Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. I am in a bit of a quandary about writing this article because I plan on taking a small vacation next week. I’m wondering if I should push through this article or take a vacation from the Dogpound as well. Over the many years I cannot remember ever purposely just skipping the opportunity to write an article. I have been late a few times, and my master has at times “accidentally” misplaced a few of my articles, but overall I think I have delivered every week without taking a…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Hope you have a very nice Halloween with lots of treaters and no tricksters. I live out in the country a bit, and a kid would have to be very desperate to hunt down my house for a Snickers bar. Wish they would. I love seeing those little kids all dressed up. Sigh! I remember going out on Halloween when I was a little kid. In Ohio, the end of October could be nice fall weather or cold enough that the only part of your costume you could see…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. The mid-term election is right around the corner, and the voters need to step up and make their voices heard. Do we vote red or blue, some other color, or do we really look at the candidate and the issues? Probably some of each, but the real problem seems to filter all the way to Washington, where it appears that once they get there, everyone goes to his or her individual corners and refuses to come out to play. I understand the role of party affiliation, but how many…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Of late, it has been pretty quiet around the homestead, which is kind of nice for a change, but it also makes it a bit difficult to find things to write about. I did kind of sprain my left leg carrying several big bags of dirt down to the pond where I put in some new grass seed. I did not notice it at the time, but the next day my foot felt all bruised, and since this affected the way I was walking, it created a cramp in…

Hello and welcome back the wonderful world of the Dogpound. A couple of weekends ago I got the opportunity to attend, for the first time, a Chicago Bears football game at Soldier Field. Our host picked us from the hotel, and he was loaded down with tailgate goodies: barbecue brisket, chicken wings, pulled pork, baked beans and mac and cheese. So by the time we got to the stadium, we had a good dose of “essence of barbecue” on our clothes. I offered to carry the goodies that were stored in a caterer’s insulated soft bag with straps. I did…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. This happens to be a special week, a very special week; my birthday is this coming Monday. It is still a big deal, but not as big deal as it used to be., if you know what I mean. When you were little, you could not wait for your next birthday to come around. If someone would ask you your age, you would say, “I am 4 1/2” or “Almost 5 years old.” Then we looked forward to the really big event birthdays, like sweet 16, or the coming…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. My oldest daughter, Tina, and her husband, Jacob, plus two dogs and a number of cats, have been riding out the tropical storm, Florence, down in North Carolina. They got a lot of water and wind, but were very fortunate the storm turned south. A tad wet, but overall in good shape. Speaking of my daughter, I am planning a mini-vacation to visit them in a few months, which requires me to buy a plane ticket, which I for one, clearly dread. It only took me two hours to…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. I am typing this on my new laptop, not by choice; I was forced to because my laptop started doing these unscheduled “dumps.” I would be typing along, and suddenly I am looking at a blue screen saying that my system went into an emergency “dump” and was going into a recovery mode. Fortunately, at least so far, it was no harm no foul, just a delay while the system went through a five-minute reboot, but there was always that chance that it would not be successful the next…

Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound Hope you had a nice long Labor Day weekend. Mine was special. I was able to attend the first game of the season for the Ohio State Buckeyes. We played Oregon State University, also OSU. Go figure! Anyway, the weather was great. We were winning big time, and that 30-percent chance of rain decided to appear over the stadium walls, and we were instructed to leave our seats and seek shelter. We just got inside when the skies opened up, and it rained and rained. A 30-minute delay extended…