PNW Weather Hit's "The Tropics"

While sitting outside this morning enjoying my first cup of coffee, the weather reminded me of those when I lived on Whidbey Island NW of Seattle. It was mid 40's, light misty rain and signs it had been raining during the night. Besides being in Indiana and not Washington, the other difference was ... zero wind here. Both Heidi and Stella were back to sleep since they finished their breakfast and I wasn't sure at that time if any walks would be taken today. Rain was in the forecast for most of the day.

Stella is starting to show her independence again after a short period of hanging close to me most of the time since September 15th. We had just started the walk where she found something interesting,  that she never moved. I had to backtrack on the path to talk her into walking.

The dead ragweed really looks bad when it's wet and overcast.

She eventually started her walk back toward me. She is also starting to show more tracking than the past few weeks. Again like yesterday morning, I saw a lot of fresh paths where the grass was mashed down sometime last night or early this morning. Those paths were not there yesterday.

Once she decided it was time to get going, I barely caught her running when I turned to see where she was. She trotted right by me and then veered toward the edge of the woods. There is a single narrow path that follows that edge of the woods where deer go in and out of the woods.

By this time that misty air was turning into a very light rain, so light that I would not call it rain but it was more than a heavy mist. That didn't bother Stella, she kept marching on.

If you look close there is one of those paths I talk about that veers right from our path and heads to the 'far right corner' of the field. It's the mashed down grass that is behind her. She stopped when I told her to "come on". It was too wet for me to be walking through the tall grass to go get her. I was glad she turned around.

She trotted back toward the path and never stopped. In fact she never veered off the path that passes the two rolls of hay and runs parallel to the back edge of the field. She went into a slow walk to make the left turn towards home and I am nowhere near that corner.

I would pay any amount of money to know what she hears or what she smells when she stops and looks like this.

While I follow the path ... she continues over on the old ATV path, where Heidi was walking the other day.

You can see this overcast light rain weather is set in for the day. As long as it's not cold I don't mind a day like this on occasion. Looking at the trees in the distance I didn't see much change in the leaves turning color from last Sunday.

I was never close to Stella on the way home. She stayed out front and trotted away from me a couple of times. There is one area she wants to get to before I get there telling her to move and I think that is why she is always trotting in this part of the walk.

I stopped to wipe some rain drops from my camera. It took no more than a minute. When I looked up I didn't see Stella anywhere. How could she disappear so fast???

Zooming the camera lens closer to the neighbor's woods I still don't see any sign of a tan tail, which is hard to see now with the taller straw that is also tan. About the time I was going to get my jeans wet from that tall grass by walking that direction ....

I took a final scan of the field and barely caught Stella to the left of me ....

She finally agreed it was time to get home and jumped back on the path.
 

There was nothing to see, no sounds out of the ordinary but she was very curious about what was happening toward the highway. She might be smelling a scent that is in the field across the highway. This time of year the deer traffic increases, not on the highway LOL but crossing it from my yard to the field or vise versa.

Heidi continues to be more active than she had in months. She comes to get me to let her outside more times during the day. A lot of those times she will do nothing more than find a sunny spot and sit in the front or back yards.

This morning she decided the two fleece blankets I washed yesterday, didn't need to be on the couch but on the floor, where she could sleep a little before lunch. It took some time for her to drag them off the couch into the perfect positions on the floor. The clothes dryer collects a lot of dog hair from all the fleece and Mexican blankets, but the hair is hard to remove from the fleeced ones.

With my loss of interest in the NFL games, I'll finish another book today and start a new one. Neither Stella or Heidi was too enthused to do anything outside after lunch. Heidi took a lap around the house and Stella never left the carport.

Not raining but still a little cool. I contemplated whether to take a trip to see an old friend today. At the time I wrote this post I wasn't sure what I was going to do today but felt the urge to do something different. I knew the hounds were going to sleep all afternoon and it looked like the rain had moved on with no more expected the rest of the day.

It looks like I might be raking leaves this week. A little at a time instead of waiting until the end with a major project on my hands. There is always hope that strong winds will blow them out of the yard to make my raking job easier. 

A 'non-eventful' day here in 'the tropics' of  Southern Indiana.

Hounds Started Late Today

The thing about being single and retired, you can pretty much do what you want when you want. All three hounds are very adaptable so they slide with any schedule changes without howling or barking. Then never miss their two meals per day nor there 2 walks per day at a minimum ... unless it's a downpour of rain. We always take walks in snow or ice. Yet today was much different.

Normally this would have been a type of schedule where I would binge watch my two favorite tv shows that are no longer active. In this case it was college football, not having enough tv's, and a Directv DVR that will only record two programs at a time. Those two recordings lock me into those two channels and I can't have that while trying to watch multiple football games and a MLB Playoff game. So I recorded only one game that was later shoved to the side by my recording manager priority list to record the show Dr. Jeff - The Rocky Mountain Vet.

By the time I finished watching the last 'live' college football game out in rainy Pullman WA it was somewhere in the 2am range. I was wide awake. At that time some of the sports networks were already showing replays of earlier games that I couldn't tape or missed while watching another. As you can tell time kept on moving and before I knew it ... daybreak was showing itself outside my windows.

So the hounds were fed their breakfast about 30 minutes earlier than normal since I was still up. Yet, their lunch was a couple of hours past their normal time. We didn't take our first walk of the day until after 4pm but that didn't matter to them. They had been fed twice, had their normal daytime naps and still had plenty of time for a 2nd walk before sunset and after this post.

Sadie and Stella headed opposite directions. Sadie took her normal path doing what she does best .. tracking scent. Stella slowly moved from spot to spot in what I call the 'lower field' closer to home. Either I was still to tired after watching college football games until 7am, a total of 19 straight hours ... or it just seemed right to let Stella do whatever she wanted today.

Sadie and I were walking along the back edge of the field before we knew it. It was nice to be walking on dry land without wearing the North Face snow boots to keep my feet dry from heavy morning dew. As I glanced around the horizon it looked like a strong effort by the trees to show some color changes that were brighter than just 24 hours prior.

The yellows seemed to be trying to show their color in the north.

While the oranges were in the Southwest.

While looking at the trees and trying to decide what to take a photo of I did not see Stella anywhere in the field. With the color of her coat she blends in well with the dead dried out taller hay. Without saying a word, Sadie decided it was time to find Stella on her own and took off in a direction she thought Stella would be.

I backed out the lens for a larger area and didn't see Stella anywhere. Had she disappeared on me again?

I zoomed my lens to the 200mm setting and started scanning the field from left to right ... there she was heading north but not far from the area we left her. She had barely moved during the time that Sadie and I made most of the walk.

As I kept yelling the word "hey" ... she finally looked up trying to figure out where that sound was coming from.

Once she recognized the voice she turned and headed our way back to the alternate path we were taking.

There was nothing exciting the rest of the walk. Both hounds were cooperative and seem to want to get back to the house as fast as I did ... they were both asleep next to each other beside my computer desk within minutes of walking inside.

I wouldn't call them high winds but it's been windier than normal today blowing the leaves off the tress and even out of the yard at the same time. It's most likely our last warm day at least the next ten days at 77°. I suspect that might be it for this summer. So we move into the fall with the 50s and 60's as temperature highs, every day or night has a lingering smell of fire smoke from brush burning or people having a fire at night. That still beats the oil drilling smell I had a few years ago.

Here are the first three tree limbs to start the 2018 Burn Pile.

With an overdose of college football yesterday, plus a final Game 7 in Houston I had to watch last night, this sports addict was not in the mood for the NFL. In fact the tv has not been turned on and it's already after 5pm as I write this. It seems to me over the past few years my interest in the NFL during it's season has decreased. I suspect there are various reasons and I can't put my finger on any specific one. It's not just this year but has happened the past 3-4 years.

With college basketball starting in 3 weeks and college football playing 5 more weeks before they start December with a month or more of Bowl games and then the 4-team playoffs ... the NFL may get slid further back on the shelf until their playoffs and Super Bowl.

Besides, that show Dr. Jeff - The Rocky Mountain Vet has a higher priority in the recording manager feature ... and it's a great show.

Not much more to report on here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Are Happy It's Friday

First of all thank you to all the readers that are veterans of the US military. They make or have made a lot of sacrifices to fill those positions.

Well it's been quite a week to say the least. I am happy to be back to just looking at news headlines and not reading their articles while I move my focus back to sports, hounds, blogs, and a little house maintenance to prepare for winter.

I am sitting here wondering just how long can a blog post be, with it not being too long. I wrote a post yesterday afternoon with about 15 pictures, saved it with plans to add to it and then post it around 6:30pm. But the afternoon changed and I forgot about the post until this morning.

This morning started out as always. Yet it was about 10° warmer this morning but that didn't mean the hounds stayed outside any longer. They know how important coffee is to my start of the day so they didn't stay outside very long.

Once I saw the temps rise above 50°, we headed out for a walk. They didn't wait on me either ... they were off as soon as their feet touched the field.

They had already dictated they were going on their own pace and I was fine with that. I was enjoying the clear skies without a cloud anywhere, no humidity of coarse and the temperature felt about right.

With Stella staying pretty far behind Sadie and I ... it was quite a surprise to see her running to catch up with us. I'm not sure what her reasons were but she sprinted fast enough that my camera could not keep up to catch all of her sprinting.

Sadie took another look in back to see if Stella was coming or not. As soon as she saw that Stella had stopped again, Stella took off for the right corner of the field.

Then again ... Stella came running to catch up with us. I'm glad that every day is different with her.

During our afternoon walk yesterday I caught this.

Earlier while at the computer on Thursday morning, I heard the warning beeping sound of a truck backing up. I went out to the large window to see what it might be. Due to yesterday's fog I could barely see a State Patrol car blocking highway traffic but could not see what was backing up due to the thick fog.

It looks like this might have been some of the equipment on the move. It would have been too long to make a left 90° turn but with the dirt road going the opposite direction to the old bridge across the highway, something that long can make some 3-5 point turns to back in that road to make the left hand turn.

This is an AT&T tower that has been there for around 15 years and it will be interesting to see if they are going higher or just adding more equipment to the tower. It's strange that I my house is that close to a tower but when I had AT&T a couple of years ago I could only get 3 bars max for signal strength. Even a couple of weeks ago I was told by AT&T they could not offer any wireless internet in my package.

This is what I saw this morning so there wasn't much change. Maybe it is waiting for the next phase of either repair or installation of new equipment.

Once I mentioned getting some 'food' to the hounds when we got home, they both were pretty motivated to get home.

Yet, there were enough places to stop and identify before moving on.

I'll implement some of the post I wrote yesterday afternoon and take a chance that I have not make this blog too long. At least for those readers that just scroll through to look at the pictures (nothing wrong with that), they will have more to look at.

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Heidi made a rare appearance outside to walk around instead of just long enough to pee. Her skin is actually getting better with the places where she has bare skin or little hair, is becoming softer. More hair is trying to grow back on all of her legs and paws. It's been a while since that has happened.

She will be getting a bath today (Friday) and her nails cut.

Lunch had been served with the normal routine of going outside right after being fed. Something that was done when house training Sadie when she was a puppy. Heidi and Stella were brought home when they were older dogs, so I am not sure if that was their routine when they were puppies.

I was going to let the bloodhounds wander the field and keep an eye on them but I saw 'the stare' ... the one that Sadie gives me when it's time or she wants to go for a walk ... which is all the time.

Once she saw me walking toward the field with my camera in hand she came running to escort me on the start of the walk as she always does. She will actually try to grab my left hand with her mouth as she is hopping up and down in excitement.

I tried to keep the walk moving and Stella came with a little coaxing. I am sure if I had not said anything Stella would have stayed back for most of the walk.

Around that first turn and we were headed to the right corner of the field.

Today I decided I'd join them in the area of that right corner where there are a lot of signs of deer activity. While the hounds stayed and did what they normally do, adding protein of some kind to their diet, I walked toward the gully.

You can see the tall brush that has been mashed. I know nothing about deer so I am just assuming they might spend time here sleeping, not sure.

I have taken pictures before trying to show just how steep and deep this gully is but I'm not succeeding to many times.

On the way back, Stella gave me a look that she had seen the neighbor. He was out on his riding mower sweeping up leaves in his yard. Their clothes were out drying in the sunshine so I thought she might take off again since she seems attracted to their clothes line.

Thursday afternoon turned out great with temps getting up near 60°.

College basketball starts officially tonight with regular games on tv instead of the exhibition games. Football of coarse continues through the first few weeks of January for colleges. I think I have my own little NFL boycott going on as I have been watching it a LOT less than I have in past years.

Another great Friday so far here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.