Watson's A Changed Bloodhound

I am only guessing that since Watson was neutered the 28th of October, that is the reason for his change in attitude. The differences are obvious so I don't know of anything else I can pin it on. He is only a few weeks older since that unexpected surgery to get that large piece of Mexican blanket out of his blocked intestine. This coming week he will be only 7 months old. One nice thing is, with all the three males neutered, there is less all out fighting taking place over any knuckle bones, the nylon bone with bacon flavor or the Kong balls filled with treats. I still supervise with a watchful though when they have those on the floor or in the backyard. Anything food related has been phased out.

San Pedro House & Trails Closed

Walter is quite the talker. He will not always do a full bark at me but a mix of a growl and the start of a bark. Here there is NO food involved. Stella is sound to sleep just to the right of me on the floor. Nothing on tv he likes watching and he does watch tv sometimes. No ... he just wanted some attention. His next move after this with no results ... he tries "divebombing" up on my lap but can't quite make it that high. He knows he is a "bulldozer".

Stella doesn't run anymore and didn't the last couple of years in Indiana after she and Stella would chase deer at full speed. Some days she does not want to go on the .62 mile walk. She lays in the sun a lot and sleeps. And sleeps a lot inside. It's good that Walter will give her the time she needs to rest. Just normal activity for an aging bloodhound.

After taking some photos Friday morning at the entrance to the San Pedro House, I got this announcement from a news feed on my Facebook account this morning. Access to the San Pedro House and all their hiking trails are closed until further notice. Here is the announcement: CLOSED DUE TO FIRE

There's times that Walter does my work for me by cleaning not only Heidi's ears but Stella's.

It stayed like this most of the day. Like I said the other day, my activities go with the flow. Spur of the moment decisions on what to do, so today laundry was done and I hand washed the dishes instead of using the dishwasher. I could feel the humidity when I woke up at sunrise. It was windier than normal and a few drops of rain as I stood outside taking this photo. BTW, I've never seen water in the backyard high enough to flow out that one brick they put at the bottom of the fence for drainage many years ago.

Walter decided early this morning that if none of us were going to play with him, then he would drag what bones he could find into the computer room and play alone. Out of that stack, only the small red bone is new ... all the rest were pulled out of the hound locker since Heidi nor Stella were not interested in them ... that is until Walter wanted them.

He is sleeping and snoring loudly after his solo play session ... Stella never moved.

Heidi's dog bed was part of that laundry project. These next three photos are a typical daily afternoon rain or shine.

I was on a plant based diet again from February until just recently. I spent almost every night feeling hungry at 7pm no matter how much food I had eaten that day. I went back to eating fish, like this Pacific wild caught salmon. That amount makes 4-5 meals. I see nothing wrong having fresh salmon in my diet. I also don't see anything wrong with an occasional veggie pizza with cheese. I was cold turkey on the dairy products for months until I had the first container of Ben and Jerry's ice cream then I fell off the plant based diet wagon really hard. My annual bloodwork is scheduled for this December and YES ... I do have a spreadsheet with all of last years numbers to compare with those in 2020.

With all the daily news on this virus and all the examples of people getting sick and some cases dying after they attend a small family dinner or birthday party ... it totally confuses me when I see photos of a family birthday party on the lake and inside a house back in Indiana. No masks were worn in the 17 photos they posted, age range was from 5 years old to over 60 years old. Social distancing was just a rumor to them. They were packed next to each other as close as possible for the group birthday photo .... what am I missing here??? I'd like to know later if anyone of them feels sick and tests positive.

I don't have pictures but I received some handles for my 1964 Panel camping windows. Three were missing and the ones I bought from a member off the Samba forum were made to perfection. I can now open and close those louvered windows with ease. Forum members are 100% in favor of me getting the wheels and bumpers painted instead of the rusty crusty look. Since the body of the bus was already painted, it would only look right to finish the wheels and bumpers.

I'll try to get out this week for some off grid photography. It looks like rain is in the forecast Thursday, Friday and Saturday but that will put our highs in the 80's instead of near 100. I am going to find somewhere to do some hiking with the camera. Most places I've gone in the past locally to hike are closed and gated.

It was a productive day here in the 'wild west', although quiet and calm.

When Stella Was Younger

When there is a 100% chance of rain all day, and we wake up to rain, then plans for a blog post moves in a difference direction. I have thousand of photos to choose from and have told stories of my past hounds before. Today I thought I'd show some of the newer blog followers and readers what Stella looked like just a couple of years ago. Aging changes you and I as well as Stella. She use to love to play and run at full speed.

Of  course some things changed when Sadie was gone but even the last year of Sadie's life, they did not wrestle as much as they use to and it was rare if Stella sprinted through the field or chased Sadie. Her hips or her front legs bother her and that is the reason I started giving her glucosamine supplement, yet that does not make her feel like running like she use to. She will be 10 years old this summer.

I picked up Stella in August 2015 when she was 6 years old.

It did not take long for Sadie to like Stella as someone she could play with and finally have a hound that was more her size rather than a basset hound.

Stella, Sadie, Winston and Heidi enjoying a nice summer day.

They use to run at full speed all over the field and yard.

Even in the middle of the walk they would still play in the field if they had the urge.

We had just turned the first corner in March 2016 when Sadie saw deer at the back of the field. Both bloodhounds took off sprinting after the deer, who ran north along the back edge of the field toward the woods with the bloodhounds running as fast as possible after them.

They were both proud of their deer chase as they ran back to me.

Stella may not run as much as she use to and she doesn't have Sadie to hang out with anymore but there is one thing she still likes to do .... sleep under the sunshine.

With the weather like it is, I'll be inside most of the day and read the three different books I am in the middle of. I'll have late starting Reds baseball games for the next four nights from San Diego to watch but good weather is a few days away.

It has to rain sometimes in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Weirdness Starts The Day

It's nothing really, just a time where I feel somewhat 'weirded out.' It makes me wonder sometimes if this is part of the process of getting older. I don't feel old physically, nor do I think I am old mentally ... I've discussed that somewhere before. Yet, this feeling I've had  so far today (2.5hrs) is something I've felt only in retirement. That might happen only because I am not so busy this time of day where I use to be getting ready for work or at work ... so that's understandable.

It's not a feeling of anxiousness nor paranoia, just strangeness.

I feel warm in my clothes yet the indoor thermometer tells me I shouldn't feel warm, just comfortable. The weather forecast tells me it's going to be another great day but I don't feel that way. Maybe it's a letdown after all the energy and thinking I did the past few days changing the design of the blog. I have nothing to do here. The dishes are done, house is clean, no urge to keep reading the Steve Jobs book. No urge to grocery shop while I need fruit and salmon. I've been hungry for days but for nothing that is in my kitchen.

I couldn't help but try to put this mental puzzle together while on the walk this morning. Was I feeling regret about buying a camera when I have a good one in my hand? No. Do I need to go on a mini-roadtrip, get out of the house more than just 25 miles away? No. Is the simple lifestyle routine getting to me? No.

It may have started within seconds of opening my eyes, and taping my Garmin to see the time. Stella and Heidi were both whining as they normally do when they are awake and ready to get another day started. My Garmin's bright white background, brighter than any nightlight was showing 5:03am ... I got up anyway. I was ready to get up. I wanted to get up with a feeling that I needed to do something. There was nothing I needed to do.

While the hounds inhaled their kibble for breakfast I was making coffee like every morning when I glanced at the clock and it says 6:39am. What ??? I've only been up 10 minutes at the most and it's 6:39am ... how did that happen? So I glance at the Garmin on my wrist and sure enough, it also says it's 6:39am. I misread the time seconds after opening my eyes. It wasn't even close to 5:03am when I glanced at the Garmin.

That is not where the weirdness came from.

That feeling started somewhere during my first cup of coffee. Different day same routine. Nothing needed to get done. The 'Reminder' program Apple gave me, shows nothing is a high priority. My mind is restless. Ah ha .... restless? It's like anything else when I design a blog, drive cross country, research my next car or truck trade, or plan a camping trip (only a few years ago) ... it's the normal excitement of 'the chase' and the big mental 'letdown' after it has been accomplished.

After the blog design is decided upon and finished ... now what? After that car or truck is bought and sitting in the driveway ... now what? After driving 1,800 miles sitting in the middle of nowhere with the most beautiful countryside around ... now what?

It's always the same. So maybe that is the weirdness I feel this morning.

My dad told me soon after his retirement, that he would feel anxious every morning unless he had planned things he needed to do that day. Just knowing he needed to mow the yard (large, acres) would be enough to take away that anxious feeling. Washing the cars? That did it also. Sitting around ... made him anxious. He had to be doing something.

You'll notice the deer decided to follow our return path sometime last night or early morning. Those hoof prints are fresh, within the previous couple of hours?

Normally I would have written about these feelings on my private blog just to log as reference, this weirdness. Still, I said last month that I would going to be more open, transparent on this blog. So here it is. Not a big announcement I'm sure but it is what it is I guess. It all stems from asking myself if this type of feeling is just me or is it something I should expect as normal as I get older.

Anyone out there over 66 years of age ... do you have feelings like this at times? Spaced out? Weird? A little lost?

There is more to this, I just remembered what else ... a feeling of being lost. No plans are nice in retirement, no schedules, but maybe they really are needed in this life of leisure. I do have some plans for this spring but nothing is firm yet and they are really dependent on someone else's health if they happen or not. I can still do it solo.

I also don't mind this simple lifestyle the hounds and I lead. We have for years. I'm content, no worries, no crisis that needs a fix. We just are, day after day. (I have just thought of something I can do today, doing two things in one trip and I'll add photos and blog about it later.)

Right now I feel distracted again, as usual. I have forgotten some things I wanted to write about the 'weird feeling' I've had this morning. In fact my mind is just blank about that right now.

For the first time in years, I have not had the urge to move west. It's January and that urge usually turns into obsessive searching of real estate in Arizona or New Mexico. Not this year. Of course the weather has been fantastic, around normal averages, where we have not dipped into the 20's too many days and have never been in the single digits this year. Maybe that urge to move doesn't happen until it's 20° or lower?

As I move through this post I have realized that all I need to get rid of this feeling is to DO SOMETHING !!!!

Get out of the house, take my camera with me, go for a drive out in the country in the local area ... country is all around me ... with gravel roads, very little traffic on some highways and many paved country roads to choose from that go in all directions.

So already, before finishing this post I have multiple ideas to choose from. Those options were not even a thought a few hours ago. It reminds me of the time now, when I would feel like this in the past, I would take my Z4 out for a drive of 50-60 miles. If the weather was good the top would be down if it was like today the heater would be on.

Those kind of trips decreased to almost nothing last summer for some strange reason. The spring or summer day would be beautiful and I didn't want to drive it. That is one of the reasons I sold it. All it did was sit here month after month, not being driven.

Based on the number of times I was driving it in 2018, I wasn't going to put more than 850 miles on it for the year. The times I did drive it I was beginning to feel that car would either put me in jail or kill me. Yes, speeding was a factor. Not a few miles over the limit ... but enough where they probably would have taken the keys away once they caught me.  :) It was hard not to drive the car the way it was designed to be driven.

I didn't like the color anyway. If I ever buy another, it will be the dark gray color, is it called "slate gray?" (I hate the way that looks with the question mark inside the quotation mark)

In the 'old days' of many years ago, I would have grabbed my tent, sleeping bag and some food ... then went camping locally out in the freezing weather for a few days. That always clears the mind. Sure I could do that now with the hounds but it's not fair to them to make them stay outside in cold weather, freezing weather just because I have a bug up my ass to go camping. That will only stay as a good memory.

What animal would be this tall to have Stella so interested????

No, I think what I have planned for this morning is going to be a good idea. An enjoyable idea. I'll take off within minutes of publishing this post. I'll post photos and a short blog later this afternoon or early tonight. I have an IU basketball game to watch at 7pm, so the post will take place in the late afternoon unless I schedule it for a later time.

Speaking of blog posts ... with the plan I set for this blog almost a month ago ... there will be occasional posts that is nothing but content. There will not be any photos while I ramble on those posts. I had one the other day and a few readers let me know they liked and wanted photos. Well in the story telling or rambling posts where I have to get something on paper and out of my mind ... photos aren't going to happen in those.

I also like the way the blog looks. I was able to figure out myself how to change the code that would change the colors of the fonts, the size of the fonts, different colors for links, post titles, etc. I did find out that I was wrong about the thumbnail size on the front page. Those small photos are 400x400 and will automatically adjust the height accordingly.

I could spend most of the day trying to figure out how to make them all 400x400 no matter what size they are when I upload them. Not today ... I want to get out of the house and away from this computer. The sun is out and it's not even 10am yet. That's a good thing.

My data leak is also mysterious. I spent weeks burning over a gig per day as I spent most of the day on the computer looking through WordPress themes, changing designs plus my normal internet surfing. Yesterday after seven straight hours I had only burned 358Mb of data.

That is extremely low for what I was doing. Almost half the amount I had last week after the same amount of time. What happened? Who or what was using my data? I looked through my Activity Monitor and found nothing to be soaking up data. Automatic updates were turned off years ago.

Well I hate to end this so abruptly but I have to get out of here ... like right now.

It's another good morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.