Lake Greenwood

As I pulled into the parking lot of the marina I had an unexpected welcoming party. They totally caught me off guard as the two adults and one fawn walked slowly in front of my car. I forgot I had my glasses on. I never take photos with my glasses on. I didn't know whether to grab the iPhone or the Nikon D3200 that I had brought with me. Luckily they were not afraid of me nor were they in a hurry ... I still acted fast, too fast so I could catch them on camera before they ran away.

I grabbed the Nikon, while forgetting to roll down the passenger side window. The window was dirty but not bad photos considering I was rushing around, a little panic, excited and my ballcap bill in the way when I tried to use the viewfinder.

I wasn't able to catch the three of them with one photo but I did catch the last two.

They stood and watched as I drove slowly away to park my car in a vacant parking lot.

One last glance to see who and what I am. Stella and Heidi would have loved this. It's one reason I never bring them down to this area. These mule deer are very common at all hours of the day or night. They fear nothing.

By the time I parked my car down by the boat ramp, walked across the parking lot and up to the restrooms (locked), they were within arms reach it seemed as I glanced out from behind the building.

They finally realized I was standing there taking photos of them and took off

Some of you have seen photos of this lake before. I've taken photos here and posted pictures on my other blog in May 2015. Click here to see more photos of the lake and area in Spring.  I also came back in October 2016 to take more photos. You will have to scroll much lower in the article to see the fall colors surrounding the lake. Click here for that article.

Today all the rental boats, canoes, kayaks are put away for the winter. Offices are locked and basically I had the whole 800 acre lake to myself. It is a man-made lake, surrounded by 108 square miles of some of the prettiest land in Southern Indiana.

At 38° there were a few still around but it was totally silent, no cars, no people, no traffic, no jet noise ... nothing ... just quiet.

This is my poor attempt at a panoramic photo moving from right to left in the next four photos.

That land is full of campgrounds, mostly tent camping. There are buildings for cookouts and if you have 4-wheel or all-wheel drive you can take single track dirt/gravel roads back into those woods as deep as you want to camp.

When I was writing the post this morning I knew I was going to have to go to the grocery store for fruit and almonds if nothing else. It dawned on me that if I went a different direction not only could I shop but also visit Lake Greenwood and take some photos. I've never been down there in the month of January before.

One thing that is very nice about this facility, is that it is semi-private. Unless you have a government employee badge or a military ID card (active or retired), you will not get inside the 108 square miles. I might be wrong on that ... it changes depending what the security level is, so at times a government employee or military personnel can bring civilians on base. As far as coming alone, not going to happen without a government ID.

This government facility is the 3rd largest Naval installation in the world ... not the USA. Yet, there isn't a naval ship anchored anywhere near this land locked base. In fact, five years ago it had less than 80 active duty military personnel out of 6,000 - 8,000 employees.

Over the past 50 years it has evolved from being the largest bomb producer in the Viet Nam War, to high-tech development for all branches of service, ships or aircraft. Only government employees or government contractors work at this facility.

So you are probably asking yourself the same question I asked myself before leaving this morning ... would this facility be open during the current government shutdown? I thought the grocery store might be closed but the lake area would be accessible. I'd take that chance.

As I stopped at the gate to show my ID card, to my surprise, the security officer told me the base was not closed. In fact this facility for some reason was not affected by the government shutdown that is currently going on. I remember when I worked here in 2013 I was sent home between 10-14 days during a shutdown. (can't remember) But not now??? Interesting.

I admit I did a little editing to make the sky bluer and that automatically helped with the color of the water in the panoramic photos. Otherwise you wouldn't see much color, even with the sunshine.

I've sailed, paddled a canoe and a kayak on this lake for as far as the eye can see ... then further. The shelter is nice for cook-outs and it's always quiet due to the accessibility or lack there of, to the general public.

It was nice to get out on such a bright sunny day. No signs that Stella attempted any escapes today while I was gone. Heidi must have kept a tight leash on Stella and well under control.  :)

I felt much better when I got back. It's a nice drive to and from. Perfect weather for the month of January. While the hounds slept their afternoon away after they ate lunch, I answered some emails, replied to comments, added a border around all the images and listened to an old favorite band of mine ... Jethro Tull.  LOL ... I know.

All is good in ''the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Summer Is Ending

As it happens every August, plants, crops, flowers change and show the end of summer is near. The bees and butterflies disappear until next year. I caught a couple of insects in these photos that I did not see when I took the picture of the flowers. It was cool this morning but will be hot today and hotter tomorrow. Will September be our "payback" month and be hotter than normal?

I've started watering the bank in back. Bare spots were starting to show with the lace of recent rain. Geraniums are still hanging in there and look better today than they day I planted them.

I'm headed to the Crane Greenwood Lake today ...

My First Post By Invitation Only

Well it's been an interesting couple of days. If you are able to read this post, you know why I went private and 'by invite only'. Blogger has two different ways to do this ... I have added your email address to a list of approved readers. If you are reading this you already know that Blogger asked you to log in to read the blog.

I am not sure how that works for those that don't blog on blogger and if it matters where your email address is coming from. Let me know if this process causes you problems.

The other way, Blogger tells me I can add your email addresses to a list where you will send the blog to you by email when I post something new. For those that have already signed up to follow by subscription I am not sure if me going private will block your feeds that you have signed up for ... so just in case I will add your email to an email list.

Early in the evening yesterday, after I had gotten back and was sitting here trying to wrap my fingers around someone looking in my house, not invited, and a stranger ... I heard some big slow moving noises on the highway and was pretty sure it was the combines to harvest the soy beans across the highway.

I guessed right and closed all my windows to control the amount of dust that would blow up to my house ... it does because I can see how much on my cars.

I was too confused/pissed over the daily event to go out and take more pictures of their progress but they were loading trucks late into the night ... even for a field that small. By this morning everything was finished ... or I thought. They continued to fill up these trailers multiple times as they returned empty.

The hounds and I slept in late this morning. That means we get up at 8am no matter how late I am up, feed them breakfast and I go back to sleep while they are eating. They all sleep after their breakfast until I get up.

We were on our first walk around noon.

Stella stayed near Sadie and I ... it was different for her.

They really like that right corner of the field but today they picked up a strong scent and headed left.

Sadie has a very strong ability for tracking, better than Stella.

As we made the turn for home, they both take off trotting. They knew where they were going and what was there.

Whatever it is, it must be good.

Stella always looks disappointed when I tell her to "come on".

After lunch we head out for a short trip outside. I had just received a text from my old college friend, who was bringing his canoes to a lake close to my house. It was a chance to go canoeing.

Once again Heidi found one of her favorite spots. That pipe is a capped off water well from 1975. The have been on 'city' water every since. At least that is what I was told.

This is part of my overgrown yard and will be mowed over on Wednesday ... as will all the fallen leaves.

By 2:30 I was down at Lake Greenwood, somewhat of a private lake because it's on government property. Since the lake is closed for the season very little if any traffic and it's only a few to fish or people with a canoe.

A few years ago, this same friend brought up his small sailboat that we took out, but there wasn't enough wind to sail. Yet, it's great for canoeing and great to fish in.

We canoed way past that area to the left ... almost 3 hours total time on the water. A good workout and I'm sure I might feel it by tonight.

Since Ralph has been using a 35mm camera since I met him in 1975, I asked him about my recent photos ... that seemed out of focus to me. He immediately gave me the solution, so from this photo on ... my photos should be much better.

Neither one of use took cameras on the canoes with us, so when we came back and got my canoe out of the water (48lbs), he grabbed his camera to take some across the lake of in area we both agreed would be a great photo. It gave me a chance to try the new setting.

My photo sequence was with him all the way to the boat ramp, but I chose to only go this far.

The setting on my camera had been set to "auto area focus" instead of "single point". What I was getting was a lot of blurred photos of the hounds and a sharp clear photo of the grass they were walking or running on.

Like up above I wanted a clear photo of the combine but it was blurred while my leaves along the fence line were perfect.

A family across the water, where I took photos from in April or May 2015, were the only ones tent camping ... so after we left, that family had the whole lake to themselves as well as all the woods ... plus if you didn't have some sort of government, government contractor or military id card, you would not be able to get inside the huge area similar to a National Forest, let alone find the lake .. one way in, one way out.

I have other news ... quite surprising but something I had been working with off and on. I mentioned some part of it in recent posts. I'll include new photos and a story of how it all transpired in tomorrows post. It will shock most of you, but as usual a lot of analysis was done before the decision was made.

That is if my "invited readers" can see and read this blog.

Really, all is good here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana ... but a few things to think about and to keep an eye on. I've been here 19 years and have never seen anyone looking in my house.