A Rough And Humorous Start Today

It's trying it's best to snow as forecasted but without much success. Here in 'the tropics' we are in kind of a 'pocket' where storms follow the I-70 corridor north of us and the Ohio River south of us. Radar may show we are about to get blasted with snow storms, thunderstorms or even tornadoes but they always seem to split at the Indiana /Illinois state line and follow those two routes or move around us within miles.

I haven't been up 2 hours yet and already there seems to be a feel that something is off today. Years ago when the fad of biorhythms were telling the us why we felt the way we do, it would be what they called "a critical" day for me today ... I just call it being grumpy and it's always caused by too much sleep. I work well with 3-4 hours of sleep but I am hard to live with when I get 7 or more hours of sleep.

Today I can feel I am hard to live with.

Yet, it might not have been too much sleep that started this 'off day' ... it could have been when Sadie was sprinting for the door as I let them out for the first time of the day within minutes of waking up. She ran into the back of my left knee causing me to fall and stumble as I caught myself before hitting the floor or running into the door head first ... that should give you a good idea.  LOL

Or it could have been 5 minutes later, where the same hound is so excited about her breakfast, as usual, and tips over a 3qt bowl of water when her paw came down on the edge of the bowl as she was hopping up and down. Nothing worse than having unexpected water everywhere within 10 minutes after you wake up. I swear I watched that water move in slow motion as it hit me and almost the ceiling.

Needless to say, I needed a walk to 'cool off' because one cup of coffee had done nothing to change my outlook on life this morning. The weather apps said it was cold, it felt warm. It was suppose to snow but hadn't really. I could see that both hounds had their own agendas so they were going to get total freedom ... plus less chance of a 100# hound running full speed into me ... I had a feeling today wasn't meant to be my day, after my rough start.

I had no doubt that by the time I got back to this part of the walk on the return trip that I would be asking Sadie to help me find Stella. I was sure she would be out of sight by the time I got back. But once again she could do what she wanted today. I was in no mood for a 100 verbal commands to get her to move.

I could hear it but I couldn't see it. Even the camera couldn't see it. I could actually hear very small balls of snow hitting my jacket with my wool ski cap over my ears. When I glanced at my dark blue parka sleeve, it showed me I wasn't going insane today after all. It's always good to know that you haven't fallen over the edge of insanity ... but for some reason I could still feel water from Sadie's water bowl somewhere on me.

As usual she was oblivious to all that had happened this morning. If had not been in her way, she wouldn't have hit me in the back of the knee. If I would have moved the water bowl 6" away, she would not have hit the edge of it with her paws, sending her water out in slow motion as high as the ceiling.

So all was good to her ... she is outside on her walk and she is tracking scent. Nothing else matters.

I turned to make one final look to see where Stella was as my camera lens, set at 200mm, picked her up walking INTO the wooded area ... I was certain she was going to disappear.

By now I am seeing snow flurries, and taking photos with it in the background in my view finder but not showing up on the photos. I could also see a little of it starting to stick to Sadie's coat.

I don't mind cold temps as long as there is no wind. That makes a world of difference in how warm you feel. A little snow but nothing major.

I can always tell when Sadie is really focused tracking scent because I can hear her jowls flapping with a noise that is hard to describe and one that only bloodhound owners can recognize.

I would love to have an drone flying around this field taking photos 24/7 just to see the animal activity when we are not on our walks.

It was hard to get Sadie to leave but I told her "go find Stella" ... she took off running in the direction of the house with her nose to the ground.

I just assumed that we would be going into the woods to look for Stella, so I was walking along the edge of the field and woods to the left of our path as we start our walk. But Sadie was running toward the middle of the field away from me. Then I saw the reason why ... there was Stella, out toward the middle of the field and right next to the alternate path we take walking back home.

Here is proof of what I was hearing hit my jacket. Not a bad closeup photo with a Nikon camera set at 18mm.

Stella was sure she could hear the snow drops too.

Sadie stopped trotting in the yard to listen for them too.

I thought they were getting ready to run and chest bump each other to start wrestling, but for some reason they both decided instead of continuing their path to the corner of the house and then going inside ... all of that small snow they 'hear' my be caused by the lawn moles that have been having a field day in warm weather, tearing up my backyard.

There is something about snow, in any amounts that make these two crazy. They will wrestle at times outside if it is snowing but since there wasn't enough, they decided to wrestle inside .... "that will make him more insane".

I forgot to mention that as I walked up to Stella in the field, we started walking back toward the house .... she ran from behind me, cutting me off right in front of me and then slowed or stopped in front of me where once again I am about to fall and stumbled enough to regain my balance.

See what I mean about the moon and stars not lined up properly for me today? Of course all of this might be caused by my brain knowing it will not be fed it's normal 14 hours of college football today for the first time since the first weekend in September.

No matter what, it will be another great day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... this retirement gig is a great thing.

Sadie At Maximum Energy This Morning

It's was colder than yesterday morning, enough for me to wear a ski cap and gloves on our walk this morning. I even pulled the wool socks out of the drawer and put those on. I didn't care that it will be in the 60's again in a few days ... it was 38°. Both hounds did their own thing this morning and Sadie was very energized ... it must have been the temperatures.

Sadie took off for her walk without even pulling my left hand by her mouth to get me started. She had to stop and look at me to see if I was going to walk or was I just going to spend time taking pictures.

In the meantime Stella was going directions that I had not seen in a while. I knew she wasn't going to be going with us and I had a feeling she would not be here by the time we came back to this point of the walk.

Right after taking the picture of Stella, I turned around and Sadie was already half way up the field on the worn ATV path. Once again she was checking to see where I was or if I was coming. Once she saw me turn the corner on the normal path she charged through the weeds to meet me on the right side of the field.

Once she touched my leg with her nose letting me know she was back ... she took off with her nose to the ground ... scents must have been really strong this morning ... Sadie was all over the field.

I think you will get the idea by the following pictures.

When I asked her "where's Stella" ... she took off running leaving me way behind.

While Sadie tracked scent with her ears flying high ... I didn't see Stella anywhere on the horizon while looking through my 200mm zoom lens.

Then ... there she was ... over near the neighbor's house.

Sadie sprinted over to her, tapped noses, letting Stella it was time to get headed in the direction of home.

Still, Sadie found out it was very interesting in that part of the field, so she didn't walk any faster than Stella did while heading back to my direction.

It took a while ... but Stella finally stepped into the yard and was ready to call the walk officially over.

Our routine today will not change from yesterday. We will take at least one more walk if not two today. With no rain scheduled a 3rd walk is very possible before Game 2 of the World Series at 8:09pm. I might do a little house cleaning, pull a new book off the shelf to read and of course my normal games of Mahjong in my quest to get each of 160 games finished under 3 minutes.

Curiosity yesterday had been uploading all of my bookmarks from Safari to Firefox. I wanted to use it all day and night to see if it would crash with the new High Sierra macOS and I also wanted to see if it really was a data hog.

It worked out great yesterday. Then after the baseball game last night I updated Apple's "public beta" version of their High Sierra macOS. So far this morning both platforms are working well together with no issues. I am also seeing less data used so far this morning ... so the past few days I've had a 'data leak' using more data than I was using the browsers were using.

Last night I think I found the answer ... I had my iPhone on wifi instead of Verizon data.

It's the coldest day yet for this fall but sunning and nice here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Started Late Today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

While the oranges were in the Southwest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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