The Rain Keeps Delaying It's Start Time

It was great to sleep with the window open. I seem to sleep much more soundly that way. You hear all the sounds of the night, like sleeping in a tent. With that, the hounds woke up before daybreak and wanted to start the day. After about 15 minutes of not being able to get back to sleep, I decided it was time to start the day also. Consequently you can see the camera flash in this first photo.

The hounds didn't do anything outside their normal routine. While they are outside I am inside pouring out the portions of breakfast kibble. While they eat I am making my coffee. They finish eating and head back to nap while I am on the computer catching up reading the updated blogs on my blogroll on the left sidebar.

With the birds chirping like an April day here on the 9th of March, we took our walk about an hour early, a little past 8am. From these cloud it looks like rain was nearby and could start anytime but Wunderground shows it will not hit until 3pm. So for the past day and half, the predicted rain keeps moving ahead 8 hours.

I could tell as soon as we started it was one of those days where the hounds were going to have a mind of their own. As long as they stayed out of trouble I was okay with their freedom. You will see in later photos the limits were stretched once again but still had positive results.

Before I get started I'd like to ask a favor. I'd like for you to comment or send me an email and let me know if these photos and the ones you have looked at in the past week ... look clear and sharp to you. To me, they don't. Of course when I was on Wordpress, the photos were really sharp and clear on the blog, compared to Blogger. Yet, in my Photo file they just don't look as sharp as they use to.

It might be my eyes though and that is why I am asking for your help.

As I was glancing into the wooded area along the first part of the walk, I saw our first cardinal of the year. A sure sign that spring is here.

As we made the turn along the walk, Sadie once again eyed the gully and a place I am sure that deer hang out sometime due to the interest of the bloodhounds. She looked over the edge but turned away when I said her name.

Stella headed for her favorite spot in the far right corner of the field. I am not sure what she finds but the spot of interest is always in that same area. She was behind for most of the walk up to this time. With the camera not auto focusing all the time I was only able to pick up a couple of photos with her running to catch up.

With the hounds having a mind of their own today, Stella also veered right as we turned to come home. New scents, new trail but finally came running to join Sadie back at the area they would not leave two days ago. As you will see, they didn't leave there today either.

I decided just like I did the other day when they didn't follow me that I would continue my walk home. I had no doubts they would eventually run to catch up ... but today I got further away from them than I ever had. You can see I can't see them, they can't see me.

I was almost home and still no sign of either bloodhound. By this time I was willing to walk all the way to the house just to see what they would do. I didn't think I was putting them in a bad situation and if I walked back toward them that they would still be there.

Then .... about the time I think they are not coming I barely see one bloodhound, so far away I can't tell if it is Sadie or Stella. Sadie rarely runs with her nose to the ground and Stella always does. It really looked like Sadie based on the body of the bloodhound. As he ran up to me it was ... Sadie

After that last photo I glanced up and could see Stella sprinting as fast as she could. Not only had I left her but Sadie had left her. Once again the Nikon D3200 would not auto focus each time I pressed the button so I was not able to get more photos of her long distance spring.

I don't mind that they lag that far behind me as long as I don't see them moving in the opposite direction. They can get in some exercise running hard a long distance. It will be interesting to see if these limits expand on future walks. It will never get to a point where I go back inside the house and leave them out in the field where I cannot see them. I will turn around and walk toward them before I would leave them alone.

The grass gets greener each day. The lawnmower blade has been sharpened, the two gas cans have been filled gas for the mowing season and a new spark plug has been installed ... everything ready to cut grass.

It was too warm for wearing a sweatshirt here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana this morning.

The Old Fence Post & Barbed Wire

With the temperatures were close to 70° I decided I was going to head out to do a little yard work with the hounds after their lunch. Before the rains show up I wanted to rake up what was left of old vines, roots, weeds, etc. I am unsure what I am going to do with this area.

The 2016 Yard Crew Supervisor Team

This is the area in question. To the right of it is the area I cleared last April. It looked about the same as this area. I planted some grass and see this spring that it has grown pretty well considering I did not follow the rule book in starting a new yard. Notice the concrete blocks that were left or put on those position to prevent ground erosion. I am not sure that just planting grass is going to prevent future erosion.

I was able to pull up a lot of this with a good rake. I divided it into two halves with plans to burn in two different piles.

With the wind so strong, coming from the right (south) I was concerned about burning in this area because if the fire was to hop that fence I would catch the field on fire and not enough water equipment to be able to put it out. So I raked it into piles and then carried down the hill to my small burn pile.

Sadie and Stella were taking their positions to supervise. This would be Stella's first spring in supervising yard work ... much different than her experience last fall in burning leaves.

This was going to be my small burn pile. This area cleaned up pretty fast.

Heidi is not really into supervising. She was more interested in exploring by herself. It was good to see that she came outside on her own and did not need to be carried, talked into or bribed to come outside.

Heavy supervision

When I had finally carried all of the brush to be burned, I wanted to straighten that old fence and then take the barbed wire and get all of the stray strands into that roll. As old as it is, I was surprised it didn't fall apart. There were some brittle pieces but overall the wire stayed intact.

Until I took that roll of wire off of the post I had not noticed the old railroad tie in the post. I relocated it and used it to hang the roll of barbed wire on.

Sadie and Stella was so tired of supervising, Sadie decided to break off sticks 1" at a time and Stella was more interested in napping. Every time I grabbed the camera to catch her sleeping, she would wake up and watch me.

Of course after all of that hard work that lasted less than an hour and our first project for 2016 ... a siesta was scheduled for later in the afternoon. Temps will be in the 70's for the next few days but it will be constant rain.

Spring is off to a good start here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Heidi's Historical Event

When the rain did not start last night I took a look at the forecast to see the storm had moved to Wednesday. The hounds and I are going to be seeing temps in the 70's but in exchange for that it could rain 6 of the next 7 days starting tomorrow.

IF that were to happen, the weather forecasts would have to be accurate and I would have a yard to mow on the first day of sunshine after the rains stopped.


Yesterday afternoon turned out to be great weather, a lot of wind ... we did nothing. Not even a walk.

Yet, there was 'a historical event' taking place. Heidi always goes to the door when she wants to go outside and for the past many months those trips have been few and only long enough to go outside and dump her tanks in the front yard.

Yesterday I was in shock. Instead of turning right after she walked passed the parked cars, she took off left and headed for the backyard ... on her own!! I was thinking she was headed for the field or least the middle of the backyard. As I walked further in front of her to capture this 'historic event' on my camera ... I turned ... started to raise my camera to my eye ... SHE WAS GONE!

By the time I turned the corner of the house she was at the door to go back inside and headed for her favorite chair, to sleep an afternoon of great weather away ... she had seen enough. I have no explanation what took place there.

After a night of high winds from the S/SW we woke to sunny skies and 58° that felt a lot warmer. After a cup of coffee for me and an hour nap for the hounds we took off for the first walk of the day a little after 9am. I had been out earlier this morning and it was warm enough to wear camping shorts and a t-shirt. It's hard to believe that winter passed through with very little snow and warm temps.

I have a lot of these type of sticks to pick up throughout the yard after a windy day yesterday. They are from that Sycamore tree that I like so much. (joke)

Looking at the spreadsheet I use to track my monthly utility bill and use ... it was the warmest winter since 1997, the year that I moved into this house.

After the hounds had to sprint to me yesterday, they did not veer off much this morning. I could tell their searching and exploration was not as intense as yesterday. As we turned the corner Sadie thought she would check out the edge of that gully again but as I yelled her name she turned and came running back to the path.

Stella did not trot to her normal spot to the right corner of the field but stayed ahead of me on the path. In fact both of them turned on the path to go home before I even got to that spot. I knew they would probably revisit the area from yesterday that they wouldn't leave until they didn't see me in their sight lines. They did veer that way until I called their name.

Stella was not real happy that she had to leave and head back to the path to walk home. In protest she lagged behind all the way home and walked as slow as she could. If I didn't know any better I thought I could hear her feet dragging in the field as she walked. Back inside they were all asleep within minutes.

I am at a crossroads with my transfer of programs taped on my DVR to DVD disc. The DVDs are not in HD quality. They have good quality picture but after being used to watching everything in HD these past few years it's hard to go back to a Standard Definition picture. So do I continue to clear off the other 65% of the DVR hard drive. That is roughly 65 hours of ballgames that are left on the current DVR.

Or do I take the DirecTv offer of keeping that DVR as a 2nd machine and leave 65% of the hard drive filled with HD quality viewing? A backup on DVDs are nice because I would lose everything if the DVR ever broke. I hate writing that because it's been years since that happened and has not happened on this current DVR.

On the other hand, I can keep this machine and close out my 2016 college basketball season by taping them to the current DVR ... then have DirecTv install their upgraded receiver that has a 1Tb of hard drive space. Since I do not keep every movie or every game or tv show, that I record to the DVR, that amount of hard drive memory would last me for years.

To give you an idea, on my current DVR I have games that I taped in 2012 ... that's already 4 years ago. With 4x as much memory, I could have over a decade of ballgames, Indy500 races and a few movies saved in HD quality. For that, it might be worth paying DirecTv an extra $6 per month for that 2nd machine .... risking it all, that the machine would never break. Or ... maybe with new technology I would have unlimited data and storage on the cloud, where I would only need a basic receiver.

Decisions ... decisions ... such as life in retirement while living in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... I am doing yard work this afternoon.