What Rain Does To The Hounds

As forecasted I could hear it raining in the middle of the night as I slept with the windows open. Rain is better than freezing cold in my book so I didn't mind it. It will last for only a day or two and we will return to sunshine. Yet if the rain is even a light rain but just heavy enough to drench the hounds after a half mile walk ... the the walk will be postponed. This morning turned out to be that way, so for the first time that I can remember I am posting a few photos to show you what the hounds do on a day like this when they are outside. Their trips are short and to the point if you know what I mean.

You can always tell how much it rained overnight by the low spots in the carport. If I see any kind of puddles I know that it has rained a lot. This puddle is telling me we have received about a half inch of rain since 1am. The local farmers knew rain was on the way. During my drive through the country with the Z4 top down yesterday I saw more than a few farmers out in their field spreading anhydrous.

Sadie always knows the danger of rain ... her walks are usually postponed and the excitement she had inside is no longer there. She knows the routine when she feels even a light rain hitting the top of her head.

Another signed it had rained most of the night. Sadie doesn't know it but she will be doing laps around the house in an hour or so as she runs away from the toenail clippers. She is okay once I catch her but she is never in a voluntary mood when it comes to cutting her too long toenails.

Luckily they both slowly migrate to the field to dump their tanks instead of the back yard. They don't stay out long.

When I stepped outside I thought it might be possible to take a walk in light rain with me wearing rain boots and a light rain jacket but it was hard enough to where I knew by the time we returned I would be the only one dry. With the natural oils of the bloodhound coat, you can never get their wet coats dry just by toweling them off. That would require some hot sunshine to speed up the drying process.

Even though they are not in the field long they still have to check different scents in the yard on their way back to the house. Yes ... they are getting a little wet as I repeat "come on". In the photo above I tried to capture the blinking bright white light through the trees from the cell phone tower in back.

Nice to see the flower survived sub zero temps this winter just as advertised.

This day has a feel of a book reading day. I'm tired of watching movies while I enjoy my 3 months of free movie channels for switching to Dish Network. My internet habit has decreased the past month and I am back in the routine where most of my internet use is in the morning and stops just after posting a blog post in the morning. After that I am doing things inside and outside the house.

I got a lot finished yesterday in a short amount of time. It was good to see that my roof shingles survived the extreme winter weather with no signs of damage. The gutters were clear and I only had to toss off a few small twigs.

It's going to be a pretty quiet day here in 'the tropics of Southern Indiana with a light rain outside the opened windows.

I Confuse Myself Sometimes

Right before sundown he showed up to disc his field last night. It's a small field and with something that wide it wouldn't take him too long. Luckily the wind was blowing away from the house and all that dust was headed west and not toward the house. I had my windows open and had completed my weekly house cleaning earlier in the day.

While on the hound walk this morning I saw he still has about half of his field to do. That is the section that goes to the right of my house and behind the two neighbors across the highway. I just caught the tail end of the local tv news the other night where they were discussing income per acre. Don't take this as accurate, but the part of the show I caught was talking $15 per acre after they harvest their crops.

Sadie had not made it out to this part of the yard yet. So the robin was safe, while the hounds were over by the burn pile. I moved my mower up one level so I am letting this part of the backyard grow a little before I mow it again. The mole hills and tracks are disappearing naturally with the rains and the grass is overtaking the weeds as it gets greener. I did not apply any Scott's turf builder nor grub worm killer.

 I have a feeling the big blonde cat was checking out the yard last night while we slept. Sadie and Stella slowly walked investigating every inch along the back side of the house. They spent a lot of time around the air conditioner, then slowly migrated up the small hill to the far north of the yard where the robin was.

They have decided that is their new place, barely out in the field for their bathroom runs. They may head back in the direction of the house but not before they stand looking in the direction of the neighbor's house. Their nose scans the area before they turn to walk toward me.

By 9:45am this morning I had all of my walls and doors hand washed and wiped down with a towel. Before I did any cleaning, I vacuumed all of the walls and ceiling. I guess I could buy some new attachments for my old Swifter, or just buy a new one. The last time I used a Swifter to clean the walls, it was hard to put into words what you don't see on your walls and the Swifter picked up.

So with a break needed and a call from my HughesNet installer telling me it would be after lunch before his arrival, the hounds and I took off for a walk. Heidi was sound asleep on 'her' Marmot sleeping back in front of an open window enjoying the breeze.

You may have noticed I typed HughesNet and not Exede when I mentioned the installer calling. There is a reason for that and luckily since I was not really paying attention, it will not cost me anything in fees for changing service providers unintentionally.

The other day I mentioned on a post here the local business that installed my Exede system in June 2014, texted me as an Exede Customer telling me about the new plan available in my area as of April 1. For some reason I thought it was a new Exede plan. I also thought I was on an automatic two year contract renewal after my expiration date.

I found out last night just how confused I was on this transaction. It wasn't a 'senior moment' but more of not paying attention to what was said. Or maybe it wasn't, because when I looked back through those texts from the local business at no time was HughesNet mentioned.

What I found strange was the day I set up an "update" day (today), they billed the debit card I gave them. What was confusing was the description for that transaction said HughesNet and not Exede. The next confusing thing I noticed was that on the Exede website the plan they were offering me locally was nowhere on the Exede website.

Just a short break from the topic ... Sadie got in some really good running this morning. 100% effort and without being called.

When I saw the different name I really didn't think to much about it since I was happy with the savings in my new monthly bill, faster speeds and more data per month. I thought I'd call the local business to verify if something had been entered wrong before my service appointment.

Last night the owner texted me since it was after office hours to let me in on the change in service. I did some quick internet review searching on the Gen5 system and found no problems with it. The new satellite was just launched March 16, 2017. I watched the video on the HughesNet website, from building it to launching it ... pretty amazing stuff.

As far as reviews found on the internet ... I will read them but don't put a lot of stock in them. I'll analyze what is being said by active or past customers and then decide ... but if the review is from CNET, then that something I strongly consider before making a decision.

I was going to call Exede again and make sure I was not breaking a contract. I will say that if there was going to be a fee charged to me for breaking a contract I would have had second thoughts about the change. I have had nothing but great service with Exede and unless I start streaming movies through my Directv, the faster download speed may not be that much of a factor since I have great fast speed now for internet surfing.

I found out after my first two years had passed I was not on a two year renewal but on a month to month basis. No one from Exede ever told me that whenever I talked to Customer Service.

Besides the difference in speed and data limits, I'll not get a free data period between midnight and 5am but will get an extra free 50Gb of data for the month, to use between the hours of 2am-8am. Still a good period of the day to do my large OS updates, download movies or ballgames. Those OS updates do not take place too often.

I'll write more about the new system later after it's installed and give kind of a system review for those of you are interested. What I found interesting was that the Gen5 system automatically compresses and optimized web content with built-in SmartTechonlogies to make web pages load faster while using less data.

I will be able to monitor that activity with my Activity Monitor that I always have open on my other monitor incase something downloads that I am not expecting.

It also includes a video data saver so you can watch more videos using less data. It will adjust data rates for streaming video to deliver DVD quality.

Under my current system I basically cut out my YouTube videos because of the amount of data I was using. With only 15Gb per month I had to really control the amount of video I watched and made sure that all of the 'autoplay' settings were turned off, along with using Flash Control and Ghostery apps.

I'll keep posting updates to the system change and let you know if I made a good decision. The owner of the local satellite business told me that he is getting great feedback from past Exede customers that changed to this new HughesNet system last week.

What else was confusing???  My old old old washer I blogged about a few weeks ago didn't work. At that time the belt had decided not to work, thus the wash machine did not spin to get all of the water out of the clothes.

I was about to say heck with repairing a 38 year old washer and just buy a new washer and dryer. I still might because it is past due I guess for replacement, but they still work okay and with me being retired I found that I do laundry less frequently.

So last night I did a small test to see if the machine was going to spin or not ... it did !!!!  I loaded the wash machine to capacity, including three pairs of jeans and two sweatshirts. Both would be very heavy when loaded with water. I would find out if the weight of the wet load would be a factor for the spin cycle not working.

The rinse and spin cycles for two loads worked perfect. I had done nothing to fix the problem of a few weeks ago. So the wash machine may be on it's last legs but I will continue to use it until it stops working.

Well I have to get the hounds fed lunch, and then barricade them in the living room, blocked by a baby gate when the installer shows up in about an hour. All three of them would be more than willing to help him do his job or at least supervise him if they were not blocked off.

It's perfect weather today here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Bloodhounds Take A Sunday Evening Walk

While sitting at the computer Saturday afternoon putting the last blog post together about Heidi, I heard sounds of a tractor slowing down out in front of the house. He knew the weather report as well as I did and was going to put on some anhydrous before it rained Saturday night.

It was perfect timing because by Saturday night was starting to rain and based on the looks of the carport floor this morning it had rained for most of the night. That mixture of ammonia and nitrogen is shot underground by the rakes being towed by the tractor.

So in the last two to three days they have spread fertilizer and then the mixture of ammonia/nitrogen before the rains came. I have not seen them put both on their field within days before.

When ever I see tanks of anhydrous I think of two stories. In the last decade but not so much in recent years, these anhydrous tanks were being stolen for meth production. It was so bad at the time they started parking empty police cars near them if the farmers were leaving them unattended over night.

The second story I remember is from sometime around April or May 1970. I had just turned 18 years old, living in a farming community and knew nothing about farming. The money paid was fantastic and I could drive a large John Deere Tractor. My friends dad always hired extra help and hired me to spread this anhydrous on his large flat fields just west of Indianapolis towing two tanks.

On this particular incident I glanced back and saw where there was a leak at the connection of the two hoses that connected the two tanks. So I stopped the large tractor, bigger than the one in these pictures and walked back to the hissing leak of ammonia and nitrogen.

Remember I was clueless about farming and this mixed chemical. I was able to stop the leak and tighten the connection between the hoses but not before some ice freezing cold chemical sprayed against my chest. I didn't know how lucky I was until a few months later a farmer had the same thing happen to him, only the mixture hit him in the face instantly passing to his lungs and killed him.

After a night of basketball of two really good ballgames Saturday night, I spent a few hours looking at those new Blogger templates again. I still don't see anything I like even after making a lot of changes to come as close to the design I have now. I still like playing around with that kind of thing so I'll probably continue to look or change the template to my Wordpress blog.

After a good night sleep we woke up this morning to warm temps, and the fresh smell of rain. Sounds of birds filled the air.

Notice the farmer parked his tanks instead of taking them with him. Why? He came back to pick them up Sunday afternoon.

They planted corn in this field and the field past those trees last year, so I am assuming they will be planting soybeans this year. I cannot remember if they alternate years or not but I'll remember once I look at the blog from May 2015. The two different fields are owned by different people.

I know the bank in back is not looking great but it's right on schedule for a non-professional job. I cleared out all of the wild overgrowth and burned it last November. Earlier this month I raked out and pulled all the roots, burning them. I may have planted grass seed too early on that weekend in early March when it was near 70°, only to have it drop below 30° a week later for a few days. So I planted more seed when it was warmer a few weeks later but that probably got washed away from the hard rains.

I planted more seed last Monday when it was warmer, watered it twice per day and with the rain last night I can start to see some new grass coming up. I'll keep mowing over this after it fills in and continue to seed it next fall. Eventually it will look like the yard on the other side of this fence. What I cannot mow I'll cut short with my weed eater.

Sadie wanted to walk early this morning but it was raining lightly each time we went outside. The ground was pretty saturated ... too wet to walk. The two basketball games today started early and both were over a little past 7pm. By the time the buzzer sounded ending the UK / UNC game I was putting on my hiking boots just in case we ran into wet grounds on our walk.

We headed out for our first walk of the day around 7:15pm ... the wind and skies looked like more rain was on the way.

Since Sadie had been waiting all day for her walk, she immediately took off and started her tracking. She loves these walks.

While I was taking pictures of Sadie I didn't realize that Stella was already heading for the neighbor's woods if not their yard. From the few hoof prints in the ground the deer traffic must have been heavy last night or this morning.

I had to head Stella's direction and trot toward her, calling her name because she was taking off on me. About the time I got about 10' from her she turned and started trotting toward me, then ran past me to catch up to Sadie. She must have thought I needed to get some running in today after spending all weekend on the couch watching college basketball.

She still likes to go her own pace even after catching Sadie. With her right front paw lifted you can tell just how slow she walks.

Sadie was into tracking though tonight so she was constantly moving.

Once she locks into a strong scent, she is pretty focused but I know that she will not take off on me and will always circle back to where I am walking. There are no problems giving her total freedom on these walks.

Sadie sprinted one direction, Stella trotted another direction.

Stella has a pretty good nose but not as good as Sadie's. She is more interested in finding stuff to eat, than to track.

By the time I approached the final turn home, Sadie had moved far to the right of the path we take, she was in the 'no fly zone' but came running to to me when she saw where I was.

Both hounds walked too close to me to take pictures for the rest of the walk home. Not sure if it is suppose to rain tonight but it definitely felt like it was on the way.

I don't have to mow anywhere near the whole yard but there is enough spots of heavy new growth that I will have to mow a few spots as soon as possible in between the forecasted rains this week. It was like this grass grew over night after the rains last night. Hopefully that new grass will overtake the damage done by the moles this past winter.

I still need to take my hand rake through the front yard one more time in hopes the rake can find the missing steel hinge pin that fell off my mower last November. You would think it would be easy to find but I have looked all over that yard and can't find it. I don't want the mower to find a steel pin while I am mowing the yard in a week or two.

Maybe I need to find a place that will rent me a metal detector.

There were some great basketball games this week. Some were won in the last seconds and with four teams left to play, one of them has never been in the Final 4 in their school's history and another has not been there in 70 some years. There will be some good games next weekend.

With time off until next Saturday night for the games to be played, I'll be back to reading books this week. I have a couple of new books I checked out from the library. If the weather is nice this week, I'll be outside starting on my 'to do' list for this year.

It's hard to believe that March is almost over here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

It's Slo-Motion Friday

You'll notice the field across the highway has changed color. After they spread their fertilizer yesterday the disc's the whole field to mix it in with the dirt. It should rain this week.

I am going to add a couple of pictures to show the operation yesterday afternoon. They are all self-explanatory showing how the piles of fertilizer disappeared. As far as any kind of rude smell ... there was/is none.

Even late morning, it felt like Saturday and I had to remind myself for no particular reason that it was Friday. Most days feel the same when you are retired, living in the land of constant excitement. The pace is face, schedules are full and never a spare minute ... LOL

I guess that is why Stella declared this morning "slo-motion" Friday. She was walking so slow in the house this morning that she actually tripped over her front paw and almost fell down. All from dragging her feet with each step.

Probably the best news of all .... the 60's have arrived. No, not those 60's ... the temps. It looks like from the weather forecast they will be here or higher for the next 7-10 days and that is perfect. Maybe I'll become motivated enough to start my 2017 'to do' list.

Once again the goal was to get Stella around that first turn before I left her alone to do what she wanted. Sadie even circled back a couple of times to touch noses with her to let her know she needed to get with the program and speed it up a little.

She did start trotting to catch up once she saw that Sadie had found something too interesting. There were a lot of new strong scents this morning. Sadie was pretty busy.

It is trying hard to be Spring.

With the slow pace walking, that also seemed to decrease my urge to take pictures. I can't remember the last time I came inside after a walk with only 17 pictures to download. With my first game starting at 7:09pm tonight, I had have plenty of time to add new afternoon pictures and get in a couple more walks.

I'm glad I wasn't in a hurry to get anywhere this morning because both hounds were taking their time. I was beginning to wonder if we were going to make it back to the house sometime today.

I think you can see the effort Stella is putting into her walk. Each paw seemed to feel like they had been dipped in concrete to her. I've said it before, I have never seen a hound walk as slow as she does.

I took a look at the new Blogger themes (templates) last night. I started a new blog to work with so this blog would not go back and forth with all the changes I was looking at, while being actively read.

I have to admit I am not finding many of them that I like enough to change from this design. Since I can changed background colors, fonts, and gadgets, really the only thing I am looking at are the different designs. I tried 5 different designs and made my changes.

In each case, there were 1-2 things with each new template that didn't look good. For example when I added the gadget to list the blog roll, each new template showed slight differences that I did not like. I didn't like the way the images of the hounds looked on the sidebar.

I was under a time limit where at 7pm I turned off the computer (sleep mode) and started watching the basketball games until past midnight. I was still able to get a little over 2 hours of looking at the templates before the games started.

I think I'll feed the hounds, take a walk without the camera and come back inside since it's so windy and reactivate my test blog and look at those templates again.

Need food, need a maid, need an assistant ... all is good here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.