Walter Keeping Us Active

Walter still fits under the coffee table but just barely. He seems to think that is the best place to cool off after playing with Stella or I. He does like the cool tile floor but I guess there is just something about sleeping on wooden slats that feels better. It wasn't soon after I took this picture that his snoring became stronger and louder. It shows again there wasn't much going on around here. Some baseball on tv and reading books ... plus a lot of time sitting outside enjoying the view behind my house.

I can feel my blogging moving a little later in the day compared to the past week where I was posting something around 8pm or so Eastern time. As the weather becomes nicer I am finding a opening a little after 7pm local time, where I feel like putting something together. Look for the posts to be about this same time of night on the days I post.

Walter is a big talker. More than any bloodhound or basset hound I've had in over 30 years. He likes to growl and bark at himself and many times when I look to see what he is barking at ... he is laying down about to go to sleep. He has learned to let Stella sleep after breakfast which means he heads to the bedroom and drags every one of his chew bones and blankets out into a pile and plays with that stack of things. He will run back and forth in the empty dog crates during this time. I can no longer keep the kitchen towel on the dishwasher handle otherwise he will drag that out to the middle of the backyard.

Heidi has seemed confused this week. She will make a million trips from her bed in the bedroom out to the living room, not staying long in either place before she turnes and goes back in the opposite direction she came from. If she didn't start her day barking and hopping in the air, I'd think something might be wrong with her. Appeitie is normal.

I shot this from inside the bedroom through the screen window this morning. This view never gets old.

While Heidi and Walter started their day I had a text from my friend in Indiana with some computer problems. It's weird because I had a strange thing happen to my iMac yesterday that made me wonder what had snuck it's way into my hard drive. For my compouter I ran Bitdefender to check for any malware and it found nothing. I run that program weekly just to make sure. Her desktop is a Windows PC and will probably need replaced based on what she told me it was doing. She could buy it online but had to make an appointment to pick it up locally at Best Buy.

Walter still is cracking me up when he has to smell something because he will tilt his face so he can press his nose flush with whatever he might be smelling. I have noticed his right front foot is starting to turn a little outward. No signs of any kind of skin allergies so I guess he does not mind his protein being chicken. He looks very healthy. He didn't mind having his ears cleaned with baby wipes the other day.

We are past the periods of rain for a while. I see nothing but sunshine icons on my iPhone weather for the next 10 days. When I say it's perfect weather, that's an accurate description. I like the hot afternoons and cool evenings where I can sleep with the window open.

Is that a litte rain I see down on the border? ... Bisbee to the left.

Last night after Walter and Stella had played for over any hour, wrestling with some chases from the living room to the computer room, Walter was trying to cool off. For a second I thought he was going to sleep on his back as he kept kicking Stella in the head as he tried to find the perfect spot. Once again it wasn't long after I took the picture the loud snoring began.

My friend and I finished talking about her computer problems and moved into diets. She was born a vegetarian and has been one all her life. The interesting thing is the book about Blood Type Diets says that is the correct way for her to eat based on her blood type. As I mentioned the book this morning she said she and her friend in San Diego was talking about the same book last night. A few years ago when I followed that diet I made a spreadsheet of course..

I listed in categories all the food it suggested I eat and colored the food highly recommended in blue. On the other side of the spreadsheet I listed in alphabetical order every food that I could remember buying at the store. It was a long list but I color coded the foods that give me indigestion. Then as I went through the book at that time, I greyed out those foods it told me not to eat. Guess what? It named over 90% of the foods I had already color coded that I had trouble with.

Did I need anymore proof than that?

There is no reason to shove a diet down your mouth if it gives you problems the majority of time. That does not mean I will be eating every meal at The Diner in town or at Sunny D's in Huachuca City, although I'd like to, but it does mean I can add lean beef, skinless chicken and fish back in my diet. Dairy is not a good idea for me and I can attest to that and agree with what the book says. I ate like this a few years ago and felt great with no digestion problems. I'll write about any updates I find in the next month as the way of eating goes into action. I guess I'll find out in 4 months when I have another bloodwork done and I can compare the numbers to last December.

Tomorrow morning I will be leaving early for a roadtrip of an hour and a half. It is out off the grid to a ranch that has the 10 basset hound puppies I am choosing from They will be 4 weeks old this weekend. Since its a reasonable distance I'd like to meet them in person, talk to the breeder and see what kind of reactions the two or three that I have picked out.

I might have mentioned in the past, when I did that with Sadie, I took Winston with me to see what he thought of a bloodhound puppy and what the one I had in mind thought of him. He was only 4 years old at the time. I didn't know it at the time but what I read as a good sign was not what it really meant. A professional bloodhound breeder told me a few years later why I was having problems with Sadie as a puppy.

I thought when she followed me and Winston everywhere we walked, that it was a good sign. The professional breeder told me that meant she was a tracker and would have been adopted out to search and rescue if it was her puppy. And she was a tracker as she explored that whole 7 acre field behind the house daily for the next 10 years. When I was at work, she would get bored and destroy things. She could bend those thick black wires on the largest dog crate like nothing ... I could not even bend them back with a set of pliers. When she was old enough to be left in the house, anytime I was gone over an hour I would return to a house that looked like it had been burglerized.

Another time I read things wrong looking at a young basset hound. He was always away from his littermates. I took that as 'independence' being a good thing. He would not be clinging to me all the time for attention. Little did I know that it meant for the next 13 years he would wander miles away before someone would call me and say that Harry was in their house sleeping. He would bark at the door until the strangers would let him in. LOL Luckily his dog tag was still attached with his name and my phone number.

The Out West Bassets breeder has told all ten of us that she will be able to tell us the puppy's  temperaments and personalities this week. Hard to believe there could be that much difference between littermates but there is. I'll post about my trip with some photos tomorrow.

My zip code is showing the number of active positive COVID cases has decreased a lot the past one to two weeks. We are back down to 47 active cases where it was 81 just a few weeks ago. The mask mandate must be working and at the same time there have been "testing blitzes" for an increase in tests done.

The hounds, the dog and I are fine in the "Wild West".

A Roadrunner Visits The Hounds !!!

While I was on the computer this morning looking at the latest photos of the basset hound puppies, a little over 3 weeks old, I heard my vertical blinds moving in the living room. It wasn't windy, it was sunny and the window was just opened enough where Stella would not see a passing dog or person and want to jump out through the screen. Walter can stand on his back legs to look out the window so I figured he had seen something where he was going nuts and was up into the blinds making all that flapping noise.
I turned the corner into the living room and was scared. The hounds were standing by the door but were looking at this mysterious creature trying to escape and making all the noise. Walter was in so much shock he was not even barking and Stella was only observing. It is one of the disadvantages of keeping the back door open so the dogs can come and go as they please. (No I am not going to install a doggie door into the wall). I have had smaller birds fly into the house but nothing this size. I grabbed my broom trying to swat him out of the blinds and away from that screened window I feared he would rip through ... I also opened the front door.

He flew over the couch when he saw me or the broom and headed back under the loveseat. I saw no sign of him under the couch or the love seat and figured he must have existed out the front door so fast that I didn't see him leave. I walked around the love seat toward the window and there he was ... sitting on the lower shelf of the end table. I moved back around the other side of the couch keeping him in front of me, as I slide the broom handle through the small space between the couch and loveseat .... he sprinted out the front door, running down the driveway like any good roadrunner would do.

Before all that excitement it looked like it was just going to be another normal day here in the southwest. Sunny skies would lead to afternoon dark gray clouds with possible rain. I caught Walter sunbathing alone this morning when I couldn't find him inside. Glancing up I saw the smaller lizard was back on the fence.

Walter looked right at it but didn't move, didn't bark and acted as if he had zero interest in the lizard. He did not even walk in that direction to get a closer look ...  he studied for a while then just looked away after he saw what it was.

He was back in deep thought trying to put his plan of the day together. He is pretty independent like I have mentioned before but he likes structure in his life with few impulse decisions.

The Aerostat was flying high this morning but that didn't mean it was going to be a day of great weather. They would pull it back down before this afternoon. My hourly weather this morning was showing storms this afternoon but they never showed up here. It just shows how fast the weather can change in this area. Yet a lot of the rain in the forecast is in those mountains and we never get a drop. I can say I have only had one day of a normal monsoon these past few weeks, where it was short and hard rain, enough to flood the streets but didn't last longer than 10 minutes.

Just like I do or did with cars, I always look at houses for sale on Zillow, not that I am in the market for a house. Very few if any have a view like this. There is a house down the street for sale so I guess that would be one with the same view. With all the rain we've had, it's nice and green at 4,650 ft elevation.

It was another 'wasted' day for me. Lack of energy, lack of motivation, hungry but for nothing I have in the kitchen, or thoughts of a drive but no idea where I want to go. It's gone on for most of the week and is never a fun time to go through. Consequently I spent most of the day catching up on my sleep since most of my nights have a majority of 'disrupted' sleep as the app calls it. As I stepped outside this afternoon around 5pm I caught this rainbow down in Mexico. The radar showed there had been some pretty severe storms in that area and on the back side of the Huachuca Mountains.

Looking toward the Southwest towards Coronado NF and Miller Peak ...

This is nothing new and something Walter started within his first couple of week here. He's a digger but not what I would call a big or obsessive digger. He found this Mesquite tree root weeks ago. It's not going anywhere, they are that strong. But he likes to see if he can pull it out to use as a chew toy and I keep filling it back in because I like my rock yard without holes and red Arizona dirt.

He knew I had found what he had been doing most of the day when I was awake. Every time that I am taking a siesta the hounds also sleep in the same spots they do at night. Maybe I don't know it and am actually adapting to the hound lifestyle during this 'stay at home' stuff. There is a fine line between the hounds lifestyle and that of a retiree.

Saturday was so exciting I can't remember what we did. It was early evening when they were sleeping head to head and Walter snoring at different times. He is really getting heavy and hard to pick up any more. He has 12 more months of growing before he will be full grown. He will not be much taller but wider and his head will finally grow in a proportionate size. I think he enjoys the company of Stella and she enjoys him the majority of time. At times he wants to play, she wants to sleep so I have to come to her rescue.

Not sure what the plans are for the rest of the night. When a bloodhound wakes you up before dawn, these nights for doing something don't last long.

Hope everybody is staying well like we are here in the "Wild West".

9 Years Ago Today

It's been 9 years already, where I headed north from 'the tropics' to NW Indiana near Merrilville to pick up Heidi from her foster mom. I had found her for adoption on Guardian Angel Basset Hound Rescue in Illinois and knew instantly she needed to be with Winston and Sadie. That was July 28th, 2011. I had stopped by Costco and picked up a new dog bed since I had time to burn. I had forgotten they were on Central time where I was on Eastern time in the same state.

She spent the first 15-20 minutes of the drive literally talking to me non-stop as if she was telling me her story. I had the dog bed sitting level with the front seat on stacks of bagged dog food. She had the perfect view out the window for the four hour drive home.

After I searched for that photo I decided to go back through my library of photos and search for each year on this day. Here are a few from past years in July 28th. For some reason on all of these photos that were taken outside I can feel the muggy humidity through each photo. Stella has stopped scratching all the time since moving to the "Wild West".

It's a long way from corn country to the high desert. It was a great move at just the right time.

One thing I don't see as much out here are butterflies. I could if I would plant the correct plants and flowers that would attract them. But when I think of landscaping I think of more chances for snakes to visit me and the hounds and Walter.

In 2013 it was hot and muggy I imagine back in 'the tropics' and even with the AC running this was the coolest spot in the house for Sadie to sleep.

Winton enjoying the Reds game no doubt. I was a little confused by the sweatshirt and had to do a double check on the photo info to see if that was really taken in July. It was and I am still confused why I'd be wearing one.

This is my current location last year, 2018.

Friday morning we woke up and saw that all the mountains had disappeared over night. Rain was on the schedule within the hour and it rained and rained hard. Maybe it's the monsoons that are making me lazy and unmotived to go explore. Not sure but I've been dragging with no energy this past few days.

The excitement of the day yesterday was seeing this young lizzard on the back wall. Neither Walter or Stella saw it and they were standing right next to me when I took the photo. As for the lizzard we had inside the house out in view for a few days ... disappeared. Walter claims he knows nothing about that disappearance.

By Friday night Walter had about all the excitement he could handle for one day. He spent a lot of time growling and barking at his bones and himself during the day since Stella had declared it a day of rest and didn't want to wrestle that much.

I had just sat the last bowl of kibble down on the floor to feed Heidi when I stepped outside to see this. What a way to start the day.

The sun was just clearing the eastern landscape towards Tombstone and Bisbee.

It was lightly raining as I headed north to Huachuca City to have a huge breakfast at Sunny D's. Their pancakes are as big as the plate and their biscuits and gravy are irresistible. If you are ever in that area that is the place to stop for breakfast or a good lunch.

Walter tried early this morning to get Stela to play but no response. I am beginning to think a new basset puppy is just what Stella needs for some relief ... where Walter will be occupied with his new brother. We'll see what happens and that is about a month away.

I have to admit ... he likes the camera and the attention.

It wasn't raining up north of Phoenix. My friend sent me this photo biking on the trails outside of Prescott. She said the small town was busy with a lot of people out but nobody was wearing a mask. Why does not that surprise me. Yet, Arizona does NOT have statewide mandate, it is only determined by the mayors of each town/city.

I had a long Friday night call with my old friend back in Indiana. We each had similar virus stories. Basically people don't follow what they are told to do and then the virus spreads. He too was feeling low engery when it comes to riding the bike but seems more interested in little projects that he has not finished around the house. Of course the muggy humid midwest puts him in a different environment when doing those small projects.

My diversion started yesterday afternoon as I tuned into the first Reds game on tv. That was followed up by the Arizona - San Diego game afterward but by that time I had watched enough baseball. It's a strange game to watch with nobody in the stands. Even that disrupts businesses, vendors and people that work at the games. I read where College and Pro football hopes to have a policy of 25% of the seats filled for their games this fall, if they even play. Baseball will give them a lot of good data on if that process of playing games is going to work.

The highlight of my day today, besides that breakfast ... vacuuming. I love to vacuum and have just enough carpet and the living room rug to keep me occupied. Walter shows no sign of fear as I run the Dyson to pick up all of Stella's dog hair. It's late Saturday afternoon and all the dogs are passed out after their afternoon kibble.

I am going to see if I can find a online source to watch the Reds game for free. Otherwise I'll head out to the patio and enjoy the 85° weather.

Things are still wet but are fine in the "Wild West".

Rain & Organization

We were up early as usual but it wasn't because of thunder or lightning it was just normal routine. Stella starts whining right before sunrise, at least that is the sound I wake up to. That wakes up Walter who sleeps next to Stella on the floor on the side of the bed. Once Walter wakes up he trots over to Heidi's bed and pushes his flat nose up against hers, so she is now awake. They all know that breakfast kibble will be served within minutes of reaching the kitchen. Once they noticed the sky full of rolling storm clouds they were not sure they would make their trip out to the yard right after breakfast. I've been waiting for rain, those weeds will be easier to pull out of the ground now instead of using chemicals to kill them.

High humidity is not normal around here most of the time but I could feel the thick air. One weather app said it was a 81% and the other 72%. No matter which was correct, it was muggy. I could tell that any outdoor activity wouldn't last long so I had time to do what I have been wanting to do for quite a while. Take stacks of paperwork off my desk, sort and file or shred. Last year before moving I cleaned out my files filling THREE 32gal trashcans and taking them to the recycling center. So my files now are only one plastic container and are also scanned digitally.

Still I spent all morning on the computer while the hounds slept next to my desk. So the organizing didn't start until a little after 1pm. The rain poured straight down with little wind so I could keep all the windows open as the temperature dropped to 66°. After it stopped the winds picked up from the south and really cooled things off. I think we might make up the deficit we had for annual rainfall at this time of year.

There have always been great sky shows and all three of my DSLR's were sitting on the counter waiting for action. I didn't see a lot of flooding today so the ground is still absorbing all that is catches.

That rain you see is probably between 6-8 miles away.

Walter had his first chance at "problem solving" this morning. He is housebroken and goes outside after each meal. This morning the winds were strong and it felt like rain was within minutes away. Could he go out in the yard, do what he needed to do before it starts to rain??? That was his question of the day. No photos to prove it, but he decided he had to go no matter what ... so he trotted out in the yard and made it back inside just as the first drops were hitting the patio.

Of course the best view of the rain where you can still stay dry is looking out the living room window. With the window open and a screen that Stella had not tried to climb through, they could get a good accurate smell of the rain hitting the yard of rocks.

I think the loud clap of thunder startled him a little bit.  LOL

By mid-afternoon the skies were trying to turn blue and clear but was having a pretty rough time of it.

There really are times that Walter is actually chewing one of his toys instead of Stella's ears, jowls or legs. She never cared about chewing toys the past few years until he showed up. Now she wants every toy that he has.

By 4pm when I sat down to check out the first official baseball game of the year on ESPN, Walter let me know he had not been getting enough attention today. He spent about a minute telling me all about it with his growling and half barking.

I didn't feel like cooking dinner last night and when that happens most likely I'll call for pizza delivery. At least I have ordered smaller pizzas now than past years. That's a medium from Papa John's.

For the first time I tried their Jalapeno Poppers ... very good and well worth the $4 order. That had just the right amount of "hot" ... they didn't drive you to your knees, blind you or make you sweat under your eyes, but they did have a nice 'bite' to them. Highly recommended.

I didn't watch much of the baseball game and ended up flipping through channels ... and of course nothing interests me. I'll post this then head back to the couch to restart reading Going Back To Bisbee. I have added a few more blogs to the list on the sidebar for you to check out. I have been told by a few past readers they won't read until I go back to WordPress ... not going to happen. LOL

It's wet and not wild, here in the "Wild West" tonight.