Some Rambling To Close The Day

After removing the old thermometer from the wall in the carport a year or so ago, due to swallows building their nest there and then crapping all over my cars ... it's been sitting in the corner giving accurate information while I decide where to put it next. I'm thinking of mounting it on the wall it leans against, yet that is in the corner and would that be a few degrees warmer?

Anymore it's pretty rare that I take the camera with me on the late afternoon walks or the final walk of the day in the early evening. It is a much better time to take photos though due to the light. Sadie kept staring at me for the past two hours, then lying back down when I told her we had to wait for it to get cooler outside. All of us tried our best to sleep the afternoon away so by 5:15pm we were ready to turn on the day again.

I think you will see a better quality of picture this time of day, a little after 7pm. I got to the point of wanting to go outside. It looked hot based on the temps my iPhone app was showing me but with some wind it might be okay. I remembered the other day that after 7pm it wasn't bad even with a temperature of 88°.

With the small worn path leading into an opening that is surround by solid growth, I'm thinking this is one of the ways the deer go to and from the woods into the field. In the past years I have seen up to ten deer at once standing by the edge of this location, until they sense me pointing the camera at them ... then they all sprint back into the woods.

Stella must be feeling like her old self today. More energy, showing a little more activity inside the house. Then tonight she slowly drifted away from me and Sadie towards the woods behind the neighbors house as if I did not see her. She didn't turn our direction until she heard my tone of voice change ... she must have thought I was getting serious.  LOL

This time of day I have caught deer standing in that grassy area at the edge of the woods. While I scanned the horizon for any possible deer, Sadie was looking the opposite direction. If I wasn't mistaken my nose was picking up some very good grilling going on at one of my neighbors. I can't imagine what her nose was telling her.

Just like this morning Stella trotted right past me to catch up with Sadie. I can't remember the last time she trotted 3-4 different times in one day. The norm for her in these afternoon walks is to walk as slow as possible with her tail and head lowered, like she is taking her last steps.

You can barely see it but the leaves of this tree are starting to turn bright red and bright yellow like it does during the heat of the summer. I'm too lazy to look up what kind of tree it is.

With 16mph winds, that didn't keep Sadie from doing her normal investigating work.

Nor did it keep Stella from following her own path on her own schedule.

Once Sadie and I had walked quite a way on the path I turned to see where Stella was and there she was trotting again ... good to see.

It never felt hot on this walk. I never felt a drop of sweat, so I decided when I got back I'd pull up my chair to 'Winston's patio', grab a glass of ice tea and enjoy the good weather. I still had a couple of hours of sunlight left. It was prime time to see any possible deer stepping out of the woods or I might even get lucky enough to see my backyard grass move as moles charged through it gobbling up all the grub worms under the grass surface. They have been relentless this month.

For those that wonder, yes I have thought about digging out some of the yard in back of the house and installing a nice stone patio, instead of being satisfied with just 6 red blocks. With all the underground water in that field that angles down toward my yard I have a huge problem with something I call 'ground surge'.

Of course one of the nice things about installing a bigger patio is that I would have to build a short retaining wall around it to keep the ground from covering the patio every year. Even then that surging ground would attempt to come up from under any installed stones like it does now to my river rock, mulch and those 6 blocks.

I originally put those blocks there because it always flooded there after heavy rains. Every year I'd add more dirt, then more stone on top of it, every spring it would flood out again. Sometimes the water would come from an overflowing gutter right above it.

Once Winston found out just how nice it felt when the sun had shined on it all day, he use to lie on those blocks while scanning the field. I guess the heated stones might have made his back or legs feel better as he got older. So it became known as 'Winston's Patio'.

All of these next photos are taken from me sitting in that chair. Of course after a walk and warmed up again both hounds wanted to sit right next to me. They really wanted to go back inside the air conditioned house.

Here is my viewpoint from the chair. After about an hour of sitting outside, no deer were seen and the hounds had had enough ...

Just about the time I was stepping into the yard on the walk, with both hounds way behind me interested in other things, a rabbit sprinted across the yard from the north and leaped into the tall ragweed that hides my burn pile. The hounds didn't know just how close they were, they never saw the rabbit.

Stella still thinks the best tasting green grass is inside all of the ragweed. It doesn't matter that 7 acres of grass are starting to grow again, this is her favorite spot to find grass to eat.

Sadie also enjoys eating the fresh dirt that moles push above ground level. Just plain good old brown dirt. If you look close enough you'll notice mud on her nose.

If the hounds could speak like a human, with a voice, I have no doubt they would be telling me to take them inside. Since I understand their body language and facial expressions I know they are telling me to take them inside, they've had enough.

Although I wasn't that hot, it was great to open the door and get hit in the face with a rush of cold air. Air conditioning is a great invention.

With about 5 hours to go before my billing cycle ends with HughesNet, I had about 800Mb of data left. I found out a few days ago that YouTube videos, videos from the sports sights soak up a lot of data, like over a gig's worth in a short period of time. But with some data left I thought I'd take a look at Firefox again, get their update and see if websites loaded any faster. I like their online security programs that run in the background but it's always too slow for me.

After an hour of using it I think I'll give it another try full-time and make it my default browser for a while. Their download speed isn't bad.

A might be a movie night tonight. Reds games are on hold with the All-Star Game tomorrow. I am not in the glitz of entertainment for their home run derby tonight. I hate how they have made all televised sports more about entertainment than just the game. They are all competing for the next best show in all sports.

I had another friend tell me last night that if I really do move out to the southwest like I have talked about, I should keep the house here in 'the tropics', and then rent a place out there to see if I can handle all the brown sand, the lack of trees before selling my house. He and his wife think I'm crazy to even think about leaving the location I am in now, even with cold winters. They cannot comprehend all the green trees, grass and fields I have around me.

No moves are planned as long as I have the hounds. This is the perfect place for them.

I mentioned the app Pocket the other day for Google Chrome where you can download websites into Pocket and read them later offline, no internet needed. That feature is already built into the Safari browser that Apple designs. I see that in Firefox it's already added.

I have not used it offline but what I do like about it is once you sign up for an account (free), they email you "Pocket Hits" ... they group interesting articles from media around the world.

For example one of the articles on this afternoon's email was titled "I kicked my smartphone addiction by retraining my brain to enjoy being bored" ... by Jordan Rsenfield at Quartz.

or "What happened when Walmart left" by Ed Pilkington at The Guardian.

Well I am going to try to sneak out of my desk chair and check out the movie selections. I'll have to move slowly since Stella has decided to use the arms and wheel under my chair as her pillow as she sleeps.

Monday flew by here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

The Hackers Are Out Playing

Recently I've noticed a lot more junk mail being blocked by my Apple Mail than normal. Sometime last year all the spam experts decided they liked the email address I have here on my contact page. So I use that address most of the time when a website needs an email address either for me to log in or contact information. That way if they want to spam it my personal email address is not affected. Blog traffic is also showing Russia, Ukraine and Chine passing Canada in the number of daily visitors to the blog for the #2,3 and 4 highest.

I have all my browsers set to where I have to click for any website to play a video. I don't do automatic updates but will get notices where there is a new update available. I don't open attachments of any kind. I have a firewall set on my computer settings but I have never ran anti-virus protection on my Apple computers. I do run a malware finder every week. It will automatically isolate and quarantine any malware that is finds, keeping it from harming the computer. All of those settings are to protect my computer from hackers.

At times Facebook will starting showing some strange requests for people I don't know. I have my account there locked down as tight as possible. I don't have anyone able to request to friend me for that reason. Pubic has no access to my account or the few pictures I post on there.

So with increases I have noticed recently in strange traffic and even strange messages on my Facebook account, this post this morning over at A Satisfying Retirement didn't really surprise me ... but it does show just how hard it is to get rid of the embedded files that hackers plant once they have access to a computer.

He mentioned that if it happened again he would shut down his Blogger blog immediately. I found that when I moved my blog to Wordpress a few years ago I had twice the amount of hacker traffic there than on Blogger. Based on what they had blocked. I don't believe Blogger is his problem.

I would say it was more likely that an attachment was opened sometime or a weblink clicked that causes the damage to his computer. Otherwise if it was his blog being the culprit then it would seem logical to not visit his blog and to take it off my sidebar to protect myself.

I believe Apples security system has proven in the past it does quite well preventing access to a computer, table or phone. I mean when the FBI computer experts cannot access an iPhone they need to get into and ask Apple to do it for them ... to me that is pretty good security.

I believe that Stella is getting better. Today, in a very long time she trotted fairly fast on two different occasions. This morning before the walk she was nudging Sadie's head as if she wanted to play or wrestle. She has not tried that in many months. Both of those are good signs that she is feeling better from whatever has been ailing her since March.

The local tv weathermen keep talking about it being really hot and muggy but I'm not feeling it. When I think of hot and muggy I think of weather being unbearable. It has not felt that way to me on our daily walks. Yes it's hot in the upper 80's to low 90's but when I check different weather sites it is telling my the humidity here is 65-70% ... that is pretty low for this time of year. So I'll take the overcast skies today to keep the temps down.

All of us still prefer being inside enjoying the air conditioning. Heidi is setting all-time records in the number of hours she is sleeping. Sadie and Stella are always sleeping unless they are eating or taking their walks. This kind of weather really zaps their energy.

Another good sign for Stella is they she held her tail upright for most of the walk, instead of lowered. I really think she is on her way back to being the old Stella that liked to run and play with Sadie.

The yard is not quite tall enough to mow after 6 days but with 4 days in a row where Wunderground predicting a very high percentage for rain, you have to decide to mow it now or take a chance for it to be too tall if we do get rain this week. Nothing worse than mowing extra tall grass.

Whatever Stella found to eat must have tasted good.

This was the 2nd time she was trotting at a pretty fast pace. She was almost running before she caught up with me and went right past me to where Sadie was standing.

It's poses like this where I remember the bloodhound can hear things 4x as far as the human ear and of course smell 200x better than my nose. The look of Stella leads me to believe she smelled and heard the large field cat in the woods. The neighbor says no one owns it and yes, it's a very large cat and spends a lot of time in that wooded area. It's so large that the first time I saw it from a distance I wasn't sure what kind of animal it was.

They might be on the final stages of getting home on this walk but there is always one last thing to find to eat before I walk over and tell her 'let's go' ... if I'm ignored I have no other choice but to lead her by her collar until she starts walking on her own in our direction.

She still likes returning home by entering the north side of the yard. At least she keeps things interesting around here, with never a dull moment.

They will have another late lunch today and probably two more walks, unless some of that 50% chance of rain shows up in the next couple of hours.

I'm back to reading books today, totally motivated to accomplish nothing as I have decided to make this a long weekend. It has the potential to stretch all the way through the week. I am still thinking of other options of having groceries delivered ... that is how lazy I am feeling today. What I couldn't do with a drone.

I image by the afternoon sometime or tonight, my hunger will shove me into my car and lead me to the store. I have some food left but nothing I want to eat. I'd rather have a $1 frozen burrito than another salad right now ... strange stuff.

My circular polarize filter has been shipped, should be here tomorrow a day earlier than they estimated.

Time moves on here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Still Confused On Day Of The Week

The highlight of the week has been watching this farmer move his mower along a bank and around an old highway sign no longer in use. He was also able to mow grass right up to the edge of his field without a trimmer and not mowing over his first rows of corn. I'll confirm that he does better at the job of mowing near the highway than the state highway department does.

These three photos were taken while standing in my kitchen in an air conditioned environment.

Although the noise was loud enough for me to hear and to get up to see what was going on, Stella was in a deep dream state and didn't move a muscle.

Looking at the temperatures throughout the USA yesterday, I really don't have anything to complain about. My temps only in the high 80's, was one of the cooler parts of the whole country. I assume in the RV parks generators are running at full maximum while people stay inside using the AC. For those that don't have or use the AC in their RVs or trailers, I wonder at what elevation they have moved to trying stay cool?

No matter how hot it was, Sadie kept bugging me to go outside late in the afternoon. At times she will get frantic wanting outside and then sprints to the tallest grass and starts eating it. I saw her run to this spot finding the tall grass amongst the ragweed to eat.  Ten minutes later when I looked outside she was gone.

It was pretty easy to figure out where to point the camera to find her. This is one of her favorite spots in the past month.

This gives you a better idea of how far away she was, as I stood at the corner of the house. Even out there she was giving me the stare down, seeing if I would take her for the 3rd walk of the day. I went back inside where it was nice and cool.

I was also in the middle of watching the Reds game on tv, so it was ten more minutes before I went back outside to check on her to see where she was ... once again ... she's gone.

That meant she was probably over near the woods by the neighbor's house. As I walked to the north part of the yard I called her name ... there she was trotting up the hill from the direction I thought she might be.

It's not has hot as it is out west but it was ~90° and she was feeling it.

Last night sure seemed like a Sunday night for some reason. Each time I looked at the computer or iPhone it reminded me it was only Thursday. Not that it matters to me or what I do.

To start Friday morning off we tried getting back to an earlier start. My garmin vivo tells me I am getting most of my deep sleep between 5am - 8am. So I didn't recall that 7am passed and barely saw 8:30am show up. I was thinking last night all of this weirdness started when I made a mistake last Friday and grabbed a bag of 'decaf' coffee.

I have found out the past week I probably don't drink coffee so much for the taste, although that is important, but for the caffeine boost to start each of my days. I need all the help I can get to wake up ... I never have been a morning person.

So by 10am Sadie, Stella and I headed out for our morning walk. Stella did her normal very wide loop from the yard to the middle of the field to dump her tanks and then circle back to meet Sadie and I. She will turn those directions on her own, I don't have to call her name to get her to come that way.

There is a lot for her to see and it seems more and more she moves on her own schedule, going where she wants.

This is one of those days she looks like she is gaining weight. You cannot see her ribs.

Sadie still cannot figure out why Stella has stopped walking with us.

The longer I walked the hotter it began feeling. All of the rain in the forecast the past 5 days missed us. I remembering the reason I mowed the yard on Monday was because it was going to be a day of thunderstorms on Tuesday.

Stella did a little fast trotting today but not quite a run. I hope this is a sign that she is improving with whatever is wrong with her.

While I walked home following the path, Sadie and Stella decided they would take their own path home. After walking into the yard just past the property line pole that is still standing, they found something interesting enough they they would not leave. Nothing to eat but just a strong scent.

I had cleared out the right side of the trees by the old fence post in 2014. Once the neighbor had the field surveyed during his purchasing process and they decided my property went about 65' further north than I had been told, I decided to burn out all of the overgrown brush, pull out the roots and plant grass. That is the area you see the hounds standing.

It wasn't until last October in 2016 that I decided to do the same thing on the left side of the trees, just at the corner of this bank by the old fence post.

There were some wild flowers but more weeds and ragweed than anything else. I guess now I could have covered that corner with seeds of wild flowers to add some color to a yard that is nothing but green.

I pulled all of those roots out with a rake, then burned them. Once it was warm in March of this spring I planted grass seed only to have it go below freezing the following week. More seed then the rain washed it away. I spread the last third of the bag of grass seed and it has filled in pretty well for it's first year.

I need a landscaping hobbyist or expert, to place some flowers throughout the yard for some color.

While burning leaves last fall I decided I'd burn out all the dead brush on the north side of the yard. Out of nowhere some wind picked up and started taking the fire toward the field further than I had planned. The fire got under control as it was just inches inside the field.

I took this picture with my iPhone while standing in the field wondering if I was about the set that part of the field on fire. Luckily I got it stopped. Someone passing by on the highway stopped to see if things were okay, did they need to call the fire department?

It wasn't until this summer that I saw what damaged that fire caused in the wooded area next to my yard on the north side. You can see which trees were burnt last fall, as it's the only brown in the neighborhood.

I'll be sure to take another photo of this area next summer to see what changes take place.

After our morning walk, I loaded up my 32 gallon container of recycled material. We don't have to sort it for our local center. They compress everything into containers, then those are trucked to Indianapolis where the sorting takes place. I watched the process on YouTube for the specific company. It's interesting to see semi truck containers of compressed paper, cardboard, plastic and glass being sorted as it passes by on conveyor belts.

Heidi jumped in the passenger seat for the short 6 mile ride. With the windows down she was able to sit her nose on the window edge by the side mirror to capture all the scents on the way.

We found out the state highway department is doing work that I have never figured out the reason for. Digging out spots on the highway about every 10', a rectangular shape across one lane of traffic and then covering it back up with new asphalt. The backed up traffic was at least 1/4 mile long, maybe longer.

I was lucky enough to catch our lane moving in each direction so there was zero sitting time for us. As I turned in town to head south toward our house I I noticed stakes about 10' apart along the side of the road for the first mile heading out of town. I am only assuming they will be coming our direction with their strange repairs.

Any ideas what they are doing?

They are not installing any new pipes or drainage systems. When I glanced at the dug out section as I passed, they had taken the asphalt out all the way to the base of the highway. Then filling it immediately back up with new asphalt.

With the lines of backed up traffic it looks like any traveling I need to do or grocery shopping, will be done at night after the road crews have stopped for the day.

Heidi started nonstop barking to let me know it was past time for lunch. With it feeling cooler outside today plus some added wind, I thought she might be interested in going on our walk. Not only was she not interested, neither were Sadie and Stella.

While Heidi studies her next move, Stella has got an itch on the top of her nose. I see nothing there when I checked it out.

As I sat back down in my chair, Heidi gave me a look as if to say "you expect me to stay outside in this?" ... she ran for the door when we all headed back inside, didn't even pee.

I believe the invisible black field cat has been checking out the north side of the yard where the hounds were earlier and also the driveway where Sadie and Stella had the same response.

I remember in the early 1980's when I was living in Carlsbad California, I use to sit on the porch in front and see the Pacific Ocean across the street named Carlsbad Blvd.

Now when I sit in a chair at the corner of the carport, that ocean view has changed to this. A lot can happen in 30-35 years.  LOL

About all I can see happening the rest of the day is ... the hounds sleeping the majority of it. All of them are sleeping scattered in the house at their favorite spots.

Sadie and I will take a late afternoon walk. Stella will decide if she wants to go or not. She passed on the 3rd walk of the day a couple of times this past week.

In the meantime I am going to search my bookshelves for something to read, something that will hold my interest. If that is not possible then I look through my large dvd collection of movies and find something to watch.

(2:17pm - As I started to walk up the drive from the mailbox I saw my first Casita trailer drive by the house ... made my day)

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