Don't Know Yet

I keep having to pinch myself every morning as I pour my first cup of coffee to make sure that I am seeing another day of great weather. Where did it come from and how did it turn into a daily repeat. Mid to high 80's, low 60's at night, cool breeze in the morning and sunshine. So I was curious very late last night to check AccuWeather and see what the months of August and September might bring.

It was all the same, with a few days of rain which will be a welcomed sight. By late September we will drop to the low 80s to mid 70's thru October. So I didn't feel guilty at all today as another day passed with me doing nothing on the 'to do' list. A list that was postponed after reading a DYI article that put most of my tasks on the list of "Never do these in humid weather" ...

By the time I had finished taking all the photos of the field, the sky and the edge of the woods that are trying to grow wild blackberries ... both hounds were already by the first turn. Obviously they were more interested in eating today than tracking making it one of our harder walks.

No change in the status of Sadie's lump. Can you see it in the above photo?

The gully is usually passable in the summer with some slight overgrowth. I never go down into the gully because the floor of it is always wet, and ground soft enough to go over your shoes. I found that out over ten years ago when I was trying to find my other bloodhound Bertha (before Sadie).

If it is as thick as it looks then it's no wonder that I have not heard the ATV traffic in this area like I did last summer. Nor have we seen any deer at anytime day or night.

I waited and waited with the camera focused, holding it still and waiting for the butterfly to open its wings. It flew away just as it did. I wasn't able to catch it today with the wings fully open.

That roll of hay is on our return path. I walk around it on the right side to keep on the path. This morning Stella decided she would try a new route to that roll of hay. Of course she had no plans to walk around it ... but by it ... and try to escape to the woods straight ahead. Ignoring my calls I ended up following her and leading her by the collar back to the path. It's only Wednesday and I can see her theme of the week is to be as stubborn as possible, at least on the morning walks.

Everything is green.

I saw this just left of the house two photos above. So I put my camera on this spot and waited for the RV to fly by. Very nice.

Sadie was ready to head to the yard, then inside where it was cool. Stella could have stayed outside all day I think but the times I have tried that and went into the house without her ... it will not be 10 minutes later that she is standing by the door looking inside, wondering if she is going to get to come inside.

All you plant experts ... any ideas what has happened to this leaf?

After a late night last night downloading the new macOS beta on my iMac and laptop I started the day about an hour later than normal. I remembered that this time of year nothing gets done in the mornings until the Tour de France is over. That takes up most of my July as I like to watch it mid-morning, a taped copy that I start about the time they are actually finishing the race.

Our afternoon was a little different today. Since the temperature was only 82° we finished our afternoon walk a little before 3pm today. I also took my camera with me instead of taking Stella on the retractible leash. I wanted to see if I could see some butterflies, so I turned the 'beep' sound off on my camera that tells me the photo is in focus. This morning that small beep was making them fly away. Also that afternoon light is much better for taking photos.

The funny thing was I did not see one butterfly as I am making the first turn of the walk. They were out yesterday afternoon but not today so maybe we were too early.

Stella and I had walked around the roll of hay as we started our return ... Sadie decided she was going to get a little running in this afternoon. Everything may look green compared to where you live but this field is really dry. I could hear the grass 'crunch' with each step and was glad we didn't have fires anywhere near.

As I turned on our 'alternate path', here was the first butterfly up ahead. They were in the hover mode today and really didn't sit still to where they would spread their wings out all the way.

Sadie glanced up seeing Stella and I were way ahead ... she decided she didn't want to be left behind and started her second run of the walk.

It feels like a 10° drop in temperature as soon as we step inside the shade. I was already at the corner of the house ready to go inside but both bloodhounds were enjoying the shade.

You can see by two tongues hanging out, that Sadie and Stella felt it was a lot hotter than 82°. They will be wishing for this weather next December.

Phase III of my beta macOS is working better. I can see where Apple programmers have made some slight changes as they move to an official release this fall. They have made the font brighter than the grey color Phase I & II had. The computer wakes up faster from the sleep mode. Even in the Photo program, the edit button's font was changed to black making it much easier to read than the very light grey on a yellow button. So I guess they really do pay attention to the feedback sent in by beta users.

What is strange in this OS so far, when I log into my blog it sends me to the dashboard but when I click "view blog", where I either want to read or make comments on other blogs ... Safari and Google Chrome log me out ... Firefox keeps me logged in. You would think since Google owns Blogger which owns this blog that they would always keep me logged in. I have a feeling that Google and Apple will not work smoothly in the future when both platforms are used together.

They don't have their desktop page fixed yet, where the large pile of sand in the Mojave changes color depending on your location. For instance the sky and sand dune will get darker as it gets later.

For those that have either signed up to follow the blog by email or have requested me to put their email address in my automatic notification system inside the blog ... I don't have any answers on why it is not working properly. There is nothing I can do to change the code to make it work as I have to work with what Blogger has given me in their template.

The weird thing is, when I put my own email address into the box to notify me of a new post ... I received the invite immediately in my inbox asking me if I wanted to follow the blog. Other's say they never received the invitation email. When I signed up to follow by email by using the box on the right side of the blog page, I too have to wait 14-16 hours before I received an email copy of the latest blog post. To me that is not right either.

Since I have no answers I suggest to those readers that still want to follow the blog on your own. Click the title 'Hounds and Other Stuff'. That will load the correct URL in the address bar, for you to either copy and paste into your Feedly Reader account or add it to your blog roll. If you do not have a Feedly Reader account and/or a blog ... then bookmark the blog or make it a favorite (depending on your operating system) and click on your bookmark/favorite when you are wanting to read the blog. If there is a new post it will automatically be at the top of the home page.

Hard to believe another week is halfway over here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella Is A Funny Bloodhound

It's hard not to start taking this beautiful weather for granted. It's Indiana and it will change eventually but right now I'll take what it gives me day after day. Since I am a fan of hot weather, the heat and humidity does not bother me. Spring and Fall are still great times of the year also, it's those weeks in December and January where you think about packing up, throwing a for sale sign in the front yard and get out of town. You can see we started our walk this morning in the same weather of low humidity, high 60's and most of our path in the shade.

This will give you some idea just how wet the field is. It will also show you just how much of the field is full of wild plants, some weeds and very little grass.

Can anyone tell me what the 'theme of the walk' was???  You guessed it, and it made the walk slow and slower.

A fine example of Stella's blocking out all verbal comments, direction or begging.

That spot might look huge but it is a 1/4" thick, a little less than Wednesday when it was discovered. This morning there was no fluid that I could feel. There isn't a feeling of a 'rock' in that area but the same feeling if you were rubbing your hand along the side of her. I just brushed her undercoat out yesterday afternoon and can see more coming out this morning.

It was going to warm up to 91° today but with the humidity so much lower than normal, it doesn't feel that bad when we take our early evening or late afternoon walk. Stella now waits for me in the carport for me to hook the retractable leash to her collar, only on the afternoon walk.

Here is a good photo of Sadie's right side, the lump was barely noticeable this morning.

I was at the point of making the final turn toward home. Needless to say I had to wait quite a while until the hounds joined up with me. I decided while I waited I'd take a few photos of any flowers I found.

Galen posted on her blog last Friday that these are poisonous. This is the only one I saw in the field this morning.

Both hounds stopped to look and listen as we approached the north yard. Looking in the direction of the next door neighbor I wondered if they were smelling a late breakfast or heard something out of my hearing range.

At times Stella is hilarious. She stood next to this tree doing nothing, looking at nothing so evidently she needed a little shade to cool off before she came inside. I didn't call her this morning so when she was finished standing there she came trotting to the house on her own.

Poor "backyard breeding" gave Sadie shorter ears than most bloodhounds have. Yet as a 8 week old puppy the length of the ears passed the test by wrapping around the front of her nose when pulled out straight. It was 10 years ago next month that Winston and I drove a few miles north of town to see her. Her parents were there so we could see them. Both of them had bloodhound features of a hound that would be in a dog show. I wonder what happened in the breeding process ??

She is a great bloodhound though and actually surprised me how calm down she has become after being a destruction monster her first three years. I would not trade her for any other bloodhound.

Even though the temps were slowly creeping to 91°, it was still very nice mid-afternoon. I thought after lunch it might be time to sit outside. I would let the bloodhounds roam the field and I thought Heidi would probably take her spot in front of my chair as I looked out at Sadie ... That wasn't the case. You can almost tell that Stella and Heidi had no other plans but to get back inside where they could sleep with air conditioned air.

Trained to be a house dog at 12 weeks old, Sadie always knows that after every meal it's time to go outside, find a good spot in the field and relieve herself. Ten years later she still remembers.
 

Stella and Heidi decided to put their brains together in deciding what to do. It did not look like they had come to any conclusion as I swung my chair onto "Winston's Patio". It felt hot but it didn't feel that hot ... it was nice with a slight breeze, no bugs ... Heidi and Stella never came to the backyard so I knew that was a sign that they would not be outside too long.

Sadie had those same thoughts as she galloped back to the yard. Her job was done and it was time to go back inside.

Since Sadie is the 'team leader', she always makes sure the hounds are accounted for and no one is left outside. Only today was different. Heidi was at the door waiting for all of us ... and Sadie found out what it's like to be ignored by Stella. She (Stella) is in her own world most of the time.

Stella was taking a quick noon nap and was in such a deep sleep I didn't want to wake her up ... about 30 minutes later she was at the door wanting in, wondering where we had gone.

For those Apple users that are curious about the new macOS that will come out this fall, a new iOS is due at the same time. I am using the beta version of the macOS on my iMac and laptop but not on my iPhone as I plan to wait until the official release this for before I make that change. Last night I decided to go back to the "Light" version which is the background that all of us are use to. It wasn't 10 minutes that I went back into settings and changed it back to 'Dark' ... that is how much I like the new idea of a Dark background. It is a huge difference when you start using it.

The mind and advertising is an amazing thing, even the mind and your smart phone was/is programmed intentionally so you become addicted to it. Ask yourself if you can go 15 minutes without checking for email or a new text ???

Anyway we all understand the history of advertisements. I'll not go into it because it's too much to write about here and I can't write that long today. My story starts a few weeks ago when I was checking out different stereo receivers and amplifiers at Best Buy because my 34 year old Yamaha Control Amp finally broke. My shopping trips are usually pretty disciplined, and nothing more than in, buy and out. I do all my research online before I decide to buy or head to the store.

Of course they have the stereo receivers near the Home Theaters which have to be next to that huge wall of 4K UHD TVs ... not to hard to figure out their plan of attack.

My Samsung HDTV is 8 years old. It's only job is to provide movies every once in a while, ballgames every night and 14 straight hours of college football on Saturdays between August 30 and through the bowl games ending the first part of January. By that time college basketball has taken it's place. So the TV does get a work out but not for news nor prime time tv shows.

A week or so ago as I was walking through Best Buy to pick up the Amplifier I had decided to buy, my peripheral vision couldn't help but notice those fantastic tv pictures that covered the huge wall to the right of me. With more pixels and eight more years of technical development I could tell a big difference between their tv picture and my tv picture. Luckily I got out of the store unscathed and bought only what I intended to buy.

When things are slow, my mind wanders. In freezing winter days it's about moving, before each holiday it's about "deals or holiday discounts on electronics" and when you are 51 days from the first college football game in 2018, the mind turns it's focus to TVs ... a dream of tv's on the wall like a Sports Book in any Las Vegas Casino ... a wall of ballgames.

Today I shocked myself.

After a few days of careful analysis, the Stanley tape measure giving me a better visual with what I would be working with, plus digging into my Samsung Remote Control to make a few minor picture adjustments to keep up with eyes that need a new glasses prescription ... I was ready to do it. I was ready to buy a new 4K UHD TV. I would either sell my HDTV or keep it as a second TV giving me the capability to watch more games at once.

Hounds were fed, let out long enough to relieve themselves and when the hounds heard the words "I gotta go" in my sentence ... Sadie and Stella trotted to the bedroom and by the time I finished brushing my teeth Stella was asleep. Heidi had taken her place back on the couch and was stretched out as far as she possibly could.

But ... I wanted to take another look at my tv picture quality .. I had a tennis match to look at, some NASCAR practice, NFL replay games from last fall and an F1 Race on the DVR from last weekend.

That old (8 yrs) tv has a great picture ... not even bad enough to make a change.

The shocker came when I opened the bedroom door to let the bloodhounds out and then switched back to my cargo shorts/t-shirt and told the hounds I wasn't going anywhere ....

I'll stick with HDTV ... at least for today ... LOL

If any of you have made the switch from HD to 4K UHD+ TV ... let me know if you like the difference and if you think it was worth it.

Otherwise another great day here in 'the Tropics Of Southern Indiana" with two baseball games on tonight back to back, ending in San Diego.

The Hounds Take A Day Off

It was another nice day today, with the morning walk taken in 71° weather and a slight cool breeze from the south. The big difference was, my feet were dry during and after the walk, in a field that had heavy rain-like dew in the shaded areas. How did that happen? I wore my North Face snow boots again, just like last summer. Stella was so excited about walking this morning she was the first one out the door with a big nose to nose race between her and Sadie, on who would be first outside.

With the sun reflection this morning different than yesterday's late afternoon, I had a better view of the mowed yard. I couldn't help but post this photo this morning after admiring the change a sharp blade made yesterday. July brown is the lawn color of many houses here locally. We do not have a water shortage, nor is it expense to use water but I don't see a lot of people that water their lawns like I have in the past. I have not watered my yard in years and doubt that I do this summer.

As Stella stepped into the field ahead of me I was happy I made the choice that I did in footwear. As of this morning there is no need to look for another pair of cheap rain boots that are low cut, not the ones that are knee high. The snow boots will do the job and it's only a 15 minute walk at the most. There is no other time in yard work that I get my feet wet.

Sadie was back in her routine of exploring scent during her walk instead of eating, like yesterday.

Stella was also back in her old routine of ignoring anything verbal and wandering with no specific plan in place. I wish I could be as laidback as she is. It took a lot of verbal herding of her today to finish the morning walk. There were even three separate times I had to backtrack and just the touch of her collar got her to move in our direction. Much like the mother I saw the other day in Walmart with her young child ... but there no collar was involved.

I am sure the gardening and plant experts can name this as soon as they see it. I can't. If a name or a plant is related to sports then I am pretty quick recognizing something. Otherwise my memory sucks on plant names, song names, shopping lists and what I had for breakfast yesterday.

Stella followed her path slowly angling towards Sadie and I. She seemed to be feeling pretty good today as I witnessed a little more energy from her this morning. Of course when you compare her speed this morning against 'slow motion' I guess anyone or any hound would look energized.  LOL

Sadie heard nothing, saw nothing, tasted nothing ... only smells were her focus this morning.

As soon as she gets back inside after these morning walks, she sleeps soundly all the way until lunch is served. Where was Heidi this morning on such a nice day .... stretched out on the couch snoring.

Thanks to a couple of comments yesterday, I left my camera setting at 'auto no flash' and will keep it there. Now my brain is searching the difference in distance .. this was taken at 135mm. I wonder how long these rolls of hay will stay here? Obviously they don't need the hay until this winter, but they usually have it picked up within a month of baling it. Not this year.

As we made the first turn this morning, the air was full of birds singing. No butterflies were seen and that beagle we saw yesterday was nowhere on the horizon ... I kept looking for it just in case.

I've never been able to get rid of those 'elephant skin' patches you see on Stella. Different creams have been tried, all the creams were for canines only.

Unlike yesterday, at this point of the morning walk, I had nothing in my mind for today's plan. When you are retired you really don't need a plan but what it showed me, that brief one day slap in the face motivation had vanished as fast as it appeared yesterday. Unless I want to drive to Bloomington to pick up a new turntable, I didn't get anything done besides watching the Reds game in Chicago this afternoon.

Turntable???? Did I say a turntable??? Yes I did. At 34 years old, with a new belt, that old LP vinyl record was sounding great the other day as it streamed through my brand new Yamaha receiver. Then a strange noise ...  then a screeching noise!!! I knew something major had happened. With my small camping LED flashlight I was able to find the cause. When a stylus is that old, plastic ages and breaks. The stylus needle had broken off from the cartridge.

After spending a few days online searching for a stylus replacement and then a cartridge replacement, I was finding that the replacements suggested of course were priced high, throw in some shipping cost and I was approaching the cost of a new turntable ... that was a MODERN turntable ... they now connect a USB cord to your computer so you an download songs from a vinyl LP into an MP3 file. Pretty amazing.

So yesterday morning, or was it Friday morning ? ... I started going through all of my vinyl records to see how many were duplicated when I bought a CD years ago. I wanted to double check on whether I really needed a turntable or not.  Luckily I did not have to go through the whole collection. Halfway through the first handful of albums, almost every album I looked at was not on cassette tape nor CD ... "case closed" I'll get a new turntable. Those LPs that I did see I wanted to play again. {By late afternoon I had almost decided to not buy a turntable but to take that same money and purchase those albums that were only on vinyl, electronically or on a CD. I may rethink that option whether to spend money on something that may not be used a lot.}

It was about this same spot yesterday that I saw a glimpse of something up ahead by the edge of the field, not knowing if it was a rabbit or a small dog. I double checked this morning to see if the beagle had come back but not really expecting to see it. I had a feeling it was just visiting neighborhood yesterday.

I am not sure how many of you have dogs. Nor do I know if you take your dogs for walks off leash, giving them total freedom, but this is a fine example of a bloodhound being stubborn, just as their AKC description states. It is also shows it was one of three times I had to walk back to 'start' to grab her collar to get her to move in our direction. Some times Stella was start walking our direction once she sees me walking towards her. Sadie is standing right behind me when I took this photo ... also waiting.

I like this view of the field ... it is a good way to show what kind of day to expect ... minus high temperature readings. It won't be long before all those green leaves will be different colors.

Looking at the treeline of the Mahogany trees behind the house as I walked back home, I noticed a section that did not have leaves this year. I wonder why? That is just not one Mahogany tree like my friend thought it was a few years ago but a group of small ones. As I type this I am following that leafless tree limb down toward the bottom of the photo and know it's a single limb a few feet away from the others ... and I remember it was like this last summer also. It looks healthy.

This section is to the north of the front yard on the field side of the property line. I know why these trees look like they do. It was a couple of years ago when I decided to burn all the dead leaves and brush that had collected over many years between the saplings on the north side of the yard. The flames were high enough to shoot up into those trees and was so big that a car passing by on the highway decided they would call the fire department for me. He didn't know that I had things under control. It didn't take long for the local volunteer fire department to put my fire out. Like the bank on the opposite side, the bare ground from burning brought back that same wild growth 3x as thick.

I have said it before but I need a chair up in this area. To me this is the best part of the yard. A good 10° cooler even in the hottest days of summer. That single tree in the center of the photo is the tree that has no leaves. It is not a problem mowing and trimming the grass around it but maybe I should cut it down to ground level.

With the mower raised back up one notch to a 3" cut I will be able to miss a week in my mowing schedule. We are looking at a couple of days it might rain but in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana, those forecasts can change within 5 minutes.

The afternoon turned out to be a pretty lazy day. I watched the Reds game until 5:15pm when Sadie couldn't wait any longer for her her afternoon walk. A little too hot for me but we took off anyway as the Reds game looked like it was going into extra innings.

I had planned for some afternoon photos but the hounds had other ideas. While they were outside after lunch I was pouring a new 40lb bag of dog food into the sealed storage container. I grabbed the camera expecting that Heidi might be sunbathing in the front yard while the bloodhounds roamed the field.

How wrong I was ... all three were standing at the door wanting back inside. Within 5 minutes ... all three hounds had chosen their afternoon napping spots and were sound asleep. So with a little free time until the baseball game I installed Firefox Quantum on my laptop, imported all the current bookmarks and did the latest updates to Firefox. Now that I have blocked autoplay for videos, I really like using that browser. It has the security of Safari and the features of Google Chrome.

The suns reflection told me the Z4 needs washed. With the rain no longer in the 5 day forecast I'll wash it in the morning and then do a little weed pulling in front.

It turned out to be a pretty lazy Sunday, not really a surprise after all the work I did outside yesterday. I have a tape of the IndyCar race today in Iowa and the 2nd Stage of the Tour de France to watch tonight.

Otherwise the weather was beautiful again today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.