"Take Shelter Now" !!!!

With nothing more than possible rain until 3pm, the hounds, dog and I had been outside to check out the yard, the winds and was getting ready to watch the IU women's basketball team play on tv in the B1G Tournament. We had gotten all the way to halftime of that game when this warning came across my iPhone. The hounds, dog and I headed for the best place ... master bathroom with no windows yet next to the big walk in closet that had a small window facing west. Both rooms inside brick walls.

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.

Hounds Have A 'Tornado Watch' Issued

I have to admit it's pretty nice to have the windows back open with the sound of birds singing outside. I wasn't sure how much we would do today since rain was all over the radar.

Once again we woke up before daylight but I was able to convince Sadie that we were still retired and nothing takes place until after daybreak. With Stella snoring away, there wasn't much to discuss. We still got outside early though and the rain was so light you can barely hear it. Sadie and Stella stopped in their tracks to decide what their next move would be.

After a couple of cups of coffee, the reading of all of my sports sites, it was time for our first walk of the day. I was hopeful to get it completed before the rains came. Intellicast radar was showing rain about 6 miles to the west of us. Yet, when we took off there were blue skies and sunshine to the east.

I guess I didn't need the 25' retractable leash after all and could have brought the camera on the morning walk.

Right after lunch we tried again to do something outside. I needed to pick up some sticks in the yard and thought about moving the Z4 out of the way so I could pull my ladder out of the shed and get up on the roof. With rain in the forecast I decided the roof could wait another few days for me.

We have 7 acres behind our yard and neither hound wanted to go any further away than the chair I was sitting in. I found out soon after why ... it started raining again.

Yesterday afternoon, for the first mow of the year, I fired up the lawn mower without any problems and cut just part of the lawn ... the area where the grass was taller than anywhere else. It looks like crap now after the winter and mole damage but it will fill back in and look good after the spring rains. I am thinking about installing some kind of edging between the yard and driveway this spring/summer.

You cannot tell but I did a couple of laps down the edge of the yard and the driveway, then a small triangular section to cut the high grass. Heidi seems to produce some pretty strong fertilizer over the winter.

Speaking of Heidi ... I think her coat and skin look the best it has since September 2014. That next month in 2014 is when her skin issues went ballistic and out of control with loss of hair, all paws and legs were bare and at times sore and raw. She has been on nothing but straight kibble this past year, no meds or supplements.

It has been 32 days since I switched her to SPORTMiX manufactured by Earthborn Holistic Pet Foods. It is strange because the first ingredient is lamb "meal", no lamb. That is followed by brown rice, peas etc ... she has gained her weight back and hasn't looked this good in a long time. All of this improvement has happened in the past month.

Besides her picture, I took these next pictures with my iPhone 6s yesterday. I forget sometimes that it does have a good camera and in some cases, I think it takes a sharper picture than my Nikon D3200 does. These next 3 pictures were posted without any editing. You can see how tall the grass was in that section before I mowed yesterday afternoon.

Stella looked down about the time I pushed the button to take the picture. It's hard to tell but she does have both of her eyes open.

I am still undecided what to do about the weeds growing in the driveway. It seems like they have actually multiplied in number since I was on my hands and knees for four days in August 2015 pulling out weeds one at a time.

I am thinking of spraying a mixture of water and vinegar this year as my weed killer on the driveway and the river rock in back. Anyone have something that works to kill weeds from non chemical homemade brew?

Can you see any difference in the sharpness of the iPhone pictures compared to my edited Nikon D3200 pictures?

After all the hounds and I came back inside due to the rain by 1pm it was sunny and blue skies outside. It was hard to believe we were to get severe thunderstorms with possible tornado activity later tonight. During the light rain I played around a little on the blog and changed the page fonts, the post title fonts to PT Sans.

Since we could not tell if it was going to rain or not because the weather 'up there' was moving at a fast pace and different directions ... we decided to take our 2nd walk of the day.

This first picture is taken toward the SW.

I could tell that Stella was going to lag behind and I was going to let her do whatever she wanted. I had the 6' leash for her in my back pocket just in case it started to pour rain and we needed to get back to the house fast.

This was taken toward the north. The camera doesn't pick up the fast movement of the clouds going in a left to right direction.

Shocked to see Stella was headed our way. What concerns me a little is last year she would have been running full speed to catch up and the past few months she hardly runs at all.

It was only 3 minutes after that first sky picture that I aimed the camera in the same southwest direction to see sunshine and blue skies ... 3 minutes!!

Sadie was oblivious to strong winds from the southwest, indicated by the blowing hay. It takes a strong wind to blow her tail from the upright position she normally carries it. All she knew was she was on 'her' walk and that is all that mattered.

Stella stayed fairly close and didn't veer off too many times.

7 minutes later I pointed the camera once again toward the southwest. The wind was now strong enough I had a hard time keeping the camera steady.

Stella walked slowly all the way back to the house. She was sound to sleep minutes after going back inside the house after the walk. That seems to be the norm for both bloodhounds.

We were not finished with the walk yet, but this was the sky in the west, 11 minutes after the first sky picture in this post was taken.

At 3:07 pm they issued a Tornado "Watch" until 10pm tonight. The new stats show there is a 50% chance for two of them and 20% chance of 1 strong one. All through central Indiana, but my county is colored in to be included. Possible lime size hail with wind gusts up to 70mph.

A month ago or so, it was a 5% chance one night and we had two funnel clouds touch down 70 miles away. Never lost satellite internet connection that night and was able to track live radar to tell if the hounds and I needed to head for the center of the house since we do not have a basement.

So in preparation the iPad and iPhone are being charged to 100%. I've never had damage with these warnings but have had some close calls. It's always best to have a plan and be prepared just in case.

I imagine the old storm windows will be rattling and making a little noise tonight while all three hounds sleep in their normal spots in the living room. Sadie will be in her large leather chair while Stella and Heidi will share the couch. A seat for me is always optional.

The windows are open today here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana .. it smells like Spring.

No Problems With Last Night's Storms

The storms did not arrive until late last night, almost 11pm. I pulled up the Intellicast radar site so I could see what was headed our way, if anything.

I also follow U.S. Tornadoes on Facebook and they have updated radar from the National Weather Service. When they used the term "devastating velocity" and the radar shows the tornado rotations were 70 miles away heading our direction, it's not good.

I will say we were lucky and missed everything. There were a long string of storms and at one time they said that over 20 tornadoes had been moving together over 155 miles through 3 states. Various times it looked like those cells of intense rotation were headed our direction when they were 70-90 miles away.

Yet, every time they got within our range of 20 miles, they would blow by the north or south of us. Finally past midnight I decided I was going to call it a day and decided if something bad was about to happen, Stella was sure to let me know. I slept and never heard anything the rest of the night, although we did wake up to a thunder and lightning storm really early this morning.

I was almost sure the field was going to be too wet to make any hound walks today. The picture above is right on the path just starting our walk. Usually if it is wet 'down here' it is even wetter and muddier at the back of the field even with slightly higher elevation.

Sadie and Stella decide we needed to find out for sure and before I could say no, they both were long gone heading along the edge of the woods. I could tell their noses were extra sensitive today and they were picking up a lot of activity.

Even Stella was out in front with her nose to the ground. All through the walk this morning neither hound stopped to eat anything ... they were seriously interested in tracking scents and it was obvious there was a lot of them to identify.

It was strange not to have to say "come on Stella" during this morning's walk. She kept up with Sadie most of the time and a lot of the time they were side by side with their noses to the ground.

I had to walk just a few inches off our worn path. If there wasn't standing water, the ground was saturated enough that water was coming up over the soles of my hiking boots. Each time the hounds trotted, there were water trails coming off the back of their paws.

I had not walked to far past the first turn when Stella and Sadie took off sprinting to the far right corner. They ran non-stop along the back edge of that corner, never checking out the deer area to the right that usually holds their interest.

Sadie was moving faster than my film speed but with her feet in the air and her ears flopping you can tell just how fast she was going. The scents must have been strong this morning.

This is just past that corner that goes to the far right part of the field. It's pretty rare that you see standing water in this area. I can only assume it rained through most of the night.

Sadie was serious today ... no time to play around, too much stuff to investigate. As usual she was a very happy bloodhound.

It's warm today and windy but nothing like yesterday. By looking at the sky you can see the clouds are moving at a very fast speed, all from the SW.

I was beginning to wonder if the hounds were going to stop and make the final turn home. Stella thought about heading into the 'no fly zone' but she stopped and looked in that direction, then at me, then back in the direction she would like to go.

She finally decided on her own to head home with me and Sadie.

These are the skies looking southwest. We don't have any bad weather in today's forecast, just a lot of wind. With the sunshine breaking through the clouds at times it shouldn't take long for the field to dry out.

Yesterday I decided to make a new blog on Wordpress. I found the same free template I had used before and it didn't take too long to upload some pictures and write a few sentences. The link is on the left sidebar of this blog under the blogs I follow.

About every year before my Exede internet service and Directv service renews, I call around to different companies to see if they now have service in my area. With all of these good deals you hear about with unlimited data or prices locked in for two years without an increase, you have to see if there is something better.

Talking with Exede yesterday I found out they are just like Directv ... you have to threaten to leave and move to a different provider when they tell you there is not any discounts available for long term customers that pay on time. This is after they have been giving you a discount for the past 12 months.

It is amazing how fast they give you that $10 - $15 off per month for the next 12-24 months when you mention to them you are going to look around at other companies and will even pay the fee for breaking a contract early. They call that "a retention discount".

Still, I did find out that Frontier Internet does have service in my small town. They can't verify online in their program if I can have that service here at the house. When she said she could give me 45Gb of data a month for $60 including $9.99 per month for the modem I told her I'd accept her offer to have a technician come out to my house to check to make sure if I could get their service.

I now pay Exede Satellite Internet $80 per month for 15Gb of data. That 45Gb sounds better than 15Gb as well as $60 compared to $80. Here is the difference ... Frontier says they can give me download speed "close to 6Mbps" while Exede tells me their download speed is 15Mbps. I do a speed test at SpeedTest.net and it is always around 10-12Mbps or twice as fast as Frontier's top speed.

Is the extra speed worth it?

I almost forgot to write about Stella. She did not even react in any way when the winds picked up last night nor the lightning and thunder that woke us up this morning. She slept through everything so evidently the fear she had of storms when I got her in August 2015 is gone. Storms have never bothered Heidi or Sadie. She has also continued her streak of no damages when I am gone, today was grocery shopping day and nothing was damaged when I returned home.

I don't have any random thoughts today so I guess that idea of ending my posts every day with a bazaar thought may not work.

The windows are open today in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.