Living on a hill a hundred feet from a major highway you get use to the traffic noise after residing here for 20 years. It's not evident until Sunday mornings, where it is so quiet around here that you could hear a pin drop. This morning was one of those days with a light rain mixed in.
As I was standing at the corner of the house taking my daily "2nd picture", I felt some light rain. With a forecast of a good chance of off and on rain throughout the day, increasing tonight, I knew our chances for three walks today might be slim. Sadie thought otherwise.
As soon as she saw that I had gone into the house to grab my light rain jacket, she was more than excited that we were going to take the chance of getting wet on this walk. The weather radar was solid with colors signifying rain. She went immediately into the tracking mode and followed the same deer scent along the tree line as she did Saturday morning.
Both of them were not into any kind of eating 'stuff' this morning, just Sadie inhaling deep enough with her nose pressed to the ground. I could hear her jowls move as she gathered all the information she could about who and what had been in 'her' field while we were sleeping.
Stella on the other hand didn't have time for any kind of work. She was into a casual morning stroll like she didn't have a care in the world.
Yet, Sadie was more intense than ever, collecting all of the information left by the scents her nose was picking up. When she has her ears out sideways from running to the next spot, you know she has too much work and not enough time to finish it.
Still, Stella was having none of the high intensity that Sadie was showing. She will and would walk at her own slow pace. When I mentioned the possibility of rain and we needed to get home ... she walked even slower.
She then decided that she would let me know that she was still in charge of this walk, by lagging behind and ignoring anything that sounded like me calling her.
To give you an idea how different the weather is this morning, not even the enhancement button could help this photo in lighting it up or making the sky blue again. The butterflies were gone this morning so the mosquitoes moved back into town. After three quick unexpected bites, I remembered my new can of repellant sitting back at home.
These rolls of hay told me a story this morning, showing that I really am aging through all my denials. It's why you see old men wearing their ball caps crooked ... because they feel like they are on straight. I notice that sometimes with mine if I look in the rearview mirror before driving.
Lately when I edit my photos I notice that things are not straight as they should be. Luckily in the cropping section of Apple Photos, you can turn a photo any direction to make them straight. These rolls of hay helped me straighten the picture out and remind me that my balance is a little off today. I'll not tell you just how much that editing adjustment was.
As I continued to walk home with not a drop of rain anywhere, the hounds lagged behind enjoying all the scents this field gives them. Bloodhounds can smell scent up to two weeks old, even in water. I always wonder what their noses tell them with 7 acres of wild stuff growing, deer traffic, and a cat or two.
I didn't have to bribe them this morning with a treat when they got back home. They seemed to be finished with their exploring for this morning and could feel it was time for their daily morning siesta.
Who would have ever thought those pretty white flowers really are weeds, and not good weeds either. While looking up their pictures on Google Images this morning, I clicked the button "view page" and ran into a blog named Dave's Garden writing about "weeds in my lawn". He has the same problem I do with moles and weeds in his yard because we both live next to a field.
Who would have ever thought something as pretty as this could have such an ugly but factual writeup. I guess I will NOT dig some of them up and plant them in my flower beds but then again if their seeds are viable for decades and they will fold around a fence or other plants ... maybe they would be good to hide my old cast iron railings in front of the carport.
Here is what he said about what I call "that white flower":
“The prettiest, but most annoying weed is the Convolvulus arvensis also called Field Bindweed or Swallowtail's Dress, as we call it in Romania. It chokes the plants and is one of the most invasive species. I am pulling out thousands of Field Bindweeds, not to mention how many times I have to unfold them from the fence or from my plants. The roots are deep, but sometimes they come out easily; still they have rhizomes which produce more sprouts. I've found out that their seeds are viable for decades and only one plant can produce 500 seeds."
Don't feel sorry for Sadie and Stella by the looks on their faces. They sniff their way all the way to the house, on EVERY walk. They walk into the house quietly not wanting to wake up Heidi after EVERY walk in the morning. Sadie jumps in her big leather chair with the ottoman to sleep and Stella lays down behind my computer desk chair so close that I can barely roll the chair back enough to sit down.
They will sleep almost to lunch time. If lunch is not served on time, Heidi will start barking and that leads Stella to howling or vise versa. Sadie does not bark or howl but stands right in front of the food container waiting me to pour kibble into their bowls.
I am about to post this and with the windows open I can hear how wet the highway is by passing cars and trucks. There still isn't much traffic as most people are in church. They have a lot of churches in this small rural town and almost as many bars ... I guess you have to even life out someway.
To long time readers this will come as no surprise. To new readers I might let you in on a secret ... I change my mind a lot. I don't have a lot of history on this blog to show that and back up the facts but long time readers can attest it's true.
So as I turned on my computer this morning and as always Google shows me 12 websites that I go to often, the small picture icon of this blog was one of the 12. Here is the problem ... I liked the way the blog looked in that picture better than my current blog home page.
Yet, that other one had all the links of information in the Footer of the blog and not on the Sidebar as it is now. I need to find a template (WordPress Theme) that has the look of the other one I used on Friday with the Sidebar I have today. With a day of rain in the forecast what better time than to look through templates again, using all of my data left with 4 days to go on my billing cycle ... and find a template that I like.
Luckily I have listed those I previewed and added an asterisk or a number of them to the ones I liked. It also occurred to me this morning when looking at my categories, I had nothing written here about the "Other Stuff" part of the blog. All of that history is on my old blog.
I could import all the posts and photos to this blog from the 6 year old blog on Blogger but the last time I tried that a year or so ago, there were a lot of issues between the different blog platforms. Blogger and WordPress don't play well together.
I'm okay with starting over, with what I consider a new blog. As I write about that "Other Stuff", categories will be added. But right now it's time for just one more cup of coffee and back to looking at templates.
(note: I know I shouldn't start a sentence with the word "But" and I also know I should place the period or question marks inside quotation marks) ... but to all the grammar police and spelling bee champions out there, I like starting a sentence that way and putting periods outside of quotation marks ... plus the spelling here will be only as good as the WordPress spellchecker. I am not a professional writer so you might find a mistake here and there when I write.
Yet, even on rainy days, its great living in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.