Front Yard Leaves Raked For Last Time

The hounds were not real active earlier today but Heidi decided to come outside on two separate occasions so the weather must have been pretty nice for that to happen. I guess staying up past midnight  or (1am time last week), to finish watching a great World Series game, made them tired this morning. They let me sleep this morning and did not wake me up at 6:30am to go out.



Sadie and Stella didn't have that some amount of energy they had this past weekend. No playing today.

Winston didn't have much motivation but did find a nice spot in the sun. About the time he was asleep Stella decided to walk over and on him, woke him up of coarse ... she steps on my feet all the time when she walks by. After that Winston was ready to head inside.

Like I said earlier it must have been nice weather because Heidi came outside twice and stayed outside while the other hounds did.

By 3pm today I was totally exhausted. Amazing how much of a workout raking leaves for a few hours can be once you are older. When it came time to burn the first pile of leaves, I couldn't find the box of "green" matches. They were not in the normal place inside a drawer. I checked the yard, outdoor chair, FJ bumper, side of the steps ... everywhere ... couldn't find them.

I drove down to the local hardware store and picked up another box of matches and started burning a couple of small piles of leaves. While raking the north side yard what do I find laying by the fence??? My box of matches from last week. They survived the heavy dew every day, a little rain but lit up the first time I struck them along the side of the box. So now I have enough matches, based on my past usage ... for about ten years.

Since I was working in the front yard and some time by the highway, I put all the hounds in their room with the door shut so they could hopefully sleep while I raked. I did hear that new bloodhound howl that is becoming more active as days go by ... Stella has a great howl. I'll try to post a recording of it on this blog in the next few days.

They all came out for the afternoon while I burned the big pile of leaves on the burn pile that included tree limbs and my 4' pile of weeds that I pulled a few months ago. Flames were about 15' high, it was my kind of fire. I was so tired that all I could do was sit in a chair drinking ice water, watching the fire with my water hose next to me in case the fire got out of hand and headed for the woods or the neighbors yard. Nothing spread.

The plan for tomorrow is to rake the back yard for the last time this fall. The bloodhounds will help manage the job of me raking since they don't wander off like the basset hounds do. So Heidi and Winston will stay inside and sleep tomorrow while Stella, Sadie and I rake ... I'll try to get some action shots of that happening.

For November 2nd it was pretty nice in the tropics today. Looking through photos from last November, there was a light snow on November 17 ... so we will see what happens this month.