A Surprise In Editing Photos

This morning definitely looked better than it did yesterday just after lunch. There was no rain forecasted yesterday for the afternoon and for the next three days.

I took this next picture just a little before 1:00pm yesterday. At the time I had no idea it would be nice enough to take the Z4 out for a drive only two hours later. It was nice to pull off the car cover, warm it up and head down the highway, even with the top up.

It was the normal routine this morning but Sadie was more than excited when I asked if she wanted to go for a walk. Her favorite place over by the burn pile was no longer her focus. She heard the word 'walk' and was ready and so was Stella.

No jacket today, cool breeze and a blue sky. It's hard to believe we are suppose to get snow on Saturday. It will not matter because by that time I will have started watching all of the college basketball conference tournaments on tv. I will not catch all of them but a lot of them. So it can do whatever it wants outside this weekend.

From the start of today's walk Stella seemed pretty interested in following the path of Sadie. Notice her black tail? Her mom was a 'black and tan' bloodhound. Since that black is only on the lower half of her tail, it was the reason her original owner named her "dipstick".

Sadie was in her element with excitement and another walk. How many of these walks has she been on in 8-1/2 years? How many times has she hopped up and down before every one of those walks? She never grows tired of them.

As I turned the first corner and prepared to take Stella's picture I was kinda surprised that she was this close to us. She was right on schedule. That's rare for her.

That is until Sadie saw a bird on the ground up ahead. If you look closely straight ahead of Sadie, near the bush line, you can see a bird just getting airborne. Sadie has never caught a bird, or a falling leaf or even a deer ... but anyone of those three things will set her off in a high speed sprint.

Of course if something is that interesting to sprint after it, then Stella has to catch Sadie and find out what all the excitement is about. By that time the bird was long gone. Still the hounds thought it must be around here somewhere and they continued searching the airstrip of the bird.

I was not quite to the back edge of the field when they each started trotting in different directions. Were they going to get away from me? Sadie had found something in the center of the field.

Stella had thoughts of heading to the 'no fly zone' ... or was it something she smelled in the air?

I think I found the reason for each of them to not bother exploring the back edge of the field. Just as I made the final turn home on the path, I see this. I am not a hunter but if I am not mistaken that looks like a deer hoof print to me and it's pretty recent.

Without saying a word, Stella decided it wasn't what she wanted to do, heading to the 'no fly zone', she had something else on her mind today.

Yet, she had to pace herself. The slower she walks the longer the walk will last. It is a nice morning out so why not enjoy it for as long as possible?

Following the path on a wet and saturated path ... I see two more of what I think are deer hoof prints, while they were running.

Neither bloodhound showed any interest in the prints I had found. They were on their own path, at their own pace. Neither ran out of their invisible boundaries.

Like I said, you can't run all the time because the slower you walk the longer the walk will be. This is a sequence of Stella's final path back to the house.

I mentioned earlier I took the Z4 out for a drive yesterday. Too cool for the top down but it's still a fun car to drive. I decided to take it out to the freeway and head to Bloomington. I wanted to have my friend look at a couple of things I found after washing the car last fall and see what he suggested. I tried to keep it 5 mph over the speed limit but there were times when on long stretches of highway where I could see no cops were up ahead, I accelerated a little bit more.  :)

As soon as I got home from that trip I grabbed the 25' retractable leash. I wanted to walk the hounds for their second time yesterday but I was in a hurry to go downtown for dinner at the Chinese buffet. All you can eat for $8.

I had just let the dogs out when I returned home from dinner and saw one of the best sunsets I had seen in a while. The pictures do not do the sunset justice. It was a lot more beautiful than I could capture with my camera.

I was only going to include this middle picture in today's post. It wasn't until this morning when I was editing all of these pictures I had downloaded from my camera, when I saw two deer in the picture above and only one of them in the second picture below. I was totally focused on trying to take a picture of the clouds.

The hounds were outside but didn't smell or hear the deer across that highway. In all of the years I have lived here, I have had hounds stand up here on the hill and stare back at the deer that are staring at them ... but fortunately I've never had a hound take off running across the highway to chase the deer in that field. When I see deer over there I am either putting the hounds back inside or grabbing their collars if I see they have noticed deer across the highway.

There was the time last year when the hounds and I were outside late, when I see a deer running across the highway toward the neighbors yard ... followed by at least ten more. You could hear the thundering herd as they broke tree limbs while sprinting into the woods south of my burn pile.

The hounds never noticed. They squatted, they peed and returned to the house in the dark like nothing was going on.

With the sunshine out today, I'll take the Z4 out in a different direction. Still not warm enough for putting the top down. It's a nice change of pace just to cruise over the hills and through the trees. It isn't much further west where the land is all flat, few tries and all farmland.

Sadie and Stella have decided they have waited long enough for me to finish this blog post. It is well past their lunch time kibble. Stella is howling ... Heidi is barking ... Sadie is hopping up and down.

It's time to eat!!!

Retirement is pretty good right now in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Surprise!! Sadie Gets Her Walk

Glancing outside about an hour before the predicted time that the rains would stop, I saw it had stopped ... Sadie, Stella and I didn't hesitate going outside. Cabin fever will do that to you. I wanted to take a stroll around the yard and check for any damage or downed tree limbs.  Sadie had other plans. She had not even got into the driveway when she stopped, turned and gave me the look to "let's walk".

While Stella was checking out a very small piece of the rip rap I had put in a few spots on the bank in the yard, Sadie was more interested in getting into the field.

I was walking behind the old fence in back through the area where overgrown brush burned out and was planted with grass seed a few years ago. I noticed this tree just off the yard and in an area between my fence in the rear side yard and the field.

I don't believe I have seen any tree do that if it was near the yard. I was planning on burning off this overgrown area last summer, when I caught some of the field on fired down by the highway.

After that I decided I would not burn any of the upper part of this area because I didn't have enough water hose to reach it, thus I'd have nothing to control the fire if it moved into the field.

You can see the new green growth, so I am hoping all of the grass seed I have planted the past two weeks has not been washed away and will start sprouting soon.

This is just to the left of the tree pictured above. You can barely see the sign frame that I take a picture of every morning from my carport step. So this is on the northeast corner of my property. My survey from 2000 say this is not my property past the fence and the neighbor's survey from 2014 says it is my property. Who knows?

Sadie had enough of looking at the yard, she wanted 'her' walk to take place. A few steps into the field showed me what I expected, a lot of water. The higher we climb the wetter the ground will be. Can anyone explain why?

I continued walking, hearing the 'squishing' sound of the water coming up over the sides of my boots, just above my sole. The more steps I took showed me we could continue and possibly get the whole walk in without turning around early. Sadie figure the walk was on no matter what ... so did Stella.

Is it my eyes or imagination? ... but it looks like the chewed tree limb is reducing it's diameter with a slightly new design. The edges are not as smooth as they once were. The stuff must taste good.

After Stella's performance the other morning I wanted her to stay fairly close to Sadie this morning. I didn't have to call her much and she walked along with us with no problems and no leash ... I didn't bring it because I wasn't planning to take the walk when I came outside.

I could tell by the way the brush was mashed down just how hard the rain was along with the strong winds last night.

I am not quite to the back of the field on our path when the water level rises. Even as I stepped around this puddle into the higher grass, I still had to walk in visible water.

Stella is never thrilled when she gets her feet wet. She walked slowly, one step at a time as her paws became soaked. She was almost in slow motion as Sadie waited for her up ahead.

Nothing bothers Sadie on a walk, rain hail sleet or snow. She waited for Stella to catch up.

Once she had made sure the back of the field was 'clear' she took off running for the center of the field, while Stella walk right beside me. Stella was so close the 18mm lens setting could not pick her up in the view finder. Also for some strange reason, my focus setting changed back to a 'all focus' instead of the 'single point' that I use. It normally does that if I take out the battery to charge it but not between using the camera on different days.

You may notice how the field angles downward toward my backyard. The underground water moves toward my backyard, veering left and over the bank just in front of my burn pile. I believe it is also the cause of the ground swell I get along the back side of my house. I have a lot of work to do this spring and summer to fix that.

The sun is trying it's hardest to move through two days of overcast skies. As I write this I can see it getting brighter outside. Sunshine for the rest of the week sounds good to me but I am not thrilled about the potential for snow on Saturday, even if it's 1"-3".

I might want to get back to the house but that doesn't make Stella walk any faster. It doesn't matter what Sadie does either on this last part of the walk because Stella will do what she wants to do on her own time. This next picture makes her look skinny. I am hoping the recent change of dog food with higher fat and more protein puts the lost weight back on.

She also doesn't seem as energetic as she was this time last year. Pictures from a year ago show her and Sadie running in the field together. I can't remember the last time Stella was on a full out sprint in the field, not counting her escape the other day down into the wooded gully.

We might be getting close to the yard but that doesn't mean there isn't something she can find to eat. At least they baled the field a second time last fall so it's been nice to walk through this winter without the taller grass.

Those dishes and vacuuming are still waiting for me, I'm pretty lazy today. I think I'll play some mahjong and make a few more trips outside.

Another uneventful day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana today.

Rain Rain & More Rain

After a beautiful weekend of weather, it started raining sometime late Sunday night and hasn't stopped as of right now, Tuesday at 8:51am.

It may have stopped a few times yesterday but every time I took the hounds outside for a break, and the time I sprinted to the mailbox, there was light rain at a minimum.

This morning it was raining so hard that Sadie and Stella ran to their spot to pee and then sprinted back to the house. Heidi made an immediate right turn just outside the door and scooted behind the Yews and under the roof overhang. I could tell not only by the sounds of the wind last night (strong) but looking at the Countryman this morning that it had been windy and raining all night.

When it gets this much water I know there has been some heavy rain the past 24 hours. It looks like I will have to spend a few days resetting the edging brickes since the ground has pushed them forward. Ground swell is a killer around this house.

The hounds and I have a little bit of cabin fever this morning. Wunderground is telling me this rain will finally be over today at 11:00am, then we will have three days of sunshine to make sure the ground will be dry enough to handle the predicted 1"-3" of snow on Saturday. Throw in the time change late Sunday night, moving an hour ahead ... it should be an interesting week.

The few times they have predicted snow this year in 'the tropics' it has turned out to be not much more than ground cover. There might have been a day or two with an inch or two of snow but nothing that I can remember.

Looking at the heavy amount of water falling on that red stone tells my my gutter is plugged up with something and not able to drain down the gutter spout. Hard to imagine what that might be since there are no leaves, and I cleaned out the gutters in the fall and on a nice day in January. It might be that the water is backed up due to the large amounts of rain at one time.

I will get up there this afternoon and unplug whatever is the cause. At least the lawns in the neighborhood are getting green. I've never seen as much lawn damage by moles as I have this winter. For the first time that I can remember in 19 years, they have moved to the front yard.

I guess it was the perfect time to play around with blog themes on Wordpress. I changed mine three or four different times on Monday. Looking through the 189 free Wordpress options, I soaked up a ton of data usage. Not this blog, my other one on the sidebar.

When it was all done ... I went back to the same theme (template) I started with over a year ago. Since I have deleted that blog a couple of times and rebuilt it, I don't have many posts there right now. I do have a slide show of 40 photographs of the hounds.

I usually don't watch much tv besides ballgames and an occasional movie. If something shows up interesting on the Discovery Channel or the History Channel then I'll tune in. I have my DVR set to record the new shows as they return to the tv schedule.

One show I really like is Dr. Jeff Rocky Mountain Vet on the Animal Planet station. He does some amazing work and a large amount of customers. I watch my taped version but I think this show is on Saturday nights 9pm eastern time.

Yesterday and today are times I am happy I moved the Z4 to the inside parking space along with the car cover. It was so windy last night the only way the cover stayed on the car was the bungee cord under the car connecting the two grommets on each side of the cover.

So after watching the one hour show of Dr. Jeff, I caught a show I had not seen before but found out later it was in it's 2nd season. They were showing The Last Alaskans, one show after another. I set the DVR to tape them and then after the first hour show I started watching the taped version so I can fast forward through each commercial.

The show was so interesting that I watched 4 straight hours while hearing the wind howl outside and rattling the storm windows. For those of you that live in or travel in small fiberglass trailers and combat those 50-60 mph winds out west ... you are to be commended. In fact any size of RV in those kind of winds at night, you should be commended for what you go through.

Still raining fairly hard at 9:15am.

Sadie of course is sitting at the door way of the computer room, giving me the stare ... wanting her morning walk. But with the amount of rain in the past 24 hours and right now, I believe her walks will be held off for another day. There is nothing good about two bloodhounds with muddy paws that go past their ankles. (About the time I posted this blog post, her kong ball rolled over and hit my chair leg ... the game of fetch had started)

She will toss me one of her bones or balls today to play some indoor fetch. That seems to help with her cabin fever. Heidi has been back in bed since just after her breakfast kibble (normal) and Stella is working out the Nyla Bone before she starts howling for lunch around 11:20am. I'm serious when I say that, she does howl for breakfast and lunch. Maybe sometime I can figure out how to post a recording of her howling here on the blog.

Just to show you the hounds are alive and well ... here are a few pictures of them on Sunday. Heidi made an appearance outside and stayed out while I sat in a chair enjoying the weather and the bloodhounds roamed the field. The biggest news of Sunday, it was hound toenail day. Sadie finally let me cut all of hers in one setting. There is never a problem with Heidi or Stella getting theirs cut because they lay down and roll on their back for me to cut them.

Stella enjoying Sunday afternoon while Sadie runs to her spot out of bounds before I can call her back. I guess I cut back too much of the brush last fall, giving her an open area to access the wooded area.

This was the only picture I took of the hounds on Monday ... light rain, so we were not outside long.

With the weather, not much is planned outside today. I hear the dishes screaming at me, so they will get washed today while the vacuum is yelling behind the closet door. Washing dishes and vacuuming will be the highlights of the day.

Sadie or Stella can change those plans at anytime with more exciting things to do. If that happens the Nikon D3200 will be in my hand recording any interesting things they do.

Thanks for stopping by to check on us. At least it is warm in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana today.