As Usual Sadie Wins

They proved once again they know what to do before the rains come and delay their harvest by a week or more until the fields dry out. I had started my 'thorough' detailed house cleaning Saturday morning to burn off some nervous energy I had for the football game kicking off at noon. The farmers had moved their equipment into position sometime Friday night. With a chance of rain today they were going to finish picking the back half of the cornfield that they replanted in May after the flooded area dried.


Depending on the direction of the winds, there is always a chance of dust from the corn picked and loaded into truck trailers might blow my direction. That's never good when I have all the windows open. Luckily as I glanced at the first load of corn being loaded I could see the wind was blowing north, parallel to the house ... all the windows stayed open while I cleaned.

By the time I was finished and was ready for 14 hours of football on tv, they had completed their job. The field that I can see from the house is only the far end of the field. It curves right behind the trees and goes for almost a 1/4 mile behind the houses of my neighbors.

So after a bright sunny day on Saturday ... this morning had other plans with gray skies, rain off and on and those temps in the upper 70's yesterday had dropped to the low 60's for a high today.

All of that doesn't matter to Sadie. She doesn't want a lot in her daily schedule but food, sleep and a few walks. So after the strongest storms blew through around 8am, with little rain for us, Sadie sat in the doorway of my computer room giving me the stare down to let me know it was time for the fist walk of the day.

It was raining lightly outside by the sound of it hitting the leaves. I waited a little longer while she didn't move and kept her eyes locked in on me in front of my computer. I'm not sure she even blinked the whole time she stared at me.

She won ... just like she always does. Those eyes of hers and persistence are pretty convincing. The map of the weather radar had our location pinned right in the middle of greens, yellows and some oranges showing us it was rainy or could rain. I slipped on my snow boots that double up as rain boots, a light rain jacket ... hearing Stella howl and see Sadie hopping up and down when they saw me put my ball cap on. That's cap is confirmation their walk was going to happen.

As with any time after a rain there is a lot more exploring by both hounds. Heidi had already cancelled her day with the mention of the word rain or the sound of rain outside the open window. She was stretched out as far as a basset hound can stretch, on 'her' leather couch sleeping. With a look at me that I was to wake her when lunch is served, but in the meantime she was sleeping.

Stella didn't feel like wandering this morning and stayed either close behind me or with Sadie.

With the raindrops getting larger and more frequent but no more than a light rain ... I cut our turn short in back of the field and took the recent path created by the ATV traffic from the neighbor. There really isn't a lot of difference in distance of our walk by doing this but always feels like a shorter walk.

Stella was almost positive with decision to take this path meant she and us were going straight ahead ... where she ran off to last Thursday, back into those woods up ahead. She is hoping for that anyway.

When I said "no, over here" she immediately walked in front of me pouting like she does when she doesn't get her way.

My camera was barely able to catch the high speed ATV on Friday afternoon but this gives you an idea of who and what has made the new worn paths that may be a thing of the future next spring and summer. We cut our walk short when we heard the sound as I can't afford an accident to happen with the hounds and a speeding ATV. Especially since Stella and Sadie show an interest in chasing that new unidentified vehicle.

This morning though as the rain increased they were just happy to jog to the house with a few stops in between.

I wouldn't have taken a picture of my boot and this leaf until I saw how bright and colorful the leaf was. It might have the most color we see this fall unless we get a string of days with bright sunshine.

As the sound of the rain hit my jacket, Stella walked slower toward me in no hurry. Then looks at me as if to question why am I trying to get her to walk faster.

It's because these clouds are west of us, coming our way and the rain drops are now starting to fall faster.

Sadie was also walking slow not wanting her walk to end. Yet, within minutes of returning inside, she was sound asleep protecting her water bowl from Stella sneaking in and drinking 'her' water. Stella and Heidi share their own water bowl in a different room.

It's very very rare when both hounds lead me back to the yard at the end of the walk so I had to take a picture of this historic event.

It's feeling like a quiet Sunday is ahead of us with a few NFL games scattered around a siesta later this afternoon, a couple more hounds walks and food. I might even read my owners manual on the Tamron 18mm-200mm lens I use to see what I have forgot or to find something I have missed with hopes of better quality photos in the future.

Hard to believe it's the middle of October here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Farmers Try A 2nd Time

As the hounds and I woke up from our mid-day siesta around 3:30pm on Saturday, I noticed I had missed all the action while sleeping, dreaming to the point of not knowing if it was nighttime or what. With rain tomorrow they were going to disc some of their field and re-plant that corn the floods washed out a few weeks ago.

I had just let the hounds back inside and was checking for emails and texts back in the computer room when I heard them starting their tractors.

With two working at the same time it would not take long, even though this field that looks so small, it curves to the right around the trees and goes for almost a half mile behind the 2-3 houses across the highway.

With them both hugging the side of the front field they were going to leave that corn the way it was since it was not affected by the water. Not being a farmer I found it interesting to see how they would plant new corn in rows lined up with their corn already growing. The rows would have to go the same direction for picking in the fall.

It's just like mowing your lawn ... just a little bigger 'mower' and a little more 'lawn'.

With their planter waiting in the wings to use when they were finished tilling up their previous planting, I could tell they were as aware of tomorrow's weather as I was. They couldn't wait any longer and doing the same thing twice has to be expensive.

A couple of hours later as we headed out for our walk, they were in the planting mode and from my eye, those rows looked close enough to get the job done smoothly next fall when they run their combine through the field.

The local news said the other night that before the floods a few weeks ago, only 56% of corn had been planted in the state of Indiana due to the wetter than normal spring weather. With many other farmers in the state losing their crop that was planted before the floods, they did not discuss financial losses but it had to be huge. Farming is hard work, sometimes dictated by mother nature.

I'll not include a picture from the past in this post, I wanted to keep it just on this farming operation of today.

Sadie Gets Her First Walk In 3 Days

Cabin fever for all of us had maxed out by this morning. Sadie slept, had some lunch, went out to check the water levels, slept some more and then stepped into my computer room to give me 'the stare' ... it was time for a walk.

The ground didn't really look much different than it did 4 hours ago but I had come up with an idea that could get me to walk them. I'd put on my North Face snow boots. They are not big nor bulky, lighter than the hiking books, with more rubber over the top of the foot. I'd stay dry no matter what.

Stella stopped for a quick pee break and the trotted toward our path. Sadie didn't wait for us and was way in front, nose to the ground and extremely happy.

It was her first walk since the morning of May 3rd, before the rains came. It seems longer than that since it was nice weather. Even the temps at 60° felt warm.

With the grass taller only means they needed to put their noses deeper inside it. There are a lot of new scents after a rain so they both were quite active.

This is just to the start of the far right corner. Neither one of them stayed too long before they came exploring along the edge of the field. After another day in front of the computer reading and looking for some answers, it was nice to be outside again.

Stella followed her own pace today. It didn't matter what Sadie was doing up ahead, nor what I was doing. She wasn't running today but glided across the field enjoying her walk.

As you can tell the hay is not nearly as tall here as it is near the house where the hounds spent the winter fertilizing it. It also looks like Stella has gain a little weight this week.

Sadie found something interesting enough to hang back as Stella and I kept walking. There is never a worry about her because she will always run to catch up on her own.

This running is good for her. That dark spot on her lower leg is a place she licks every night before she goes to sleep. She has done that for years for some reason. It's never bare skin, just wet hair.

While we waited for Sadie to catch up, Stella stopped abruptly, sat down and looked in the direction of the neighbor's wooded area. Did she smell that big blonde cat? Something had caught her attention enough to perk her ears up.

It looks like she is walking away from us as we get to the backyard but it's a new habit she has had the past week or so ... she will always use the path to return to the yard instead of walking straight from the field's tall grass, unless she is not on the 'official' daily walk.

As you can tell, she was in no hurry today ... she must be resting to watch the Kentucky Derby tonight.

The water is slowly moving out. That is only part of the field showing, not a sandbar. It looks like the row of crops out in the middle of the water is stable ... maybe they don't have to do anything to this field but let the sunshine do it's work.

I ran a free app called Dr. Cleaner by Trend Micro to clean up all my junk files and optimize my hard drive. It found and deleted over 2Gb's of junk files. It has more features but I would have had to buy the professional version. Instead the website I mentioned in my last post called Make Use Of, recommended a free maintenance app that would analyze, repair and do some general clean up of the hard drive.

It reported there were no problems with my hard drive and did a little cleaning. I shut down the computer while we were on our walk and so far since we have restarted the computer I have not had those small frustrating issues I've been having the past couple of days since the restore of the hard drive.

So, I thought I'd wait to see how things workout before I do a clean install of my OS and start all over like it's a new computer. That option still is interesting to me.

The Kentucky derby tonight on a track rated 'sloppy' will open the large number of entrants up to where anyone can win. The days I use to go to the California race tracks every day, I never bet when the track was rated muddy or sloppy.

All the hounds are happy and sound asleep here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

The Hounds Prepare For Rain

I could tell after lunch that not much of anything would be done this afternoon, hounds included. The occupants of this house barely had a pulse.

Even though it was not raining Heidi heard the forecast and walked out to the front yard just long enough to dump her tanks. She took her bad weather path behind the Yews, climbed the three steps up to the porch and then jumped into the front yard. She came back the same way, only walking around the porch to get behind the Yews.

Sadie and Stella didn't get any further than this before they came back to the house to go inside. That's really strange for them as they are usually trying to talk me into a walk after lunch.

As much time as they have spent in this area the past 24 hours, I suspect the big blonde cat has paid us a visit sometime in the pre-dawn hours.

The house got so quiet this afternoon you could hear a pin drop. Instead of that, all I heard was constant ringing in my years. The hounds were in such a dream state of sleep, none of them were snoring.

While sitting at the kitchen table playing some Mahjong on my laptop, this piece of machinery drove by the house and made a right hand turn onto that one lane of gravel I was on last week. I have no idea what they are spraying. Since it's wild mustard and they have plans to plant there, my wild guess is that it is weed killer.

Or maybe they are spraying fertilizer before they plow them under????

Just like Heidi, they went back the way they came. I was so lazy I did not even get outside to take this. It's shot it through the kitchen window as I sat at the kitchen table.

It was one lazy afternoon. I heard the sound of thunder after we returned from our afternoon walk without the camera. It seemed like the perfect time to crack open a window in cool weather and take a siesta.

No plans for the weekend, except a 100% chance of a lot of rain here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.