The Hounds Battle Frost This Morning

With my iPhone weather telling me it was 30° outside I decided to try something different with my North Face jacket that is for warmer temps ... I wore a down vest under it, keeping me warm and freeing my arms to move more than if I had worn my ski parka. With the combination of frost and heavy dew I did not hear the grass and leaves crunching under my boots. Stella enjoyed some frozen green grass before she started her walk this morning.

Also for the first time I turned the heat on low last night while we slept. I keep my house temps pretty cool but I knew it would drop below our threshold since it was going to drop below freezing while we slept.

Contessa made a comment on yesterday's post that none of the hound walks were routine, that each was different. I forget that sometimes since we walk the same path in the same field and seems to be the central point of this blog anymore. I guess I need to get out and drive the local area more, taking photos of that.

This walk was started off entirely different than recent walks. From the start Stella headed north while Sadie and I walked out into the field due east. For some reason I didn't want to let Stella head that direction on her own today. I found out the reason until I came back at the end of the walk.

On the way back, taking the alternate path to the corner of the north property line, both hounds stopped and stared next door and was almost starting to run after the neighbor. He had backed his pickup truck down the driveway to pick up his trash cans by the highway and bring them back to his house. Sadie and Stella thought he might need help.

I had to yell "No" to keep them with me and herd them back toward the house. If I had left Stella on her own I have no doubt that now only would she have been next door but down by the highway once she saw the neighbor step out of his truck.

So I walked over to the middle of the lower field and told Stella she needed to come my direction. After a few steps with me back toward the path, she took off running to catch Sadie and both of them were off due to what their noses had picked up.

I had not made the first turn yet when I glanced down and my hiking boots were completely soaked. It looked like some of that dew had froze just a little. My feet were still warm and dry.

When I see a look like this from Sadie it's time to be aware of what might be in our area and I might have to take off running.

Then I see Stella in this pose and I am almost certain I am going to have to run after them this morning when I am really not in the mood to jog. I only jog to and from the fridge during a close game on tv and it's a short 30 second timeout. I only jog in this field when I am desperate in catching the hounds.

We must have missed the deer by minutes or just an hour. It didn't matter by the way the hounds acted. As far as they were concerned, deer were just ahead of them and reachable if they ran fast enough.

Consequently they were way ahead of me.

About the time I convinced myself that I would be jogging, then running along the back edge of the field heading north ... both hounds made an abrupt right turn into the far right corner where the deer scent was stronger. That was good for me as that part of the field would do the 'herding' for me.

It was at this point of the walk with them picking up their pace that I yelled "Hey" ... getting both of them to stop and let me catch up. Otherwise they were gone.

We were back in the 'walking' mode and the chase for potential deer was over. Their pace slowed to a walk, I did not have to jog or run and we were back to a leisure morning stroll in the cold air.

Stella's nose and ears were telling her there was still something within reach ... luckily she decided whatever it was it was not important enough to take off running after it. I saw nothing on the north horizon.

I have declared my Mahogany tree, a series of 3-4 trees making it look as one (red) ... the 2017 Fall Color Champion. I don't see the other trees making a comeback before their leaves fall off.

With the excitement of tracking deer scent over it was time to head back home. By the way my face felt I was sure the wet noses of the hounds were cold also. That doesn't even phase them though as they are built for cold freezing weather.

I wasn't sure how my photos of the frost were going to look on the blog as I took them, so I took a few different ones and posted them.

The hounds seem to be making the 'alternate' path the normal morning path back to the house. My Garmin VivoSmart watch tells me there is no difference in distance compared to taking the normal route.

More frost examples.

The plan was to mow the yard, mulching the grass and leaves later this afternoon when the temps are above 60°. The front yard grass needs mowing, it's tall enough but this picture made me second guess my decision. I might just rake the small amount of leaves and burn them on the burn pile, leaving the length of the yard as is.

That's the type of tough decisions you have when you are retired and doing nothing.

Could be scent from cats, squirrels, rabbits or even that ugly opossum I saw the other night across the highway as I pulled into my driveway. Whatever it was the hounds tracked it right to the end of the walk.
 

I have had no issues and good results in data use the past two days using Firefox as my browser. For someone that likes changing their mind a lot it's nice to have different browsers, different cars, and different jackets to choose from. My total data use yesterday and last night was less than 500Mb which is good to stay within my 20gigs per month.

The AT&T mail flyer told me they would pay up to $650 for me to switch from Verizon. They would let me upgrade from a iPhone 6s to the new 8's for very little money. I would then have unlimited data for my internet and streaming via DirecTv.

I had seen and heard of AT&T offers like that and already had been told in the past they did not have that service in my area in small town USA ... even with that tower you see photo'd in our walks at times being AT&T. Also, my neighbor told me his AT&T service paid for by his company that he works for, did not work well in this area but works great SW of Lubbock TX.

So I had to call them.

Same results ... they do not service my area with all of that unlimited data on internet, and streaming tv.

I am sure their internet service would never match HughesGen 5 speeds I have. It tested at 47Mbps yesterday afternoon. It's been that fast 99% of the time since I made the change 2.5 years ago.

I've done nothing to the Z4, so I can drive it to the body shop a mile away for an estimate and have them fix the damage I had the last week of September. It's all plastic under the front with a grill and air shields that need to be replaced. I just need to either take the broke pieces off or tape them with duct tap so they can see what the damage is.

A night off from the World Series will give me the chance to watch Stanford at Oregon State at 9pm. I am telling a few friends I am predicting by the end of the season Mike Riley will be fired at Nebraska and will go back home and take the Oregon State job (its open now) for his 3rd different time in his coaching career.

Sadie wants lunch but it's too early, even with her stare down right now. Heidi will come up for air from under her blankets around lunch time. Stella is not ready.

Another good day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella's Back On Track

The day started early with Sadie waking up and wanting to go outside at oh-dark-thirty in the morning. Let just say it was a quick awakening standing outside with her in those low temps.

It was okay though, I had a couple of things I needed to do and wanted to get to their offices when they opened at 8:30am. That gave me time to get a couple of cups of Seattle's Best coffee into my bloodstream, let the hounds out a couple of times, check weather, news, sports and texts from friends.

It looks like they have left some pretty good wood behind. I don't know if they plan to let it lay there and rot or have friends come in and cut it up for their own use.

Over towards the corner of the field, it looks like the tree clearing was contracted out by the local utility company, maybe AT&T. Their phone lines and utility power lines follow that gravel road to the closed steel bridge then goes across the creek to the main road on the other side.

I drove over to one of two local BMV's (DMV to some) and registered the Mini Cooper S Countryman this morning. The office in my town cut back their office hours to two days per week a few years ago, so I go to another small town about 12 miles away that is open three days per week.

I guess the man that owns the dealership where I bought the Mini Cooper knew what he was talking about when he said I could use the truck plates from the FJ on this car. The title listed it as a "Wagon", not a passenger car while the VIN online shows it's an SUV. The AWD had nothing to do with it. Because it was a 'wagon' I can use a 'truck plate' that I have transferred over the years from truck - FJ - FJ - Mini.

I only renewed them to my expiration date in April 2017 because I am not sure if I'll keep the 'truck' plate on the car but I do know that I don't want the new 2017 Indiana plate they voted for this past summer. Indiana is one of the few states that change their license plate design every 5 years. Most of the best designs always get discontinued.

At the same time they are also one of the few states that give you over 30 different plates to choose from where your additional payment of $40 is donated to that specific organization and some of it to the state. So between now and April I'll decide if the 'truck' plate stays on the Mini Cooper S or I buy a specialty plate or a personalized plate.

I also stopped by the court house on the way back to check on my property tax as well as some explanation on what is the correct property line. There is no issues with the property line but everyone involved seems to have their own idea. At this time of day, the BMV and Court House did not have waiting lines so I was back home by 9:03am.

It was time for a walk, earlier then normal. The hounds agreed and we were off a little before 9:15am for the first walk of the day. Heavy frost made the grass and leaves on the ground even louder with each step. No wind made it nice and Stella continued walk along with us without a leash.

There were a few "come on" and a lot of "good dog" along our walk. She is now sitting beside me at 10:54am wanting to be fed her lunch a few hours earlier than normal. I say a few hours earlier because I normally feed them at 11:30am  but she has been letting me know she wants to eat since 9:30am this morning. As I wrote this, she had not got to the stage where she howls ... but if I don't have the kibble poured out soon, that will be her next step.

I don't really celebrate Christmas anymore and haven't for years, so that may be the reason it doesn't seem like Christmas yet this year. Yet, I usually get a feeling of the holidays even though I don't do much out of the ordinary. So far not this year it just hasn't felt like Christmas is this close.

I was hoping to use some new 'used' cross country skis here in the field this week. A couple of weeks ago the forecast looked like it was going to snow this week. That weather outlook has changed to rain and high 50's by this weekend. Plus we never got the snow last week that was predicted. January and February could be a big month of snow this year.

I watched my last show of the season last night on the National Geographic channel. It's called Continent #7, with a team of scientists from New Zealand doing research and collecting data from the purest environment on the planet as well different wales. It was amazing to see how such small sample sizes could be loaded into a computer to download data, videos and how they collected this data.

The planet is getting warmer based on all the data they have collected over the years in Antarctica.

This morning Stella continued to be out front for the walk. She showed no urge to lag behind in those spots she would never leave just a few days ago. Also neither one headed for the far right corner this morning.

They almost acted as if they were getting cold and wanted to get back to the house ... just a guess.

Some of the pictures this morning were edited, while others were straight from the camera and not touched. I think in most cases I like the UN touched pictures the best.

I actually thought when we started the walk there might be a good chance to see some deer. I have no idea what hours they are out but 9:15am seemed to be a good time this past summer when we did see them. A few days ago about a half mile down the road in a small field I counted at least 10 deer grazing as I drove by.

There is always a difference how each hound positions their tail when their nose is buried to the ground. At times it is the only way I can tell which is Stella and which is Sadie in some pictures.

As we made the turn for home, they both ran past me and took off.

One more short stop on the way though. When they saw me walking by them, the decided to move too.

The could have swore they heard me say something about food when we got back to the house ... it stopped them right in their tracks.

It seems like every day I am adding something new to my Spring To-Do list ... it could be a busy spring and summer this year, unlike 2016.

A cool but sunny day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Hounds Feel The First Frost

I could tell from the start, it was colder than it had been this morning. While I walked through the kitchen to let the hounds outside, the open window told me wearing cargo shorts may not be an option today.

Camera in hand as usual for the first pictures of the, I heard the grass and leaves crunching like potato chips with each step as Sadie headed for the field.

Stella decided she would come back outside later when it was a little warmer.

By 9:30am we were on the first walk of the day and I must admit, it was colder than I expected ... or it might have been the cargo shorts I was wearing. We continued on ...

As with each new day there are new scents for the hounds to explore but this morning they both locked into something and took off running around the first turn before I was even near that point. I had to use the 200mm setting to catch their running pictures.

They flew by that one spot on the right side that has been holding their interest the past couple of weeks and it was obvious they were not going to wait for me to catch up. I was actually expecting some deer activity as I turned the corner.

They stopped just for a few seconds to see if I was coming, then bolted into the field with a lot of activity that I did not catch with the camera. Sadie was moving in all kinds of different directions, many more than what the pictures show.

It was good that both of them got some running in and plenty of nose exercise.

It's funny to think back to when my neighbor bought this field through another neighbor's estate sale. He told me he was thinking of planting corn in the field, while alternating it with soy beans each year ... I am glad that didn't happen. It's really nice to have access to this property just behind the house.

I took this next picture directly into the sun. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but I liked the shadows I was seeing. I'm sure with a polarized lens filter, I could have changed the quality of the picture.

Sadie had her nose to the ground toward the end of the walk all the way through the yard up to the corner of the gravel driveway. With Stella acting about the same way, there must have been a lot of animal activity near the house last night as we slept.

Stella held this pose for a while ... I have no idea what she had picked up on.

That is about all the leaves I have left in the backyard to rake, all the way over to the house. There is about the same amount in the front yard. The mahogany tree is leafless but the sycamore tree by the driveway still has large leaves on the top half of the tree.

I am thinking Monday we will complete rounding up the leaves for 2016.

Nothing out of the ordinary planned for Saturday. Typical day and night of college football, with a walk or two for the hounds slid in between games or at halftimes. With less than two hours until the first games kickoff, the only decisions on the table to be made are ... do I change my cargo shorts to jeans ... and do I make a fast run to the store for some groceries.

It's sunny but chilly here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.