What Rain Does To The Hounds

As forecasted I could hear it raining in the middle of the night as I slept with the windows open. Rain is better than freezing cold in my book so I didn't mind it. It will last for only a day or two and we will return to sunshine. Yet if the rain is even a light rain but just heavy enough to drench the hounds after a half mile walk ... the the walk will be postponed. This morning turned out to be that way, so for the first time that I can remember I am posting a few photos to show you what the hounds do on a day like this when they are outside. Their trips are short and to the point if you know what I mean.

You can always tell how much it rained overnight by the low spots in the carport. If I see any kind of puddles I know that it has rained a lot. This puddle is telling me we have received about a half inch of rain since 1am. The local farmers knew rain was on the way. During my drive through the country with the Z4 top down yesterday I saw more than a few farmers out in their field spreading anhydrous.

Sadie always knows the danger of rain ... her walks are usually postponed and the excitement she had inside is no longer there. She knows the routine when she feels even a light rain hitting the top of her head.

Another signed it had rained most of the night. Sadie doesn't know it but she will be doing laps around the house in an hour or so as she runs away from the toenail clippers. She is okay once I catch her but she is never in a voluntary mood when it comes to cutting her too long toenails.

Luckily they both slowly migrate to the field to dump their tanks instead of the back yard. They don't stay out long.

When I stepped outside I thought it might be possible to take a walk in light rain with me wearing rain boots and a light rain jacket but it was hard enough to where I knew by the time we returned I would be the only one dry. With the natural oils of the bloodhound coat, you can never get their wet coats dry just by toweling them off. That would require some hot sunshine to speed up the drying process.

Even though they are not in the field long they still have to check different scents in the yard on their way back to the house. Yes ... they are getting a little wet as I repeat "come on". In the photo above I tried to capture the blinking bright white light through the trees from the cell phone tower in back.

Nice to see the flower survived sub zero temps this winter just as advertised.

This day has a feel of a book reading day. I'm tired of watching movies while I enjoy my 3 months of free movie channels for switching to Dish Network. My internet habit has decreased the past month and I am back in the routine where most of my internet use is in the morning and stops just after posting a blog post in the morning. After that I am doing things inside and outside the house.

I got a lot finished yesterday in a short amount of time. It was good to see that my roof shingles survived the extreme winter weather with no signs of damage. The gutters were clear and I only had to toss off a few small twigs.

It's going to be a pretty quiet day here in 'the tropics of Southern Indiana with a light rain outside the opened windows.

Will Today Be An Unlucky 13th?

I rarely pay any attention to those rare Fridays that fall on the 13th of a month. In fact I can't remember anything out of the ordinary that has happened on the proclaimed unlucky day. I can't even remember the last time 'Friday the 13th' occurred. So far the day has started off well ... 1st day of year wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt on the walk.

Just because all the windows were open before 8:30am and the sunshine was filling the bedroom and computer room, did not mean that Heidi would start her day early and join us on the morning walk. The last time I saw her she was in the middle of my bed, sleeping under a bright ray of sunlight coming through the window. I'll try to get some afternoon photos of her today and maybe post a short post later today or early tonight of just her.

With a little 'verbal herding' Stella joined Sadie and I on the walk this morning ... but slow and at her own pace.

All of the dormant grass and bushes are turning green. Sounds of birds filled the air, a fairly strong wind from the southwest that will bring some rain later this afternoon and thunderstorms tonight.

I'm finding it hard to come up with words to work with, so I'll pass through most of the pictures below.

I still have no idea what this is.

It's hard to believe that Stella has made it to the back of the field on the morning walk. She does follow us on the afternoon walks but rarely on the morning walk.

While Sadie got her normal morning running in, Stella creeped along at her own pace.

Anyone else delete their Facebook account?

Another great day ahead here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella And Facebook Disappear

A long story this morning starting yesterday afternoon and concluding about 15 minutes ago. Not sure where to start but you know I like to post photos and write in chronological order so here it goes. The weather yesterday afternoon was fantastic. I knew things were good outside when I saw Heidi jump from the couch and run to the door, without being asked, as we headed outside for a 2nd walk of the day around 1pm.

Heidi didn't go on the 2nd walk but while the bloodhounds and I did, she explored the yard and driveway. She even stayed outside a hour longer as I mowed half of back yard and a third of the front yard. Those areas of grass were taller than the rest of the yard based on winter hound fertilizer in the back and an operating septic tank in the front of the carport in front. It's good to see it operating as designed after 42 years of operation without issues.

The weather was so nice being in the 60's the hounds were looking at me for a 3rd walk of the day but we had just returned from the 2nd walk of the day. I decided they could roam the field while I mowed for the next 30 minutes. Luckily they stayed inside the boundaries of the field and I did not have to go chase either one of them ... while Heidi stayed in the front yard enjoying the sunshine.

Once Stella realized that the 3rd walk of the day would be late afternoon, after I grabbed some Motrin and a glass of water to go with it, she wasn't too excited as she walked back toward the house. As you get older it doesn't take long to fall out of shape. I know I walk usually 2x per day, a little over a mile per day, sometimes more but just the short time I pushed my 22" mower on fairly level ground I could feel new muscles had been used soon after I was finished mowing.

Earlier before the 2nd walk I tuned into live tv news so I could watch Mark Zuckerberg squirm in his seat while talking around questions, never giving accurate answers and playing dumb on some others. {"my team will get back to you"} ... I was feeling a little nauseated. I've never really liked the guy although he is brilliant in his idea for Facebook although misdirected in some ways. The more I listened to him the more irritated I got.

I had just posted yesterday morning "Why I Am Keeping Facebook" here on this blog that some of you may have caught early enough to read before I deleted it ... but as I turned off my tv after a short dose of Zuckerberg's bullshit I decided I was deleting my Facebook account. I could get 99% of my information on Twitter, that also harvests personal data but not nearly as much as Facebook and has privacy settings that work.

Another thing that set me off ... I looked at something I had never looked at in my Facebook account because I had never sold anything on Facebook. I had never used their ads nor had I ever clicked their ad links. But if you go into your Facebook account, then click settings, look to the left for the link called 'ads'. That page opens up to where you can change some settings for what type of ads you want to see. I saw that some of mine had been changed back to Facebook's default settings and settings I did not want.

But that wasn't where all the surprises were. I started clicking different links on that page and once I saw a notification that I was seeing these list of advertisers because I HAD CONTACTED THEM IN SOME WAY AND HAD GIVEN THEM MY PROFILE INFORMATION .... never happened ... I was shocked of the amount and who those advertisers were.

When the congressman confronted Zuckerberg yesterday about how many data points Facebook had on each user ... he answered his own question before Zuckerberg could get even a word out of this mouth ... 29,000 data points on each Facebook user.

Then when asked if Facebook tracked people that did not even have a Facebook account ... YES !!! How could someone stop that tracking that did not even have a Facebook account???? They had to sign up for a Facebook account to get to the page to opt out ... HOW CRAZY IS THAT ????

So after that my Facebook account was definitely going to be deleted as fast as I could click all of the different links required to get that job done.

I am not trying to HIDE anything that I do on the internet as a couple of readers mentioned in their comments yesterday by saying "I have nothing to hide" ... THAT IS NOT THE POINT.

The point is if Facebook can get away with this amount of data stealing what more can they do in the next 2-5 years EVEN IF regulations are put in to place. The fact is like many websites that we use ... they make millions if not billions of dollars through advertising using our personal data ... they will never stop because profit to them is like heroine to an addict.

Don't tell me that in the future (Facebook's CEO) "we may have to ask you to pay us to opt out for us using your personal data" What I think of that idea and what I would tell them cannot be printed here.

Of course, even though Zuckerberg claims that my data would be gone as soon as I deleted my account, they would still give me 14 days to change my mind to come back and would store my info somewhere in their system in case I did ... I won't go back to Facebook ever!!

I will say after following my morning routine of internet reading while enjoying my morning coffee today -- I did not miss seeing Facebook at all. I was NOT even tempted to reactivate my account. It felt good to get that smug a****** out of my life. Yes, Facebook will still harvest my data from other websites they are hooked into just for that purpose but at least I am not turning over my information for free.

So it was a breath of fresh air to start our walk this morning with the warmest temperature we have had at 9am in the morning for a very long time ... 59°. It will get up to 75° this afternoon. Heidi might take an afternoon walk with us and I am definitely going to wash the Z4 later this afternoon. It will be another 3 walk day for the hounds and myself.

It was good to feel some solid ground under us. We have more of our share of rain in March and April so it looks like we will get a break to clear out the gutters, pick up all the tree limbs in the yard and add them to the burn pile for the fall bonfire. With that fire I also toss in a year's worth of small pieces of paper that I have cut out of mail received that has my name, address and that barcode below it before recycling the mail. It might not make any difference but it cannot hurt.

While Stella hung back and Sadie was already chasing birds she had seen on the ground in 'her' field ... I figured we would pick up Stella over by the neighbors field on our way back, just like yesterday morning. Little did I know just how wrong that assumption be.

As she slowly trotted toward me I thought she would make it to the corner of the field at least so I turned and followed Sadie along our path. The wind had a slight chill to it coming from the southwest but that was fine. I had traded my wool ski cap for my ball cap and I wasn't wearing my down parka over a Columbia Sportswear jacket ... also, no gloves were involved today ... so it was all good.

At this time nothing out of the ordinary took place during the first half of the walk. When I scanned the field ahead I did not see Stella but in this photo she could have been over by the neighbors woods and I would not have seen her due to the steep angle of that part of the field, which you will see later.

I did not see any birds taking flight from the ground so I found it a little interesting that Sadie was taking off in the opposite direction at a fast pace and was ignoring my calls. It's never good to have two bloodhounds out of sight and in two different directions.

Luckily as my calls got louder she turned around and sprinted toward me. In a way that was good yet I thought she might have seen Stella in that direction and that would have saved me some time searching for a bloodhound that I knew I would not find because I never have in these situations.

As I approached the center of the field far enough along to see around the corner of the woods ... I scanned the field quickly and did not see Stella anywhere ... how can a dog disappear so quickly when I do not consider her a 'tracker' comparing her responses to Sadie. If Sadie did the same thing I could understand it and know that a scent led her away ... that rarely if ever, happens with Sadie.

As you see there is not a sign of Stella anywhere.

I started yelling her name loudly but not expecting to see her anywhere.

I always look in the same spots when this happens. First Sadie and I step into the woods and look into the deep gully to see if we can see that tan reddish color stand out amongst the dark colors of the trees. Stella was not in that area ... nor showed up while I yelled her name.

Next we head to the neighbor's woods and walk around the edge of it toward the backyards of the neighbors two houses down. While calling her name ... She is not showing up.

Here you can see the steep drop off of the field north of my house in an area that we never walk, unless we are looking for Stella. See the largest tree on the left side ... my house is just right of that tree.

As we walked closer to the neighbor's woods, the field is steeper behind us.

We walked around that woods, checked the back and front yards of two neighbors while yelling her name. She was nowhere. We walked all the way back to the house, yelling her name ... nothing. I decided to check the woods and gully again hoping she had not gone that direction since the gully is nothing but knee deep mud. I know that from the time 8 or 9 years ago when Sadie took off as a 1 or 2 year old puppy and came home covered ... covered ... in wet mud from her head to her toes.

Just as Sadie and I stepped into the woods yelling Stella's name ... guess who came up behind us? With drool hanging from both sides of her mouth I have a sneaky suspicion the neighbor's (who like her), let Stella inside their house for some late morning breakfast ... I know that is a wild guess and one that I will try to confirm later today with a phone call to the neighbor.  LOL

As you see, she didn't see anything wrong with her disappearance and couldn't understand the urgency to come home. I don't mind it, except I hate the thought of her being curious enough to get into the highway.

I only mowed half of the pictured backyard. It was the only part that needed mowed even after raising the mower blade up a notch ... I am going back to cutting the yard higher this year. See those twigs? I have a lot of them to pickup in the back and front. I use that large blue trash can to collect them and I am pretty sure I'll fill that up a couple of times.

As the outside gets warmer I become more motivate to attack my 'to do' list. Some of those tasks include things inside the house that I could have done all winter but I never do until it's warmer outside.

Things are looking up here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.