Storms Were More Bark Than Bite

The storms last night ended up barking more than it bit. The radar showed it could be a bad one but we ended up with a .8" of rain. It sounds like everything was once again, north or south of us.

I guess it was fortunate a few years ago the farmers installed some huge drainage pipes across the low part of their field. Basically from left to right across the middle of the picture. The local tv weatherman said last night the rain coming down at a rate of 9" per hour.

This is what happens when your gutters are clear and cleaned but there is more rain than gutter space available.

The space below that overflowing gutter caught all of the excess and more.

By this morning with a night full of storms, it had been absorbed into the ground.

All three hounds did take their first walks of the day while I poured their breakfast kibble. Based on the the wet fur on top of them, they did venture out into the rain to dump their tanks. A few hours later they both went back outside to check the chances of a morning walk.

They called it off and came back to stand inside the carport looking to see how long this misery was going to last.

Even though I had cleaned the gutters just a few weeks ago, preparing for the spring rains that had not come yet, I saw this within minutes of the Friday night storms.

I knew exactly what the problem was and it would be an easy fix as long as it would stop raining long enough for me to reach over the gutter and remove some of whatever it was blocking the wire mesh that blocks every thing but water at the downspout.

It couldn't have been leaves, maybe a twig but by the way this looked it had to be wet leaves??

The rain did not complete stop but it slowed enough for me to pull out the 3-step ladder and reach up into the gutter near the downspout to feel liquid mud. I didn't look to see what it was but moved it around out of eyesight range enough to unblock the plug and instantly hear a large amount of water flowing into the downspout.

Supposedly these storms are going to continue through the weekend and into Monday. Of course living in Indiana, those forecasts can change every hour, so Sadie's day may turn out okay after all.

Let's just say that she has not been a happy camper this morning. Stella has been the perfect bloodhound during last night storms. With a warning when I picked her up that she hated thunder and lightning, once again she has not shown any of that fear or anxiety.

There was a lot of loud thunder and a lot of bright lightning all through the night ... but to me that is just perfect sleeping weather. The new HughesNet Gen5 only lost signal once and that was when the house power flashed off and on Friday night. Soon after that computer rebooted and the signal was found, that speed was still at 48Mbsp.

I had a huge urge to drive to the local Best Buy store 25 miles away yesterday. I got the hounds ready for my departure, changed some clothes for me, grabbed the keys and was about a step from the door ... when I changed my mind. I couldn't believe I didn't feel like spending money in a place like that.

After more internet research I have found that my Epson NX420 printer/scanner does not print temporarily in black if one of the color inks are low or out, as advertised. I still do as much as I can digital and even have my auto insurance cards in my iPhone instead of a printout but I would still like a hard copy of my 2016 Federal and State Taxes just for a piece of mind.

Strange how that works. Never in my life have I ever needed a printout of my taxes but still think I need to print a copy out for my files. Sure the computer could break at any moment but I have everything backed up on an external drive and a different laptop to connect to if I lost the services of my iMac.

So, why do I need a hard copy of taxes?

I did find a nice Epson scanner, at a good price, in stock that not only scans documents and photos but 35mm negatives, 110 negatives and slides of each size. I have thousands of those slides and negatives if I add up all the different kinds.

Sometime I would like to make a digital copy of my 1976 Cross Country bicycle trip journal along with the pictures I took. Some of those are hard copy photos and others are negatives.

I have a lot of great 35mm slides taken over two decades but only a few were processed into pictures.

So once again today I have the urge for a roadtrip to Best Buy to pick up that scanner, plus buy the Epson #124 or #125 Cyan ink cartridge, so I can print in black only ... that would also get out of the house. I need to get a life sometime as others have told me.  LOL

Well the sun is trying to break through the skies. Wunderground shows all of that 100% chance of rain has dropped to 25% until midnight. Sadie does not know it yet but a walk MIGHT be possible later this afternoon as long as it does not rain this afternoon.

Changed the roadtrip plans to Rounds 4-7 of the NFL draft here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Hounds Get A 2nd Walk In On Wednesday

From the way it looked on the radar, it was going to be close but possible for a hound walk before the storms came. We figured if the local electric crew were out trimming tree limbs before the storm, then it was okay for us.

Stella was so excited about the possibilities that she hung one of her best drools ever. It wasn't as long as her best one but as far as thickness, and stability I think it ranked right up there with gorilla glue.

So why is this blog post showing up at an odd time of day?  It's 12:40am as I write this ... I'm wide awake, nothing to do and found some pictures I took this afternoon that I forgot to download into the computer.

By the time we left you could see that we were going to cut it pretty close before it would start raining.

The walk started pretty good, normal, that is until Stella heard all of the men cutting trees. Then she was curious enough to not only listen but took a couple of steps her their direction. When I called her name, she changed her mind and started heading our way.

Those storms west of us this morning did their normal split ... one headed along I-70 and the other followed the Ohio River. That happens the majority of the time, even during winter snow storms. So all of the weather was traveling in a northeast direction at a high rate of speed.

Weather, wind or possible rain didn't bother either hound. they were not going to change their pace and I think you can tell by the 2nd picture just how fast they were walking ... slow and slower.

When I made the turn home, Stella was following me 6'  behind me, so I forgot about checking her. The next time I looked she had gone way off the path and was interested in something else. To far away to look for the cat but something had her interest. My neighbor may have been baking pies.

Once she didn't respond to me calling her name, loud enough for her to turn and look at me ... I told Sadie "go get Stella" and she took off running.

She didn't touch noses this time but did an abrupt turn within a foot of Stella ... she slowly started walking our direction.

About the time they were almost to me, I was sure I felt a drop of rain. I was positive when I felt more than one drop of rain. So when Stella didn't move, I ran over to attach the 6' leash so we could run home before it started to pour.

I am not sure how to take it ... but she didn't run even with me setting the pace and Sadie running next to me. She was in a fast trot but would not run. I did not notice her limping, nor hear any king of yelp from her. Is she getting that lazy or is something wrong with her?

About the time we had a step on the carport floor, the rains came. I had made it just in time before my camera would have been soaked with rain. I spent the next few hours playing Mahjong while watching the hard rain out the window.

The great news wasn't that the rain stopped but a text I received from the local company that installed my Exede Satellite service in June 2014. As of April 1 my area had new options ... faster download speed, more data per month and lest money per month.

I called within a minute to set up an appoint for next week where they will come put and put on a new transponder on the dish, along with replacing the modem with the latest technology. The router is built into the modem, so I'll end up with one box instead of two.

Also my speeds will increase from 15Mbps to 40Mbps, from 15Gb of data per month to 20Gb of data per month. Instead of free data between midnight and 5am, I'll have 50Gb between 3am-6am. All for $16 less per month.

My current download speed is consistently between 12-15Mbps and the web pages load almost instantly. I don't watch ballgames or movies on my computer so I guess I'll not be able to take the real advantage of more speed but it will still be nice to have.

The 20Gigs of data per month will be more than enough for me. I have averaged a little more than 14Gb per month for the past 2 years and 10 months of service.

Well it sounds like the rain has stopped, the winds have died down and all of the hounds are passed out cold for the night. I am now tired enough to call it a night and get some sleep.

There was a LOT of rain tonight in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

The Storm Fizzled Out !!

If I had received that tornado warning from the local tv weatherman or even one of the major national news channels, I would accuse them of creating false drama to drive up ratings. So I am going to play 'weatherman' now and officially say the storm 'fizzled out' and I have seen better thunderstorms than what has taken place these past two hours.

It started a little after 6pm and it wasn't anything to brag about. I had the screen door open that looks out into the carport from the kitchen. Sadie sat there and watched it while Stella and Heidi were sleeping. It rained hard off and on but nothing major. I kept looking on Intellicast radar and it just didn't look bad a few states over or to the southwest.

The winds were not even strong enough to rattle the storm windows. I sat here watching it while playing Mahjong.

This was about as bad as it got. That's nothing compared to what I have seen in the past.

Even the car cover did not flap in the wind like it would if it was major wind.

I was just a few minutes past 8pm when I caught a glimpse of sun coming through the kitchen window. I grabbed my camera, told the hounds to "stay here" and went outside to grab some shots of the sunset.

Not until I walked to the back to see how much standing water I had did I see a small rainbow above the field we walk through.

So with a sky like this, in my un-professional opinion I am going to declare the tornado warning was overkill and is over 2 hours earlier than planned.

I am sure like other states, there is a saying ... "if you don't like the weather in Indiana just wait a few hours and it will change".

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

The Storm Came Early

With the current weather early this morning and the slim chance of the daily hound walks today, I decided to post early and include the photos from yesterday afternoon's walk ... Sadie was the featured hound.

I am not sure what time it was but it was still dark when the roar of thunder and a lightning bolt bright enough to light up the bedroom woke me up. It was almost immediately I felt a bloodhound muzzle trying to lift my hand up from the side of the bed.

It was Stella standing by the side of the bed wanting to let me know it's storming and to remind me that she is not a fan of thunderstorms. I was told when I picked her up that she hated thunderstorms but compared to my first basset hound, Harry, she is not bad at all. She whines a little and paces a little during these storms but isn't what I would call frantic.

All of us got back to sleep as the thunder continued to roll but I didn't hear rain hitting the storm windows so maybe that took place earlier while we were sleeping. Wunderground shows there is a pretty good chance of rain continuing from now until Wednesday at 10am.

Sadie was wondering this morning if there was still a chance to take walk in light rain even before the first cup of coffee was poured. No, there wasn't.

With Stella not interested in getting any further away from the driveway than this ... plus the light drizzle ... the morning walk has been canceled at this time. When there is standing water in the low spots next to the house, that means the field is too wet to be hiking through.

So with that in mind, I'll post some pictures from yesterday afternoon. It wasn't planned but Sadie turned out to be the featured hound of the walk All hounds were given free reign to go and do anything they wanted during this walk.

Heidi chose not to go on the walk and only took her back way out to the front yard long enough to relieve herself and then back inside for her afternoon siesta.

Stella stopped within 20' of starting the walk and didn't move, so I knew what her plan was and I wasn't going to stick around to watch.

It was Sadie and I enjoying the walk and the warm weather. There wasn't any wind, a lot of birds chirping among themselves and clear blue skies. It was perfect weather for a mid-day walk.

The way Sadie reacts every time we start to walk, I really think we could walk an unlimited amount of times per day and she would never care. In some cases Stella has a limit, where by the 3rd walk on some days she has zero interest and will take one slow step at a time to get through it.

This picture gives you some idea what Stella's plan was for the afternoon walk. You can barely see her just right of center.

Sadie on the other hand was intense in her exploration. She was in her own world enjoying every scent she could pick up. Her strong tracking instincts show up every walk, in all kinds of weather.

She started rolling in something before I could catch her. The only baths that I give her are outside with the hose in one hand and her tethered so she will not sprint away. I've tried before but there is no chance of her getting into the bathtub to get clean.

Luckily whatever she rolled in just smelled good to her and didn't leave any kind of residue on her back and shoulders ... too cold for an outdoor shower and not enough time to give her a bath.

While I was talking Sadie into getting away from that spot, Stella sprinted up behind us to checkout what all the excitement was about. By that time Sadie had walked away from the 'real good' spot to keep it hidden from Stella.

Once again Stella stayed behind while Sadie and I continued on.

I am not sure what the reason is or what she is thinking but on a lot of the afternoon walks, Stella will follow the path walking extremely slow, after she catches up to me, without the leash. She will do this up to the back edge of the field and then go into her search mode at a faster pace. Of course you will notice I needed her to keep up with us on the last half of the walk yesterday and I attached the leash as a motivating tool.

Sadie explored every inch of the field to the left of the return path home. Stella walked right behind me, out of picture range for the return trip home. I shut off the camera and enjoyed the weather the rest of the way.

It was a great afternoon with the temperatures just right.

Al over at The Bayfield Bunch has been having problems with a program called Live Writer that he uses to create his blog posts. He finally got the problem solved and is back to using it and as you can see is as happy as a kid in a candy store.

This has increased my curiosity enough about this Live Writer stuff that I am going to pour another cup of coffee while it is bad weather outside, then tear into Google Search and see what I can find out about this program. I am sure they will have a Mac version I can download to my iMac so I can play around with it.

I want to see what I am missing. About all I know about it right now, is that I could write a complete blog post with pictures, offline and someway it will post that to Blogger when I would turn on the internet. That sounds good for someone that is traveling full-time. I remember on our trip to Utah and Colorado in June 2015 I did not have an internet signal a lot of the time to where I could post on a blog.

This Live Writer also works with Google Photos. I only know that from reading Al's blog post this morning where he described how he fixed his latest problem. I use Google Photos daily as I upload every picture I take for the day into Google Photos to use as one of many picture library backups.

I took the two books I wasn't interested in reading back to the library yesterday and then picked up two more and started reading them when I got home, late into the night. So it must have been the subject matter I wasn't interested in and not the lack of interest in reading.

IF the weather clears up later today, long enough to take new pictures I might post again. Otherwise this post is it for the day while it rains outside.

It might be raining but at least it's warm on the last day in February in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.