An Active Sunday Morning Walk

Since it dropped into the 50's last night after reaching a high of 80° yesterday I knew the field was going to be extremely wet this morning as I put on my North Face snow boots. That would make no difference to Sadie. While I was lacing up the boots I decided Stella would have what I call total freedom this morning ... she could go anywhere she wanted at her pace ... I was not going to be 'herding' the hounds this morning.

It was a perfect quiet morning for our walk that started a little after 9am. Things were back to 'normal' since we our internet service had been fixed on Saturday. I was up early to upload over 300 photos to Google Photos and Flicker since July 26. I then move them into their own individual albums. Before I knew it, my 'free' data period was over at 8am. A little more reading online, two cups of coffee and Sadie let me know it was time to walk.

Since she was very active this morning I was sure we had just missed some early deer appearances. A lot of things were getting Sadie's attention just after starting the walk through the wet grass and wild flowers that are starting to grow for their fall cut.

Stella followed along laidback as usual, casually walking one paw at a time ... in no hurry.

That is until she saw Sadie sprinting toward the middle of the field. She actually ran again for the 2nd morning in a row. I know what is wrong with her though. It's her rear hips. She couldn't jump up in back of the FJ yesterday for our local drive. I helped her up as he put her front paws on the bumper ... Sadie was already inside ready to take off.

The way both hounds acted and me being so far away that I had to use the 200mm zoom on these next three photos, I was sure that we had just missed some deer. I thought they might be back in the far right corner of the field so I glanced in that direction once I caught up with the hounds.

It was good to see Stella running slowly but hard enough that both of her rear paws were off the ground as she ran. She and Sadie were all over the first part of the field up to the first corner turn.

As I turned into the sunlight you could see the heavy dew reflecting off the grass and wild plants.

Just as I was about to reach the rolls of hay I turned to find Sadie staring at me in the far right corner. She was having a blast running all over the field. Stella was not in sight as he was behind us on her own path.

By the time I had walked by 4 of these rolls of hay, Sadie had sprinted toward me and ran right up next to me. She covered quite a distance in the time it took me to walk only halfway in front of the hay rolls.

As usual I could barely see Stella's red coat through the growing field as I was on my way back home. The cooler overnight temps had chased away all the mosquitoes so far this morning. I forgot to mention the other day, that a light spray of 50/50 water and vinegar DID keep the mosquitoes off of me on my afternoon walk. Bethers had suggested 100% vinegar but I thought I'd try the 50/50 solution first since I had that mixed for Heidi's skin allergies.

I told Sadie to 'go get Stella' ... she had Stella in her sights of her nose within a minute.

She ran towards Stella and tapped noses, and like always Stella turned to follow Sadie. That message by touching noses must be pretty influential for Stella to follow Sadie's direct order.

I started to call the hounds for them to move over to my path on the last part of the walk. Today I decided to keep quiet and see what they would do. I was pretty sure that eventually Stella would walk into the north part of the yard near the property line pole that I was asked to leave up years ago.

By the time Sadie was almost home, she was soaked from the field. Her legs and paws were just as wet.

I might want to get back inside to make a small breakfast but that doesn't mean that Stella wants to. She is always on her on 'clock' unless food is mentioned ... then she will run for the house.

Still waiting for her to finish.

Slowly but surely she starts towards the yard. Instead of a direct route toward me, she walked far to her right and entered the yard just inside the property line pole. I find that to me not only interesting but amusing.

Sadie wasn't going to wait much longer. She was reading for her morning nap ... Stella took her time, she wasn't going to hurry for anyone.

The Daylilies are trying their best to show me they can grow after planting them only a week ago. I'm not sure how long it will take for them to get fully grown but they will cover a lot of area and still have nice blooms. That's the reason I chose them.

This is to the left of the porch under the living room windows Saturday afternoon.

This is from this morning showing how they had closed over night. They will get shade until about noon. Then that sunshine moving to the west will blast them with bright sunshine all the way to sunset.

I am going to go on a plant exploration sometime this week in Bloomington and hopefully find some Hostas to add to these areas. Once I get all the planting done and the ground settles a little, I'll cover all the exposed ground with Cypress mulch.

A little rambling before I go this morning. I had so many pictures from this mornings walk and was only able to get my choices down to 21 pictures for the blog. With the day as nice as it's going to be I can see later tonight I'll do another blog post with pictures of the hounds taken throughout the afternoon. I continue to read "Inside of a Dog" by Alexandra Horowitz. I can see a lot of what she says in all three of the hounds.

I really cannot figure out my internet data usage. By paying only for 20Gb per month and only 2Gb per month on my phone I am still very careful how I use and what I do on the internet.

Here is what I find strange and it makes me wonder if it is costing me more data to use HughesNet Gen5 for my internet service. When I had Excede Satellite I averaged below 500Mb of data per day. My internet use has not changed just because I have changed service.

I get faster speeds now ... 48Mbps instead of 10-12Mbps. My free period changed from midnight to 5am with Exede but 2am-8am with HughesNet. I normally use my free data early in the morning but not every day. This morning uploading those 300 photos took almost 200Mb of data, luckily it was on my extra data that HughesNet gives me for free.

Friday when my internet service was down I viewed and did my normal online reading on my Verizon account on my iPhone. By the end of the day I had used 358Mb, way below my self imposed 667Mb average.

Yesterday after the tech rep fixed my internet service, it was past 12 noon. I did my normal internet reading but spent a lot of time away from the computer. I cannot say that I did anything different than what I did on Friday with my iPhone.

Last night at midnight when I logged my daily data use into my spreadsheet ... Hughes told me I had used 895Mb !!!!

895Mb from 1pm to midnight compared to my use on Friday with Verizon 358Mb doing the exact same kind of internet surfing. My Activity Monitor was showing I had used a little over 500Mb of data.

My iPad, iPhone and MacBook Air had Wifi turned OFF during this time as part of my test.

The Google Chrome Extension I added a few weeks ago called Data Saver shows how much each website I visit uses in data. I can choose to look at their counts for 1 hour, 3 hours, 1 day, 1 week, 30 days and 60 day intervals.

In all cases Facebook was the leader in data use, using twice as much data as the #2 in line ... Blogger. My blogs use more data than any other website I visit except Facebook. If I use Google Photos or Flickr between 8am - 2am, then they are a close 2nd place depending on how many photos I am uploading.

So this morning after 4 hours, minus the time it took us for our walk ... I did the photos upload during my free period and I have not spent one second on Facebook ... I have only used 99Mb of data in a 4 hour period.

99Mb ... 25Mb per hour roughly ............ how could HughesNet show that I used almost 900Mb??? I would have had to been on the computer every minute of the day and night for that to be possible.

Also I have all automatic updates in the background .... shut off

Also I have an extension called Disable HTML5 AutoPlay that works well blocking videos that want to play automatically on different news and sports sites.

I have AdBlock Plus to do what it sounds like ... block ads.

I can't think of anything else I can do to stop any data "leaks". I'll be anxious tonight to see just how much data HugesNet tells me I have used after a very similar internet day compared to "their" 900Mb day on Saturday.

Since switching to the faster download speeds of HughesNet, my average data usage is 723Mb per day doing the same thing I did with Exede and averaged less than 500Mb per day.

Any ideas?

I cannot believe this weather we are having this summer in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... it's been great.

What A Weird Monday

The field of yellow will not be here for long. Those yellow weeds might last a couple of weeks but no longer than a month before they are plowed under and something is planted in their place. Those two fields have different owners, and different plans.


I had a pretty good idea just how strange my Monday was going to be when I went to bed before 11pm, or was it before 10:30pm? After a night full of the most bizarre dreams I finally conceited defeat and was up brewing two cups of coffee by 5:15am ... yes AM.

There isn't a lot to do that time of morning. I've been a 'night person' my whole life so it may just be my biased opinion that nothing can be done in the dark at 5:30am. Of course with this rude awakening, the hounds were totally confused. They played along though with the normal routine a couple of hours early. They were fine with the idea of getting to eat ... that does not matter what time of day or night it is, they all love to eat.

A little after 6:15am the dark skies filled up with the sound of every bird outside. The bird conversations were so loud and distinct, the sounds of people driving by to get to work early to start their week was almost completely subdued.

Still, I can't say I was enjoying being up that time of day no matter how good the coffee tasted. I was sure my Monday was going to be one strange day. With nothing planned that made it equally dangerous, but that is the life of a retiree at times.

April 11th was my 3rd year anniversary for retirement and I still love the freedom that I have. I miss the money the job paid me but I miss nothing else. The freedom of time is worth more than than any amount of money.

By 7:30am Sadie was ready for the first walk of the day but it wasn't going to happen. She came back inside drenched from the heavy morning dew a little after 6am and I could tell from the window that the field was too wet for the first walk of the day.

After my two cups of coffee, getting caught up on my online reading and deleting my section of complaining on yesterday's blog post ... I put not only my computer in 'sleep' mode ... but also myself. With a restless night of weirdness traveling through my brain last in the form of dreams, falling back to sleep at 8am was too easy. The hounds all followed the command "go to sleep".

We didn't regain consciousness until 12:45pm. Yes, that is way past the lunch time for the hounds and too late for the majority of the population nationwide ... yet when retired it's not a problem ... you have to remain flexible when nothing is planned for the day.

All of us had lunch and headed out for the first walk of the day. I wanted to make a little extra effort with the camera today by concentrating a little on holding the camera steady, tucking my arms under the camera like a tripod, holding my breathing while gently squeezing the shutter ... all with hopes of a sharp focused picture.

Sadie was thrilled to be out in the field. Stella was still hungry and was looking for natural protein for the first half of the walk. The last half of the walk all she did was drag her paws one slow step at a time all the way back to the house. Sadie did nothing but track scent from start to finish.

Heidi?? Well it's not 70° and was back on the sleeping bag sleeping before I could tie my shoes.

Nothing on the horizon but it seemed to Sadie that deer were near. It would have been past the 'no fly zone' into the woods. I was hoping she wasn't going to take off sprinting from her position of nose in the air. Still she had found something strong enough in the air to peak her interest.

Stella didn't care about scents today. She was back in the spot where the bushes are mashed down and covered by deer scent ... and scat.

I finally got them herded in the same direction while I tried to decipher what I remembered about those strange dreams. Some of it was familiar from past dreams where the neighborhood is the same and practically every hound that I have ever owned shows up. The problem is they are all running loose. Some are with other dogs, some are in the streets and I cannot get them all collected by the time I wake up wondering what is going on.

Most will find this next one funny. I do now but didn't at 4am. In the dream I am writing a blog post with no pictures, no paragraphs and no punctuation. The screen I am writing the post on is automatically scrolling non-stop, where I have to type faster to keep up with the screen and keep my sentences together.

About the time all my words become one big blur from typing so fast ... I woke up, again wondering what was going on and happy to see I was still in a dark bedroom and not in front of a computer.

Since I am well rested now for the day, there will be no more siestas for me. The hounds are a different story as all of them are sleeping with Sadie and Stella snoring. A change of schedule never seems to bother them, once again showing just how more flexible dogs are compared to people.

The field of grass is growing fast. Luckily this owner lets the field grow naturally. The previous owner would bring in loaders of turkey fertilizer and spread it over the field every few years. Needless to say during those times, ALL daily walks were cancelled until further notice. My old basset Harry found enjoyment in rolling in it. I tried to keep him confined to the yard as much as possible but his expertise was getting out and away.

The highlight of the afternoon was Sadie trying to block Stella from the water bowl. There is never any growling or barking involved. Sadie will stand or sit near the large bowl of water and will quietly let Stella know she is not to come anywhere near it. That is when I stand between the bowl and Sadie so Stella can get some water. It doesn't happen all of the time.

It was nice enough to sit outside cooler temps and overcast skies. Heidi had passed out on the large chair in the living room, the ottoman was not needed in her case. Stella headed one direction and Sadie in another, to check out the field.

I can confirm there is something wrong with my Tamron 55mm-200mm zoom lens. I tried focusing on Sadie while she was in the field with the Single-point AF setting ... it would try to but never did focus on Sadie nor the surrounding grass/flowers.

These next two pictures were taken with the Auto-area AF setting. I did not call either hound while they took their time wandering. I had my weekly flyer in the mail from Saturdays' delivery and looked through that along with the Menards and Orscheln's sales ads while the hounds looked around.

They both came back to the yard on their own.

Stella was waiting for the sunshine or waiting on that southwestern wind but neither showed up. While Sadie tried to make an escape into the woods on the opposite side of the yard, behind the burn pile, Stella remained in deep thought.

When the hounds walked back to the house that was the sign it was time to go in. They were both back to sleep after a strenuous afternoon.

I have a little rambling below today but no complaining.

Evidently my dream of blogging must have happened due to amount of time I've thought of blogging the past few days. I was already to write a post about my thoughts on blogging until I saw today a post I wrote just last November about the same topic. It is listed on the right sidebar under "Past Year Favorite Posts".

At times the mental fight whether to continue a blog is the same as the times where words do not come easy to post. It's really hard to put your finger on what keeps bloggers blogging year after year. Why do some keep going, some disappear without an announcement and others let you know they are leaving?

I have tried cutting back at times but when I start writing the urge is a daily thing. I have found it very hard the longer the blog goes of skipping many days between posts. Yet, when I first started this blog in 2011, I wrote less than a 100 posts per year and with few pictures if any at all.

The other thing I find interesting is just one word in a blog post title can double the amount of visitors just like that. Yesterday's fire starter was the word "complaining", it doubled my number of visitors.

Readers like drama, or stories and pictures of traveling and even hearing about Stella destroying my house during a period of separation anxiety. Comparing 'action' like that to our daily routine 95% of the time makes me wonder at times if the blog is on it's last legs.

I see that Exede has received my returned equipment so I should be off the hook for any further billing by them. I love setting up the automatic payments from my accounts but hate trying to get them stopped when the account is paid in full.

I tried starting a couple of new books over the weekend without much success. I have no urge to read, no urge to work on that 'to do' list today. I think I have pretty much written this day off.

Thanks for the emails and blog comments after my venting section yesterday. The bottom line is, the increases do not amount to that much money but I hate being "nickel and dime".

It has been almost too quiet here in 'the tropics' today but nice.

The Hounds Approve The Final Phase Of Bank Clearing

After the hounds did some early morning stretching, we took off for the morning walk about an hour earlier than usual. I needed to be at UPS by the time they opened at 10am to drop off the package to return to Exede. The grounds were wetter than normal, hiking boots were soaked by the time we got back.

I did not catch her on camera but Stella did a little running to catch up at the start of the walk. After she did catch up with us, it was nothing but her slow walking after that.

I am assuming it was deer scent that made the bloodhounds so interested this morning. I have seen a lot of deer grouped together in this same spot around sundown in the past. They are usually heading back into the woods by the time I get my camera ready to take a picture.

It was to the point I was beginning to wonder if they were going to leave this one spot. Stella was determined to stay but I kept calling her because I needed her to follow us on the walk since I was a little tight for time this morning.

That long narrow path they are following is used by the deer. Those same type of paths are scattered in different parts of the field always leading to a wooded area.

The last time I checked as I made the final turn home, both hounds were behind me. Once Sadie passed me and Stella wasn't with her I turned to see what she was doing. She was testing me to see if I was paying attention to her. Stella was headed at a 45° angle away from us and pretty far behind us.

That never bothered Sadie.

Stella wasn't stubborn this time. As soon as I yelled "over here", she turned and trotted slowly back to the path I was on. It was a slow walk home from there. I think she was just checking to see if she would get away without me noticing.

Right after we got back from the walk I loaded the Exede box in the small Z4 trunk, lead the hounds to the bedroom where they stay while I am gone, and took off for UPS 25 miles away. I would be taking a great sports car road, two lanes with a lot of curves and hills. Mentally I was prepared for one slow vehicle to back all of us up at 45 mph.

Yet with the top down and 70° it was a great drive.

By the time I made it back from the 50 mile round trip, Heidi was barking wanting her lunch time kibble. Stella was soon to follow with her bloodhound howling. I thought it might be too early but it was close to 4 hours since they had their breakfast.

Once lunch was finished it was time to start the final Phase 3 of the bank clearing project. Under the watchful eye of Stella, I pulled out the needed tools for today's job.

It was a little cloudy but radar showed there wasn't a chance of rain anywhere. The plan today was to cut the few remaining stems or saplings that I missed two days ago. A lot of times the brush is too thick for me to get to all of them so I always go back to cut the stragglers after I burn the first time.

I always rake any loose limbs or thick vines down to the bottom of the bank and burn as much of them as I can. I knew that all would not burn but enough of it would. Sadie was more than happy to supervise from the top of the hill.

As you can see the builders of the house in 1975 spread a pretty good amount of rock along that bank. I added the rip rap last month to an area for added support.

By now I had cut all that was left standing and raked what was remaining to the bottom of the hill. It was was time to see what was going to burn. It's ugly right now but it was have new growth in a month and all of this will be covered up with green ragweed most likely.

I did not get as much burned as I was hoping for so I'll leave it stacked where it is and try later this summer or wait until next fall when there is not such a fire hazard.

It has been suggested to me many times to have someone lay rip rap on the whole bank. I agree with them it would look fantastic and at the same time help in preventing sole erosion.

It would take close to $10,000 to lay rip rap on the bank that is 150' or longer. At the same time all of those people with the suggestion don't seem to be offering any of their cash to pay for the job either ... LOL


After letting the vines set for the winter a lot of them still are not dried out enough to burn. I have carried away most of the green limbs to my burn pile prior to setting any fires.

By the time I took my last step into the driveway after climbing the bank, Sadie was wondering what was next on the 'to do' list for the day.

I had enough energy left to wash one car but not two. The Mini Countryman needed washing more than the Z4. After it was washed and all the car washing equipment had been put away, I walked in the house finished for the day.

I was shocked to see it was only 1:30pm after all the stuff I did today.

It was tempting for a siesta, especially with three sleeping hounds scattered throughout the house but I decided to brew up a fresh 3qt container of ice tea, grill come chicken for my salad and see what the afternoon would bring.

With enough energy expended for the day, I doubt there will be much more to blog about today. So I'll post this in the middle of the afternoon ... with plans of mowing the yard and washing the Z4 tomorrow before the rains come on Sunday.

That's all for today from 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.