What Rain Does To The Hounds

As forecasted I could hear it raining in the middle of the night as I slept with the windows open. Rain is better than freezing cold in my book so I didn't mind it. It will last for only a day or two and we will return to sunshine. Yet if the rain is even a light rain but just heavy enough to drench the hounds after a half mile walk ... the the walk will be postponed. This morning turned out to be that way, so for the first time that I can remember I am posting a few photos to show you what the hounds do on a day like this when they are outside. Their trips are short and to the point if you know what I mean.

You can always tell how much it rained overnight by the low spots in the carport. If I see any kind of puddles I know that it has rained a lot. This puddle is telling me we have received about a half inch of rain since 1am. The local farmers knew rain was on the way. During my drive through the country with the Z4 top down yesterday I saw more than a few farmers out in their field spreading anhydrous.

Sadie always knows the danger of rain ... her walks are usually postponed and the excitement she had inside is no longer there. She knows the routine when she feels even a light rain hitting the top of her head.

Another signed it had rained most of the night. Sadie doesn't know it but she will be doing laps around the house in an hour or so as she runs away from the toenail clippers. She is okay once I catch her but she is never in a voluntary mood when it comes to cutting her too long toenails.

Luckily they both slowly migrate to the field to dump their tanks instead of the back yard. They don't stay out long.

When I stepped outside I thought it might be possible to take a walk in light rain with me wearing rain boots and a light rain jacket but it was hard enough to where I knew by the time we returned I would be the only one dry. With the natural oils of the bloodhound coat, you can never get their wet coats dry just by toweling them off. That would require some hot sunshine to speed up the drying process.

Even though they are not in the field long they still have to check different scents in the yard on their way back to the house. Yes ... they are getting a little wet as I repeat "come on". In the photo above I tried to capture the blinking bright white light through the trees from the cell phone tower in back.

Nice to see the flower survived sub zero temps this winter just as advertised.

This day has a feel of a book reading day. I'm tired of watching movies while I enjoy my 3 months of free movie channels for switching to Dish Network. My internet habit has decreased the past month and I am back in the routine where most of my internet use is in the morning and stops just after posting a blog post in the morning. After that I am doing things inside and outside the house.

I got a lot finished yesterday in a short amount of time. It was good to see that my roof shingles survived the extreme winter weather with no signs of damage. The gutters were clear and I only had to toss off a few small twigs.

It's going to be a pretty quiet day here in 'the tropics of Southern Indiana with a light rain outside the opened windows.

The Hounds Check Out Rain Except Heidi

All of that nice weather I've been bragging about has left again. At least it's not cold and the rain is suppose to stop by 1pm today. That will give me some time to work on a computer mistake I made yesterday. Nothing drastic, nothing that crashes my computer. We took off this morning in what looked like rain but looking through my binoculars standing in the kitchen, I did not see any rain coming down through the Sycamore tree. They hounds of course were happy ... they don't care about weather, they just want to walk.

Sadie took off sprinting while Stella had some fresh wet tall grass to supplement her morning kibble. After every rain I guess the grass tastes that much better to her. 

Once she saw that Sadie had found something she took off sprinting ... no way was she going to miss out on something Sadie had.

I was dressed for light rain, heavy rain or no rain ... so I walked my pace, they walked theirs.

I heard Stella snorting while her nose inspected the fresh scents.

Still a little color from the fall hanging around.

With me taking pictures and obviously not walking fast enough for Sadie, she had other plans and the scent she was on was all she was focused on. She sprinted around the corner with her nose to the ground, running out of sight.

I called Stella's name loudly to see if she would come running and join us ... LOL ... what do you think of her response? the picture after this one was taken within seconds of her looking at me.

That's fine, Sadie and I could continue on ... these seems to be the norm anymore for our 1st walks of the day. In the afternoon walks Stella is right there beside me without any words spoken, even during the times I don't have her on the 25' retractable leash.

I am assuming these are very very young tree saplings? Am I right?

I mentioned the other day, maybe yesterday's post that I had moved all of my spreadsheets back to Excel. They say that memory is the first to go as you get older and that proved to be true numerous times yesterday. While I was looking for a solution to my other macOS problem that was self induced, I was reminded why I moved all those spreadsheets to Numbers in the first place a month or two ago.

I have Microsoft Office for Mac 2011. Since I really only use Excel in that program and really just design basic spreadsheets for my personal use I have no reason to spend $150 for their 2016 version. Especially when Apple Numbers gives me what I need and the only problem is I have not learned all the ways to do things differently compared to Excel.

It will take me less than an hour to study what I am having a problem with and once that is figured out, then Numbers will be perfect for what I want. The reason I switched a month or so ago, is the new Apple macOS is not going to support the older 2011 version of Microsoft Windows. In fact Microsoft no longer supports it and updates will not be sent to that version.

Currently my spreadsheets are working but I didn't want to take the chance to lose them due to macOS finally realizing that I was still using 2011 version of Office and then not give me the ability to open them. That has already happened to many users.

So I changed all of them back to Apple Numbers late last night (early this morning) in a very short period of time.

The biggest 'senior moment' came yesterday afternoon where for some strange unknown reason ... I decided to leave the Apple Beta Program and download the latest public release of macOS High Sierra over the top of a more current version in the Beta Program.

No big deal. After a couple of hours it took to download and install my computer worked perfectly without a hitch ... and still does. EXCEPT I forgot something very important .... My 330Gb file called "photos.library" would not load with the new public release of the macOS High Sierra because the Beta version is always going to be a newer version.

My only choice was to start a new file for my photos. That is also not a problem. I know a few people that have different photo library files on their computer they work with daily, but in my case until the macOS is updated in a few months I have no way to access those 100,000's of photos on my computer, except to copy that file to my external drive and plug that external drive into my laptop which is still running the beta version of the operating system.

I wasn't in a panic. I haven't lost those photos. The file is still there and is also backed up. I also have all them backed up online in Flickr, a free TB of storage in original file size. So I joined the Beta Program again with a few taps on my mouse pad but didn't get the screen to re-download the beta version of the macOS.

I dug around online and found a different way to get that page of download links. An hour and half later when the file had been downloaded, it stopped before it installed the program. It didn't show up anywhere in my files. So back to the mac forum to see what to do. Others had similar problems.

So the rain has come at the right time. I really do enjoy solving computer problems like this and will spend this morning looking for more ways to fix my problem. Once I can get the Beta version of the operating system installed, my large photo file will be available again.

In the meantime as a temporary fix ... I'll continue to operate as normal on the public released operating system and keep adding photos to my 'new' photos library file ... then import from that file later on when my large file is available again.

Yet, those two examples with the photo mix up and forgetting about why I moved my spreadsheets shows that as you get older you have to be on your toes when it comes to making decisions on a computer. Memory, memory, memory.

An online friend that reads the blog sent me something to check out for my slow Safari problem. Once I went into preferences and unchecked the Apple Pay box ... Safari was back to being faster than fast (thank you Mary) ... thus it is back to being my default browser. It does not let Facebook, Twitter, and all my Sports sites to play their videos automatically. I like videos but I want to be the one to decide what I want to watch not the computer gods.

Once again this morning I told Sadie to "go find Stella" ... she ran right to her, directly in front of us. Needless to say, Stella didn't get in her large number of steps in this morning but she doesn't count them and does not wear a Garmin watch or FitBit to track them. She is just Stella ... in her own little world ... that likes to sleep behind my computer desk chair as I type blog posts everyday.

We were almost finished with the walk when I thought I heard drops of rain hitting my light rain jacket. It was light enough that I really couldn't tell but it was good that I convinced Stella to at least head our direction with Sadie and I.

She acted busy and ignored me of course until that rain became a sprinkle ... that moved her from head down in the tall grass to a slow paced walk. I wasn't going to wait any longer because it was starting to rain harder ... so I ran to the house with the camera facing down in my hand and Sadie running right beside me.

By the time we got to the carport Stella had decided it was raining harder and she never likes to be in the rain ... she picked up her speed to somewhere between a fast trot and a slow run. But that's just Stella ... one of the most hilarious personalities in a hound that I have had in 30 years. There isn't a day she doesn't have me laughing about something.

With her sprinter speed, she brushed by me hitting the side of my knee as she ran to the door with plans to get inside before Sadie did. Everything is competitive between those two.

The rain sounded harder then it shows on my cap. You don't see many ball caps that say Sacramento State Hornets back here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

So a little rain, some online research to fix my self induced computer problem and ..... my interest has been tweaked into looking more into the specs of those new iPhones ... Verizon told me yesterday that I could get a new phone and get paid $197 for my 6s after trading it in for the upgraded phone. I don't need one but why not ... ???  LOL

It's still a nice day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana even with a little precipitation.

The Hounds Love Apple Pie

There was a small 'pocket' of no rain if we hurried this morning. With Stella sprinting out into the field to get started, Sadie hung back to see if I was going to give the official okay that the morning walk would take place. The rain was so light I couldn't hear it hitting my jacket but could see a few drops where the rain had hit my sleeve. I decided to take that chance.

You can see how light the rain has been before we made it outside. At least the temps were back into the 40's which felt like a heat wave. It had the feel of one of those days where there isn't a lot of rain but just enough steady rain to keep us all inside for the day. Heidi requested I cover her up with the Marmot sleeping bag, where she will only leave to eat lunch.

Once I started toward the field, Sadie sprinted all the way to Stella ... the walk was officially on. Both hounds had active noses and were moving pretty fast from scent to scent. It seemed as if we had just missed the deer by minutes by the way the hounds were acting. Not knowing if we would have to cut the walk short due to rain, I really didn't want to have to chase down the hounds if they were running after deer or what they thought were deer tracks.

The morning's walk wasn't the main theme of this post as the post title says. Last night while watching college football I decided it was time to put the frozen Marie Callender's Dutch Apple pie in the oven. It seemed like a safe time to do that with three hounds in a deep sleep, all in their nightly positions to sleep while I watch a ballgame or a movie.

I knew they would not stay asleep long. They can smell food a mile away even when they are dreaming of running in the field. They seem to think that all of the food I fix for myself is also their food. They rarely get any 'people food' besides their kibble although they will sit giving me their stares and watching every bite I take.

This is the normal position for Heidi and Stella, every night of the year. Blankets are only used from November to March.

I will say that I am not a bad cook. Some say that I am a very good cook but those meals were years ago before I turned myself into a retired recluse. I may cook but I never bake. I have never taken the time to learn how to bake so whenever I want a pie, it's usually a frozen pie made by Marie Callender's. I remember when their chain of restaurants opened in Southern California in the mid 1980's. It was probably good the nearest one was 17 miles away in Del Mar, CA.

I probably should have baked it longer for the brown sugar on top to become darker but the thermometer said it was good at 165° on the inside, I saw some bubbling going on from under all of that unhealthy stuff ... so I pulled it out of the oven.

Unlike most of you that might bake, I just can't sit this pie on the kitchen counter to cool like you can. Why? Because I have a bloodhound named Stella that is a professional counter surfer and I have found there isn't any food yet that she does not like if/when she can get away with it before I catch her. So the pie had to be moved to the top of my refrigerator to cool off, the safest place in the house.

There have been times I have put my bowls of fruit up there while I am outside mowing the lawn or working in the yard during the non-winter months.

Of course the hounds were awake and very very interested way before I pulled the pie out of the oven. The first time I smelled apple pie baking while I sat on the couch watching football, Stella was missing, so was Sadie. Heidi remained sitting next to me but she was awake and her active nose was pointing to the air with her nostrils moving.

Stella decided the only thing to do was to stand watch over the baking pie so she sat in front of the oven. Sadie played hallway monitor, sitting in a position where she could glance over at me to let me know that Stella could be in trouble. By using the small oven built into the cabinets over the stove, there was no chance of Stella burning herself by checking out the bigger oven's door that was in front of her. When she checks out things, or tells me she wants something ... she always presses her nose against what she is wondering about.

I saw her do that the first 5 minutes that I had her in the FJ, bring her home from Kentucky. She pressed her nose against every window to see if they would open. She will do that to every door knobto see if it's a lever instead of being round, so she can open the door on her own. She does not do that with food though .. she knows what any kind of food is and will not hesitate to grab it if she can.

So 50 minutes later I pulled the pie out of the oven to apply the bag of unhealthy brown sugar that came with it. I felt that familiar bloodhound nose pressing against my right leg and looked down at Stella. She was convinced the pie was finished and she would be getting that first piece. That was not going to be a possibility for any of the three hounds. They are spoiled, I admit that, but there are also limits they have to live by.

It was too late for pie by the time it cooled off a little,  for most people. But most of the people I know are not watching college football 15+ hours per day either ... so a piece of warm dutch apple pie sounded like the perfect desert around 11:15pm.

Once again I had to fight off the herd of hounds who by now were all sitting on the floor as close as possible to me ... except Sadie ... who always lays down under the coffee table so she will be the closest to any kind of food dropped on the floor. I can't remember the last time or if it has ever happened in the 9 years I've owned her but she never gives up and thinks it's possible. It is a good position to be in though when I am handing out the plain pizza crust.

I could tell from the first bite the hounds would be shutout in their request for pie. Not even a piece of crust would be given to them, it was that good. You have to remember if one hound gets something to eat, they all do. There is no other way to handle that. They don't agree to that theory though when it comes to trimming their toenails.

By this morning the thought of apple pie to them was a distant memory. They were more than happy to chow down on their kibble. Sadie will clean all three bowls after Stella and Heidi have finished. I cannot see how any of these hounds could be on a 'free feeding' idea that some dog owners swear by.

I did something last night that I cannot remember ever doing on a Saturday night during football season. I was actually in bed and asleep within minutes before midnight. College football games were still going on. A new Pac12 game had started so what was the problem? I am normally watching that last Pac12 game until they finish around 2am or so my time.

With Miami making my night by blowing away Notre Dame 34-8 to start the 4th quarter, I was thrilled enough with those results to officially declare I had watched enough. I had no interest in watching the Arizona - Oregon State game that had just started. My Washington Huskies had played the night before ... but the biggest reason ... I was tired. I was still trying to recover from the time a few mornings ago when I woke up at 4am and got up a little after 5am and stayed up.

Maybe it was the pie. These past few years I no longer have the eating marathons I use to participate in while watching college football so it wasn't my meals on Saturday. It's the first time in a long time I had over 8 hours of solid sleep.

So with some rest, light rain ... it was a perfect time to get our walk in this morning. The hounds were feeling so good that Stella even attacked Sadie to see if she was up for any wrestling. That didn't last long since the rain drops were falling a little harder and more frequently.

As fast as they started to play, they stopped and ran toward the house.

Rain nor snow will stop them from exploring the field all the way up to the yard ... no matter how many times I am telling them to "come on".

They finally figured out that I wasn't lying, that it really was raining. Not hard but more than it was when we started. Maybe it really was time to get back inside.

I wonder what it feels like to have that much skin fall over your forehead when you are deep in thought?

If you have read this far ... you'll enjoy this gem.

Don't ask why because I don't know why. While walking this morning I was thinking of starting a new blog on Wordpress like I had before. I'd still keep this blog as my main blog. The Wordpress blog would be like I had before where it included only one paragraph of content and 8-10 photos. The photos were never different than the ones you see here.

Why would I want to do that?

Is it like it's bad weather outside and in the past I always have an urge to build a new blog(s) or change templates, fonts and colors on the blog I have? I'll not change anything on this blog but I just can't figure out what makes me want to start something that I deleted in September and have deleted the same blog even before then.

Any psychiatrists out there? Leave you answers in the comment section.  LOL

Cool and rainy in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.