September 18, 2016

A Football Sunday

We woke up Sunday morning to some heavy fog and allergies that have been out of control the past few days.

It only took a few hours before the sunshine started to break it's way though the fog and clouds. We are headed back to the mid to high 80's this week in 'the tropics'.


I'm not sure if it was the fog, but Stella didn't get off the carport floor and Sadie never moved from "Winston's Patio" ... stared out into space, glanced and at me ... then headed back to the door to be let in, without me saying a word. After all I've been the full-time doorman since April 2014, they decide the plans for the day.

I can only assume this change in seasons this past week is the cause for me going crazy with my nose being plugged, itching and setting all-time sneezing records ... it might be the reason that Heidi and Stella have been scratching more.


A little later we went back outside to sit and enjoy the morning. As a test I mounted the Nikon 55-200mm lens to check something out that I was curious about. Interesting that any distance past 135mm would not auto focus, as before.

Sadie was sure someone had been in our 'burn pile' last night. I didn't have an answer for her when she looked back over to me.



Then they did what they do best. Put their noses to the ground, explore the yard for any new traffic but only after they made a trip to the field to dump their tanks. I wonder why Heidi can't use the field like the bloodhounds do?




I was pretty sure that I was going to have to go get Stella. She likes to head north outside of her boundary. With that ditch running along the field and my neighbor's yard, leading to the highway, I cannot afford for her to find a scent she likes well enough to lead her in that direction.


Here is is coming back after I called her. She wasn't thrilled about having their excursion cut short.


She continued along the line of the yard, up in the area that I cleared in April 2015 and planted grass. That has been one of the best things I've done since living here.


This fence is on the north side of the yard, with the old wire fence running north and south. Every year I burn that area so there is fresh growth for the spring and summer. These are taken a few days after I cleared out that overbearing, wild Giant Ragweed.




We might have just enough time to take a hound walk before the first NFL game at 1pm. After that it's weekend football routine, just like Saturday.

I did take the Z4 out for a nice 42 mile loop. I start driving up and down hills surrounded by trees before I turn west where it's flat and nothing but fields of corn and soy beans for as far as you can see. It was beautiful this morning with no humidity, cool air and the engine purring like a kitten ... nice and quiet.

I returned to find that Stella stayed with Sadie and Heidi like always, shut off in the bedroom. NO DAMAGE by her. She is on a streak of almost 3 straight months of letting me leave the house from 1 - 5 hours, without tearing up the house trying to get out. She is getting better.

We had time to do our daily walk before the first NFL game. The hounds were sound asleep by kickoff.


A lot of new scents after a rain.


I'm not sure what Sadie had found and didn't see this look until after I downloaded the photo. Nothing jumped out, fly away or snap at her.


All of those purple colors from last week are disappearing fast as the purple mist dies out.


The hounds don't realized that we are on a "pre-game" walk, which means their pace needs to be a little faster than normal.


Stella of coarse has her own speed, especially where the deer sleep.


At least they came my direction when I said "come on".


Stella tried to sneak away to the 'no fly zone' but was caught once again.


The colors of purple are turning brown.


Another reminder to them that it's football Sunday.


Stella wanting me to know ... she doesn't want to go in the house but wants to stay outside to roam the field.


All is well though ... they were fed, walked, given fresh water and they slept ... another routine day for them.

Hot weather is coming back here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

September 17, 2016

I Forgot Friday Afternoon's Photos !!

Sometime Friday night I realized I had not downloaded the photos I took to include on Friday's blog. Hard to believe. All of the house cleaning must have scrambled my brain cells to have forgotten the photos of our mid-day walk on Friday.

Heidi made her after lunch appearance. That pose is so strange because her back is actually straight and level when standing. Her nails were cut later in the day. After a week of Taste of the Wild Grain Free food with venison and lamb meal at the top two ingredients her skin has really improved this week.


With the gray clouds off in the distance it was a good time to get at least one walk in. Even Sadie was off on her own and seemed pretty excited on a couple of things she had tracked.


From the start Stella was on her own schedule and was rarely in view. By the end of the walk she was nowhere around, nor could I see her. Sadie and I drank some water in the house and then took off to find Stella since she had not shown up at the house.


They have just turned the corner and are heading for their favorite part of the field.


Sadie had found something where she had headed into the wooded area by the very back of the field but she came sprinting toward me when I called her name.





Of coarse before she got to me there was something else that caught her attention.


By the time the house was cleaned, my haircut and the hounds getting their nails cut, the sun was back but here were signs of the heavy rains 2-3 hours earlier.


For some reason after every rain Stella likes to chew the tall grass ... she will not eat the weeds or flowers but the grass.


Sadie was positive it was dry enough for a walk this afternoon but the field was saturated with the amount of rain earlier.


It's Saturday and that means a lot of college football today. Problem is, most of the good games are on later in the day and at the same time. The hounds will get their walk in as long as there is not more rain. We normally go outside at halftimes of ball games.

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

September 16, 2016

Scanning Old Photos

We were up early today and it looked like rain was just miles away. Only Intellicast Radar showed nothing within 250 miles.

It looked like we would get at least one walk in today, maybe two if the rain showers didn't show up this afternoon.

As usual all the hounds were excited about Friday and starting their weekend. Heidi was asleep as usual, right after breakfast ... while Stella and Sadie were outside but not really excited about too much. Stella wants to go back to sleep ... Sadie looking to explore.


Sadie hits the floor running every morning. She is pretty active throughout the day, with short naps. Stella on the other hand would sleep all day if there wasn't the smell of kibble in the air around lunch time.


It might just be me but I think I am seeing more gray around Sadie's nose than last winter. She does have a little waistline showing so that's a good sign that she has lost some weight this summer.


They slowly migrate back to the house, as normal routine in the morning.



It wasn't real confusing but I did have to google the process of scanning photos on my iMac. It was something I've been wanting to do for years but never took the time to start. Now that I have the process down, you will be seeing the bassets and bloodhounds I've had in the past. You have seen a couple when I mentioned them ... but while I looked for my old photo albums, I found a vault of hound photos I had forgot about.

It will be a slow process as all of you know that have converted printed photos to digital photos but I am going to scan every one of them. The frustrating thing is I am 1" too short on my scanner screen to fit 3 photos at a time.

For those that have Apple computers and have questions about how to scan your photos, plus where do they end up in your computer, leave a comment below or email me for the process.

Here is my first basset hound, Harry. I bought him as a puppy in 1987 from a "backyard breeder", a friend at work, while living in Oak Harbor, Wa.


He was a great basset hound but didn't have really good features for an AKC Basset Hound. I'll write more about him later but he lived to be 13 years old ... he was a lot like Winston in personality but loved to wander off anytime day or night. He lived on Whidbey Island, Wa ... in Breckenridge, Co ... and Bloomington, IN. He was 8 years old in this photo.

Most of the day was doing all the domestic stuff that needs to get done. That rain did show up sometime around 2pm while I was vacuuming the house and oblivious to the world outside. I ended the day by giving myself a haircut, got all the hounds together for some fun toenail cutting. I had to try get Sadie to understand it's too wet to walk with rain hanging from the weeds in the field. She is still not positive that is the correct answer or excuse.

It rained hard here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

September 15, 2016

The Overpriced Echo SRM - 225U Weed Trimmer

** I added more photos after the original post **

Most of our days here are "spur of the moment" plans. Without a list of things to do to the house or outside this summer, it became a very very lazy summer.

This morning I decided to implement a new 2016 Plan of Attack against the falling leaves. I know it's not even close to October, where the 4 hound crew last year supervised in getting rid of the leaves. This year I am going to get rid of them a little at a time, maybe when I feel like working with them and today was the 'test run' for that new plan.

I also wanted to start my overpriced Echo SRM-225U weed eater with the steel blade and knock down some giant ragweed today. I bought it a couple of years ago when I needed something that could cut through brush and 1"-2" diameter trees, in the area that I cleared last April 2015 and then planted grass seed.

It did well that first year and I had all of that brush cut down not only there but along the bank that runs beside my driveway. It also cut through the small saplings with no problems. It sat a full year, I didn't try to use it last summer. Before this winter I emptied it's gas tank and stored it for the winter. Earlier in the spring of this year ... it wouldn't start. So it went back in the shed for the summer.


Today I brought it back out and followed all the steps of troubleshooting the problem of not starting, along with a brand new mixture of gas/oil and a clean air filter that is dry after being saturated with fuel at some time ... it wouldn't start. I finally got it started. It coughed and sputtered but would not idle. Once it was going strong enough that I thought it was running but when I pressed the throttle, it died.

 So it sat there long enough for the photo and it went back in the shed. I paid a lot of money for that piece of crap and many other's have the same complaint as I do on the internet. I have a feeling it's a fuel filter problem. I bought it at the local hardware store, they carry all the Echo equipment. They will fix it at little to no cost if I decide I don't want to try fixing it.

But I didn't need it to blow leaves. I knew I had a small leaf blower somewhere. I hadn't seen it for years, in fact it was so long ago I couldn't remember if I still had it. In one of my high energy cleaning the shed days, I put this old dirty leaf blower on one of the racks near the top of the shed out of the way ... and out of sight.


I poured in some new fuel, and it started by the 4th pull of the rope. After all of these years of not being used, it coughed, sputtered, blew blue smoke out the exhaust but it kept on running ... then finally hit it's prime and we were blowing leaves off the driveway and off of the bank ... in the direction of my area to burn. It's wasn't overpriced like the Echo SRM-225U.


The driveway was pretty well covered with leaves to start the fall season and in less than 15 minutes that little old leaf blower had moved all of the leaves right next to the area I am going to burn them. After some testing in the yard, I think it's going to be a major new tool this year instead of raking leaves. It will also eliminate me working with my larger leaf blower/vacuum that needs electricity to run and working around a 100' electrical cord.

For some reason, not until this morning, did I realize the corn field across the highway has almost finished it's process and will be picked fairly soon. I remember that field being planted earlier than most others around here, right before 3 straight days of rain, so only logical it has died out first.


Not sure if you can tell but if you look closely there are a few red leaves inside, showing signs of leaves starting to change their color.


While I was trying to get the Echo weed eater started and then blowing leaves off the driveway ... Sadie and Stella spent time roaming the field in back. I was happy to see they were within their boundary out there while I was busy doing something else.



Sadie was the one that got her running in today. Stella on the other hand thought it was a little too warm to exert much energy. She moved slow today and it didn't matter where she was ... she was in slow motion mode.



Sometime around noon we headed out for our walk. It was getting warmer today, mid 80's, and I knew later this afternoon was going to be too hot to do much walking. Summer isn't over yet I guess.



The hounds took off and once again they trotted way ahead of me. I guess they had places to go while I tried to focus in on some of the many butterflies.



By the time I was in range to zoom in on them, they were in the far right hand corner. They didn't have any problem leaving and following me as I walked by them. They had a lot of places they wanted to check out today.



This was a fairly small butterfly but I was able to photograph it. They move fast and I really think the sound of a beep when my camera is in focus scares them off ... today I turned that sound off.


Not sure what it was but I really liked the design and color of this butterfly.


By the time we were 3/4 of the way done with the walk I could tell that Stella had had all the fun she needed for today. I think she prefers the hay to be cut lower so its easier to gain speed when running.



I wanted to see if I could photograph one of the younger butterflies. They are really small, may be hard to see ... but it's dead center in this picture.


The hounds cruised back home at pretty slow speed ... they were both asleep soon after getting back inside. The house inside had increased to 80°, so I shut the blinds on the west side for the afternoon and turn the ACs back on. Heidi approved and rolled on her back to sleep on the couch.


Later in the afternoon we sat outside enjoying the weather. I took some hand trimmers and cut down a lot of the giant ragweed in the field and near my burn pile. Those hand trimmers may be a better option than that overpriced Echo SRM-225U weed eater ... that won't start.

I had thought about a 2nd walk for the hounds but it felt hot, the iPhone weather app was telling me it 'felt like' 90° and with Stella's tongue falling out of her mouth, that was a sure sign a 2nd walk would not be attempted today. We decided we had to take a walk after I posted this, so I have added some new photos below.


Here is the link to the pictures of butterflies I took on the walk today.

My new iPad Mini2 arrived today. Free shipping and day delivery. I had forgotten how small it was but did remember it fit in my hand perfect to read an ebook, a pdf file or a website. It didn't take long for me to download the few apps I use, and change some settings.


Just like the iPhone with the retina display, all the photos on this blog looked really sharp, and clear. I can't believe the difference compared to the older Apple 27" LED Cinema model monitor.



I thought about restoring my backup from November 2015 from my last iPad Mini but instead set this one up as a new account. Google Photos worked just like advertised. I had all my photos on the iPad Mini by using Google Photos, online. So it will take no memory on my hard drive.


Speaking of photos ... last night while I was in Apple's Finder (like Windows My Computer) I was changing some file names when I saw I wrote something wrong here last week when discussing the size of my photo library.



I said it was 22.4Gb but last night I see that was just my old iPhone library. The newer Photo Library that Apple used to replace iPhone is 167Gb of photos. There are a lot of duplicates though .. maybe not a lot ... but more then I want to go through and delete. It's the way the program Photos handles different devices.


So I am pretty well set. Some diet changes, football season is here, my old leaf blower works, the weather is great, Heidi likes the venison and lamb blend of dog food (her skin looks better), I'm back in the world of electronics with a new iPhone and iPad Mini ... all are used daily.

Now, if I had someway to have groceries delivered so I wouldn't have to shop ... I'd have it made.

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