The Hounds Can't Believe It's October

The day may have been shortened with two afternoon MLB baseball games today, but I had a few things I wanted to get finished before they started at 1pm. It's amazing teams can play 162 games in the regular season and have two divisions end in ties for the leader. These games today would decide who was a 'wild card' team Tuesday and who would start on Thursday, not having to play in a one game playoff ... winner take all. I am expecting these soy beans to be picked any day now. I hope it's next week so I can keep the windows closed due to dust and not have temperatures in the mid to high 80's outside.

Stella is now starting to show how excited she is to walk in the morning. There no "Sadie staredowns", nor hopping up and down while I grab my ballcap ... just a little wag of her tail and some light whining. Once I open the door she takes off for the backyard while I stand on the small porch taking the daily photo of the field across the highway.

I knew before we left it was going to be wetter than normal ... I found out at the end of the walk just how much more. The thing is ... I hate getting wet.

It has been interesting to watch Stella on these walks the past couple of weeks. She has shown no interest in ignoring my calls and taking off out into the middle of the field or to the neighbor's backyard. She might veer a little either way off the path but that is about as far as she goes. Why the change?

Again today there was never a time that I had to tell her "come on".

It wasn't until the photos were downloaded into my computer and I had the chance to look at them to see I had a bad day taking photos in the morning. Too blurry, nothing seemed really sharp. Of course on some of the plants in the field,  I needed a macro lens to capture the small droplets of dew.

I am not sure why I couldn't get this photo sharper but it does show just how wet the field was this morning.

That spot on her head is one of the small growths that was cut off last Wednesday. It was about the size of a tick and has scabbed up over the weekend. Her inner left front leg looks good where three staples were added to close the cut from the larger growth. She gets the staples out this Wednesday. Also after four days of eye ointment, the eye were the two tumors were removed really looks good.

I was starting to take a step back in her direction to get her, when she started walking toward me.

Then she surprised me by breaking into a run where I was pretty lucky getting two photos taken just in time. Her ears give her away showing the speed she has. Although she has yet to sprint full speed.

Terrible photo but you can barely see the droplets of water.

No she will not walk alone all the way to the yard. There is one spot up there she likes to check out before I catch up to her.

The only flower like this in the field this week, on our way back to the yard.

It's another Monday for her. A little time drying herself off, then a nap until lunch. Then another nap after lunch before a late afternoon walk. Bloodhounds lead a rough life.

The first sign of how wet the walk was.

These will be dry in no time once the sunshine arrives.

I hope to see all of these crimson buds bloom in the next few days like the yellow mum below.

Yesterday Stella decided to walk out and enjoy the sunset. Heidi had other plans as she took off around the house, exploring every inch of the way. She actually has the better nose compared to Stella but not as good as Sadie's was.

After a hard day what else is there to do but sleep while setting up. Yes her eyes are closed and she is snoring lightly. The vet tech said her nails are trimmed back as far as they can go and they still look long. Such is the nail of a basset hound.

For those that updated their Apple devices to the new iOS 12 and you use iMessage, it was big news today that there are some issues under the new iOS that texts are getting filed wrong and everyone's conversations are showing up in other people's accounts. I have nothing to fear but I am guessing there are some people across America sweating bullets with that news.

With my windows cleaned spotless, a great job if I do say so myself, I have been able to see if Stella is still trying to escape from the bedroom through the window above the bed. After the four times I have had to go out to the store, library or just a drive ... there are zero bloodhound nose smudges on my clean windows. She uses her nose to poke at doors or windows to see if they open, even in the car.

These mornings are so nice anymore to sit outside with morning coffee that it is almost hard to get up and start your day. This might be might favorite time of year living here. The atmosphere makes the yard grow faster where I could move every third day. Raking leaves will be right around the corner since it's October.

After lunch we did our normal trip outside. Where Sadie use to roam the field after lunch, neither Stella nor Heidi comes close to heading that way. Bother are more interested in going back inside for a nap. The sunshine was a little brighter than Stella liked, so she squinted her eyes.

Once Heidi relieved  herself, she immediately went back to the door to be let in.

Stella thought more about what she wanted to do the rest of the day. Her days rarely change even when the seasons do.

About the time I was heading to the living room for the start of the first baseball game, Heidi walked by me heading for the door not ten minutes after she came inside. She wanted to soak up some sunshine and stayed outside by herself for a little bit over 30 minutes.

But in the end ... their afternoon routines kicked in and that meant siesta time for both of them.

It was too nice to stay inside to watch baseball and not as hot as they forecasted ... so I headed outside to enjoy the weather, even if it was just sitting in a chair.

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

The Hounds Don't Worry About Weather

As bad as I want warmer weather and Spring to arrive, the bloodhounds don't care ... but Heidi does. She is like me ... wants it at least 70°. Since our last post nothing much has happened. About every time I put the wool socks and long underwear away, the temps drop below freezing. We took off this morning with 25° and an adjustment to Daylight Savings Time.

Even though the walks remain the same, Stella has changed her walk routine as usual. I've been letting her hang back while Sadie and I make the half mile walk. Stella has made two changes ... she gets as far as the first corner by the time we meet her on the way back ... and she comes when I call her.

I tried a few changes to my camera settings even though most of our walks anymore are taken without a camera. For some strange reason Stella seems to follow Sadie and I, when I don't take the camera. I spent a few days taking large file images in the RAW setting instead of JPG-Fine. I could tell a slight difference in sharpness but it wasn't worth the extra time it took to export the images from the computer to the blog.

About the time I made the change back to JPG-Fine, I received an updated article from 'Digital Photography' where a professional photographer made the same comparison and the same change for this general family photos.

Heidi was able to make a few laps around the house a couple of days when the temps were in the 40's after her lunch. I let her do what she wanted, but she always made it back to the door to be let in right after her lap and spent no extra time outside.

No matter what, every walk morning or afternoon, Sadie is always tracking scent ... that's what she is made for. Where Stella prefers food and sleeping.

I've really enjoyed the change from Directv to Dish Network. I now have a feature I can split my tv screen into 2 or 4 screens, showing ballgames in each smaller screen. A nice feature for a sports addict like me. With a DVR that tapes up to 16 movies, tv shows, or ballgames at one time, I no longer have channel conflicts. The nicest thing is the ability to export all saved movies and games to an external hard drive instead of taping them on DVDs, after the 2Tb DVR is filled.

We had a few days of rain mixed in between the freezing cold days but when the roads have been dry and no rain in the forecast I have taken short drives (1 hour) with the Z4. It does not get driven that much over the year but it's there when I have the urge to go out and enjoy the local scenery plus the smooth driving Z4.

Back to Directv, I am in the final few weeks to officially close my account. Since my DVR is an older model they did not request that I ship it back but they did send me an envelope to return the card inside the DVR. Of course they cannot let me know that they received it, nor can their customer service reps tell me if that card has been received, thus leading to a possible charge.

I have been told different stories, one saying that if I have received my final bill, which I did and paid immediately, then all is good without any additional charges. Directv forums tell a different story, so we will see I guess.

They continue to make offers for me to come back, this week by snail mail. My same 'Choice Package' for $29.99 for the next year instead of the $99.99 - $114.99 I was paying. To sweeten the deal they offered a Visa Gift Card worth $300 this week. Yet they day before I cancelled my account they told me they could not offer any discounts.

No matter how far back Sadie gets behind me, she will always come sprinting to and past me in a full sprint.

It shows it will be warmer by the end of the week and possible snow a few days later on Tuesday. No worries, I've seen it snow the first few days in April many years ago. While we had the coldest winter that I can remember this year, the national weather service says the Earth was warmer than ever in January.

It's the middle of March but looks like the dead of winter in freezing January.

With each step by Sadie I could hear the frozen weeds, grass and dormant flowers crunching under her paws.

This has been the area we see Stella as we make the turn toward home, at least the past week.

While looking like she is ignoring me, this week she will walk over to me and push my knee with her nose to let me know she is there. Instead of taking her normal 'alternate' path home, she had been leading Sadie down the normal return path home.

With all of the deer scent and the field cat we rarely see if every, they have plenty of work to track all the way home.

That 'field cat' made an appearance the other day during our afternoon walk. Sadie of course had to check it out and by the time I caught up with her, the cat swatted Sadie across her nose drawing blood. With the cat arching her back and hissing ... Sadie would not leave yet decided it was best not to poke her nose toward the cat.

By the time we returned home, Sadie had stopped the bleeding by having her nose pressed to the ground on the way home the other day.

The next month will be filled with 'March Madness' in college basketball, sprinkled with a few games of MLB spring training. The Reds open their season in just 16 days, snow or now snow.

The 'to do' list will be started the first day it is warm. I have a lot of things to get done this spring which will mean even less computer time than now. In the last billing cycle that just ended a few days ago I had my lowest data usage EVER!!

All is good here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.