It's Summer Again In 'The Tropics'

I knew when Heidi jumped off the couch, rolled once on the floor and popped right back up barking to herself, that summer had come back for one final time and it had to be above 70°. With an overwhelming demand to be fed lunch kibble, it was served almost at 1pm in preparation for the time change in the near future. I hope by the time it gets too cold to paint, I finish my paint prep, put on some primer and paint the trim in the carport. Probably tomorrow after lunch in the sunshine it will be "Operation Dog Nails" and Heidi's will have hers trimmed back as much as possible.

Stella is never too anxious to do anything after lunch. She does not even follow Sadie into the field nor Heidi who takes a lap around the house. All Stella wants after she eats is to be back inside for an afternoon siesta.

When the weather is warm Heidi likes to find a spot in the sun, away from the bloodhounds where she can relax, sleep and soak of some of the sun's ray's. She would for an hour today, doing just that, while the 3 of us were inside.

With perfect weather outside I formed up a game plan over a few games of Mahjong. I improved my times on three different games, getting each of them completed in less than three minutes and one finished in 2 minutes 47 seconds. Since I knew I could not beat that time today ... it was time to take Sadie and Stella for their afternoon walk ... then mow the yard.

The butterfly population double today to 2. I couldn't catch the other one with my camera but I was able to find one. It spreading it's wings to my camera lens never worked out today ... poor timing.

When it's 75°, a slow walk and nice green grass, Stella can always find time to sit for a quick scratch.

Sadie got a little extra exercise in this afternoon with some hard jogging.

I never found anything too scary about my lower lip becoming numb. 200mg of Ibuprofen fixed it. I heard that my friends Apple Mail that disappeared last night finally finished synchronizing with Gmail and so far everything was working again.

I think it's encouraging when I type a question into search on the internet, to see there is usually another million people that have searched the same topic you have, even it is a problem where a solution is needed.

The yard looks good again, cut even. Since I reinstalled the older blade, that terrible sound with my mower I had last week was gone today. So instead of buying a new mower next spring it sounds like this one is good for another ten years.

It's too nice to be inside writing this ... so I am stopping here and heading back outside to sit and contemplate whether I build a huge fire tomorrow by burning the tall pile of dead tree limbs and leaves that went with those tree limbs. I imagine the final decision will be made by which direction the wind is blowing ... I want to burn only the pile of limbs, the the woods behind it.

You cannot beat this 75° weather today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella Continues To Improve

With another late night (early morning hours) with MLB Playoff games, computer work and not being able to sleep ... once again our day started about 9am as I felt a wet bloodhound muzzle poking at my hand hanging over the side of the bed. It was Stella standing there letting me know she wanted her breakfast. Whenever Stella wants something or just stops by to say hi ... she pokes you with her nose.

So it was the normal routine that long time readers know ... coffee, internet reading update then the first hound walk of the day. Stella has been starting her walks lately with a nice snack of wet green grass at the edge of the field. Late afternoon yesterday as she and Sadie roamed the field while I walked around mashing down fresh mounds of grass developed by the mole traffic ... both hounds picked up a lot of these small burrs that are on every dead, dark brown weeds you see in my field pictures.

They even stick to my jeans sometimes as well as my fleece gloves when it gets colder. It's one of the hazards in the years they do not mow the field for the second time before winter. The hounds don't mind them but I am not a fan of pulling 3-7 of these out of each hound's coat after each of our 2-3 walk per day. No matter what, with perfect temps this morning at 61° we were off for the first walk of the day.

Stella was going to get all the freedom she wanted this morning but again she was more than happy to follow along with Sadie and I ... just as long as it was at her pace. When you see the excess skin slide down over her forehead she is in deep concentration trying to identify what her nose has picked up. No diet supplements today for either hound ... just straight pure scent tracking and identification.

It's good to see Stella back to her old self. She has not done the full-speed sprint she use to do but it's good enough just to see her have the ability to run faster than a trot. It's hard to think sometimes about how each hound is basically the same age at 8 and 9 years old. It's part of dog ownership but it's always hard to deal with old age issues when they happen.

With her ears flapping and going in directions that few breeds can match, it wasn't long before she ran by me with her non-intentional act of taking out my knee with a 'chop block' or 'clipping' that NFL players are penalized for. There is 7 acres of field around me and she has to run into me ... LOL

While the hounds headed west away from the woods and before the first turn ... I heard something running in the woods to the right of me, something big enough that was breaking tree limbs as they made their escape. Obviously the animal escaping had a better nose than the two hounds pictured below. Maybe they had programed their noses for only certain kinds of animals.

As I walked the normal path I noticed my jaw was not hurting this morning, just like Wednesday but I had the strangest feeling on my lower side of my lip ... on the right side ... same side as the pain on Tuesday. The lower right half of my lip felt like it was in the early stages of numbness after a dentist shooting you with a dose of Novocaine. How strange is that?

There was no need for me to march up into the far right corner of the field to get the hounds moving ... they were on a fairly fast pace along the back edge of the field. No deer in sight but they didn't know that. By the way they acted you would have thought their noses were only a few minutes behind the latest deer.

Sadie trotted though the taller grass.

You could tell she was on to something important and totally focused.

Same thing for Stella but she was gradually heading in a different direction as usual.

She trotted back to the larger path made by the ATV and I was almost certain she was going to try to escape right before my eyes. She hit that path, headed north and picked up her pace.

I had not said a word when she abruptly made a left turn on the path home and was joined by Sadie leading the sprint out in front of me, leaving me behind once again. The weather was so nice I wasn't running anywhere so I continued enjoying my walk.

The picture of this hound compared to last February or March is an amazing difference. No ribs are showing and her hip bones are not prominent, looking as if she was starving. The vet at the time thought she might be having problems processing the protein in her kibble and told me it would take a long time for her to regain the weight, if nothing else was wrong.

They were searching all the way up to the yard and Stella was going to get every last drop of her exploration this morning.

The only bright leaf colors I have seen are the trees right in my yard, just a few feet away from the property pole in the picture above.

I was going to wait to post this but with 21 images I thought I'd go ahead and post it now. I will be getting on the internet searching for a few things after this. I need to find out something about the lip numbness. Obviously somewhere a nerve is being touched on the right side of my face.

I need to search not only the internet but a Mac Forum for some issues a friend is having with her new iMac. She has things going on that I have never experienced before. Computers new or old are nice when they work but so frustrating when out of the blue they decide to ruin your day or night. I guess I am lucky since I have had very few problems with my computers since move from an Windows PC to Apple computer in October 2010.

With cool temps and bright sunshine, the yard I cut twice last week in two different directions on the same day ... is tall enough in spots to mow again. With me losing track of time with all the baseball and football games I watch, I did not know it was Thursday but could see it was the reason for the grass to be blowing in the wind after 6 days. The week has flown by.

I am headed for some self massage and heat treatment on my jaw by the way it feels. Nothing major, no pain but some tightness. I woke up in the middle of the night with the jaw bone hurting so who knows what was taking place while I was in a deep dream state with the strangest dreams I had in a while.

I had a friend tell me some things to do for my jaw. It was good to see that some of the things she (a PT) was suggesting I had done on my own on Tuesday night for no other reason than it relieved the pain I was feeling at the time.

Well I just felt a wet bloodhound nose nudge the back of my arm while I type this. Stella has obviously had a drink of water and now feels it's time for her lunch ... Sadie and Heidi are not hungry yet since both of them are sleeping a few minutes past noon.

I know it sounds like a broken record repeating myself ... but it's another beautiful day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

An Afternoon Of Smoke

The lighting for taking pictures always seems better in the afternoon than the morning. I changed the camera settings from 'single point' to 'auto area' to see if was just my eyes or better quality. It was the perfect afternoon today with a slight breeze from the south, 71° and bright sunshine. I had yet to feel any kind of the pain I felt yesterday in my jaw. We did have a surprise visitor on our walk ....

You can barely see who it is but look closely and it's a butterfly checking one last time if there is anything left for a short snack.

With smoke filling the air and the smell inside my house because of the southern breeze Sadie, Stella and I took off for our 2nd walk of the day and our usual time around 3pm. With the hot summer temps gone we no longer have to wait until early evening for that afternoon walk. Heidi slept while we headed out.

I am seeing some signs of skin redness more and more on Heidi since we pulled out the wool blankets. Is she allergic and I didn't notice after all these years? I'll have to put them away and bring out some of the soft fleece blankets I have to see if her skin makes any changes.

It is pretty common that in the afternoons, Stella may whine to go for a walk but that doesn't maker her faster. She usually strolls slowly along the path or if she wanders off ... still nothing is fast.

It's nowhere near 80° but today she has her tongue hanging out while she walks ... it didn't feel that hot.

As we got closer to the house I made sure that neither hound got ahead of me, giving them a chance to run down over the bank to help supervise the neighbors brush fire. He told me today he likes winter weather and that was one of the reasons he moved from Texas/Louisiana. He also likes the Sycamore trees so it looks like those large tree trunks will be staying and will help keep the bank together and my driveway in place. I thought at one time the owner of that house would cut them down.

I didn't have to do much work to keep Stella in back ... she does that naturally but I caught Sadie a couple of times stopping to look ahead where the smoke was and I could tell she would like to get back to seeing the neighbor. While I told her "stay here" she walked most the time right beside me.

While I talked to the neighbor from my driveway ... Sadie stood and watched the large fire he had going. She was just waiting for me to give her permission to get a closer look ... that never happened.

I glanced out into the field at Stella and she was in that pose that shows she is looking to see what I am doing and if she can get away for more exploration. I've seen that pose too many times not to think otherwise ... I knew she was going to head north if she thought I wasn't paying attention.

She did ... slowly ... as if she was quiet I would not see her nor hear her as she walked away from the house toward the woods behind the other neighbors house.

She did not know I was watching her through my camera lens while walking toward the north edge of the yard. I wanted to see how far she would go before I called her name.

Once she heard her name being called she knew she was caught ... again ... an slowly walked toward the yard. Another gallant attempt to escape had failed ... but she never stops trying.

With the first baseball game on tv at 5pm I seriously considered an hour siesta before it started. It's too nice outside to take a short siesta but with three hounds sound asleep and one of them snoring, it's hard to stay awake sometimes.

I was reminded today why I stopped using Google Chrome as my browser and moved to an improved Safari after Apples macOS update. I had been helping a friend with some computer issues on her new iMac and Laptop when she asked if I used Chrome or Safari, since she might have to move from Firefox.

From that discussion I decided to use Chrome for a day to see if I could save some data. In the past, on average I'd save 10% data usage in a 30 day period. That doesn't sound like much but that 10% savings would give me an extra 2Gb in 30 days.

What I forgot happened today ... with all automatic updates turned off, all video autoplay disabled, adblocker app on ... before I could shut down Google Chrome I "something" running in the background used 600Mb of data in a matter of a minute. I was lucky to glance at my Activity Monitor just in time to turn off Google Chrome.

I've never liked Safari's all-gray Favorites Bar and the different tabs with open websites. The color icons of websites open on different tabs look much better on Firefox and Chrome. I find that Firefox is a pure 'data hog' ... and Chrome always has an unexpected data surge of some kind even with your computer locked down as tight as possible.

So I've moved back to Safari with all of those features built in, website loading speed just as fast if not faster as Chrome and advertising companies not following every step I take on the internet.

Other than that data surge ... it's been a really nice day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.