard next to that cable that goes from my utility pole to the ground.

The hounds and I will be back later this afternoon with a lot more pictures. It was bright and sunny yesterday afternoon and it will be the same way today. By 2pm it will be warm enough to bring Stella out into the field for the first time since Saturday for an afternoon walk and taking pictures.

I guess I should have done more research on what this moon was going to do Sunday night. Here is what I found this morning ... looks like I should have waited an hour longer but even by that time I was in dreamland ... that's what happens when you become a morning person instead of a night owl.

"It begins with the partial phase around 10:34 p.m. EST Sunday. That’s when Earth’s shadow will begin to nip at the moon. Totality — when Earth’s shadow completely blankets the moon — will last 62 minutes, beginning at 11:41 p.m. EST Sunday."

I just looked at the temperature, it has DROPPED to 2° at 7:35am.

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