It Will Be A Wet Apple Festival

The raindrops started hitting the leaves outside of my bedroom window around 3am. It wasn't a heavy rain but a constant light rain. I finally fell asleep at 4am with no plans of getting up at 8am to feed the hounds. They would get breakfast when I woke up a little after 10am. It was still raining lightly but all three hounds went outside for their first bathroom break of the day. Apple Festival starts tomorrow night thru the parade on Sunday ... it is suppose to rain all weekend.


While the town fills with people, I will do a little grocery shopping this afternoon after this post and the hounds get their lunch. Then I'll stay inside my house all weekend, starting tonight, watching football and the MLB Playoff games.

Stella yelped last night on the couch while I was petting her ... I wasn't sure today if she would do the walk or not. It was a spot right above her rear hip between her upper leg and stomach. I could not feel anything swollen but didn't dig much to keep her from yelping again. She went back to sleep and I left her alone.

It was on the right side, on her upper side just above the upper leg or shoulder blade.

I didn't think she would go far so I let her do what she wanted as Sadie and I marched forward in the wet field and a few drops of rain here and their but not even a sprinkle. No rain jacket, just a t-shirt and my North Face snow boots to keep dry.

Sadie did her normal daily, every walk, routine ... exploring. She never looked back for Stella but just kept her nose to the ground and tracked scent.

Not quite 9-1/2 months old, great shape with a little gray on her muzzle. I still would like to know what that means with her licking her lower front leg in that one spot all the time. She normally does that licking while laying on her bed when I am getting ready to leave or at night just before we turn the lights out to sleep.

She was hard to get moving off her search this morning but I cannot leave her behind or she would never come back to the house.

She would explore this 7 acres for hours on end if I let her stay out that long alone.

As we walked back toward the house I did not see Stella anywhere through my lens. Had she snuck off again, even with a sore back???? Just as I was about to give up hope of finding her, I barely saw her in the lower part of the front field.

As I called her name she ignored me as usual and slowly meandered toward Hasler's.

About the time I got close enough to her to grab her collar, she looked up and started walking toward me and Sadie on our alternate path home. She kept following me as I kept repeating "come on" ... a nice surprise.

It would be pretty tall but that tree in the middle of the picture is slowly rotting. I need to cut that down either this fall and let it dry out to burn next spring or wait and see if it falls down over the winter. Yet it might not be rotted enough to fall for years to come.

Just in case it might be raining too hard on Friday to take our walk I thought I'd take the weekly leaf color pics today. Not a lot of color so far this year except for the few isolated spots throughout the field.

I like the different colors on ground level right now. The field is usually cut down by now so it's a lot of different colors that I miss because of that. Will they cut the field later this month??  I'm guess they won't.

Based on what the Mahogany tree is doing by the house, I am guessing this is a Mahogany tree in back of the field.

This is the edge of my north property line. I really do live in a nice area.

Stella led us back to the house which is much different than her usual routine. Maybe she wanted to get back inside due to a sore leg or back. I saw no limping from her, felt nothing swollen this morning and she did not yelp when I petted that area after the walk.

After 2am last night I still could not get to sleep so I got up and did all of the Apple software updates for the iMac, MBA, iPhone and the iPad Mini.  It took a long time for all of that. Just as I tried to download the photos to this blog the site was hung up and wouldn't load anything, even after I closed Blogger and reopened it.

About that time I saw on my Activity monitor a large download of data of some sort and I went from 63Mb to 215Mb just that fast and it would not have stopped unless I shut Safari down like I did. It must have been some sort of cache update in the background because I have all software updates turned off so they will not use up my data automatically.

It feels like a Friday but it's only Thursday ... should help with traffic and fewer Walmart shoppers. If nothing else I need to get out of the house so I'll head there after I feed the the hounds plus stop at the Auto Body Shop to talk to them about fixing or getting an estimate on the Z4.

All is good today ... may even get some house cleaning done later this afternoon.

Monday Morning Rambling

Stella took the lead of the walk this morning. I was going to let her do her own thing this morning ... and she did. It's a nice way to start the week, where at times she will have a different routine. There will be a slight change to my schedule this week since MLB playoffs are on almost every day and by the end of the week will mix in with College Football.
I was slightly surprised just how fast Stella was moving out ahead of us. I'd rather see her way out in front rather than way out in the back. If she is that far back she will not catchup with us, most of the time. The field is ugly right now with the wild flowers and weeds dying off ... fall is on the way.

Sadie never changes ... she explores the field every morning and afternoon.

Stella is looking good again without her ribs and hip bones showing like they were a few months ago.

Sadie eats less amount of kibble than Stella but its only to control her weight. It's never good for an older bloodhound to be overweight.

I just realized it was 32 days ago that I stopped blogging on my Wordpress blog.

Then this morning while I was walking I thought of starting a brand new Facebook account just to follow my interest. When I got home and found out that Taxa Trailers did NOT have a Twitter account, my interest in a new Facebook account grew. I would only list groups that I was interesting following like my FJ, Taxa Trailers, Casitas, all the Sports teams.

Sadie was in heaven this morning ... she had the whole field to herself to explore, Stella was left behind and out of our sight. She would be spending her 'walk' searching for and eating fresh deer scat.

It's going to be another beautiful day here today with a high of 81°, most of the week in the high 70's and rain by next weekend. I've thought of what Ralph told me the other day where he never rakes leaves but just mowed and mulches them. My problem is for some reason I cannot keep the mulching 'shoot cover' locked in place on the mower .. it blows off after a while.

Then this morning while walking I wondered if it was really saving time mowing them instead of raking. I guess it would take more time to rake them based on the small north corner I raked last week in 35 minutes. I could mulch the whole yard in 45 minutes so that answers that question. I guess I'll work on that cover a little bit more.

No sign of Stella anywhere on the horizon.

Holy Cow!!  Stella had wandered from way behind us over to the area between my neighbors houses. I had to tug at her collar hard to get her to move. I did NOT yell but kept quiet the whole walk.

Is Facebook an addiction? Is the need to blog publicly an addiction or does it fill in the gaps of a solo life with little social interaction? Why does the need for both Facebook and Blogging never go away?

After I grabbed Stella we used the ATV path to get back to our 'alternate path' home. That worked out pretty well. The field did not grow much after they cut it in July. I guess it really was a dry summer, not enough rain and when it did rain, it was not as much as forecast. All the storms moved north of us.

Today I'd like to rake this part of the yard. It would take me around 30 minutes to rake, put them in the container and move them to the driveway to burn them. Really the leaves have not ever started falling yet based on how many leaves are on the trees.

So it sounds like Facebook is back on and will be set up after this post.

It's a quiet Monday here in 'the tropics' of Southern  Indiana.

Stella RUNS !!!

It was 53° at 10am when we headed out for our walk. Sadie took off running immediately and after Stella ate some wet morning grass, she came running around me to catch up with Sadie. Each day she is looking more and more like her old self. By the way she acts I can see she is feeling better. It's Football Saturday but another beautiful fall day on the last day of September.


I've done nothing but feel Stella 4c of kibble, split in in half for two feedings per day. I noticed that this brand of dog food put weight on Heidi and it has on Stella also. As I glanced back at her I was going to let her be on her own this morning.

Then ... there she went tearing around me and sprinting toward Sadie. My camera didn't catch them running around the first turn. They were long gone by the time I make the turn and out of view.

I thought they would stop at their normal deer scat area on the right side of the field's edge but they were long gone. Here is Stella way past the roll of hay and running toward the 'no fly zone'. I could not believe she was that far ahead of us. She was tracking deer scent ... Sadie was further behind her but up near the back edge of the field path.

Thought the 200mm zoom lens I could bare see Stella on the horizon thru the tall grass. She heard me calling her name and looked up at me with her head and ears perked up. To my shock, she came running back toward me along that back path.

With her nose to the ground, tail up in the air and running ... it was like 'the old days' with her tracking scent and running by herself. I cannot tell you just how good that is to see. She must have been really sick from February to May.

Once I had started walking the back edge of the field path, Stella runs to keep up with Sadie who is also excited with fresh new deer scent.

It was nice to do the walk without tugging on her collar, constantly saying 'come on' or her ignoring me. Both hounds were doing their own walk way ahead of me.

I was planning on veering right and taking the 'alternate' way home toward the north property line pole ... but Stella followed that path on her own before I could get there.

That did not mean the walk would continue to be fast ... oh no ... it was time for them to do some thorough investigation. There must have been a lot of animal traffic in the field last night while we slept.

I was up late last night watching Wazzu beat #4 USC 30-27. By the time I went to bed it was already 2:24am. I got about 6 hours of poor sleep due to bad dreams again and a little indigestion (apple juice?). With the windows open it was cold enough to cover Heidi up with one of her Mexican blankets.

This is the hounds during "Football Saturday". All photos taken with the iPhone 6s. After the last iOS update to 11 it sure seems like the phone camera takes a better quality picture.

It's another good day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Downtown Street and Highway Resurfacing

After a summer where they backed up traffic west of town for many miles while they installed the 'mysterious' one lane 4' retangle about every 10' ... within the past two weeks they have dug up and graded the work done this summer, to look like this, preparing to lay new asphault ... AGAIN.


The annual Apple Fall Festival is in 11 days, which brings in a lot of traffic from all over southern Indiana. Traffic will be backed up as people look for parking space throughout the town. So at least it is likely all the new road surface will be completed by then.

Coming into town from the south since last Friday, they have completed the grinding all the way over to the curb and swept up the residue. That goes from the first bridge south of town all the way to the major rebuilt downtown intersection.

I was unable to get pictures of the two new redesigned corners that were widen and also new large sidewalks installed around each corner. Those are located on the left and right side of this street. It gives semi-trucks more room to make left and right hand turns with traffic and parked cars nearby.

It also looks like they have installed new poles holding new stop lights and new highway signage.

With the flagman holding traffic back to town I took a couple of photos of old early 1900's signage built into the building on the west side of the square.

Just past the right turn up ahead and down the hill a little to the Petro gas station and the east edge of the town park (where they festival will house all the booths) ... they are grading the highway down and filling dump trucks with all the ground up asphault.

The strange thing is, they just installed new asphault on that flat looking highway past the last hill. Then on the other side of the bridge west of town, they have graded the highway down two lanes, erasing all of their work done this summer ... to lay new asphault.

With the highway ground and swept I will venture to say ALL the new surface will be completed by this Thursday or Friday. It will be nice because the town main street needed it and I'll never complain with a new surface on the road I take to get to town or head west.

It's hard for me to take pictures on the move but I couldn't resist this house. It is IN town.

Those dark spots in that picture are not from my camera lens ... but a dirty windshield.

I stopped by the library but did not find anything new to read. I still have books on my shelf at home I have not read that I want to ... 4-5 of them actually.

All is good today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... time to feed the hounds.