A Morning Drive In The Area

It seemed like a good idea at the time, early Thursday morning. Both hounds like riding in the car but that doesn't mean they sit up the whole way, looking out the window and enjoying the scenery passing by. Stella always likes to go even if we are not going anywhere. She will check the back door of the Mini Countryman as she walks by it just in case that door pops open after she pushes her nose onto it. Heidi on the other hand, probably only rides because I want her to. I've always had the feeling she doesn't enjoy going in the car that much.  She is experienced though, with the 3,000 mile trip in June 2015 and a short turn around trip to Arkansas in September 2013.

We hadn't left yet and I am not sure what her look means. She might be trying to comprehend the seat warmers, noted by those two small green lights in front of her nose. It didn't take long for her to lay down and go back to sleep.

The local area is a pretty neat geography lesson. As we go south to southeast it is all hills. Either a few miles west or about 20 miles southwest like we are heading, the land is flat as far as you can see. I was hoping to get some photos of that difference in the landscape as we left Thursday morning. The plan was subject to change but I had the "42 mile loop" as the main idea.

Both of those pictures don't show the steepness of the hills we were traveling on.

By this time we have traveled five to eight miles from the last picture, driven through a very small farming community and are headed west.

Those high power towers are the same line you see on our walks through the field. They will go another 75 miles to the Ohio River.

To me this is just a drastic difference in land in such a short distance. Geography experts will know the reason or could it explain it much better than I can, but I was told once it was just how the glaciers spread throughout the state of Indiana.

We are heading north on the same highway that I use to dive the Z4 on. This is the highway where the cops would have thrown away the keys if they had ever caught me. With a nice smooth highway and plenty of room to see what was ahead of you, it was very hard not to test the specs for the highest speed

This irrigation system will be busy next summer.

After we had passed through another farming town of Newberry I decided to turn off onto a country road, thinking I'd have plenty of chances to stop the car, stand outside the door and take some pretty good pictures. The times I did that up to this point, Heidi always thought we were all getting out of the car and would step over onto the driver's seat ... my seat. Stella was stretched out in back and rarely woke up from her morning nap.

Like I said when we started, plans change and sometimes they change pretty quickly. I knew by the way this road looked it was going to have to be two hands on the steering wheel even if we were going 40 mph. It looks straight there, but within a few miles it was curvy, some hairpin turns or stop signs at the bottom of a blind hill. Just like it should as we drove east ... the closer we got to 'my area' all the flat land had disappeared, replaced by short steep hills on a rough and narrow country road.

She finally sat up in her seat instead of lowering head over the floorboard, and gave me the look "I have to get outside" ... I pulled into a dirt driveway heading to a barn and let her out on my side of the car. She had to pee .... she must have been holding it since we left home because I was beginning to wonder if she was ever going to stop. After I lifted her back onto my seat and she took her seat ... we were only a few miles from the highway to take us home. That tower you can see in the center of the picture is the same tower I take a picture of when we are in back of the field on our walks.

Two seconds after I turned the car off and opened my door, Heidi jumps out and sprints for the front yard. It looked like we made it home just in time.

It was still in the low 20's so she wasn't going to stay outside too long. Stella and I were already in the house waiting for her to come to the door. As far as Stella was concerned, this travel day was over. She went back to her spot in front of the island to sleep the rest of the morning away. Honestly, local drives with the hounds will be few and far between. I'll go out and take pictures but they don't have to go, since they would rather stay home and sleep. They liked being back home by the way their tails looked running in the house.

It was cold Thursday morning but by Saturday we are looking at 4"-6" of snow in this area.

It Was Only Snow Hoopla

What started this state wide panic last night was the 6pm local tv weatherman showing a large radar screen on the tv, justifying why we, here in 'the tropics' would be getting our first snow of the winter sometime around 1am. This wasn't going to be like the dusting a few days ago. No, a whopping 1-2" of snow on my doorstep and much more further north.

Over the 20+ years I've lived here I had heard this story before and I can't say I was real confident it would happen. By 1am there were no snow flakes, just rain. By 2am I thought I heard a snow plow go by and I could tell by their front blade hitting those highway seams every 10' ... sounds that you hear with a CLEAR highway.
 

I took these next three photos from my kitchen table though my large window yesterday afternoon, the best view in the house. Their second truck had not shown up yet so they were filling this smaller wagon because the combine was full to capacity with soy beans. The temps were dropping fast and it certainly had a feel of snow was in the air, if you know what I mean. I guess I use that 200mm setting more than I think I do.

Later after the second truck showed up, they transferred the beans from that wagon to the trailer. I am sure by the time they finished their dinner last night they were happy to get those beans out of the field before the big snow arrived. I was still a little suspicious because when I was channel surfing I was not seeing any banners at the bottom of the local tv channels saying there would be school delays due to snow and icy roads in the morning.

By the time they were finished it looked like a freshly mowed yard. That part of the field is a very small portion and is the south end of it. The field turns right and goes almost a half mile behind all of the houses across the highway from me.

Stella was happy to get started on her walk this morning. It's pretty obvious that she likes her morning walk at 8am. Since she does not go out in the field to relieve herself after a night of sleep like Heidi does, she really has to go out side by 8am and will start whining if I am not in my jacket, gloves and sock hat. No, while I am pouring the breakfast kibble she stands outside by the door looking inside, waiting for me to let her and Heidi back inside the house to eat. So she is really waking me up to eat not because she has to go outside.  LOL

She veered off the path on occasion but not much.

 

Just a leisurely stroll on a cold crisp morning and no plans for the day.

We took what I call 'the old way' home, meaning we went left at the Y intersection, on a path that runs parallel to the one we start on. It was strange that she did not head off to the north part of the yard where we normally return but angled her walk across the field to the path where we started. I can't remember the last time she did that.

With her getting her walk 7 minutes after we woke up, I had not had coffee yet. I was also scrapping the bottom of the dog food container pouring out their breakfast so I needed to buy some dog food.  So I made a change in plans by going to town to pick up a bag of dog food BEFORE my first cup of coffee for the day. It was 8:44am before I poured my first hot cup of Seattle's Best Coffee #6 ... nice and strong.

With little use of my vintage baseboard electric heat, my house was still staying at 66° all night and today, with the outdoor temps not getting above 30° by the time the hounds took their after lunch trip outside. It didn't feel that cold, there wasn't any wind but Heidi never got off the carport and Stella never left the driveway. 

Instead of heading to the yard to dump tanks, Heidi turned around and headed for the door to go back inside. She had seen and felt enough. With a full body shake and continuous loud barking, I figured out real quick she wanted back inside.

Stella assumed with the quick exit, there might be a 2nd serving of lunch and she wasn't going to miss that. She was wrong about that, but made a thorough check around both dog food bowls and the dog food container just to see if a piece or two of kibble was laying around somewhere.

I headed to the library to return one book then picked up two more new books. I've always liked the books written by Yuval Noah Harari. If you are interested I'd start with his first book called 'Sapiens'. That will shed a new light on current problem with the weather and you will see this climate change stuff isn't something new. His latest book is called 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. It should be interesting.

I am not a NASCAR fan but the new book by Dale Earnhardt Jr looked interesting. He details his career at the end while dealing with concussions. You never picture those drivers suffering injuries on Sundays, struggling through the week, then recovering just in time to race again that weekend. You see the races and the interviews but never what they might be going through away from the track.

With both hounds in their afternoon routines of sleeping, starting both of those books was easy to do in a quiet house ... that is until Stella woke up, started whining for her afternoon walk a little past 1pm. Of course any time they smell my food or their dog bones they will wake right up and sprint to the kitchen. I should have never shared that first piece of pizza crust the hounds many years ago.

As usual there is not a lot going on but enough to keep us three active every day.

It's been a nice day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Busy Day With Possible Snow Showers Tonight

With snow showers predicted tonight I wasn't the only one that decided some things needed to get finished today. I had Phase II of my leaf project finished by 11am. Soon after I had taken a shower, and changed into some dry clothes I heard a rumble outside. They decide since it might snow tonight it might be a good idea to harvest their soy beans. Due to all of my activity this morning, I am tired. So I'll leave you with a lot of photos, no content. Heidi says hello from deep inside her sleeping bag.

The temps are dropping fast this afternoon in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.