I Was Confused What Day It Was - But Turned Out Okay

After the hound walk late afternoon yesterday, I hung my soaked ballcap up outside on the nail knowing there was little chance of drying out overnight with the humidity. It was better than leaving it hung up on the door hinge inside, it's normal place. So it was not a shock to put a soaked ballcap on for our morning walk this morning ... it was 20° cooler at 8:46am but it didn't feel like it.

I tried something different this morning taking photos ... all at 35mm or 50mm, except three of the last four.

Stella continued her path of success and I am in disbelief that she has not changed this routine and all out ignored me so she can head north to the neighbor's woods and backyard. She takes her own path with little verbal herding and meets Sadie and I right before we reach the corner of the field, or our first turn.

Unlike the growth in the field this spring and early summer, where it was almost all grass, it is now filling up with food for bees and places to land for larger butterflies. Like last summer I think they will let it grow until next June. That's fine since the hounds will still be visible on our walks or when I sit outside and let them wander the field.

Sadie was showing signs there was a lot of deer or rabbit, maybe both, activity while we slept. She was intense in her exploring this morning.

When she is in this mode, she hears nothing, sees nothing and moves quick in different directions. The camera cannot pick all her moves up in time.

For over two weeks now, Stella has followed her same path starting north then slowly angling toward the corner to meet us. We meet up in about the same area of the field every morning. Maybe it's her old pink collar that is making her so controlled?

By this time in the walk, what I consider the first 25% of it, the humidity is thick yet a low percentage on the weather app. Since it took me a while to realize this is Friday morning and not Saturday morning (does it make a difference retired?) I had to alter my plans to buy dog food this morning. The chicken blend usually sells out on Friday.

Stella was more active than she had been in a while. What I mean by that is, she wasn't trotting but walking faster, more receptive to what she was smelling and the shocker ... she wasn't eating deer scat.

She looks at me as if I am crazy when I talk to her ... who knows? Maybe I am.

As I walk through the field I am wondering what all of these 'normal' photos are going to look like shot at 50mm instead of 70mm-200mm? Will they be sharper, more clear? Will I have to crop any? We'll see when they are sent through the editing process.

I didn't call Sadie's name or say anything ... but as I was tracking her with the camera held to my eye ... she looked right at me. Still intense and walking at a fast pace. Scents were all over the field for her today.

It didn't surprise me. I expected it. When I turned from Sadie to see what Stella was doing ... she was looking at that 'far right corner', even taking a few steps in that direction ....

When I called her name ... she turned and came right toward me. What's up with her? I am not use to all of this obedience from a bloodhound. Honestly I am shocked how nice she has been the past few weeks on these walks.

With all the rain and sun this spring/summer ... everything is nice and green. This stood out in seven acres of greenness.

The back of the field always has a lot of deer traffic, in any season.

I am surprised how many photos I am catching with 50mm setting. I may have overlooked this for the past year or two. I am liking what I see as I downloaded them from my camera to my computer.

I am noticing with bright sunshine and the setting of 'landscape' some of the images are too dark when I am shooting back towards the sun.

From this angle it looks like Stella has gained her weight back from her loss from 15 months ago. At other angles she still looks thin but eats like a horse.

We might be close to finishing the walk but that does not mean that Stella is going to follow Sadie and I. She would love to turn right toward those woods but walked parallel to Sadie and I, to within three feet of the yard ... then turned toward us.

The only animal that would stand that tall next to the pole to draw so much interest from Stella ... is deer. I've seen them walk by that pole and took pictures of it last year (can't remember the month) ... so deer is my only guess for what she seems to be smelling.

Those last three photos were taken at 200mm

As you can probably tell, I lowered my lawn mower blade one notch yesterday ... I have a lot of grass to rake up before my next mowing next week sometime. Any grass collected will be added to the burn pile for this fall. Stella actually broke into a little trot in that photo ...

It was really nice today with temps in the mid 80's. Yet the hounds were not interested in any kind of walking or soaking up the rays after their lunch. They came out, sniffed a little and all headed toward the door to be let inside. I tried a couple of different formula's of vinegar and water mixtures to see if that will kill the weeds. Three hours after I sprayed a 50/50, a 75/25 and 100% vinegar ... I saw no signs of wilting.

I am afraid that Stella has become addicted to the air conditioning. That is as far as she got today after her lunch. She didn't move until Heidi and Sadie headed for the door to go back inside. I was almost ready to pull out my weed trimmer but decided I would do all of it tonight after 7pm when the temperature is suppose to drop to 78°. With the Reds playing in Chicago at 2:20pm I was able to cut weeds and rake grass after 7pm.

To confirm in my mind, I have looked at past pictures of this driveway in the same months for each year going back to 2010. That year I spent a week on my hands and knees pulling out every weed by it's roots with my hands ... I even blogged about it since it was so exciting .... well that only MULTIPLIED them the following summer and they have never stopped multiplying. I haven't had this many weeds in the driveway since I moved in March 1998.

99.9% of my mailbox down by the highway is a receiver of junk mail. The general consensus is I am close to death and if I return a card the state of Indiana will help pay for my funeral. I also have been getting weekly offers for the past two years for government funded hearing aids or a price discount IF I come in for an exam. Some time this past spring those offers have changed to them confirming my examination appointment ... one that I have never made.

They don't give up.

By the time I finished watching the Reds beat the Cubs 3-2 in Chicago, then taking our 2nd hound walk of the day, I had changed my mind about raking dead grass in the yard. It might be a real possibility Saturday morning but things change rapidly in retirement so we'll see

Another fine day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Basset Hounds From The Past

Here are the basset hounds I have had over the last 31 years. Living in Washington, Colorado and Indiana, these hounds were able to handle any kind of weather. One of these is a mix Basset Hound / German Shepherd ... can you pick him/her out?

Bloodhound Doesn't Understand "Heat Advisory"

Sadie had a pretty rough July 4th. Just like days in the winter when the windchill is below 0° and a walk is not possible, when the 'feels like' is 105° late afternoon and there is also a 'Heat Advisory' sent out ... she has a hard time understanding when I tell her "it's too hot, we cannot go for a walk today". She finally gave up and crawled into her usual sleeping spot for late afternoons ... under the coffee table in the living room.

Past hounds you may not know are below.

Heidi was the hero of the day I guess. She went to the door to tell me she wanted out in the middle of the afternoon and stayed outside a whole eight minutes before wanting back in. I wasn't going to let her stay outside longer than 15 minutes anyway. It's good that I no long see her ribs anymore like a few years ago with the mystery weight loss.

Stella has me a little confused every afternoon. She doesn't leave the driveway, doesn't relieve herself and is back inside soon as possible. When we take that second walk of the day, mostly late afternoon or after 8pm ... she will stand at the corner of the house and not move ... if I try to let her go outside, she trots to the field to start her walk. No worries though, that routine change within a couple of weeks ... hopefully.

Today was a bit strange as we started the day but by noon a text I received changed the pace and interest. The day took off like a rocket and really didn't stop until I sat down to put this post together. Let just say that right before I received that text I was going to blog about something entirely different and had just loaded photos to go along with that story or topic ... which you will still see and read about below. Looks like he planted soybeans this year across the highway.

Early this morning when I opened the door to let the three hounds outside first thing in the morning while I pour their morning kibble into their dishes ... a ball of heat, very hot air hit me ... I knew the morning walk was canceled right then ... Sadie did not.

We waited to go out right after they had lunch and you can tell from the photo that all three hounds are not really motivated to move too fast nor did they want to go anywhere ... so we didn't stay out long.

Heidi went over to the shade by the fence to relieve herself and ALMOST walked into the yard. When she decided it was too hot to go anywhere and it was too hot to lay in the grass to soak up some sun, she made an abrupt left turn looked up at me and headed toward the door.

The hounds might be rated on the AKC list #73 and #74 in the department of intelligence for their respective breed but they are smart enough to know it feels a lot better in the air conditioned house compared to outside.

Sadie was stymied. She had waited all morning for her walk. She pleaded with her stares for me to break down and take her out but it was just to hot to do that. The heat index was at 107° and with all the hounds being a year older I am more cautious than last summer on when we take the walks. She didn't even go into the field, glanced at Heidi and followed her to the door.

Of course Stella as usual was on her own schedule. This just shows how great of a house dog she is. Due to the heat she had been "holding it". So even with the heat as it was at noon, she stepped out into the field to poop because she knows I hate mowing over it. Then she walked back into the yard to pee just to give the yard a little extra nitrogen to keep it green.

I agreed with her, that I needed to mow. The hourly weather site told me it looked pretty good temperature wise to mow late afternoon or early evening. I ended up mowing around 4pm when I saw gray clouds outside, storms to the north of us and a pretty strong wind passing through. By the time I finished mowing the temps had dropped to 90° and we were able to fit in our afternoon and only walk of the day in.

With this morning being so slow and no plans of going outside I decided to pull some photos of my past hounds and post one each. These go back to 1975, a lot of them from the 1990's and some from here. I've had a lot of hounds but at the same time I've had basset hounds since 1987 ... every year since I have had at least one but more than likely two or more. I'm sure you recognize who that is ... Winston.

Gretchen was picked up through a rescue service in Bloomington Indiana when I was attending Indiana University in 1975. She was half basset hound and half german shepherd. You would think that I had the only one in the world with that mix .... but a frat house had the male named Nick. Gretchen use to get all kinds of smiles, laughs and photos taken of her whenever and wherever we took a walk.

In 1987 I got a call from the Oak Harbor Washington shelter telling me they had not only a basset hound but a beautiful pure bred basset hound. I could not believe a hound that nice would be in the shelter with no owner. She was not a volunteer turn in but had gone unclaimed the past 14 days. We found out within an hour after we brought her home why she ended up in the shelter .... she was a 'runner' ... if the door was open an inch she was gone ... like in disappear gone ... nowhere on the horizon.

We use to have to search for her so many times we named her Sadie after the Beatles song, Sexy Sadie "where have you gone".  In 1987 while living out by Ft. Ebey SP on Whidbey Island I bought a basset puppy from someone I worked with. Harry was my first basset puppy. He lived and traveled in Washington, Breckenridge CO and his last home was right here. He use to like to run off but would always come back. It didn't matter what time of day or late night ... if you let him out to pee, he was also gone but not every time.

Some of his naps were taken at the Oak Harbor BMV, the Oak Harbor Park down by the baseball fields and Bradfield's Landscaping just down the road from me. I can see the roof of their building from my window. ALL of these area's that Harry would sleeping, would call me and let me know that that Harry had wandered off and when I had time, he could be picked up by the desk or cash register counter ... but he was taking a nap so I could wait.

Barney was a Colorado puppy. He had spent time at my sisters for a while during a move I was making back to Washington. They flew him and Harry out to this house on Whidbey Island right on the water. So Barney did have commercial flying experience. Honestly he did nothing wrong ... didn't run away, didn't chew things up, did just normal basset hound stuff.
 

Arthur showed up right before I moved from Washington back to Indiana in 1994. He and Harry were pretty close but luckily Arthur was not a runner nor a wanderer ... he just liked to hang out. He loved kids in the neighborhood and didn't mind riding in cars ... so the 3,000+ mile trip in the 4Runner was not a problem for him.

No that is not Sadie, that is my first bloodhound Bertha around 2003, maybe 2002. I had another Arthur. This puppy was from the same breeder as Winston's, who I would pick up in 2004. Different couch but the same house as I am in now. Sadie and Bertha look a lot a like but they came from different parents and different parts of Indiana.

That's a grown Arthur a year or so later with Max (on right). Max was a rescue from the link on my sidebar "Basset Rescue" He was the biggest basset hound I had ever seen. He weighed 81 pounds and the owner told me "he only eats kibble if you put cottage cheese on it" ... while she said that I thought to myself "not in my house"  LOL

He could barely walk to the edge of the yard and field without laying down, on his very first walk. We followed the same path then as we do today ... a few years later he was down to 62 pounds and could do laps around that field. He spent his last 5 years totally blind by never missed a walk and would play with all the other hounds in the yard and field ... an no, he didn't get scoops of cottage cheese on his kibble but he got to lick out the empty cottage cheese container.

Maggie was a lot like Heidi in temperament. I took this photo when she was really sick with cancer. I had to put her down a couple days later. You'll notice the large lump on the left side of her throat, well that wasn't the only lump she had. She was my first two tone basset hound. As a puppy my niece walked her in the Apple Festival Parade.

I always say that the three hounds I have now will be my last. As you can see that might not be possible. I have had hounds since 1987 and sometimes I had up to 4 hounds here at this house ... that's too many. So we will see what time brings. About the time you think you will never have another hound as good as the one that just passed ... a different shows up and is just as great as the previous ones.

So ... what was the text that turned my day into something entirely different?

Nothing major really ... just a surprise text from Best Buy telling me my amplifier had arrived and was ready for pickup. It came in FIVE DAYS EARLY !!!! So I was pretty happy to jump in the Z4, turn on the AC and leave the top up today, for the 35 mile drive over to Bloomington.

I had it hooked up, checked out all the inputs like the CD player, Cassette Tape Deck and even my Turntable, before taking time to mow the yard. I plugged my tv into it so I do have the separate speakers now but it's not a Home Theater by any means, nor did I want that. It has a few watts per channel less than my old Yamaha Amp but like I read during my research, the human ear cannot tell the difference between 150W and 100W per channel. The receiver comes with all the wireless features such as AirPlay (Apple), Pandora, Spotify, and others.

For those of you that use the new Firfox Quantum browser I think I have found something you can use to wipe out those videos that automatically play when you go to a news or sports website. Videos were still playing automatically with uBlock, AdBlockPlu running. I even use FlashBlock Plus and the videos were still playing when I was on Firefox. That was one reason I would not use it.

I loved the new browser. I wanted to use it as my default browser but Firefox was a 'data hog' and I can't waste data based on what I pay for. So today I did a little more research since it was a slow morning and I found this:

How To Prevent Videos From Playing In Firefox

I followed their simple instructions after I clicked that link. Then I refreshed Firefox without restarting it (not needed) and went right back to ESPN and FoxNews to see if the videos still played ... zapped, nada ... no videos. So I did the next test of going back to all the websites I visit ever morning over coffee and wrote down how much data Firefox used with that new setting that prevents videos from playing automatically and it was less than Safari or Google Chrome.

Firefox Quantum is my new default browser.

That is about all for today ... everything is done around the house, the hounds are asleep again and my AC is at full steam ahead. Vinyl LPs really do sound the best compared to CDs or digital downloads.

The days right now really do feel like 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Happy Independence Day

Happy 4th of July everyone.

I took this photo in June 2003 while passing through Philadelphia on a two week vacation, a MLB Baseball Tour. 30 of us spread out on a tour bus letting them do the driving as we stopped at 13 cities in 14 days, saw 13 ballgames and our day off we toured the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY (beautiful area). We started in Chicago and ended the tour in Chicago. Yet standing in front of this Liberty Bell and rubbing your fingers over the words made you forget you were on a baseball tour and instead it felt like you were in a history class.

You might notice a change of tint or color in today's photos. A few weeks ago I was back to analyzing why my photos are not as good as they were when I bought the camera in September 2014. I contacted Mark over at Box Canyon Blog to see what camera he was using for his crystal clear photos. His answer led me into researching point and shoot cameras of all sizes. I would compare CNET reviews with the reviews I was finding in my internet search and Amazon customers.

Due to taking a lot of my photos with a zoom lens, I decided not to buy the smaller point and shoot cameras. I thought about buying a different lens, luckily the ones I wanted were sold out at Best Buy.

Why?  I changed the setting the other day from Automatic No Flash to 'Landscape' and found I had more color, depth and if I took pictures in good light they looked perfect. Taking photos at 8am with parts of the field shaded is not a good time for premium quality photos.

So as a test this morning I moved the setting back to 'Automatic No Flash' and I can tell a huge difference. The other day I posted photos without making any edits. I had to edit everyone of these photos this morning.

You can barely see the moon is still out. I saw the moon much earlier this morning as I stood outside a little after 4:30am wondering why I couldn't sleep. It may have been the 3-hour siesta I took the previous afternoon or the way the Reds lost a game in extra innings after leading it for 9 of them. Most likely it was because of that long siesta ... not the Reds loss.

While Stella and Heidi remained asleep, Sadie was up and wanting outside as soon as she heard the chimes from the computer when it boots up after turning it on at 4:30am. I went outside with her but that did not mean she was going to eat at 4:30am ... once she figured that out, she slept by my desk chair until Heidi and Stella woke up four hours later.

What did I do at that time of day? Well for one I took advantage of my free 50Gb of data I get every month from 2am-8am every day. I did updates to the computer, my laptop, my phone and tablet. That took a lot of data all on HughesGen 5's dime.

I am also continuing the latest project of moving CDs to iTunes on my computer. Not only are the CDs now available to play while I sit at my desk, they will be available on my phone, tablet or laptop if/when I travel. After they load I can right click on the file and highlight 'Get Album Artwork' and it will load the image of the album cover IF Apple has it in their store. If not, it is simple to type in the name of the band and album in an internet search, download those images to your computer ... then upload it to your album file.

It takes time but I have plenty of time and once it's done I will only have to do it again when I buy CDs. I still buy them because I have not come to terms in my mind of buying electronic music ... there is something about having it on your self knowing you own it and not just the 'rights to it' since you bought it electronically.

Stella has something new happening this summer. Last year it was losing a lot of weight but this year she has an allergy of some sort, where all the hair on both ears is gone. {correction: the top third of her ear is hairless} She doesn't scratch that area so that is not the cause. She has maintained her weight gain this spring and summer and has no other rashes anywhere else ... except her ears.

This morning for a change Stella thought she was definitely on the deer track ... she acted as if she was on a mission to find them up until we made the final turn for home.

Although the temperature was about 20° cooler this morning than it will be late this afternoon, the humidity was so high you could cut the air with a knife while on the walk. It wasn't too long into the walk where I was ready for the 13-15 minutes to be up and we could be back inside with the AC already on this early in the morning.

There are a couple of good things about loading all the CDs into the computer. Maybe even three of them. I am pulling a handful of CDs off the shelf at a time. I can then dust the space on the shelf the CDs took and also dust the tops of the CDs that have collected dust. I usually dust the tops of the CD cases by annually, otherwise I use the vacuum to get what dust I can. So that's two.

The third and possibly the most important thing is I am finding music I forgot I had. Not only am I finding a few CDs where I have no idea who the band is but I have no idea what kind of music they play. Luckily my OCD kicked in a long time ago and I alphabetized them as are my DVDs ... otherwise I was buying duplicates.  LOL

It's been a while since both hounds headed for the 'far right corner'. Stella was sure the deer were headed that way. She doesn't run anymore but by the time I turned from taking the photos of the white flower, she was headed toward the gully.

Sadie was caught by surprise and took off after Stella with me running and yelling after them to keep them from running down into the gully. By the time I got to them, they were already turning around and heading my way.

Unlike last summer, the field has not turned into an ATV Park. I've seen the neighbor riding his ATV only one time since they cut the field and I have seen no tracks that lead down into the gully where he spent a lot of time last summer. There is still plenty of time left for them to show up. Maybe he and the field owner's grandkids are at camps or on vacation this time of year.

For anyone that might want to try the Beta version of Apple's new OS ... DON'T ... I knew the issues before I decide to load it because it is the Beta version and they pass it out to developers and volunteer users for their feedback to fix the bugs etc. I just forgot how it can operate ... things may hang up, some programs may not respond, can't be shut down and you might get to the point where you have to save what you are doing and then reboot your computer.

I just did that. There are ways to go back to the older version OS that does work but you need a backup (which I have) and you would wipe your hard drive clean, then restore from that backup. The problem is, in the past week of using this new OS I have made changes to spreadsheets, and added hundreds of photos to the library.

I cannot remember how that all works if I restore from an older backup before I started the new Beta OS. I just thought of an idea that might work. I'll drag my photo library file and all of my spreadsheets to the "cloud" and then wipe the computer hard drive to nothing and restore from my older back up, then drag the spreadsheets and photo library from 'the cloud' back to the computer.

Did I confuse you?

That will give me something to do today ... I like that kind of computer work.

I thought about cropping this photo but decided to leave it as is ...

Once we turned for home, I was hot, the hounds were hot ... they both moved on the path ahead of me setting the pace to return home.

By this time Stella reached the yard she had had enough ... once her mouth opens and her tongue falls out ... that mean she is hotter than normal. The AC was on her mind instead of her stopping under a tree and scratching ... to end every morning walk.

Out of five shelves that are 28" long full of CDs, I have half of the last shelf to do, importing the CDs to iTunes.

I just thought of a reason that I cannot go back to an older version of the OS ... it's going to take 5-7Gb of data to load the current macOS High Sierra after I wipe my computer clean. With six days to go on my billing period I would run out of data before the upload would finish. I am not in the mood to spend $15 for 5Gb of additional data ... so I'll stick with the beta version of macOS Mojave. This new beta version overall works okay.

No big plans today ... baseball games will be on the tv as background noise unless something happens. The hounds will sleep most of their day away until our second walk after 8pm. Since the trees have grown between my house and the town park a few miles away, we can barely see the fireworks anymore. Luckily all three hounds are not afraid of local fireworks that will be going off ... a few neighbors behind me and out of view, sound like they are shooting artillery instead of fireworks.

I would have waited to post later but with the heat and the daily routine, there will not be that many chances for anything to change or to add more photos that is blog worthy.

Happy 4th of July from 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.