Water Company Excitement

With the predicted Hurricane surge hitting us this weekend, starting Friday ... I did all the yard work on Thursday. Besides mowing and trimming around the inside and outside of the fence along with the driveway and landscape edging ... I took the weedeater and buried it in the ditch that had formed where the Bradford Pear tree use to be. After they cut the tree down 3 years ago, they ground the stump but fill the hole back up with wood sawdust. I think covered it with topsoil and new grass seed. 

The Hounds Thought About Building An Ark

I forgot to tell you about the page I wrote for Sadie last night. Click here or you can see it on top where the other pages are listed. If you are reading this blog on your phone or tablet, you will see the red bar with the word "home" on the far left side ... glance right and click that down arrow for the menu of pages not seen in the smaller format.

It's Thursday afternoon at 2:30pm local time. It is still raining and it started sometime Tuesday night. Luckily it is off and on this afternoon and should be over by midnight. Once the hounds saw standing water in the gravel driveway they thought they might have to put some plans together so I could build an ark. They had heard somewhere about arks and high water. Thankfully for me they decided they had a better option.

Unlike them, the squirrel as been busy the past few days in the middle of rain. I hope that doesn't mean his increase in activity means we are heading for a colder than normal winter.

Stella heard rain drops, turned and came back inside to do this ... no time to supervise building an ark.

Heidi had already seen enough outside that she thought this was her only option. She still cannot figure out why I fold her blanket into a square and put it on the floor. I should know by now that a neatly folded blanket is not that comfortable. She always fixes it to her standards.

I am not sure movement while sleeping counts towards an aerobic activity but that is the only form of activity Stella did most of the afternoon yesterday and today. When you miss four walks in two days she had to do something to stay in shape.

The one time she ventured off of the carport late Wednesday afternoon she looked at me in disbelief, wondering how she got talked into walking that far out into the light rain.

Two separate photos minutes apart but she was still in shock and hadn't moved.

This morning we wake up to the same sound as Wednesday ... pouring rain.

Stella decided after lunch she was going no further than that ... she was out in the rain in the dark at 6:30am before her breakfast and to her that was more than enough. She wasn't crossing the river coming from the shed across the carport floor.

The view from my laptop computer at the kitchen table. Games of Mahjong for a short break from my book reading marathon.

Luckily he got his corn crop picked weeks ago but the farmer waiting on combining soybeans will have to wait a few more weeks before that field is dry enough for his heavy farm equipment.

Once the rain stops, and the sunshine comes out it looks like I have some leaves to get rid of. It will depend what I am in the mood for, but I am liking that idea of mowing the yard in one direction blowing all of the mowed leaves towards the field. That method worked very well a few weeks ago. Raking leaves takes too long and equates to too much Motrin later on. Using a leaf blower on a yard is only a joke and never works like the tv advertisements. (Ask me how I know)

I wasn't quick enough with the camera but that squirrel jumped to the ground from the middle piece of the fence and headed over that bank. I thought I caught is tail but I didn't.

Since there isn't much going on here today and won't be the rest of the day, I am posting just a few photos of Heidi after she first arrived in June 2011. Then a few of Stella that the previous owner sent me when I was trying to decide if I could handle two bloodhounds and then drive down to pick her up.

I bought Heidi a brand new dog bed at Costco the day I picked her up in June 2011. I had forgot about the one hour time difference in the NW Indiana area near Chicago so I had some time to spare. So I picked up a new dog bed and bought some chew toys for her. (Winston took her toys - She took his bones)

Her first afternoon was the only time she slept on the dog bed. Sadie used the 'Bloodhound Property Laws' and claimed the dog bed was hers that night. Sadie slept on that dog bed for the next 7 years while Heidi led me to believe she had been sleeping on a bed not made for dogs, most of her life.

Like I said before in other posts, she came to me with the reputation of being "a runner" and instructions on her adoption paperwork said that she needed to be leashed at all times. So she had about 40' to roam from my hand to her collar. She loved the mowed field but never showed signs of running off. That strict leash policy wasn't implemented but a couple of days.

Winston thought she might need an escort since she might take off running.

A month or so later during one of the hottest Augusts in history, she still wanted to take the afternoon walks. This is the only way she thought of cooling off. The AC just wasn't enough for her.

Stella was living at the time on a large horse farm in Kentucky. The Facebook Bloodhound Group ad said .. Need a 'rehome', severe separation anxiety, an expert in escaping and a fear of storms. Preferred someone that was familiar with the bloodhound breed (meaning she was just a normal obnoxious bloodhound) and worked at home. (meaning she needed 24 hour supervision)

That sounded like me. After a week of analysis I decided I would become her 4th owner in her first 6 years. She has been here 3 years and 2 months and had adapted into the perfect indoor bloodhound.

She looked like she had a sense of humor in this photo, could supervise a leaf raking project and liked other dogs.

In fact it looked like she liked a lot of different dogs. That is a black boxer, and three herding dogs. Obviously with her tongue hanging out to cool off it was just as hot in Kentucky in August as it was in Indiana. She loved her 4 hour ride in the back of the FJ on the way home. She spent the first 30 minutes of the drive trying to poke the windows open with her nose to escape ... then decided I needed helped driving and climbed in between the front seats to sit in the passenger seat at 3rd lane freeway (interstate) speeds.

Stella and I just went outside to check the weather ... basically she decided she couldn't hold it any longer and rain or high water she had to go to the field for a quick break.

Evidently those leaves needed some water to change color. While Stella was busy in the field to the left of me I took a couple of panoramic shots from behind the burn pile to the left.

It wasn't possible to get a photo of just how high the water came to the side of my boots but I was able to catch the water as it was moving back into the ground. The backyard is pretty saturated and by the way the mole tracks feel, they won't be back for a while.

Slow light rain ... but she still took her time.

Two days in a row with no walking makes for some long days for a bloodhound. Sadie use to like to play fetch inside during weather like this to burn off some of her tracking energy. These two hounds look at me like I am crazy when I toss a bone across the room for them to go get and bring back to me. They'd rather sleep or beg for my food.

The rain is decreasing ... that is only about 5 minutes worth while I stood in the yard waiting for Stella to finish.

The official flood plane is across the highway so we are still safe here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Rain Halts Stella's Enthusiasm

We woke up to the sound of hard rain this morning. By the way things looked it had been raining all night. Checking the weather app on my phone and then Wunderground I was seeing 100% chance of rain every hour until tomorrow around noon. Stella doesn't like the rain so it should be an interesting 24 hours to get her out in the yard or field to relieve herself. She will eventually go but on her terms.

As I lifted the Nikon D3200 to my eye to take that first photograph I found out the battery needed charging for it to work. I didn't want to miss all of the early morning excitement, already past 10am, so I grabbed the iPhone. As you can see or will see, I did not finished my carport concrete floor project this fall. The cracks were sealed but not sanded. I also didn't get the new concrete put down to fill in the chipped out low spots. Once that is finished next spring I plant to coat the entire floor with some textured gray paint.

When Stella came back inside early this morning for breakfast ... Heidi's back was wet, even while she was under the roof overhang to pee. Stella's was not ... dry as a bone. A few hours later she wasn't going out in the yard no matter what. That is her "I'm not moving look."

I tried looking in a different direction and still saw rain as far as I could see. That is looking Southwest, where most of our storms and winds come from. With a day like today I have declared it 'laundry day' and I might put a page together for Sadie that I will insert at the top of the blog.

As you see, Stella wasn't moving until I opened the door to go back inside. Anytime I hear the rain stop I will take her outside and coax her into the yard. By noon I may have to bribe her with food to get her to do that.

Last night while Heidi had moved off the couch to do a full body shake, Stella in her sleep stretched out her right leg to the end blocking the space that Heidi occupied. That didn't matter to Heidi as she laid her nose on the couch surveying a possible spot to jump in. She quietly climbed up on the couch in that small space in front of Stella's leg ... stepped over it ... then did a slow left hand curl and plopped down in that corner.

Stella only moved her head and decided that Heidi might be a good pillow. The didn't move for the next two hours. In the meantime I barely had a seat left on the short couch, which is somewhere between a love seat and a long couch in length. I decided to move my book reading to the big leather chair that Sadie use to occupy on a nightly basis.

With lunch kibble just served and eaten in less than a minute by each hound, the rain had let up but was still raining lightly with huge drops of rain. Heidi planned her path to the front yard for a quick dumping of tanks. She was not out there much longer than that and then did her daily lap around the house.

By the time I looked in back Stella was in the position I wanted to see. It had been almost 15 hours since she peed last. As soon as she finished he took about three steps toward the field but decided it was raining to hard and came back inside.

Heidi has never minded the rain and snow as long as she can stay dry under the roof overhang, which has always looked wider to me than one on a newer house.

For those of you that read the blog on a computer instead of a smart phone, on the left sidebar below the archives I have added around 160 labels (subjects). I know when I look at the blog on my iPhone I don't see the sidebars, so no blog list and no archives are seen.

I was going to wait to post this but the fact is with today's weather the afternoon will not turn out blog worthy and not much to photograph. The laundry is started and I am into my second book of three that I picked up at the library. Nothing like a John Grisham novel for a change of pace.

It's overcast, dark, gloomy and non-stop rain here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella Doesn't Like Rain - Neither Does Heidi

The forecast showed the rain would start after we turned off the lights for the night. Later I could see the reflection of a wet highway as I stood in the middle of the dark kitchen drinking ice water. When I opened the door for the first time to let the hounds outside, I could hear it but couldn't see it. Hours later, almost 11am, it was the same ... light rain ... nonstop.

It was good that I cleaned gutters early in the week. I have only three downspouts for the front and back of the house and of course with the trees I have, all of them are plugged with leaves and stems. I do have the metal spout plug-ins to prevent them from clogging my downspouts.

Is that a little color I see this morning? It is different than green but not by much. If I remember right, I read in this blog a year ago that by now all the leaves had fallen and I had raked multiple times and burned them. So far very few leaves have dropped to the ground. Does this mean we will have a different winter?

Stella never whined around 8:30 to 9am to go on the walk. She was in a deep sleep behind my desk chair from the time she finished breakfast until I went outside right before 11am. As you will see, she didn't get far either and seemed a little confused in what to do and where to go.

She is back to sleep right behind my desk chair as I type this. Heidi??? Where do you think she is ... buried deep inside the sleeping bag with no plans of waking up until she is hungry for lunch. Although this rain today seems to have messed with the normal schedule. She is usually barking for lunch by now.

It must be the way I hold the camera ... off by a few degrees. Those steps do not angle back toward the house but are straight and flat. I should have paid more attention when I was editing.

I mentioned the other day about the great photo editing tools that come with the Apple Photo program. Most of the time I just click that 'yellow' wand next to the 'Done' key. I might click the 'Definition' and/or 'Sharpen' links.

I don't go deep into the details but you can see they cover about every possible editing tool for photos.

The photos I have taken the past two days have changed I think into a better quality photo because I found that one setting off in set up. Once I clicked the setting for using a telephoto lens it made things much better in my eyes.

Remember when I tried using my iPhone without out a case? That worked out pretty well until the temperatures became colder. The cold temps and the glass back of the iPhone 8plus were not a good combination with my fingers.

So I used my $40 cash awards from Best Buy to buy a Speck case just like I had that has small rubber ridges for an easier grip. I have never used a screen protector on any of my handheld devices all the way back to the old Palm Pilots many years ago.

I wasn't a fan when Apple changed it but I work with it ... there 2015 build of the iMac moved their SD card slot to the back of the monitor. The card slides in at a slight upward angle. Recently I thought that slot was wearing out because it would not read the card.

If any of you may have the same problem of your SD card not being read in any form ... buy a new card. When I bought the second SD card for the Canon Powershot SX530 I was trying out a few weeks ago, I found that card was read every time I slid it into the slot on the back of the iMac.


I could send all of my photos from my camera to the computer on the cloud but I only have 5Gb of free storage on Apple iCloud and the setting turned off for it to manage all of my Photo Library which is now over 30Gb in size. So I do it the old fashion way of sliding the SD card in to the computer to transfer photos.

I picked up a couple of books yesterday at the library that I cannot put down. I was up past 1am last night reading. One is a three year old book and I am not sure how I missed it when it came out, printed in 2015. Adios' America by Ann Coulter. It is a fast read and explains a lot of things about the immigration problem, where neither political party wants it fixed.

The other is a new book named Pence - The Path To Power by Andrea Neal. Since I am a sports addict and was never interested in politics until the last 5 years I did not know a lot about this man even when he was the Governor of the state I have lived in the past 23 years. I was curious enough to pull the book off the shelf so I had a better idea how a man from a town of 20,000 people, a college graduate from a very small school of 800 students could rise to being the Vice President.

At the time it was rumored he would not even win the election for Indiana Governor at the time he was named Vice President. That is a slower read but very informative.

You will now see Heidi's strategy in staying dry in rain or snow. She perfected this method years ago in 2011. Stella never took two steps away from the carport steps so she still waits for the rain to stop sometime this afternoon.

One a side note ... I know anytime a number is less than 10 it should be spell ed out. I prefer seeing the actual number and find it easier to see as the content is skimmed over, most likely.

A rainy day in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... but college football tonight to watch so all is good.