No Surprises In Weather -- It's July

Yes .. you did see this page before it disappeared ... I didn't want to 'publish' until this afternoon or tonight but by mistake hit the 'publish' button instead of 'close' ... so, you are correct, it was here for a few seconds this morning.

As I return to blogging, I am thinking that my normal post time will be late afternoon or early evening around 6pm at the latest. That seems to be the best time not only for me but I am able to capture photos or thoughts that happen that day. Otherwise I leave out what happens that afternoon, photos included. I am still not sure if I'll post daily and am planning to post when I feel like it ... could be daily, could be a few times per week. {A little early today}
When I was blogging back in January with the temperature 7° and a windchill below 0°, I wanted this weather we are having now. Now I am not sure I wanted this extreme heat, but it's much worse in other parts of the USA. It's normal for July yet the 'system' has definitely changed. Stella doesn't mind ... she still tries to head due north every morning ... I call her name, she veers our direction.

For you Mac users I am trying out the Beta version of the macOS Mojave. It's is going to have a much different look for you unless you go into your Apple preferences and change it to 'Light'. I'll keep the surprises under wraps since I hate when people tell me about the whole movie before I see them. One thing I am having trouble with is keeping signed in on Blogger.

I have to go to the laptop that still has the previous macOS High Sierra, to reply to your comments or for me to make comments on other blogs .. because it keeps me signed into Blogger all the time.

Not much has been going on out of the ordinary routine this past month or so. I had a break from doing my 'to do' list when a DYI article fell into my inbox. It listed most of the things I wanted to do, are not to be done in humid weather. I guess 95% or higher on that scale is good enough for me to wait until fall before I attacked a few things out of vengeance as well as required before winter.

You might notice a different collar on Stella. The one I bought for her two years ago became too small for her. I couldn't adjust it to be longer so I looked inside the closet door that has old collars, different 6' leashes and a few bicycle tools hanging on a small rack ... I still had the longer, bigger collar she came with in August 2015 ... a pink collar with John Deere icon on it. With a bumper crop of corn this summer, the John Deere collar seemed appropriate for her.

After a year my neighbor that works the Texas oil fields, decided he needed to move closer to the lake 30 miles away. Luckily his friends decided to buy the house and they moved in a few weeks ago. A young couple that likes to keep the place clean, the yard mowed and the nights quiet. It's good to finally get someone in the house that seems like they will be there long term. The hounds have not realized they have new neighbors and that's a good thing. I like to keep them in the yard and the field if possible ... less chance of them finding something interesting in the highway to inspect.

I am finding out that when electronics get old, they break. They don't last forever, nor should they. It's hard to understand I am sure in this day of 'disposable' electronics but my Yamaha stereo was bought in July 1984 ... yes 34 years ago. My computer speakers, a pair of Bose Companion 2 Series II were bought 8 years ago and needed replaced.

Of course one of my friends that is into music big time, an ex-music store owner, younger than I ... was pushing me to move my large collection to digital. That was a lot like the plan I had in 2014 of moving all my music, photos, filing cabinets of paper files all to digital ... it turned into a huge job and not one I wanted to finish.

I still think my music sounds better in those tall Polk Audio speakers with two 12" woofers, 4-mid-range speakers and 4 or 6 tweeters. Heavy and have moved all over the USA in the past 25 years but they still put out quality sound. With my old Yamaha Control Amp C-40 only playing the right side I needed a new amplifier. Things have changed over the years I found out while I looked for a replacement.

Rare to find separate components so my choice was an integrated amp or a receiver. A home theater did not interest me yet I wouldn't mind plugging my tv into the amp to use those tall speakers for movies, hear the crack of the bat in baseball games or F1 racing moving across my living room. So I found a receiver to buy and it will be here next Tuesday.

With one of my smaller computer speakers sounding scratchy, as if it I had blown it out ... I needed a new set of those. Of course I am old so any young sales rep at Best Buy assumes I know nothing about computers or electronics and he told me a $9 set of audio cables would fix my problem. I was pretty sure that was not the answer but decided to try his way anyway.

I returned those cables a day later and picked up a new set of Bose Companion 2 Series III.

Before they cut the field and rolled the hay, there wasn't a weed to be found anywhere. The seven acres was almost all grass. Now the field is full of what I call 'weeds' ... stuff like this is all over the field and I am sure it's not the healthiest stuff a cow or horse would want to eat if it were baled. I am guessing again this fall they will NOT cut the field a second time and let the winter freeze kill off the weeds before they cut the field in June 2019.

Back to those small computer speakers and digital music ... I did decide to load my CD collection (large) into iTunes so I can play those on my computer or when/if I travel. With all the CDs in iTunes I will be able to access those with my phone or tablet as long as I have an internet connection. That is one thing I don't do at all ... listen to music on my phone. I guess I was not part of the iPod generation when it came out years ago.

I saw the other day that 95% of the US population will have temperatures above 90° this 4th of July weekend. I know it's hot when I hear the AC running in the middle of the night. It's also a sure sign when all the hounds oversleep their normal wake up times.

It's not why I stopped blogging because it had happened a couple of times before. The "Grammar Police" sent me some emails giving me some help on clearing up my use of the English language in grammar and spelling. Obviously they had missed what I had written just months before that the blog will have misspelled words because the Blogger spellchecker can't catch everything and will be confused sometimes. I proof read but obviously not well.

I also explained it was my personal preference on how I use quotation marks with the punctuation OUTSIDE the last quotation mark ... because to me it looks better. But that (just like starting the sentence with But) irritated them enough to email me their advice and corrections ... that I didn't asked for.

It's my blog ... the grammar and spelling errors will continue.

A little after 12 noon the hounds went outside for their after meal trip. Stella did nothing but stand in the middle of the driveway wanting to go back inside where the AC was running full steam. Sadie got no further than the edge of the yard and Heidi inspected the mowing job next door.

As you can tell, we don't do much mid-day and will now keep busy inside until after 8pm or later for the next hound walk in weather like this. I've been in the reading mode lately so soaking up time between walks or ballgames is not a hard thing to do.

With the large amounts of rain this spring, then hot sunshine, with some humidity, its a perfect storm for maximum weeds. After the rain forecasts move out in the next three days I'll try more combinations of natural weed killer. As you can see not many are successful. I am also doing a test along the driveway bank of letting a section grow to see if that helps in preventing erosion but I don't like the look of it.

It was a decision by committee ... all three wanted to come back inside when I asked them.

I decided to post a little early today. It will be ice tea, a Cubs game on tv by 2:10pm and dinner soon after. I didn't see anything else that would be exciting enough to write about.

All is good and it's really really hot here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Battle Hotter Weather

As the temperatures get hotter every afternoon this week, our routine didn't change much. Fewer photos were taken and there was less interesting things to write about. I continue to be on the fence on deciding a few things. So here are a few photos from the last few days that I didn't blog.

Every day after her lunch Stella likes to take a 30 minute nap in the sun. Heidi sprints back inside as soon as she relieves herself and Sadie roams the field. While Stella wanders the field during the morning walks, Sadie will get her running in as the grass gets taller and taller all over the field.

Each time Sadie finds Stella over by the neighbors house. I've been letting her do what she wants since our last post here. I have been basically lazy and haven't done anything besides two walks per day, nibble food during the day only when I feel hungry, without fixing what you would call a meal. Then every night I watch Reds baseball on tv and while the hounds sleep.

With my food supply very low it was time to find some groceries and the perfect time to get serious about what kind of food I was going to start eating. I went back to logging all my food intake on Cronometer.com It will break each food down into the micro nutrients and track your protein, fat, carbs and calories plus all the vitamins and minerals. If you click on one of those topics, it will list from the highest to the lowest food in that category. I can see now why my weight was starting to creep upward while I ate less food before this recent change.

So far I am losing a pound per day after three days. Most likely that is just water weight. I can make it from breakfast to the time I go to bed without feeling hungry. Basically no grains, no pasta, no beans, a few nuts or seeds and dairy is allowed but not much because that kills your required low carbs count.

On the Friday morning walk I didn't see Stella anywhere on the horizon and she wasn't near the edge of the woods behind the neighbor's house. So I told Sadie "go find Stella" and she took off with her head in the air as high as she could get it.

She stopped once looking in all directions, then moved left toward the last place I saw Stella. About the time I started walking that direct she turned completely around and started running toward the neighbor's backyard.

Sure enough, there was Stella right next to the woods in their yard where they throw food scraps out for the field cat. Stella was scarfing down food as fast as she could. I couldn't take any photos of that because I was trying to get to her as fast as I could. That included jumping over their small drainage ditch that goes along the edge of the yard.

Sadie headed her back in the direction of the house ... the afternoon walk I had Stella on the retractable leash to keep her near us.

Late Thursday night I logged into my two week old Instagram account and deleted it. Then I logged into my Facebook account and deleted that. All in the name of downsizing my internet footprint and spending time on this blog and my private blog whenever I feel like writing.

I still have a Twitter account which I will keep. I use it as a reader mostly for all my sports teams. I do follow James Woods, the actor, because he comes up with some great stuff to remind people just what the truth is in this time of constant manipulated information.

For some reason the Z4 has not left the carport for the past three days. I had a big workout mowing the yard on Thursday afternoon late. It was hotter than I had planned on and 52 minutes later I finished and then stood in front of a fan to cool off as fast as possible. My highest pulse rate during that time was 82% of my max and for the past week my resting pulse rate has averaged 49. I think that shows  have a healthy heart. Now to get rid of some of this gut.

When I put some gas in my FJ the other day it was the highest prices I had paid but was still not higher than prices were in 2013 based on my checkbook register entry that I do on a spreadsheet. I have done that on a spreadsheet since 1997 when Lotus 1.2.3 was the spreadsheet to use.

I did think about starting a blog where I could rant yell and scream about anything that made me mad. Plus I would talk about life in general, ask questions I wonder about at times. I even talked it over with a friend of mine that is also thinking of downsizing his blog activity and social media.

The more I thought about what he said and what I felt, I decided I did not want to have a blog like that. I want my life as simple as possible, the fewest conflicts as possible and computer time online the least amount possible. That might change next winter when it's single digits outside.

I'll be prepared this winter though. That same friend I was talking to me, mailed me a full length Carhartt Coverall that fit me perfectly since I am two inches taller than he is. Last winter at times on the walks I found out that high quality ski underwear and jeans were not enough to stay warm during that half mile walk. The Carhartts should change that drastically.

Sunday will start with the daily hound walk, then back home in front of a tv by 9am for the F1 race at Monaco. After that I will flip over to ABC to watch the Indy500 at noon with the hounds being fed and out for a pre-race pee. I will not watch all of the preliminary pre-race stuff loaded with commercials.

I am thinking of stepping out on the 'thin ice' and expanding the "Other Stuff" part of the blog title and possibly bring some life to this boring blog where no topic will be left behind.

All is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana because I LOVE hot weather.

Perfect Weather In The Tropics

Sunday afternoon was nothing out of the ordinary with the hounds sleeping through the heat, while I watched another miserable Reds baseball game and later some good Indy500 Qualifications. It was one of those days that you have a lot of "I don't know" moments.

Stella started her walk this morning just as she has done the past few days. It's not a direction I like seeing her go because I know she is headed north to the woods behind the neighbors or their drainage ditch. For the 2nd morning in a row I walked over through the high grass to tell her she was going to join Sadie and I. For some reason I think about her and that highway the past two days, so I will follow my intuition and play it safe.

Sadie was sure something had been on our path overnight and she pressed her nose as hard as she could against the small patch of dirt. I wish I had her energy first thing ever morning. My normal two cups of coffee didn't seem to be working so I thought a walk might help speed up my metabolism.

I could barely see Stella heading north, just past the property line pole. While Sadie never changes her routine one the walks, Stella likes to change her routine ever two to three weeks. Why is that? The routines she does not change is when is she back inside the house. She drinks water, moves behind my desk chair and sleeps until lunch.

You can see how much different some parts of the field is based on the height and thickness of the grass compared to the field next to the yard. We have a little more than a month before they normally cut it. I always enjoy walking through a cut field or when the grass is shorter. It doesn't matter to Sadie ... she just wants to track scent.

I gradually got Stella back in our direction heading up the return path the wrong direction. Just like yesterday we hopped back over to the normal path going around the first turn. While walking I could see that WeatherBug was correct in their forecast of cloudy skies all day where I was questioning Wunderground's that said we had a good chance of rain. It will keep it cool today at 80° with perfect sleeping weather at night in the 60's with the windows open.

I am in the mood to visit the library today. I haven't been there in a while and unlike a few years ago I didn't make more then three or four trips this past winter. Of course that 'to do list' I have is within view of my computer and another copy taped to the front of the refrigerator. Those reminders don't seem to be working again this summer.

I had heard a chainsaw as soon as we left the house and not until I uploaded this photo on the blog did I see the source of that noise. Off into the distance you can see one of the neighbors have someone trimming their trees. It's a nice, large house and in the twenty years I have lived here I have never seen anyone in the yard, their car in the driveway or even lights on if I pass by during the night. Yet I am told people live there all twelve months of the year and do not spend their winter in Florida.

You can see that Stella continues with her own path along the overgrown ATV path while Sadie and I follow ours along the back edge of the field.

There has never been a scent that Sadie has not enjoyed checking out.

Doesn't it look like one of those dark and gloomy days ahead. At least it is 80° warmer than those winter days that I don't care for. A friend of mine is trying to help me adapt to those freezing winter hound walks and has mailed me a Carhartt full length coverall. I should receive it in the mail today. He claims he wore it only once because it was a little long and thinks I'll have a better chance to fit into them.

Stella has one speed, all day on any walk ... "slower than slow".

There are three places she likes to stop and scratch on this walk and this is one of them. The exact some place after each morning walk. No fleas have been found, no ticks, just seasonal allergies.

Back to those Sunday's "I don't knows" ... they were basically about what to eat, what to watch on tv or what to do. When I was hungry I didn't know what for, except I was positive it was for nothing I had in the kitchen. I didn't know what I was hungry for. As far as tv, 200 channels although I don't have many of them on my programmed remote ... but those that I listed had nothing interesting on tv.

If they ever come out with a program package of just sports channels in the future, that is all I would buy. I keep thinking that by the time my two year contract is up with Dish Network the source of tv signals will be so much different by then I may not have a satellite dish mounted for tv nor my internet.

I spent some time yesterday afternoon sitting outside but it is turning into the typical summer war with bugs, bees, wasps or allergies. The hounds didn't want to stay outside long either as they were more interested in being in their normal afternoon spots where they sleep all day. That led me back into the "I don't know...." routine.

We all checked the weather outside right after lunch. No rain and slightly cooler than yesterday so I went back inside to grab the batteries to the weed eater and finish the bank along the driveway. The weeds seem to die out by the sun and heat if I cut them to ground level, not completely out of  view but much better for the hounds doing it that way.

Heidi was enjoying the afternoon and I later saw her laying in the shade in the north backyard, a place she hasn't gone, while I was beating down the weeds along the driveway fence.

Stella always likes to think after lunch before she makes any commitments. She is pretty use to sleeping right after lunch. Those weeds you see were gone soon after I took this photo.

I thought I was going to be able to catch Heidi laying in the shade enjoying the day but she saw me looking at her without the camera so she started to walk or trot toward me. I barely had time to grab the camera off the kitchen table and return to take a couple of photos.

While I was killing weeds along the bank of the driveway I kept looking toward the backyard to see if the bloodhounds were still around or had they snuck off into the field. Each time Stella was in view walking around the yard. I didn't know what she had been doing until I was about ready to go inside ... she had been eating pure brown dirt. She likes dirt.

The afternoon was slow enough and cool enough to keep the windows open. I grabbed the book I just finished the other day and started reading it for a second time. Too lazy to get in the FJ and go grocery shopping so I put that off for another day. You never want to get everything done in one day when you are retired. You must spread out your activities to keep sane.

I was almost able to set some new time records in my Mahjong game earlier today. I finished one game under 3 minutes for the first time ever and two other games I broke the previous record of 2:41. I don't think I can eliminate all of the Mahjong tiles any faster than that.

I had another friend tell me today telling me they was shutting their blog down after 10 years. They were also considering getting rid of all of their social media accounts. Is this a new trend?? Other full-time travelers are getting off the road and moving into houses for the first time in a long time.

I love the Indy500 but always watch at home instead of going to the race. Looking at the forecast for Sunday in Indianapolis it looks like rain may happen. If it does, that turns into a long day trying to get 500 miles in while stopping the race for rain and then taking the time to dry the track. That is another good reason to watch at home from the couch ... no lines at the concession (fridge) and no lines at the restrooms (my bathroom).

Another great day checked off in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Is It Laziness ??

At first I thought it was just another morning of heavy dew, so did Sadie, but looking at the fields across the highway and the outer edges of the highway I could see the predicted rain took place sometime after 11pm. It's not often we see fog but when it happens it's pretty nice to look at. As far as 'laziness' I call it 'retirement'. Anything not done today can be pushed to tomorrow or weeks, or months ahead.

I told myself last month I'd dive right into my full page list of things to do this spring and summer. It just needed to get warmer. At the same time I wanted to get all of the things that would happen outside finished before the hot temps in July and August. There is still time but I am going to have to make some drastic changes in my approach. Printing out a list of things to do was a start but that was about all it was.

As I picked up that piece of paper on my computer desk to look at those 26 items staring back at me, I brushed off the dust and found really only 4-5 of that HAS to be done this summer. I think once I get started and marking them off as they are completed, I'll finish most of the 26 items before college football season starting at the end of August ... that is when my world stops until the following April after the NCAA Final 4 in basketball.

As I tip toed out into the field of wet grass in my North Face snow boots, I swear that the grass had grown 6" from yesterday morning. With the days filled with bright sunshine and an occasional rain, the field and my yard grows fast. Luckily with the difference in color we could see what path to follow.

Last week before I noticed anything, Sadie sprinted into the woods and down over the edge heading toward the bottom of the gully. As I got close to the edge of the woods I could hear her breaking small twigs and running over what leaves were left from last fall. This morning I thought she might make the same sprint into the woods but as she looked back at me she knew I had her in my sights.

Yesterday morning the tips of the taller grass were barely visible. It shows you how much difference a day can make.

I was not even to the halfway point between my yard and the corner of the woods where we make our first turn. With the lens turned to the maximum 200mm I barely caught the hounds at the corner of the  woods.

It's interesting how the sun, the shade, and field decide what looks dry and what is still wet from the early morning hours. I can't remember the exact time we took this morning walk but it was probably between 8:30am - 9:00am. As usual both bloodhounds are off the leash roaming at their leisure. Actually that is unheard of in the bloodhound breed.

Yet Sadie and Stella along with Heidi seem to know their limits and rarely take off running away. It was 7 years ago this June when I picked up Heidi that had a note on her adoption paperwork that she was "a runner" and needed to be leashed at all times. I did that for ONE day and realized she wasn't going anywhere.

Stella's previous owner that lived on a large farm in Kentucky told me if Stella did take off that she would always come back. I couldn't take that chance with the highway 80' away. Yet after a week, maybe 5 days, I saw that as long as I was outside with her she was good off the leash. Sadie was on the leash for every walk for her first 5-6 years. I'm not sure what changed my mind but she has never been on a leash in the last 3-4 years and always stays in the back field.

Consequently during our morning walk at least, the hounds roam as they wish. My Garmin watch tells me we walk close to a half mile and the hounds usually take 13-14 minutes before we get back to the house.

I mentioned the other day I had not heard any ATVs in the field as I did a lot late last summer. This ATV path going across the back of the field from the north to south into the gully has almost grown over with lack of traffic. I wonder if the owner of the field (neighbor) put the word out the field needed to grow for them to bale hay in July?

As Sadie and I made our last turn for home, Stella was to the left of us taking her own sweet time to return to our path. Once she saw we might get ahead of her, she came walking slowly towards us.

The farmer in back of us planted his field a couple of weeks before the guys across the highway. I am still guessing it's a field of soybeans. In another few days I'll find out if I am right or not. Remember that I am not a farmer, no background in farming do I don't know anything about planting crops, so anything I say is just a guess on my part.

If anything, in the 2 years and 9 months that I have had Stella, she has taught me one thing ... PATIENCE.

Her afternoon walks are even slower. It's funny because she doesn't roam too much on those afternoon walks and strolls very slowly along the path for most of the way. If I am in front of her, she will walk by me to take the lead, then slow down again. She does not walk around me, but right next to me as if she was trying to move me off the path.

Usually toward the end of the walk I can finally get ahead of them where the camera angle is from in front of them instead of behind them.

All the way to the yard, they will take their time and sniff almost every inch. By this point in the field I am assuming they are smelling the scent of the field cat because I don't see any signs of deer traffic in this part of the field.

Stella would like to pay a visit to the neighbors next door. She will stand facing their house on all the walks. It's not what she sees but what she hears, that has her interest. Or possibly the smell of food.

Well the day is promising, sunny great temperatures outside. I'll take a drive in the Z4 and then try to attack just one thing on the list to see if that will give me some momentum. Of course to do that I will have to break away from my computer Mahjong game which I play daily to see if I can complete more games under 3 minutes.

I use the internet a lot in finding how to do those DIY jobs with house or lawn maintenance. There is a lot of good information out there but also some articles recommend opposite ways of doing things. Such as, are vents in the house foundation left open during the summer and fall to let the crawl space breath ... or closed all the time to keep the area locked tight and dry???

Do you put calk around all the outside edge of the storm windows or leave the bottom edge slightly open so condensation has a way to escape??

I saw a headline in my reading this morning that ticks were going to be bad again this summer. Yet I have not seen nearly as many as we say in 2016? or 2015, when I counted over 100 ticks pulled off of me and the hounds in the month of April. They were so bad I put a counter in the upper left corner of my blog. So far this year I have seen less than 10 on any of us.

With the field of tall grass (hay) so close to our yard plus our multiple walks per day in that field of tall grass, there isn't anyway to miss the ticks. I just have to do an inspection of me and the hounds after each walk. I guess that is the price of living in a rural area.

I got bored yesterday and was in the mood to play around with the blog. I changed some fonts in the title and posts. I tried some different widths, trying to make the page wider. Those went back to the original theme width since most of my readers look at this blog from their tables or phones. So making the blog wider would not have made a difference to most. Maybe the computer experts are right when they say desktop computers are on the way out.

Not only did I go back to Facebook a few weeks ago to follow the groups on my list, yesterday I decided to add back the small group of friends that I had before. I don't think I had more than 15-17 of them listed last time. A few told me they missed seeing the hounds when I would post a picture or two on Facebook. They have no time to visit the blog. Each time those photos I put on Facebook are the same as what is on this blog, just not as many.

Some say that dogs look like their owners ... I am beginning to wonder if the owners (me) don't start adopting the bloodhound lifestyle. After all, about the only thing I do anymore is eat, sleep and take dog walks.

It's been a great spring so far here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.