Farmers Try A 2nd Time

As the hounds and I woke up from our mid-day siesta around 3:30pm on Saturday, I noticed I had missed all the action while sleeping, dreaming to the point of not knowing if it was nighttime or what. With rain tomorrow they were going to disc some of their field and re-plant that corn the floods washed out a few weeks ago.

I had just let the hounds back inside and was checking for emails and texts back in the computer room when I heard them starting their tractors.

With two working at the same time it would not take long, even though this field that looks so small, it curves to the right around the trees and goes for almost a half mile behind the 2-3 houses across the highway.

With them both hugging the side of the front field they were going to leave that corn the way it was since it was not affected by the water. Not being a farmer I found it interesting to see how they would plant new corn in rows lined up with their corn already growing. The rows would have to go the same direction for picking in the fall.

It's just like mowing your lawn ... just a little bigger 'mower' and a little more 'lawn'.

With their planter waiting in the wings to use when they were finished tilling up their previous planting, I could tell they were as aware of tomorrow's weather as I was. They couldn't wait any longer and doing the same thing twice has to be expensive.

A couple of hours later as we headed out for our walk, they were in the planting mode and from my eye, those rows looked close enough to get the job done smoothly next fall when they run their combine through the field.

The local news said the other night that before the floods a few weeks ago, only 56% of corn had been planted in the state of Indiana due to the wetter than normal spring weather. With many other farmers in the state losing their crop that was planted before the floods, they did not discuss financial losses but it had to be huge. Farming is hard work, sometimes dictated by mother nature.

I'll not include a picture from the past in this post, I wanted to keep it just on this farming operation of today.

Only Two Hound Walks Today

With my iPhone weather app showing me a temperature of "feels like" 87° early in the afternoon, the hounds and I decided we would come back and try to start our day again at 3:30pm. There was no sense in trying to fight that kind of heat for our mid-day hound walk especially that close to lunch. (bloat in bloodhounds).

Even then when we went outside Sadie was showing me that it was still hot three hours later so we might have to wait a couple of hours for those temps to get a little lower. I knew when she didn't beg for a walk and headed back to the door, that it was our first hot day of the year.

Heidi showed her speed and agility by sprinting from the center of the yard to the driveway and then slowly walk up the drive toward the house. She went inside to continue her sleeping marathon for the rest of the afternoon.

It's very rare to see Stella ever wag her tail on a walk, especially when she is with Sadie and their noses are to the ground. Not sure what it was but both were highly interested and their tail movement told me they were about to lock in on their target. I was pretty sure I could not catch them if they took off following what they had found.

Luckily Sadie decided she didn't think it was that important and peeled off to continue their walk. Stella had other plans though. I am sure she thought if I thought she was tracking that I would leave her alone and then slowly veer in the direction of the neighbor's woods ... a place she has not visited in quite a while due to adult supervision.

With the gnats and mosquitos locking into my sweating wrist and lower arms I was more than happy to increase my past telling the hounds to 'come on, let's go' ... Sadie followed me ... umm Stella is on her own schedule.

As I zoomed my camera lens to see if she was going to come faster or not ... I didn't say a word and just turned around and headed home. Those mosquitos had called out their friends with their silent secret code and I was being eaten alive.

As I sped my walk, I turned to do a final check on Stella to see her trotting faster toward Sadie and I. She must have realized that we were serious about getting back to the house. Sadie had even moved way out in front of me, not because of the mosquitos but because she was too hot.

I could tell when Sadie turned around she was also out of patience waiting for her friend. She checked herself to see if Stella was ever going to catch up with us.

Eventually Stella cruised on into the yard but she was in no hurry while Sadie was standing at the door wanting inside.

Although the sunshine has disappeared Wunderground shows rain in Indianapolis tomorrow down to a 50% chance from the 75+% it was showing yesterday. Since those cars travel 2.5 miles in 40 seconds or a football field within a second, they don't need a lot of time to get the race in tomorrow. I think I see a small window in the graph where they can fit it in between 11am-2pm.

A friend suggested to go wild on my computer and plug my other 27" monitor with the non-retina screen into my new iMac and use that as a 2nd screen. Only out of curiosity, I am going to try that and see how that would look with two monitors again like I had for the last 7 years. It does come in handy at times when working on spreadsheets, plus the Activity Monitor is always in view.

Gretchen - 1975

After returning to college after my 2 year enlistment in the Marines, I heard about a 'dog rescue' in town and thought I'd check it out. As I walked into the old house, that was clean and organized all the different dogs were blocked off from the living room where my interview took place with the man that ran it. YOU did not chose your dog, THEY decided what dog was perfect for you after hearing about where you lived, what your daily schedule was and how many hours you would be with your dog.

She was a cross between a basset hound and german shepherd - believe it or not one of the local frat houses had the male version of the same cross breed.

If the hounds are not walking today ... they are sleeping. The hot muggy weather arrived today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Heidi Increased 'Her' Threshold To 75°

I realized one day last week as I carried Heidi outside forcing her to get some sunshine and off the couch, that when her paws touched the ground and she sprinted back to the door that she had changed her rules for 2017. Normally anything above 70° had her outside enjoying the day but not until it was 77° did she jump off the couch on her own and sprint for outside when I asked if she wanted to go. I am assuming 75° is the threshold she will go by now.

I had just mowed the yard and was planning on trimming the Yews in front of the house so what perfect time than having the hounds enjoying a sunny Friday afternoon. Of course Sadie was not going to lay down nor stay around. If I cannot walk her she will take her own and spent the time I trimmed the Yews out exploring the field.

Stella was in no mood to walk anywhere nor supervise my trimming job. She took about 10 steps into the backyard and literally flopped into her sleeping position where did not move the time I was out in front of the house.

By the time I finished trimming and put all the tools away, raked the cut limbs and disposed of them on the burn pile for next fall, Heidi was letting me know she needed her ears cleaned. That sounded like a good 'operation' to do for all the hounds on Saturday. When retired you have to pace yourself by not doing all of your fun activities on one day.

As I headed out to the field to hopefully find Sadie within viewing distance, Heidi decided she needed a nap and Stella was in the dream state. Later on I had to raise my voice volume calling for her to wake up and come inside. Why wake her up???

Past experience has shown me that she may be in a deep sleep but at the same she might be 'acting' she is in a deep sleep. Then when I leave her outside to finish her nap under the sun, I would glance out the window and see her walking into the field for a solo expedition. Her days of roaming free without adult supervision are over for reasons I will not go into.

With the holiday weekend in full swing, she sat and thought this morning of her big plans for the next three days. She is a thinker and takes her time before making any kind of drastic decisions that involve any kind of physical activity.

Whereas Sadie never spends time contemplating life and is only interested in two things ... taking walks and eating food.

As I tried to catch up with the hounds who had moved way out in front of me, I was happy to see that higher morning temperature had kept the field only a little wet instead of really wet, like it was this past week when mornings started in the high 50's. I had to yell 'no' to keep them going further into the woods.

Even after moving away from the woods, Stella and Sadie found enough scent to keep them very interested.

Sadie moves thought this field exploring every inch of her walk and never takes a day off unless it's raining. It certainly seems as she has gotten older she is almost demanding me to take these walks. She does that by sitting in the doorway of the computer room and staring at me until I move. The number of walks already taken does not matter to her.

I cannot find that Stella is in any pain. The vet poked and probed her a few weeks ago, checked her hips, her neck and glanced into her mouth and did not find her to be in any kind of pain ... but she sure does walk like she is. No limping just very very slow at times.

She did keep up with Sadie this morning. She does that on most morning walks but on the mid-day and late afternoon walks she will not attempt to. She will walk slowly behind me. I am not sure by the 3rd walk of the day if she is even that interested in taking one. Sadie is a different story though.

Can anyone name that large leaf plant? It is taking over certain parts of the field. It surely can't be a good mix for the hay they will bale in June.

Stella tried to sneak off on the way back. She was a 200mm zoom lens behind me, but came back to the path with the verbal command "over here". That did not mean she would catch up to us, in fact she slowed her walking pace down just to show me who is in charge of this walk.

I need to take her back to the vet this week and weigh her. It has been a few weeks, maybe a month. I think she has gained some weight and will be anxious to see if and how much.

Since it was about ten degrees warmer this morning, both hounds did not hesitate to get back inside the house where it's cooler and they could sleep. Not much planned today but hound ear cleaning, some cooking and a possible siesta.

The field is starting to come into bloom although the flowers are extremely small at this point in time.

A couple of posts ago I decided as a change to the blog I would post one picture from the past and write a short description. Today is a picture of my first rescue from GABR, linked up in the left sidebar. It was around 1998 that I made the 4 hour drive to pick up Max. I did NOT know just how big he really was and took my Miata two seat sports car. That was almost a huge mistake because I had never seen a basset hound this large.

He took the passenger seat and laid the other half of his body across my 5-speed stick shift and slept most of the way. The previous owner told me he would only eat kibble if he had cottage cheese on it. I guess that is why he weighed in the next morning at the vet's office ... 83 pounds. With better kibble and no cottage cheese then including him on our daily walk (only 1 per day Sadie was not here yet), he eventually reduced his weight to 61 pounds. Instead of sitting down every few feet on the walk he could actually run part of it.

A few years later he became totally blind but that never kept him from his normal routine. The picture above he is blind and running in the field on our walk. I had the same 25' retractable leash I use on Stella at times, that would keep Max in our general direction without him getting lost. He lived to the age of 12 and was one big lazy lovable basset hound.

The dark overcast is slowly being overtaken by sunshine this morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.