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.

Heidi Barking For Action

Here's Heidi in between her bouts of barking. Since I will never post a video, or a recording, you will just have to take my word for it. In the almost seven years I have had her I have found she barks for only two reasons ... it's time to eat or she is excited more than normal. Today she must have been excited about our return on our morning walk that was done four hours later than normal. I can explain later.

I could tell she was excited about today. Before I could even lift my camera into position she was already past the FJ. She never goes left but always to the right to relieve herself. So I was pretty sure she was going to join our morning walk at 11:30am. I can explain later.

As she strolled through the tall grass, even though it's been mowed every third day. I even raked that excess grass up the other day but once I had more on the mowing after that I decided I was not going to exert any more energy raking returning dead grass ... that will happen next fall in the 2018 Leaf Project. Yes, the field grew another 6" while we slept last night.

Okay, here's the reason for our late start to the day. Last night around 10:30pm I started watching a 4-star rated movie called Interstellar, filmed in 2014. I had never seen the movie so while the hounds were sleeping and I was wide awake after my three hour siesta in the afternoon, I decided to watch it ... not knowing it was going to take four hours with commercials. I thought about taping the rest of it so I could go to bed and then I could watch it later today ... but the movie was so good that I had to stay up for the end of the movie.

Sadie was hot after field mice?? Something was at ground level and she was hopping around faster than my camera could pick up ... why ???

Because Stella was taking off on her own walk at a faster pace than normal, while Heidi was inspecting the backyard for the perfect place to relieve herself. I had to keep an eye on Stella.

In less than 30 minutes after waking up, answering an email and eating a bowl of granola ... I had three hounds going three different directions ... this walk was was going to be hard and challenging. It's never a good sign seeing three hounds doing their own thing in three different directions ... ever!

I coaxed Heidi to return to the path off of the yard. I knew she would walk a little but based on what was taking place I was going to have to leave Heidi on her own and would not be able to linger back with her.  Why ???

Because Stella was moving out too far in front of us and picking her up pace. Sadie was nowhere close and I was still trying to comprehend starting my day four hours later than normal, maybe even four and a half hours later than normal.

I could tell immediately that Heidi didn't really want to walk the the half mile loop, she just wanted to check out the first 100' of the field and most likely would return home while Sadie, Stella and I continued on.

What is it that makes grass taste so good?

As Sadie and I were catching up with Stella before the first turn, Sadie had to make a quick dash to the left to hopefully get Stella back on the path but she was also in the middle of chasing small birds or mice in the field.

Those weren't deer tracks she was glued to ... something was trying to get away, running at ground level, so small that I saw nothing that could be leading Sadie on the chase.

So by this time I have Heidi out of sight way behind us, Stella was heading to my left and ignoring my calls to get back on the path. She had to be "temporarily" taken off her Freedom To Roam program, just for this walk. Sadie was pretty sure she heard me talking to myself out loud.

If you squint really hard you will see a little 'white' just off dead center of the picture ... that's Heidi enjoying her own exploration.

Don't be fooled by that photo. Stella did NOT come trotting over in our direction to join Sadie and I ... I had to walk over to her mumbling to myself, then leading her by her dog collar back to the path. She had no problem with that and actually trotted a little faster than I could lead her.

Sadie stops to check to see if we are really going on this walk or what is going on. Nothing has started smoothly on the half mile trek, yet she was fed breakfast at the normal time and lunch followed four hours later. She is ready to go just as soon as Stella and I are headed in the same direction.

Stella, as usual, cannot understand what all the concern is about so she reverts to her slower than slow pace just a little ways behind me and Sadie. With Heidi outside and in the field I knew it had to be below 80°, her threshold ... but with little humidity, the bugs, gnats and small mosquitoes were attacking me on my arms and legs ... I needed to get this walk over as soon as possible.

Yet we were not even at the halfway point. That still left plenty of time for the hounds to take their sweet time on this walk.

Once Sadie and Stella were finished checking out the back of the field, we make the turn for home and quickened the pace. Both of them walked the path right behind me, too close for camera range and we headed home. I kept Sadie moving by asking her "where's Heidi" ...

She took off running down the return path for the yard where Heidi had returned. Like always inside or outside, any time that Heidi returns inside or is there waiting for us, Sadie will always tap noses with her while on the run.

Stella and I were close to the yard and it certainly looked like Heidi was wanting to play a little bit. Whereas Winston would run or chase Sadie even with a big difference in size, Heidi has never done that with Sadie. I guess she found Sadie to be much bigger than the Greyhound she was living with when I rescued her.

With clean ears and no ticks inside them, it always feels good to a basset hound when they shake their heads hard enough to get some fresh air up inside the long ears. You can see that she is just starting the shaking process while Sadie thinks she is going to get to play a little.

Was Heidi barking because she was excited we had returned or because I left her behind??

Once she shook her head for the final time and then turned to sprint for the door, I decided she must have been barking because she wanted to go back inside where it was cool. Stella eventually showed up and she also trotted to the door to be let inside where it was cool. She was asleep behind my desk chair within minutes of walking inside.

You may have noticed a couple of slight changes in the blog post today. I wrote under the photo instead of on top of the photo as a description or the content that went with the photo. I also did not use small numbers if they were less than ten. A friend who had written a book, told me today that he found out from his editor that any number one through ten was to be spelled out and 11 or above could be typed as numbers.

I tried that here today but I cannot say that I am thrilled with that rule of the English language, so most likely I will revert back to breaking the rules on numbers and punctuation in the English language, starting with my next post.

Within two hours after starting our day, all of us were back on schedule. When it was 2pm it felt like 2pm ... so all is good. Once again it looks like rain but I am hoping it doesn't tonight since the Cubs are playing in Cincinnati. I will be back to my 'early to bed early to rise' routine starting tonight.

Even the shorter day is a good day in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.