Anything Political Deleted

Some of you may be wondering where Heidi has been. She has been doing a lot of this along with her daily movement from one sleeping spot to another throughout the day. She will have sudden bursts of energy, running a few laps around the house inside. Of course she took a walk yesterday afternoon only because I didn't have my camera with me. She's good.

Monday morning Stella had other ideas on how we should start our week. I admit, I did see some very tiny rain drops hitting the back of my camera and it had rained most of the morning before we attempted to walk. She wasn't going anywhere yesterday. She turned and went back to the door as I followed her back inside without any morning walk.

Today was different. I'm sitting here mid-morning with all the windows open with a slight breeze and a lot of bird activity. I think I saw them building a nest in my front gutter yesterday afternoon. They are going to have to find a different spot because anything like a nest in my gutter will be removed this afternoon as I pull out my ladder to do some checking.

I'll wait for the sun and wind to dry out the front yard, so my plans to mow just the front will not take place until late afternoon. I'll start by cutting it a little high this spring so it will build a nice root system.

I've got some other yard maintenance plans today. I'll pull any weeds out of the mulched areas, pick up all the small sapling limbs I cut along the driveway bank a few weeks ago. I need to add a bag or two of rock down by the mailbox and I might even find enough time or energy to wash the car today. The weather is just that nice to get a lot done outside today.

I must say the NCAA Basketball Tournament was very enjoyable this year. Too much replay reviews for me, just like it has become in all the other sports, college or pro levels. After that last reversal with a little more than a minute to go in the game last night I was fed up with replay. If you have to take 5 minutes to decide if that pinky finger just barely touched the basketball as it was batted away by the opponent BUT DON'T call the foul right before .. then something is drastically wrong.

Just like calling balls and strikes in baseball. Sure the ball is coming across the plate above 90mph most of the time but that is why they are a professionals. They are able, supposedly, to call balls and strikes for high speed baseballs. Studies over the last 11 years of baseball has proven that basically umpires behind the plate simply suck at their jobs.

Oh ... the blog post title today.

I mentioned the other day I was thinking of getting rid of any blogs, or websites, even twitter accounts, that dealt with politics, immigration, Washington D.C, refugees in the USA and Sharia Law in the USA ... well I did.

I didn't have many that I followed on Twitter since I use that mostly for sports news. I didn't follow politicians but a few people I did follow did, so political crap would show up if the person either retweeted something political or was in a Twitter argument.

On my Blogger blog's sidebar I had the four links I mentioned in my last post here and deleted all of them. I had a couple of the same links tucked away in my Feedly Reader account and deleted them there also.

It was a GREAT decision to get rid of all that crap. And that is what it is ... crap.


So without those links anywhere in my online world and still not tuning into tv news ... I feel much better. I wasn't stressed out by the news but I thought way too much about what I was hearing or reading ... now I can think about the hounds, summer, the to do list, etc without all the noise from D.C. I do glance at the headlines online but that is as far as I go. It  shows me I am not missing anything.

I filled up a couple of hounds mitts worth of hound hair out of Stella again on Monday. I follow that up with the small rake with the metal tongues to pull out more of that undercoat that wants to get out. Stella loves being brushed.

The book I am reading about the start of Top Gun is a really interesting book. My first four years in the Navy were at NAS Miramar where Top Gun originated. I worked in a squadron of F-14's at the time. Great location, a LOT of traveling and every day seemed busier than busy. If you are interested in the history of Naval Aviation, it's a good book to pick up at the library or off of a bookstore shelf.

I'll leave you with the rest of the photos I took on this morning's walk. I've run out of things to say. Plus I find it hard to sit in front of this computer with such great weather outside. All of these photos were taken straight from the Canon G9 X, without any editing. I am slightly surprised that I like that camera more than my Nikon D3200.

Really nice weather so far this month in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Were Low Energy Today

After barely staying awake during the end of the baseball game that was over last night at 1:06am, all of us could have slept in late today. Only Stella decided to jump off the couch in the 8th inning and head to bed on the bed. She had slept through most of the 8 innings anyway. Heidi was in such a deep sleep during the game that I didn't think she would move even after I turned the lights out. Still, we had things to do today so we started it early.

When I told Heidi that Sadie Stella and I were going on the morning walk she started trotting to the door leading me to believe she was coming with us on, for her first walk in many months. She had other ideas.

Stella took off up the return path while I was ten or twenty feet away on the regular path. I could feel the 91% humidity early this morning. I checked my weather app before the walk to confirm the humidity I was feeling. Such a drastic change from last week's 54%. Stella seemed a little more enthused today about the walk. As the day wore on, she became less enthusiastic about everything except sleeping.

What little color changes you see on the trees, has happened the past three days.

The photo does not capture Heidi wagging her tail and barking at us, excited about our return. She is back being the basset hound that I remember, when I got her in 2011.

Today was 'staining day'. Luckily the gel stain I chose was a good match. The old window frames and sills look much better as does the old front door in the living room. I'll put a coat of polyurethane on tomorrow and a second coat on Friday with 24 hours to dry between applications.

I am not sure I can last another long baseball game tonight. The Oakland A's are in NYC to play the Yankees. A player on the Oakland A's grew up and played in Terre Haute IN, so I am assuming that a lot of tv's in the West/Southwest Indiana will be tuned into the game. Josh Phegley was the catcher at IU before someone named Kyle Schwarber that now plays LF for the Chicago Cubs. I always root for the underdogs when my team is not in the playoffs.

I could almost take a siesta today ...

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

The Hounds Can't Believe It's October

The day may have been shortened with two afternoon MLB baseball games today, but I had a few things I wanted to get finished before they started at 1pm. It's amazing teams can play 162 games in the regular season and have two divisions end in ties for the leader. These games today would decide who was a 'wild card' team Tuesday and who would start on Thursday, not having to play in a one game playoff ... winner take all. I am expecting these soy beans to be picked any day now. I hope it's next week so I can keep the windows closed due to dust and not have temperatures in the mid to high 80's outside.

Stella is now starting to show how excited she is to walk in the morning. There no "Sadie staredowns", nor hopping up and down while I grab my ballcap ... just a little wag of her tail and some light whining. Once I open the door she takes off for the backyard while I stand on the small porch taking the daily photo of the field across the highway.

I knew before we left it was going to be wetter than normal ... I found out at the end of the walk just how much more. The thing is ... I hate getting wet.

It has been interesting to watch Stella on these walks the past couple of weeks. She has shown no interest in ignoring my calls and taking off out into the middle of the field or to the neighbor's backyard. She might veer a little either way off the path but that is about as far as she goes. Why the change?

Again today there was never a time that I had to tell her "come on".

It wasn't until the photos were downloaded into my computer and I had the chance to look at them to see I had a bad day taking photos in the morning. Too blurry, nothing seemed really sharp. Of course on some of the plants in the field,  I needed a macro lens to capture the small droplets of dew.

I am not sure why I couldn't get this photo sharper but it does show just how wet the field was this morning.

That spot on her head is one of the small growths that was cut off last Wednesday. It was about the size of a tick and has scabbed up over the weekend. Her inner left front leg looks good where three staples were added to close the cut from the larger growth. She gets the staples out this Wednesday. Also after four days of eye ointment, the eye were the two tumors were removed really looks good.

I was starting to take a step back in her direction to get her, when she started walking toward me.

Then she surprised me by breaking into a run where I was pretty lucky getting two photos taken just in time. Her ears give her away showing the speed she has. Although she has yet to sprint full speed.

Terrible photo but you can barely see the droplets of water.

No she will not walk alone all the way to the yard. There is one spot up there she likes to check out before I catch up to her.

The only flower like this in the field this week, on our way back to the yard.

It's another Monday for her. A little time drying herself off, then a nap until lunch. Then another nap after lunch before a late afternoon walk. Bloodhounds lead a rough life.

The first sign of how wet the walk was.

These will be dry in no time once the sunshine arrives.

I hope to see all of these crimson buds bloom in the next few days like the yellow mum below.

Yesterday Stella decided to walk out and enjoy the sunset. Heidi had other plans as she took off around the house, exploring every inch of the way. She actually has the better nose compared to Stella but not as good as Sadie's was.

After a hard day what else is there to do but sleep while setting up. Yes her eyes are closed and she is snoring lightly. The vet tech said her nails are trimmed back as far as they can go and they still look long. Such is the nail of a basset hound.

For those that updated their Apple devices to the new iOS 12 and you use iMessage, it was big news today that there are some issues under the new iOS that texts are getting filed wrong and everyone's conversations are showing up in other people's accounts. I have nothing to fear but I am guessing there are some people across America sweating bullets with that news.

With my windows cleaned spotless, a great job if I do say so myself, I have been able to see if Stella is still trying to escape from the bedroom through the window above the bed. After the four times I have had to go out to the store, library or just a drive ... there are zero bloodhound nose smudges on my clean windows. She uses her nose to poke at doors or windows to see if they open, even in the car.

These mornings are so nice anymore to sit outside with morning coffee that it is almost hard to get up and start your day. This might be might favorite time of year living here. The atmosphere makes the yard grow faster where I could move every third day. Raking leaves will be right around the corner since it's October.

After lunch we did our normal trip outside. Where Sadie use to roam the field after lunch, neither Stella nor Heidi comes close to heading that way. Bother are more interested in going back inside for a nap. The sunshine was a little brighter than Stella liked, so she squinted her eyes.

Once Heidi relieved  herself, she immediately went back to the door to be let in.

Stella thought more about what she wanted to do the rest of the day. Her days rarely change even when the seasons do.

About the time I was heading to the living room for the start of the first baseball game, Heidi walked by me heading for the door not ten minutes after she came inside. She wanted to soak up some sunshine and stayed outside by herself for a little bit over 30 minutes.

But in the end ... their afternoon routines kicked in and that meant siesta time for both of them.

It was too nice to stay inside to watch baseball and not as hot as they forecasted ... so I headed outside to enjoy the weather, even if it was just sitting in a chair.

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