A Few Photos From Past Weeks

I forgot that I had slid some photos into a folder to upload to the blog in case I had a feeling to blog again. These were taken the last few weeks but I forget the exact days. The hounds are battling the heat. Nothing new to them. They can find the AC just as easy as a heater. I am back to blogging on my old blog at 

No Surprises In Weather -- It's July

Yes .. you did see this page before it disappeared ... I didn't want to 'publish' until this afternoon or tonight but by mistake hit the 'publish' button instead of 'close' ... so, you are correct, it was here for a few seconds this morning.

As I return to blogging, I am thinking that my normal post time will be late afternoon or early evening around 6pm at the latest. That seems to be the best time not only for me but I am able to capture photos or thoughts that happen that day. Otherwise I leave out what happens that afternoon, photos included. I am still not sure if I'll post daily and am planning to post when I feel like it ... could be daily, could be a few times per week. {A little early today}
When I was blogging back in January with the temperature 7° and a windchill below 0°, I wanted this weather we are having now. Now I am not sure I wanted this extreme heat, but it's much worse in other parts of the USA. It's normal for July yet the 'system' has definitely changed. Stella doesn't mind ... she still tries to head due north every morning ... I call her name, she veers our direction.

For you Mac users I am trying out the Beta version of the macOS Mojave. It's is going to have a much different look for you unless you go into your Apple preferences and change it to 'Light'. I'll keep the surprises under wraps since I hate when people tell me about the whole movie before I see them. One thing I am having trouble with is keeping signed in on Blogger.

I have to go to the laptop that still has the previous macOS High Sierra, to reply to your comments or for me to make comments on other blogs .. because it keeps me signed into Blogger all the time.

Not much has been going on out of the ordinary routine this past month or so. I had a break from doing my 'to do' list when a DYI article fell into my inbox. It listed most of the things I wanted to do, are not to be done in humid weather. I guess 95% or higher on that scale is good enough for me to wait until fall before I attacked a few things out of vengeance as well as required before winter.

You might notice a different collar on Stella. The one I bought for her two years ago became too small for her. I couldn't adjust it to be longer so I looked inside the closet door that has old collars, different 6' leashes and a few bicycle tools hanging on a small rack ... I still had the longer, bigger collar she came with in August 2015 ... a pink collar with John Deere icon on it. With a bumper crop of corn this summer, the John Deere collar seemed appropriate for her.

After a year my neighbor that works the Texas oil fields, decided he needed to move closer to the lake 30 miles away. Luckily his friends decided to buy the house and they moved in a few weeks ago. A young couple that likes to keep the place clean, the yard mowed and the nights quiet. It's good to finally get someone in the house that seems like they will be there long term. The hounds have not realized they have new neighbors and that's a good thing. I like to keep them in the yard and the field if possible ... less chance of them finding something interesting in the highway to inspect.

I am finding out that when electronics get old, they break. They don't last forever, nor should they. It's hard to understand I am sure in this day of 'disposable' electronics but my Yamaha stereo was bought in July 1984 ... yes 34 years ago. My computer speakers, a pair of Bose Companion 2 Series II were bought 8 years ago and needed replaced.

Of course one of my friends that is into music big time, an ex-music store owner, younger than I ... was pushing me to move my large collection to digital. That was a lot like the plan I had in 2014 of moving all my music, photos, filing cabinets of paper files all to digital ... it turned into a huge job and not one I wanted to finish.

I still think my music sounds better in those tall Polk Audio speakers with two 12" woofers, 4-mid-range speakers and 4 or 6 tweeters. Heavy and have moved all over the USA in the past 25 years but they still put out quality sound. With my old Yamaha Control Amp C-40 only playing the right side I needed a new amplifier. Things have changed over the years I found out while I looked for a replacement.

Rare to find separate components so my choice was an integrated amp or a receiver. A home theater did not interest me yet I wouldn't mind plugging my tv into the amp to use those tall speakers for movies, hear the crack of the bat in baseball games or F1 racing moving across my living room. So I found a receiver to buy and it will be here next Tuesday.

With one of my smaller computer speakers sounding scratchy, as if it I had blown it out ... I needed a new set of those. Of course I am old so any young sales rep at Best Buy assumes I know nothing about computers or electronics and he told me a $9 set of audio cables would fix my problem. I was pretty sure that was not the answer but decided to try his way anyway.

I returned those cables a day later and picked up a new set of Bose Companion 2 Series III.

Before they cut the field and rolled the hay, there wasn't a weed to be found anywhere. The seven acres was almost all grass. Now the field is full of what I call 'weeds' ... stuff like this is all over the field and I am sure it's not the healthiest stuff a cow or horse would want to eat if it were baled. I am guessing again this fall they will NOT cut the field a second time and let the winter freeze kill off the weeds before they cut the field in June 2019.

Back to those small computer speakers and digital music ... I did decide to load my CD collection (large) into iTunes so I can play those on my computer or when/if I travel. With all the CDs in iTunes I will be able to access those with my phone or tablet as long as I have an internet connection. That is one thing I don't do at all ... listen to music on my phone. I guess I was not part of the iPod generation when it came out years ago.

I saw the other day that 95% of the US population will have temperatures above 90° this 4th of July weekend. I know it's hot when I hear the AC running in the middle of the night. It's also a sure sign when all the hounds oversleep their normal wake up times.

It's not why I stopped blogging because it had happened a couple of times before. The "Grammar Police" sent me some emails giving me some help on clearing up my use of the English language in grammar and spelling. Obviously they had missed what I had written just months before that the blog will have misspelled words because the Blogger spellchecker can't catch everything and will be confused sometimes. I proof read but obviously not well.

I also explained it was my personal preference on how I use quotation marks with the punctuation OUTSIDE the last quotation mark ... because to me it looks better. But that (just like starting the sentence with But) irritated them enough to email me their advice and corrections ... that I didn't asked for.

It's my blog ... the grammar and spelling errors will continue.

A little after 12 noon the hounds went outside for their after meal trip. Stella did nothing but stand in the middle of the driveway wanting to go back inside where the AC was running full steam. Sadie got no further than the edge of the yard and Heidi inspected the mowing job next door.

As you can tell, we don't do much mid-day and will now keep busy inside until after 8pm or later for the next hound walk in weather like this. I've been in the reading mode lately so soaking up time between walks or ballgames is not a hard thing to do.

With the large amounts of rain this spring, then hot sunshine, with some humidity, its a perfect storm for maximum weeds. After the rain forecasts move out in the next three days I'll try more combinations of natural weed killer. As you can see not many are successful. I am also doing a test along the driveway bank of letting a section grow to see if that helps in preventing erosion but I don't like the look of it.

It was a decision by committee ... all three wanted to come back inside when I asked them.

I decided to post a little early today. It will be ice tea, a Cubs game on tv by 2:10pm and dinner soon after. I didn't see anything else that would be exciting enough to write about.

All is good and it's really really hot here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Blog Is Back In Action

I guess maybe I only needed a break from blogging. It's been around 37 or 38 days since the last post here where I announced the blog was over. It might be time consuming but I enjoy writing and I enjoy taking photos of the hounds. My problem is only internal as I fight my own demons of obligation and 'all or nothing' type of feelings. So we will be back to posting again, maybe only photos for a while, may not be every day ... we will see how it goes.

These are photos from as far back as May 28 and in order they were taken if Blogger placed them as they usually do, in sequence from the oldest to the newest photo. I have rebuilt the blog sidebar and re-labeled it as just a reading list since there are some websites mixed in that are not blogs. A new site I have added is Fact Checker ... a legit site that seems to be honest and can separate what is fake news and the actual facts.

If you think of other blogs I have had there that you followed but don't see them let me know. I know that I am missing some of the old ones. Maybe my memory cells can align later and I can remember them.

Sadie did some 'sparrow chasing' ... but Stella is just taking it easy and trying to survive the heat.

My friend's Mini ... named "Boogie" ...

All the hounds are good. Sadie turned 10 years old in June. Heidi is back to her hot summer hibernation and only goes out long enough after a meal to relieve herself. Stella loves the AC and Sadie doesn't care how hot it is, she wants to walk twice per day.

I'll catch up more later in the coming days ... nothing major has happened. All is good in retirement.