Was It Really Saturday ?

{This did not post as scheduled ... guess Blogger has more work to do}

I don't see them often but when I do they are climbing the fence to get back to their hiding place in my neighbors yard, probably behind his small shed. Will the one that I showed you yesterday on my shower curtain grow into this size?  LOL I am not sure what any of the three dogs would do if they were to find one on the ground. I had some plans for today, did some not others. As usual my days come and go with the flow.

I like sleeping with the bedroom window open during the night but evidently there is something that happens that disrupts my sleep a lot with the window open. My free app SleepWatch catches any disturbances right down to the minute and seems to be pretty accurate based on it tracking times that I can remember. So last night it was borderline on whether we sleep with the windows open or close them with the air conditioning on. It never rained but I had very little disruptive sleep with the windows closed. It's not rare to hear the coyotes crying loud enough to wake me up during the night. I believe that is one reason our neighborhood was built many years ago requiring all of use to have concrete fences.

Walter is always looking for action. If one of us doesn't give him attention he will just move to the next dog or me. Or he will take off and enjoy his time in the backyard in the mornings before it gets too hot. He seems to be looking at me for answers, like "what are we doing today?" Someone needs his toenails trimmed.

A few weeks ago snooping around Facebook I found they have a "Cars and Coffee" every Saturday morning downtown in front of one of the coffee shops. I took the 64 panel van this morning to check it out because it looked like it might rain within the next two hours that I was going to be gone. No one was there 10 minutes past their start time but I still had a nice early Saturday morning drive through town. I see a lot of old classic cars and trucks in this town.

Yes ... you do see Walter's mouth wrapped around the back of Stella's leg. Luckily he has his adult teeth now and those are not nearly as sharp as his baby teeth were. Stella usually puts up with him chewing her legs, ears and loose skin on her neck. He use to hang from those areas when he was 9 weeks old but not now ... he is gaining weight by the hour it seems.

Here are the two of many reasons I moved here. That view is why I chose this house and that sunny wide open sky is why I chose this area. It never gets old seeing that every morning or throughout the day.

My friend up in Phoenix sent me this photo today of her new mountain bike. She had gone up to Sedona to ride some of their bike trails. She later sent me a video of her falling on her ride that her helmet mounted camera caught. The state of Arizona is so beautiful, anywhere you go.

Late yesterday afternoon I saw these two sprint out of the house out the back door with Walter barking all the way. The doberman puppy next door was standing on its back legs looking over the fence. They have an elevated piece of dirt that borders the inside of their fence so no, he is not as tall as my fence when on his back legs. Diesel and Walter love playing when they are together and he does bite the doberman's legs to get him into action. They run around the yard until Walter is about to collapse. He is quite social with dogs and people.

Walter is looking more and more like a bulldog every day. His head will remain smaller until the last stage of growth I'm told. Then it will catch up with that body of his. For a puppy he has been very good and easy to live with ... yet there have been those times he lets me know he is still a puppy. I'll include those stories in his blog post.

This is their eating positions twice per day. I still have to play referee and stand between Walter and Heidi to prevent him but butting in and moving her away from her food. Most of the time he will finish his food and follow Stella outside while Heidi finishes her meal. Since she has so few teeth left I still feed her kibble but soak it a little in water before serving it to her. Walter always licks out their clean bowl just in case he finds one piece of small kibble left behind.

It was only 91° today after their lunch but Walter had already figured out it is cooler in the shade and those rocks are not as hot as the ones in the sunshine. You will see below that after he was finished, he turned and took the pavers back to the patio. Can they be that much cooler than the rocks?

Between June and September almost every afternoon those sunny skies will turn to something like this. There you see it raining in the mountains yesterday but it did not rain here. I don't mind the monsoons because they don't last long. It's not like the all day and all night rains I use to get in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.

If I wanted it cooler ... I can always wait for March like it was here in this photo.

I had just sat down this morning with my second cup of coffee when I received an email from the basset hound breeder at Out West Bassets. She was sending the two week old photos. Their eyes had opened but they are not walking yet. That will happen this week. She sent the same body/face combination of photos for each puppy. These are the five males I get to choose from. I am not sure what exact order I am in the choosing which puppy and really it makes no difference, they are all great looking.

I do have a name picked out but will not announce it until he arrives. As you can see they all have an early start on long toenails LOL ... it must come with the breed. It's just not the basset I am picking but the breeder is matching what each of us wants in a basset hound with what she is seeing there with personalities. Yes, they are different and I have personal experiences that proved that to be true. Funny stories.

Looking at Walter in this photo you would swear he has heard me on the phone talking or can read my texts, emails or this blog and hears something about a new puppy arriving.

I am not sure what the 'new' Blogger is doing. I thought by now I was supposed to be shoved onto the new Blogger format whether I liked it or not. When I open this up to write a new post it sends me to the old format which is good. If I reopen the post later to edit it, Blogger sends me to their new format. I know they will be working in the background for a while until they get it up and running. I am happy to see they have implemented some of the older ways of loading photos.

You might have noticed since your last visit, I have added some new blogs to the sidebar. A couple of the writers have been very very accurate in what they say the world has or is turning into. I also updated some "Pages" at the top with my new bicycles, the two new VWs and of course Walter added to the Hound page. By mistake I deleted the page of Favorite Photos but will try to build that back and add it later.

As much as I would like to change the look of the blog, I cannot find any of the new themes that Blogger supplies that I want to use. Wordpress had many more options but I am not paying for something that is free here and use to be free there. I almost changed this one back to having a sidebar on each side of the post. I guess that is somewhat in limbo and nothing as far as looks will change.

I have good cool air conditioned air that flows over my computer room and Walter's loud snoring (like now) but recently I have noticed for the first time in three years the fan on my iMac is running different times. That tells me the computer is overheating but when I check the hard drive activity nothing is running in the background nor soaking up all the RAM. My last iMac lasted a little over seven years and I hope this one lasts as long. I am still addicted to a large monitor so I will never move to just an iPad or laptop for all of my computer usage.

I mentioned a few weeks ago our mayor put the town on mandatory masks. That first day I saw a face to face fight between a customer and a Walmart employee when she was not allowed into the store. Our positive cases have dropped since that executive order but like anywhere else in the USA, that topic is pretty toxic and flammable. I am NOT going to go into the pros and cons of wearing a mask, it would just take too long.

Recently I have seen fewer and fewer people following those rules here in town. I have had business tell me I can take my mask off when I enter their bike shop or the tire store, etc. It has not affected my lifestyle too much because I am already "stay at home", somewhat of a loner and had groceries delivered last fall when I had surgery. I buy a lot of stuff online if I need it ... so not a big adjustment to COVID-19.

I will say when there is a forest fire they GO TO THE FIRE and work to put it out ... they DON'T drown the whole forest with water or retardant to do it to put those same fires out.

Blogging gets me back to taking more photos. About the time I think my iPhone is the best camera, my Nikon D3500 or D3200 or the newer Canyon SX70 HS pulls through with some good photos. The old beat up and used Tamron 18-200mm lens worked out well today.  I used all of those cameras for the photos of this post today.

That is about it for today out here in the "Wild West".

We're Back With Some Changes

There have been a few changes since I last blogged February 10th. I guess the biggest change is Walter, now 5 months old, purebred bulldog. The 33 years I have had long ears and drool but always wanted a bulldog. Some time in early April "covid boredom" took a hold of me one Saturday afternoon and I started looking. I couldn't find a basset hound puppy available west of the Rocky Mountains and as much as I like bloodhounds I can't handle a puppy. Walter was only 60 some miles away in Tucson.  I drove through some rain, stood more than 6' from the seller and wiped him down when I got home.

I'll post about him in a few days with a bunch of photos of him. Stella claimed him within the hour of his arrival that night. He was her pup and she decided to take care of him. He is smart, funny, energetic at times and likes to sunbathe in the backyard. He plays with the neighbor's puppies, a doberman and black lab the same age. He loves the neighborhood kids as they do him and only goes out the front door when I take out the trash. More about him later in his own post.

While Phoenix and Tucson are setting all-time record temperature highs, we are sitting down here with our normal summer which has moved into Monsoons. It's not a season, it's just monsoons. What that means it can look like this all day and late afternoon the storms blow in with steady heavy rain or a short five minute rain that can flood the streets. The hounds and I have been here 13 months and we still love this place as much as the day we arrived. Oh and it does rain with skies just as sunny and blue as you see.

When the Aerostat is launched there is a pretty good chance that no monsoons will occur that afternoon. This was from early this morning so I guess we are in for a day of sunshine, mid 90's low humidity and nighttime temps in the low 70's. Even with the mandated mask requirement, it's still the best place to hike and bicycle ... masks are not required for those activities.

Stella turned 11 years old last month and looks like a puppy. No grey hair like Heidi has. She has put up with a lot since Walter arrived. She may get fewer naps than she was used to but she loves playing with the puppy. We still get in an early morning walk but I can tell her hips are getting a little gimpy so we will be going back to the supplements she was taking a couple of years ago. Her routine has not changed.

Heidi is somewhere around 11 years old this summer. I picked her up from a rescue service in June 2011 and at the time they thought she was around one and half years old. Some vets out here seem to think she is older than 11 years old. That is her a few days after her surgery a couple of weeks ago. You'll notice that left ear looks a little gray on top but that is where they shaved her ear to cut out the growth that finally poked through her skin, some way. For years I asked vets in Indiana and one out here in Arizona to remove it. All they would do is look at it, squeeze it, rub it and do nothing. Well it's gone now, surgery done by her new vet and the stitches are right behind the fold of her ear so you will never see them.

Another thing he did upon my request when other vets wouldn't ... removed the growth above her front left little toe. It looked like a second toenail but had the texture of a cuticle. When I cut it like a nail it could bleed if I cut it back to much ... well that is gone also.

The biggest disappoint and the main reason she required surgery were her teeth. AGAIN. Last December at her annual checkup, that vet gave her a passing grade and said she had mild gingivitis. I asked them if she needed her teeth cleaned again and they said no, they looked in great shape. Well about a month ago I noticed that Heidi wasn't acting her normal self and made an appointment for her to see the new vet that I was taking Walter to. He found not only a few teeth impacted but at some places you could see the tooth root in the gum. So she had EIGHT MORE teeth removed and within days after surgery was back to her old self. She likes to start her day with some barking and jumping into a 360° spin before heading to the kitchen for breakfast.

Once we moved to Arizona her skin allergies went away. A vet in Indiana a few years ago told me hair would never grow back on those four paws ... as her legs and paws were raw skin from those allergies ... as you can see her coat has never looked better. She also gained all the weight she had lost a few years ago when she was skin and bones.

She was not outside long yesterday afternoon, just long enough to tell her it was too hot outside and she could walk back into her air conditioned bedroom for an afternoon siesta. Notice the growth on the far right toe is gone.

This is a nightly thing with Walter and Stella. They sleep near each other and near the couch. They both find that cold tile is nice to sleep on. I know that Walter is only a puppy but from day one he sleeps where ever he wants in the house without any accidents. He and Stella usually walk into the bedroom around 4am every morning to let me know they would like to go outside to pee. It's too hard to wake them up when I go to bed just for them to do that.

Since a bulldog really doesn't have a nose, Walter will press his whole face into Stella, Heidi, me or the ground to smell. Here he is trying to figure out if Stella will wake up and play with him. She would rather sleep based on what this photo shows.

Lately this is where Stella spends her night sleeping. That usually starts around 7pm.

Walter is just around the corner from Stella and I've left him there many nights in the last five months when I turn out the lights. From the first hour he was here as an eight week old puppy he has always gone outside when he needs to or goes to the door if it is closed. I've had to do very little training for him.

Heidi still has the dog bed I bought her last fall but sometimes in the afternoons she would rather sleep here. Of course that is an area where the air conditioned air hits from the ceiling vent.

This is where Walter sleeps when he gets tired of the living room. That use to be my sleeping bag but he has claimed it as his. Yes .... he does sleep with his tongue sticking out and only opened his eyes right before I took the photo. His hearing is phenomenal and there isn't much he misses even when he is asleep. He is our official watch dog and can go from sleeping to sprinting to the front door in a matter of seconds IF he hears something.

His dad is a huge brindle bulldog but all of that dark color has moved from all over Walter to just down his spine. That reddish 'tan' color on the sides is the same color as his mom. He is laying in the doorway of the computer room. By this time of day he has eaten breakfast usually at dawn, played with or tried to play with Stella and/or me and even by himself and is panting heavy by 8am ... thus the early morning hap on the cool tile floor.

We have a new pet that was free, no charge. I first saw him on one of Walter's blankets inside his crate. Yes I have to crate him while I am gone. I'll cover that in his post later. I thought Walter may have eaten him when I got back that morning until I pulled the shower curtain back to walk into the shower ... there he was. This seems to be his spot as I have seen him every day in that area of the shower curtain. Although yesterday he was out in the open on one of Heidi's blankets laying directly in the sunshine. Once he gets bigger I'll move him back outside on the other side of the fence.

Sunday night I had an alert on my iPhone's Twitter account. I follow Cochise County Fire something ... a lightning strike had started a fire north of Highway 90 just across from the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.

They had to bring in the big plane to disburse the bright reddish orange fire retardant to put the fire out. Those trees are on the western side of the San Pedro River with the highway to the right.

This is just north of the highway. For those familiar with the area it burned right up to the gravel parking area between the fence and highway.

These photos were taken early this morning. Notice where the needle is for Fire Danger Today. With monsoons it is still so dry and a lightning strike, a campfire not property put out (currently not allowed) can light off large areas so fast that fire crews are almost overwhelmed by the time they arrive.  This is next to the road on the south side of the highway that goes to the San Pedro House.

You'll notice another recent change ... I'm back into old VWs. I was heavy into those from 2000-2007 and at one time owned four different models and parked them all at the house in Indiana. This is a 1964 VW Panel Cargo Van but someone installed different cargo doors with camper windows. They had started to convert it to a camper until they found their 1965 camper with all the interior. I bought this to use as a panel van but I can and have in the past, camped in a model like this.

Believe it or not the more rust that shows the more valuable they are. Only the previous owner had the body painted the stock color and put the original bumpers back on. To give you some idea about old VW Bus parts ... just the front bumper alone will cost $800-$1000 IF it is straight, no dents.  Rust is even better.

Another reason I liked it enough to buy, it came with brand new BF Goodrich All-Terrain N02 tires ... very handy in this area I live and it has the gearing and power to drive on forest roads and local roads that are not paved. It's rare because it has those two cargo doors on BOTH  sides of the bus. I was cruising 65 mph easy coming out to the San Pedro River to take some photos. No rust rot, solid belly pan that goes from the front to almost the rear wheels.

A few months ago I was riding four to five days per week and getting 100-150 miles. I was feeling so good in May that I wanted to see if I could ride seven days in that week and rode 250 miles. That was also nine out of the previous ten days and over 300 miles for those ten days. I found out that I was not in my 20's anymore ... took a while to recover, then the winds came along with the excuses ... so I didn't ride for almost a month. I did that 30 miles last Monday and felt good doing it.

Technology is pretty amazing. I use a free app called Strava. I can leave my phone at home and click the icon on my watch. While riding I can check my heart rate, my speed and distance along with the local time. When i get home the watch and phone will automatically synchronize and will update my ride into the two local bicycle clubs I have joined. Since I moved here I have ridden the bike 133 times and over 2,500 miles. I took October and most of September off from my hip replacement last September.  Since January 1st I have ridden 51 times for 1,263 miles and a lot of days off.

Yes .... I still like cars and trucks. Yes ... I am trading them like I did in Indiana and even more ... I don't want to tell you how many 'transactions' I've had since moving here but I did make a list the other day. I'm done though. I am at peace with what I have with no urge to buy or even look for something different. Besides I have no more room, there are two vehicles in the garage. :)

The neighbor kids did a little decorating on my sidewalk ... it was the 8 year old little boy that wrote "no masks" on the curb ... I have to agree with him. He also wants to go back to school.

Last night my friend was complaining about the heat in Phoenix as she had just returned from a run. That is 7:59pm Pacific Time last night.

This shows what I was talking about before ... the fire came right up to that parking area for hiking, next to Highway 90 out by the San Pedro River. I forgot to mention the other reason I wanted to buy this. STELLA ... with her hips she quit jumping up into the back of the FJ years ago. I'd have to line her up and then lift her hips to help her climb in the back. With this VW the large cargo floor is low enough she can step up inside with no problem. She already has. That will be better for her trips to the vet and my new hip that I have forgotten all about. A friend reminded me I was not to be doing heavy lifting when she caught me helping Stella into the back of the FJ one day. Hows that for justification for buying the Panel van???  LOL. The seller drove the bus down from Durango Colorado a few weeks ago with no mechanical problems.

News broke in the local paper that "New Wall" was being installed south of us. Since every new 4x4 vehicle I buy, whether old or brand new, goes over the top of Montezuma Pass and 22 total miles of gravel dirt road to Parker Canyon Lake ... I decided to kill two birds with one stone and head south last Saturday Morning. The brand new truck would get initiated and I could have a view from high on their plans of building a new wall. Just to the left of the truck the wall is within eyesight and at first looks like raised land that a train track would be using.

Once I got on top of Montezuma Pass then I could see what their plan was and ... where all those huge trucks were going and coming from. Notice the land they have cleared as their work area to bring in supplies, material, construction offices and personnel. I did find out from someone that knows, all of that wall you see will be tore down and new 30' tall wall will be installed. I hope to eventually to get my truck,

VW or my bicycle on their new road that is next to the wall to take photos and write a post.

Hard to believe with that kind of land but yes .... they are catching people trying to cross there or recently have crossed there due to the poor condition of that older wall. How do you build a wall in Arizona/Mexico temperatures ... turn on the lights and work at night. Photos to follow later on with those lights.

Some time back I sent a deposit to a breeder of basset hounds. It was way before I even thought of buying Walter. In fact I had forgotten I had sent a deposit as I was so far down the list of people wanting their pups. Well a month ago, two months after I got Walter, I get an email telling me that I am getting close to the top of the list of names where I might be getting a puppy to choose in September or this winter ... depending on what size of the litter. As you can see moma basset set an all time kennel record with ten puppies and my name is now on the list to choose which male I want sometime around the first of August and a pickup time of late August.

I will say when I saw their website last year, their basset puppies were the best I had ever seen in my 33  years of having basset hounds. I have never looked for show quality puppies nor did I or do I ever plan on showing bassets or breeding bassets but I do like quality.

Just like cars, trucks, VWs, and bicycles ... I have too many of each. Even hounds. Can I say hounds now since Walter is a dog not a hound??? Well some would think three dogs are too many and four would be out of the question. But old photos in a box show that I've had three basset hounds and a bloodhound when I first moved into the house in Indiana up on the hill. Other photos show that I had two bassets and two  bloodhounds when I brought Stella home. So four is possible ... not logical ... but possible and workable.

It's sad to think but it's fact ... within the next two to three years Heidi and Stella will not be around. When I decided whether to let the breeder keep my deposit and tell her I wasn't interested or "gulp" and take one making it four dogs here at the house ... that fact is one thing I thought about. Walter and the new puppy could grow up together when Heidi and Stella are gone. And ... who knows ... a basset puppy might give Heidi someone to bond with, make her feel younger so to speak. Believe me there is a huge difference between a basset hound puppy and a bloodhound puppy or even a bulldog puppy. Heidi would be more willing to share with a basset hound than she would a larger bloodhound or an obnoxious snoring loudly bulldog.

So out of those ten puppies you see are five males. This breeder tells me at week 4 she will be able to match the personality I want in a basset hound with one in those five. I'll be honest ... I'm looking for a laidback basset hound like Winston was. Males and female basset hounds are different. So we will see what happens and I'll keep updating here on the blog. That was the second question the breeder asked after she asked if I wanted a male or a female when I sent the deposit. "What kind of personality are you looking for in a basset hound."

It looks like I need to do some house cleaning here on the blog. I need to add a dog on the sidebar, add Walter to the Hounds Page, update my bicycles and VWs page with the two 'new' ones I've bought. BTW, they are great investments. I knew about the 'new' Blogger since I do keep a private journal. Since there have been so many changes and it's hot outside most of the day ... I might even change the theme and colors if I get really motivated.

Not sure how often I'll blog ... probably when the urge hits ... but I have a lot of catching up to do so there will be some regular posting for a while. Our city has 53 confirmed COVID cases, that is down from 61 just eight days ago. We have websites that track by zip code. We have a population of a little over 44,000 people.  The mayor weeks ago made it mandatory to wear a mask outside and/or in stores. I forget mine sometimes, at least it's in the car for quick access.

So if you are still around and interested in reading about the hounds, the dog and local trips ... welcome back.

I'm No Longer Going To Blog

For those that have asked where I am, if the hounds are okay and if I am okay ... everything is fine. I have not posted anything official as far as my blog plans because I was either too busy or at times still undecided. It's rained this afternoon so I have time to make the announcement that I am no longer going to blog. I've done this before over the last 8 years but this time it's different. My life is different and the days are filled with outdoor activities.

Thanks to all that followed the insanity, that liked following the hounds and seeing the photos of my short trips. Many trips or hikes I take now are without a camera and very enjoyable. The more I did or do outside the less time I found I had to sit down and put a blog post together.

I've pulled the plug on tv and that is now used only for DVD movies or my PS4 games of Grand Turismo or PGA Golf. I do neither one of those a lot but it was something to do during the winter. Less tv means a lot more book reading. Heidi has walked more out here than she did totally back in Indiana. Stella still begs for food and her morning walks.

So thanks again for following, the emails over the years ... it's been fun ... but the blog has ran its course so to speak.

Every day seems to be a great one here in the 'Wild West.

A Perfect Day To Blog

When the day is full of rain in the forecast I guess any excuses for not blogging are not valid. Plus I had an urge to write some updates, not that things are happening a mile per minute but actually in the laidback slow routine we lived in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. I have no idea how I can tell but I am almost positive that the hounds are enjoying a winter that is so much milder than their past ones. So today I will ramble a little bit and post a few recent photos. You can tell not much has been happening in the "blog topics' department. These photos were taken with four different cameras.

A few weeks ago I mentioned I had labwork done thru the local VA Medical Center. It was an option I've always had but I needed to stop by and straighten out some thing on my file since I had not talked to them in 15 years or so. I blogged recently how I had joined the VA Circus ... but they have done a 360° turnaround in performance and I can say they have been nothing but professional and proactive since my complaining here on the blog.

Having an annual physical there saved me time and money. Even around the Christmas holidays they had a followup appointment 4 days after they drew blood and urine. Then a nurse practitioner spent almost an hour going over my results, asking questions about my diet and physical activities. She mentioned that if I wanted they could make an appointment for me to speak on the phone with a VA Nutritionist in Tucson. I accepted that appointment without hesitation ... Two days ago I had more great news confirmed about my health and diet.

You may remember when I have written about different diets over the past 5-6 years. I've tried some not all. They were not really diets to me but just a change in what I ate or how. From years of going back and forth, reading journals online, books from the library, I decided sometime last year that my diet plan was pretty good. Moderation for dairy and beef plus ice cream. Yet there were times I would fall off that eating plan wagon hard and I would be on the extreme end of binging on all the food I should not be eating.

Basically if it was in my house it was gone, in large quantities. Whole packages of Pepperidge Farm cookies, full containers of Ben&Jerry's ice cream, too many slices of a large loaded pizza that would come with breadsticks and cheese or brownies for desert, chips, candy, etc. In all the years of reading about diets and health in books and online, I've never found the cause of such a drastic change in eating in a matter of 12 hours. What brought on these extreme eating binges of mine?

I found out last Tuesday talking to the nutritionist ... "not eating enough protein will cause those binges for junk food and sweets." I use a free app called Cronometer because it gets into the detailed nutrient breakdown on all foods I eat. Their database of food is fantastic and if it has a bar code on the package you can scan that with your smart phone camera and it will load the nutritional data.

From the answers I was giving her and the lab results she could see on her computer, she thought I was going great. Then she explained how I could stop these binges based on what I had told her. We both agreed that I cannot have those kinds of foods in my house. I can go out for a "slice of pizza" or "a scoop of ice cream" or have some "chips and salsa" as an appetizer before my Mexican meal but don't bring any of that stuff home.

We discussed different popular diets, different books that I had read, the food app to log all food eaten, then compared that to the lab work results. What fat I am eating is being processed normally with nothing left over as added calories. The little sugar I add to my coffee is workable with my glucose numbers at the low end of the normal range. Evidently my own diet as I called it, with moderation principals, was working better than I thought they would. She agreed with what I was saying and what I was eating.

Of course the bicycling I do is a great addition to staying healthy. Now I am not in racing shape nor will I ever reach that level of physical fitness again but what little I do is a key to my lab results and general health overall. Every doctor and nurse, except one, has said so. How much I ride outside is dependent on weather during these months but I still get on the bike on a trainer inside to ride for 0-45 minutes. Especially on days like today.

She also agreed with what I read in a book last weekend. The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up by Steven Masley, MD. Eliminating food is not the way to go but the way you eat it and the quantity. Some say beef is beef but the book and the nutritionist said that "grass fed" made a world of difference. Eggs? Only those from "cage free" chickens. Vegan or Vegetarian Diets were not a good option in her opinion. Dr Masley wrote in his book that even a diet like a whole food plant based diet that added fish, poultry and grass fed beef could reverse heart disease in all the tests he had performed for over 30 years.

Of course it's not the 16oz NY Strip steak but one that has been divided up into 3oz or 4 oz portions. I never could tell who to believe when I reads stuff like this since some claim that ONLY a Whole Food Plant Based Diet can reverse artery blockages. Dr Masley can prove it otherwise. Here is a nice sheet in poor quality photo that seems to help me so far.

How do you know if that makes a difference? What about those large cheeseburgers at The Diner sometimes? or back in Indiana at 5Guys Burgers? How do you know what is too much whether it be fast food, junk food or ice cream? Which kind of diet is best? I can only accept my answer by looking at my lab results.

Blood tested in the lab ... it doesn't lie.

During my VA annual physical they gave me a free machine to measure my blood pressure. I was almost ready to click the buttons on Amazon a few days before my appointment to buy exactly that. My apple watch does a great job of monitoring my heart rate but I wanted more data. I logged my blood pressure twice per day for 14 days and then went back to the VA nurse practitioner to go over the results. I could also download that data from the machine if they wanted to verify my spreadsheet.

I sat in her office on Tuesday at 9:30am BEFORE having any coffee and produced a 116/64 blood pressure reading. I was cleared with a "see you next December" and was on my way. The times I took it during the day of normal eating, two cups of strong coffee with two tsp of sugar in each up (16 oz), it still ranged in the 120s/60's

So without getting those Medicare "Notices" on what they pay and what I "might" pay ... I went in for free or a low co-pay that I have not seen yet, drew blood and urine on a Monday before Christmas holiday and the Friday after was back in their office reviewing the results. Two weeks later they confirmed my blood pressure was good and consistent ... finished and not a dime out of my pocket. I am getting different stories on the possible co-pay I might have to pay ... based on some military awards the VA tells me that I'll not have co-pays but I know Viet Nam vets that do pay a co-pay. I'll find out in the next month I guess.

The hounds have not changed. They are doing great and have never looked or felt better since moving back to Fromm Dog Food for Large Breeds in October. Heidi's and Stella's coats have never felt softer and smooth. Stella has healed her two small "elephant spots" that were on her hip bones ... I think the cause was the carpet in my house in Indiana when she would sit on those hip bones as she scratched herself.

Heidi is now going on every .57 of a mile walk we take almost every day except when it rains. She even gets excited when I take the retractable leashes out of the closet. They have done pretty well adjusting from walking in a 7 acre field of grass/weeds to walking on sidewalks with cars (not a lot) passing us, along with meeting people that want us to stop so they can pet the hounds. They are quite popular in the neighborhood.

Every night Stella sleeps in the same spot while I read a book or watch a movie or game. That smudge on the couch that I just noticed is not anything damaging or a stain ... the material has moved in an opposite direction when Stella used it to brace her self as she curls around into her sleeping position. They adapted to the new rule of not getting on the couch very quickly.

My new hip turned 4 months old on January 8th. It had felt great most of the time the past two months but I was still feeling some soreness or stiffness when I would get up off the couch or out of my desk chair. Colder weather made it a little sore ... then things changed almost instantly at that January 8th date.

The soreness and stiffness was completely gone and it did not matter how long I sat on the soft couch or on the hard desk chair. I was back to getting in and out of bed or cars and my truck the normal way, instead of sliding into the seat with by back to the door before swinging my legs around. I could feel the small changes in that hip area that told me all those muscles that were cut were healing and getting stronger each day. Those muscles were back to wanting to exercise, to ride the bike just like before my bike wreck. I don't have to go back to see my surgeon until next December which would be 15 months after surgery.

So healthwise I am good. Not bad results for someone who had their last physical close to 20 years ago.

As far as blogging ???

I am pretty sure I will no longer be blogging every day. There just isn't enough time for me to do that based on what my daily routine has changed into. Time passes quickly every day and before I know it 6pm is there on my watch staring back at me and I am not finished doing whatever I might be doing.

Activities have increase and we are not even in great weather yet. I read a lot more, I hike a lot more and I am trying to ride my bike as much as possible. The information I read in the "30 Day Book" gave me assurances that I cannot ride my bike enough and there was no reason to track my heart rate while riding unless it shot way above the maximum limit. That maximum limit is higher than what I was using ... the old formula of 220 minus your age. The MD author cited that formula as a very general estimate then gave me the correct way to find it.

Back to blogging. Like I have mentioned in past years, there are times my blog is boring to me ... very boring. Same photos of the hounds, sunrises or sunsets and certain hikes just on a different day. That kind of blogging doesn't excite me and I am sure if I am bored with it, so are you as a reader.

I've discussed this with other current and past bloggers so it's just not my messed up head ... you try not to but at times but you catch yourself taking that hike or taking those photos just to do the blog for that day. Then you wonder if those photos are good enough, can't I find something different and better to show people? Sometimes I'd ramble about nothing for pages and other times I'd sit here for an hour and thought of nothing to write about. I notice and do know for a fact that when I blog less I take fewer photos. I've regretted missing some photos in the past when I have taken time off from blogging.

Although it's easier, I'll not move to Instagram and use that as a blog replacement. YouTube is definitely NOT an option. I post a photo or two at times on Facebook for friends there that don't have time to read blogs but want to see the hounds. I've thought about emailing photos to readers that want to see the hounds but not certain that is a good move either.

Then there are the times I enjoy getting away from electronics like computer, phones, tablets and tv's. After the initial excitement of watching movies from Amazon Prime and the shows that Apple produced ... my tv time decreased rapidly and is trending to no tv by next fall. With a spring and summer of hiking, biking and local exploration in moving vehicles, the desire to watch tv in the fall may be completely gone. Tv time in my house is decreasing rapidly even in the middle of college basketball. So we will see what happens.

I've added some time to do some barbell training here at home three times per week. They are based on exercises recommended by the book author who happens to be a cardiologist. Most of them I was doing 7-8 years ago. I implemented my own stretching program for my hip once I found out there was no pain afterward. There was some during the stretch but not afterward so I figured some of that scar tissue was breaking up or stretching. No matter what it was, there is no pain now when I stretch and it's to the point of a normal feeling of good.

As the weather gets warmer I'll be out and about more and more. Not all the time but there will be times the hounds will join me. Yet the one time I took both of them hiking with me or really walking out by the San Pedro River/House ... Heidi wore out a short time after we started as she had her nose to the ground from the time we left the car. Stella had too many distractions ... from horse scent, coyote scent, possible snake scent ... just too many scents for a bloodhound nose. Let's just say they reacted the same way as Winston, Heidi and Sadie when we took our camping trip to Colorado and Utah in June 2015.

Two hands ... two leashes ... two hounds ... both wanting to go different directions at different speeds. It's the BREED not the dogs that make it hard for me to hike with dogs like I read and see on other blogs of those that travel. These two are not herding breeds but hound breeds and their noses are stronger than ever which equates to a LOT of distractions or new things to explore.

So that is about it from the 'Wild West" today.