Hounds Pass Out By 3pm

Unless you were here it would be too hard to understand just how beautiful every day is this time of year in 'the tropics'.

No heat, no humidity, windows open 24/7, any rain forecasted never arrives ... it's great.


We had a fairly late start I guess. I am not sure why but really didn't realize the time until I was making coffee. It didn't feel that late. Even with that, Stella decided it was too wet for the first walk of the day and headed back to the house soon after her visit to the field. She was wanting to sleep a little longer.

From the time it took me to consume my daily two cups of coffee, read my email, some blogs, sports and little news it looked like the perfect time to take that first walk of the day even with it being an hour or so before lunch.

Both hounds were happy as usual. Stella did her best to keep up with Sadie and I and didn't lag far behind like she has recently.

They both found their favorite stuff to eat in the same spots as before.

It looks like the corn crop in the field behind the field we walk in, is more than ready to be picked. I would think that would happen sometime this week with all the great weather predicted.

By the time we got back from walk #1, Heidi had moved from the front yard to the backyard which has more direct sunshine before noon. That huge pipe sticking out of the ground is the capped off well from 40 years ago. The story is, they tried using their own well water but switched to 'city water' soon after. I don't know if that change was because of water quality from their well or the availability of 'city water'.

As I was messing around outside for an hour or so, Sadie kept bothering me like she wanted another walk. She gives you that stare down when she wants to go or will hop up and down if she thinks we are going for a walk. Yet, it was barely over an hour since they finished their first walk.

I stalled her for another hour inside before I decided if that is what she wants to do, then we'll do it. They were more than happy to take off. Heidi was barking and that seemed to tell me she wanted to go also ... but all she wanted was to go outside.

The walk was a little faster paced. The hounds didn't hang out in anyone spot like the photo above. Then something I had not seen on any walk in the 19 years that I have been here.

On the way back Sadie takes of sprinting and never stopped.

She did stop though and from the way she was acting I thought Heidi had come out into the field and Sadie had seen her wagging white tip on her tail ... but there was nothing there by the time we caught up with Sadie.

It wasn't Heidi because when we got back to the yard, Heidi was back over in that same spot she was at this morning, soaking up some sunshine.

Sometime around lunch I had a wild thought ... "why am I paying them for something that has to have a simple solution?". I went back to the local hardware store to pick up my weed eater, along with a new dry filter to go along with my new spark plug I bought yesterday. I even mixed up a new batch of gas/oil mixture they recommend.

My weed eater was behind a long line of riding mowers in for repair. I could see why they told me it would take a couple of days.

After draining all of the fuel, pressing the bubble to release as much fuel as possible and getting it empty as possible, I tried starting it ... I think you can see by Stella's response what happened ... nothing.

She proceeded to walk over and give herself a good scratch in one of her outdoor napping spots but today ... that wasn't the spot she wanted.

After a little thinking, she decided she had to move if she was going to sleep outside this afternoon. Why not? She and Sadie had two walks completed by 1:30pm, the yard mowing could wait until tomorrow, she was fed and had nothing else planned for the rest of the day.

After finding a better spot with more hot sunshine, she looked back for my approval ... then started her thought process for starting her nap.

In the meantime my bloodhound that has the strong tracking chip inside her, was exploring different parts of the yard nonstop while Stella slept. If Sadie is outside she never has time to take a nap ... there are too many things to check out.

After Sadie practically walked over the top of Stella, waking her up ... Stella decided that sleeping inside may be a little safer around Sadie.

All three hounds were passed out by 3pm ... I wasn't certain a 3rd walk for the day would take place. We have NEVER done 3 walks in a day and it might not be something I want to introduce to them, to prevent any new habits taking place.

I played around with my two camera lenses. You can look through the photos and see if you can see any differences in them. Some are taken with the Tamron 18-200mm with a lens hood. Others were taken with my Nikon 55-200mm with a filter and a lens hood.

With these hounds passed out in the middle of the afternoon and Sadie snoring loudly, at times it's really hard to resist an afternoon siesta in the late afternoon.

Fantastic weather here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Typical Fall Saturday

The rains didn't show up in force like predicted. It rained a little but not a lot as every thing blew northwest of us.

That did not change the daily routine of the hounds though. We even got a evening walk in without taking the camera last night. Due to the time of day I was a little concerned about deer showing up and didn't have the time to let the hounds chase any deer if some showed up.

With each day, colors are changing. By then end of the month that field will be harvested, the corn in the back field will be picked and all the leaves along my driveway will be yellows and reds. It's hard to believe summer is over ... doesn't feel it lasted long.

The hounds didn't do much first time out this morning. They usually explore the yard a little, and go into the field long enough to dump their tanks and then will be trotting back to the house to nap and for me to drink coffee.

That's a pretty tough life ... lol

After 5 hours of football we were able to get our daily walk in during the halftime of the IU game. It was perfect timing and by the time we returned, they were starting to play again.

Our path this year is not straight. I walk around the flowers, the hounds walk through them but rarely do any get mashed to the ground.

Pretty windy today during the walk and the hound were off in their own separate world.

I am not sure what this is but it's the first time I've seen this kind of tree have that kind of growth.

Stella stayed on our path on the way home but you can see with the overgrowth the path is hard to see. She was taking it pretty easy even in the cooler temps of the 70's.

Slowly but surely she made it home.

I am still very pleased with the new Tamron lens I bought. Back to watching more football as some new games have just started. The Oregon game is not starting until 10:30pm my time, so it will be another late night.

Typical fall Saturday here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Ask Where's The Rain?

All my photos have been copied to Google Photos as of 4am this morning. That time also includes the time it took to move photos from the main library to individual albums ... that I call folders on my hard drive.

That meant I got to bed early and gained an extra hour of sleep. The plan for today was getting the yard mowed sometime after I woke up and before the rain was predicted to arrive around 1pm. By the time I was up moving around and realizing I was alive for another day ... the storms arrival had been moved out a couple of hours to 3pm. Coffee is the greatest invention ever!!!

The skies told a different story.

Luckily I was able to gas up the Craftsman 6hp engine, set at a 3" level and get all of the yard mowed, with a push mower ... just before the sun came back out with no rain in sight.

With it feeling like 90° while mowing I had to have some recovery time before taking the hounds out for a walk. That included a lot of ice cold water, laying down with a small fan directly over me ... while keeping Stella and her drool away from me and letting her know that I was okay and did not need medical attention. She seemed concerned something was wrong with me.

So with a little sunshine peeking through the clouds .. Sadie, Stella and I took off. The both were on a mission today with their noses to the ground, following out path most of the time and stay out in front of me. Heidi??? Above 70° has her enjoying the AC as she lounges on the couch or on the bed.

The temp may have been in the mid 80's but it fell like triple digits. The yard work had zapped some of my energy and the hound walk was feeling more like a chore than enjoyment. Basically I couldn't wait to get it over with and get into the shower.

I can say that I am really happy with the new lens and it's only been a couple of days but it has out performed the two Nikon lenses that came with the camera in the short time I've had it. All of these photo are untouched, no editing.

I can thank ZippyPinHead for his recommendation a few months back on the Tamron camera lens.

I was a little surprised that neither hound took off for the far right corner of the field like they always do. Yet they are only following the strongest scent. There must have been a lot of deer traffic on our path last night ... they didn't wander too far off today.

Stella is already thinking about that cold AC running back at the house. She agreed with me, the walk can't end soon enough.

On the way back to the house I assumed incorrectly that both hounds were right on my heels following me home. I turn to check different times and of course today with the heat making the walk miserable ... I have only ONE hound behind me. I'll let you guess who has snuck off.

I looked everywhere and didn't see any tan or light brown color among the greens and purples. Had Stella gone to the "no fly zone" to check things out? I wasn't going to backtrack after her, she always shows up eventually.

I scanned the field with the lens set at 200mm and look what I found in the photo above. Sadie and I turned and headed for the house ... we wanted AC and we wanted water.

Stella caught up to us by the time we stepped into the yard almost at the house. She had ran pretty hard to do that.

Overall it was a nice walk though and I'm glad we got one in today.

Blogger is still having problems with blogs on the blogroll or lists .. for all those that use Blogger. Al thought it was just Wordpress it didn't like but he and I have a lot of blogger blogs at the very bottom of the list like I mentioned before. They are updating with new posts but not moving up on the lists.

Some of you may have noticed I have taken the word 'RV' out of my blog title. A few years back an irritated reader made a comment or sent me an email, I can't remember which, telling me I needed to because my blog was nothing about RVs, no travel, blah blah blah ....

At that time I decided to leave it the blog title for a couple of reasons. It was part of my paid domain name at the time. I had about 2 years worth of posts where I spilled my guts on different thoughts I had about RVs, which kinds, what I had found ... just a lot of research ... and for some, too much info and anxiety.

I almost changed the title back in January after Winston (I miss him daily) passed. I could tell the blog had gradually changed direction to where RVs were rarely if ever mentioned anymore. Hounds were mentioned all the time .. it has turned into 'their blog'.

I know one reader is very very happy with the new name and in fact I have liked that blog title name for quite sometime.

I tried a Google Photos feature last night. I "shared" a folder with an old friend that I went to college with. He had sent me some photos years ago that I kept on my computer ... so with one url link to that album, he was able to see it without having to log into or sign up for Google Photos.

Now with all my photos loaded manually except for a few from the iPhone ... I will start automating as much as I can. I will clear off my SD card in my camera to prevent Google Photos downloading another 3,000 photos that I have already put into the Google Photo system. Then after that card is clean, each time I slide the card into my computer, Google Photos will download the new ones automatically based on me changing my settings for the camera/card.

Sure I could do this all on iCloud and keep my Apple devices synchronized ... but iCloud doesn't have a lot of free storage and I never pay for storage.

The NFL finally starts the regular season tonight. It's a good thin because those meaningless pre-season games that only puts money into the NFL owners pockets were injuring important players at a rapid rate ... some are out for the year. At the injury rate was going, used car salesmen are turning into NFL defensive backs.

No I did not watch anything political on my tv last night nor will I in the future. The media spin for the past year has made me dizzy enough to make me puke anytime I hear anything, anyone or see anything political.

Sports ... sports ... hounds .... books ... yard ... camera ... more sports ... is all I need ... food and sleep are optional.

Will the rain arrive tonight here in 'the tropics" of Southern Indiana?