The Monsoons Are So Interesting

When you hear a loud clap of thunder, look out the window and see sunshine it's hard to figure out. So I always grab my camera and head to the patio because that is where I am going to find my answer. This time of year it's "The Monsoons". That is one reason I want to get my bike riding in during the early morning because any time after noon, all bets are off when it comes to weather right now. Those are the Mule Mountains that Al on The Bayfield Bunch mentions sometimes in his winter travels to the SW.

Starting with that top photo the top three photos were taken in order from left to right. All withing one minute. Luckily Stella was sleeping all through the noise outside as was Heidi but she isn't afraid of any kind of storms.

The small mountain to the left of center sits across the border in Mexico.  You can see how the sudden rain splits the skies into two different worlds.

This morning at 5:55am Stella and I witnessed some fantastic skies taken after we got back from her daily walk. I always take these photos from my patio and from left to right. There is never a morning where I am not amazed at what I am looking at. I remember seeing some early morning sunrises across the field in back of the house in Indiana but even at that time of day the air could be really heavy with thick humidity, not here.

This time of year, it is going to be clear weather in the mornings and then things get interesting from 12:30pm on and never at the same time. I haven't got caught in the heavy rain grocery shopping yet but I have come close, where there was hard rain less than a mile from the store as I drove home.

You really can't go on the percentage for chance of rain either. I looked at WeatherBug and Wunderground weather this morning before I went bike riding and both said I had a 10-15% chance of rain up to 12 noon. Yet it didn't surprise me that it was lightly raining on me 45 minutes into my bike ride. It only rained for a short time toward the mountains where I was heading but I could tell by the rain puddles coming home it had rained hard near town.

With weather like this, I canceled any plans for a short trip. I really didn't want to look at Tombstone in the rain and didn't want to leave Stella at home if there was going to be on and off thunder. Heidi cannot control Stella's pacing and whining when it thunders. I can usually get her calmed down enough that she will lay down and go to sleep.

With two days off I was planning a big ride today on my road bike. I knew exactly where I was going and what I was going to do. I rode 30 miles and climbed over a 1,000 ft in elevation on long gradual climbs, then spent the last part of the ride on fairly flat bike path and streets to get the pulse rate a little lower or what some call a "warm down."

I don't know what, if anything comes into our yard at night, but if you watched Stella this morning giving the yard a close inspection you would have thought we had a zoo of animals pass through last night and then escape the fence by the time she woke up.

I would pay a large sum of money to know what really goes through her mind and know her thought process.

Like I have said before, I like my barren plain rock yard. It's much easier to see the scorpions, rattle snakes and tarantulas WHEN they show up. So far I've only seen the one dead tarantula yesterday afternoon. My friend did post on Facebook last night a picture of a rattlesnake he saw at ... ???? The Ramsey Canyon Ranch House last night ... we were there that morning taking photos.

My couch has been tested and passed with flying colors as a couch that siestas can be taken, they might last longer than an hour. Here I was, wondering what to do with all the pillows that came with the couch. (j/k)

I saw where the NFL started their pre-season games last night but I did not watch one of them. I wasn't interested. Instead I grabbed a tall glass of ice cold water, sat in that ugly blue chair on the patio and took in the sky show. Rain was on the way later in the night so it was nice to hear all of the animal activity off in the distance.

Last month I had a wisdom tooth break below the gum line leaving about 1/4 of the tooth. I had it extracted along with some bone, based on what the invoice said. It was painless and I had no issues the following week. Something happened the next day though that I had never experienced in my life as far as dentists go. Dr Edwards called me to see how I was doing and reminding what could happen in the next six days. I must admit the call surprised me and confirmed to me ... I had been given the right dentist office, recommended by a blog reader and the owner of the bike shop I visit.

So today as I was about to dose off on that new couch, soon after lunch, when the phone rings. It's Dr. Edwards again calling to see how I am doing with the work he did yesterday and reminding of things I might feel, maybe not. He also reiterated his plan for when I go back on the 27th of August. Not surprised he called but with minor dental work I didn't expect the call.

Where as my dentist back in Bloomington that I blog about here in August 2015 was entirely different as well as his office. His focus was money money money. Not a lot of explaining, just get done as fast as possible ... patients in and out as fast as possible ... more bang for the buck. I had a permanent crown put on the same day he did a root canal. No ... he never called to see how I was doing. I paid in cash in full and owed him nothing so he was happy I guess.

Every day around 4:30pm local time or 7:30pm Eastern time (Heidi's still on Eastern Time), she will walk into the kitchen right to the door where the small bone treats are. It's that door on the left in the corner. Of course that wakes up Stella and just the sound of possible food of any kind has her drooling ... they both get one bone treat and are soon back to sleep ... but Heidi leads the attack on that one. IF that treat is not given out fast enough she will bark nonstop.

She was skin and bones a few years ago and now may be a pound or two overweight. No bare skin on her legs, feet or ankles.

She looked like this in October 2016 if you remember. Four different vets, grain free food, allergy shots and pills, blood tests ... Each vet attempting something the other had not ... and no one had an answer. Was it food or environmental allergies???

Then I went back to basic ingredients dog food with chicken meal with brown rice, Wholesome Sportmix. It is made by the same company that makes the grain free food called Earthborn. Within a month I started to see changes to Heidi's legs and Stella's coat and weight gain. She was also having weight loss problems that blood work was showing normal readings.

I am still using the Wholesome Sportmix w/grains.

I have caught myself being so amazed by the constant changes in sky in back that I cannot stop taking photos of it when I am at home. I was reminded the other day by a long time local, that this month and September are the two worst months of the year. If that is what this is, I'll take it.

I am going to take a little drive south of me tomorrow for lunch. I hope they let me take photos inside otherwise it will just be one or two taken outside before I walk in to eat. It has good reviews on Yelp, as if that makes any difference and is nearby. I keep forgetting how much business is south of me, a direction I rarely drive.

The hounds are sleeping before the Reds game that starts at 4:10pm Pacific Time. That's their normal procedure. Someone asked me if I still played Mahjong and if I ever got bored. She seemed to think I sounded bored for years when she read my blog. She may have been right.

Yes, I still play Mahjong, just not as much.

The Monsoons are playing right now in the Wild West.

Heidi Checks Out The Howling Winds

Sitting at the computer I felt a gust of wind so strong I thought the roof was coming off the house or we all were going flying. I wish those strong winds from the SW were blowing warmer air but it is freezing cold air. Even Heidi was fooled as she completed her lap around the house after lunch ... yet her nose explored the yard by the inch as she walked.

This is my 2nd post of the day. I am not going to type the number of each post but just to point out that in the past when I post more than once per day, for some strange reason visitors don't look at both posts in the same day but at the latest one. Makes me wonder sometimes why I have the front page set up the way I do.

After 11 months eating Wholesome Sportmix dog food her skin problems have been the best she has had since 2014. That food is made by the same company that makes Earthborn Holistic grain free food. We tried all of their grain free foods before switching to their 'generic' kibble ... it did nothing to improve her skin like this chicken meal kibble has worked.

Plus last summer she had gained her lost weight back. As has Stella. All the hounds eat the same food and all three hounds have to softest coats they have ever had. Bravo to Wholesome Sportmix.

One of our local hawks wanted to let Stella know she had her eye out on the hounds. With it being so cold all Stella wanted was to get back inside for her afternoon siesta.

Many years ago when my 89 year old father was a teenager, there was a path from the top of my driveway that went down between the two large trees, through the water and out to the country road. Every since then, every home owner of this house has watched the south part of the field sink over time with underground water from the field behind us.

It's only January but the 2018 Burn Pile is way behind last year's amount of tree limbs that are burned every spring and fall. That is actually a good thing.

The wind is howling today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Normal Routine After Lunch

These few pictures epitomize the daily routine the hounds have right after they finish their lunch kibble.

They are let outside to make any runs to the field, except Heidi, where they will dump their tanks. Heidi prefers the front yard to do that, under the Yews if it is raining. Sadie will wander in the field or backyard during rain, hail, sleet or snow and sunshine. If it's sunny, Stella will sleep either on the hot gravel in the driveway or in the grass. Heidi will cruise the front yard before coming around the house to the back.

Stella's thinking pose before every nap, inside or outside, then she flops to her side.

Unlike months ago, I can no long feel her ribs, hip bones nor shoulders. I still think she will be close to her original weight, 45 pounds, before the loss in June 2015. I did nothing more than feed her 3 cups of kibble per day but I saw the greatest improvement in her skin and coat after the last dog food change to Wholesomes SportMix manufactured by the same company that produces Earthborn Holistic Pet Foods.

The hounds are all asleep, time for my lunch and some Reds baseball here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

LOL ... What An Idiot

I really amaze myself at times. After finding the mistake I made a couple of days in the spelling of rip-rap ... using riff raff ... makes me wonder what's going on "up there".

Meaning ... my mind. Are there small chunks of debris floating out of control throughout the thousands of brain cells? Did I really destroy that many brain cells in my younger days, when there was always a party somewhere? You have to admit that when you read those words "riff raff" you thought "what in the hell is he talking about ... the guy's crazy".  LOL

The difference in spelling of those two words is troubling. LOL ... and not one reader said "hey you might want to check your spelling" ... you most likely were not able to because you were laughing too hard ... I know I was this morning. The hounds thought I had finally gone crazy by my constant laughing. Stella came running over to me thinking I had hurt myself.

If I had not replied this morning to Greg's comment from a couple of posts ago I would not have seen my error. He spelled rip-rap correctly but even when I read his comment a couple of days ago I didn't notice the correct spelling.

Add in the fact that when I wrote the post, Blogger was highlighting "riff raff" in bright yellow signifying that I had spelled it wrong ... then putting the red dots under the misspelled word after I clicked "ignore" on the yellow highlight.

Or ... you can check any word for correct spelling and the definition now, just by typing that word into the address bar of Google Chrome using Google as  your default search engine. How easy is that? .... What was I thinking??  LOL

Friday seems to be the day for the sky to be full of contrails. There were not as many this morning as previous Friday's but there are more than any other day of the week.

By working outside during the great weather I am ready to head to bed way before midnight instead of my normal 2am. That means not only I but the hounds wake up earlier and we have gained a couple of hours of activity during daylight these past couple of mornings.

We started our first walk of the day about two hours earlier than normal .. you might notice that Stella needed some "supervision" this morning. I wasn't in the mood to be ignored so early in the day.  LOL

I don't leave the leash on very long and once I take it off she still continues to walk slow giving me a look that I have really hurt her. Yet there are some days she is more stubborn than normal. It's during the times when she hears her name called and me saying "come on", then turning and going the opposite direction .... that I pull the leash out of my pocket, backtrack to her and connect her.

Sadie in the meantime is Sadie ... nose to the ground, tail up and curled ... with things to do and places to go. She loves these walks in the field and never gets enough of them.

I let Stella go on her own path after I unhooked her. I don't mind that as long as she eventually turns and heads our direction. Now if she would have ran into those woods, like she never does, then it would have been time to pull the leash out again.

Of course the distance between me and her gives her plenty of chances for her to change her mind. Her nose will pick up a scent and distract her, thus she changes directions.

Example --- heading toward Sadie and I ... "but I think I smell something over there".

 Then she turns back toward us without being called.

Sadie doesn't care ... she is on her own exploration.

There was nothing within eye sight, nor on the horizon, but Stella was positive the deer had gone that way sometime since yesterday afternoon. In fact that is one of their normal paths because I have seen deer jump the small mashed down wire fence at that same spot.

So she is correct in her thought process.

We may reach 70° again today with some thunderstorms in the forecast for this afternoon. the wild bushes are trying to tell me it's spring time by showing me their new green color ... but by tomorrow we are back in the 30's with a chance of snow north of us.

After a couple of days of cold weather we will be back in the 50's and 60's for the next ten days.

Most of the time the final stages of the daily walks are not direct routes. The hounds will always find something they want to check out or have to stop and really investigate what is hidden in the thick grass.

We don't have a lot planned for today, except to enjoy the great weather. We did three walks yesterday but the two afternoon walks were without the camera.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to plant some grass seed in the area that I cleared last fall. The owner at the landscaping business a couple of houses away, didn't think a couple of days of cold temperatures would hurt if I wanted to plant some grass seed yesterday.  I've watered it this morning and hope that a lot of the seed stays on the incline if it happens to rain hard this afternoon.

I raked all of that out yesterday, down to bare dirt. I also cut off any small tree stumps to ground level so I'll have no trouble mowing this area. The concrete blocks will stay, where they have been for 42 years, to prevent erosion. I'll use the weed-eater around those after the grass fills in.

I mentioned the other day about switching out the larger blue trash can with the smaller gray one because the gray one fits better in the Mini Cooper S Countryman when I make those trips to the recycling center.

The red mirrors on the all black car are growing on me. they do not bother me at all now and in fact from the side view ... they kind of even out the large red tail lights. I like the all black look and am glad I decided to remove the red stripes a few weeks ago.

I believe I have found an answer about dog food ... "right under my nose". Due to health reasons of the owner, the old feed store in town had to go out of business a few months ago. It had a great selection of highly rated dog food. When I say highly rated, I use the site Dog Food Advisor for a rating.

So it was to my surprise yesterday when I typed in the brand of dog food I had seen at the local hardware store. I was looking for a new rake when I noticed their display of 40# bags of dog food was almost empty. The bags are usually stacked up to my shoulders.

I never really paid attention to it because it was in a hardware store. I thought most likely it was a cheap brand name. Little did I know that Dog Food Advisor gave this particular blend of chicken meal and rice a 4-star rating, out of 5.

It's called SportMix, a small family owned business for over 40 years and has never had a recall. The bloodhounds will start this in a few days since their food is almost out. Heidi started have issues with the food I spoke of a few days ago ... so I am going to try her on the SportMix and see if she responds in a positive way ... or is it just spring allergies popping up.

I may have found the problem with my pictures being blurry early in the morning with a few at any time of day. A reader commented the other day that it might be the inside of my lens not adapting to the change in temperature from inside the house to outside on our walks.

I am thinking it is my laziness. I had forgot to either hold my breath as I took the picture or take a deep breath right before. It also could have been not having my arms tucked as close to my body as possible with my left hand under the lens, forming a human tripod.

Add is some possible light shaking by my hands ... and it all equals blurry pictures.

It's a beautiful day here in 'the tropics of southern Indiana ... by the way ... stay away from that "riff raff", it will get you every time.  LOL