The Hay Field Is Cut

When I was standing on my step taking the daily morning photo of the field across the highway, I had no idea what had happened in back of the house sometime early this morning. With the windows open all night the hounds and I must have been in a deep slumber because none of us heard anything nor did we wake up until 8:00am ... much later than normal.

Due to some Blogger formatting issue this morning I cannot put the daily photos up on the left corner of this post, after trying different ways of getting the job done. So we started with this, the daily field photo.

Right after taking this photo I go straight to the corner of the back of the house and take a photo of the northeast but rarely post that photo. Today I am posting it because of the surprise we had first thing in the morning. You'll notice the field has been cut and it must have happened first thing this morning. 

We normally hear the tractor doing the cutting but not this year. In past years when I heard the tractor go by I've had to sprint outside and take the tethered rope I had connected to an anchor in the field so it would not be cut up. They would normally cut around that anchor until I pulled the rope. This year it was obvious the tethered rope was not there.

So it went from tall hay to cut hay in the early morning hours. They will be back this afternoon after the sun dries it out to bale it into the large rolls of hay. I'm interested in seeing if they get more bales this year ... they should.

Last Night

I couldn't take the walk first thing in the morning until I had at least one cup of coffee, with two being better. A couple of hours later, we fired up the camera, put on my shoes and even got Heidi outside to show her the news.

Even with the field cut she was not going on the walk no matter what. I carried her to the field and as soon as her feet touch the ground, she sprinted back to the driveway ... not going, no way.

So the I picked a nice cut path to walk with Sadie and Stella acting like two kids at Christmas morning ... thrilled "their field" was cut for them. I was happy that I was able to see everywhere they were going ... it made the walk much easier.

Stella was almost beside her self with excitement, running all over the place.

She sprinted to her favorite part of the field with Sadie not far behind. Stella took the right corner and Sadie taking the left corner. I didn't stay to look at what they were eating nor did I want to think about what they were eating.

Stella decided that whatever Sadie had found was better than what she had. There was either enough for both or Sadie was willing to share her part. That is a little different because most of the time Sadie doesn't like sharing "her" water bowl and will lay next to it in a guarding position.

I had the feeling that Stella liked the field being cut because it was easier for her to run and they both ran a lot at different parts of the field.

Here comes Sadie on a high speed, ears flying sprint ... Her 8th birthday is tomorrow.

On they way back home, they were all over the place finding new stuff hidden below the cut hay.

 

It definitely made the morning walk much easier and much drier. We will head out later tonight after they bale the field into large rolls. With my very sore right achilles tendon today (comes and goes) I'll be around the house and will take photos of the baling process and the equipment they are using.

The smell of fresh cut hay in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana is great today.

A Beautiful Day In 'The Tropics'

From start to finish today, the day was beautiful. The humidity had dropped enough and the temps had cooled enough after yesterday afternoon storms ... it was great today.

That sunshine I posted yesterday morning didn't last long before the rain showed up for most of the afternoon. Soon after that rain was finished the temps had dropped at least 15° and the humidity had vanished.

This morning was a different story with the bright sunshine, no clouds, and a slight breeze from the southwest. Yet, not much was done today. A typical nice day is what I call it.

For some reason this morning both hounds take off for the far left corner of the yard .. not really the direction I want them to wander off. It's too easy for them to head toward the neighbors house and too hard for me to find them. I can think of only one time they were actually in the neighbor's yard but each of them have gone too far in that direction a few times.

Luckily it was warm enough this morning around 10:30am, that Sadie didn't stay long and sprinted toward the house to get back inside to the air conditioned environment. Stella was at the house waiting for us.

The three hounds didn't do much more than this after lunch. They were more interested in getting back inside for their afternoon siestas instead of wandering the field. Sadie didn't even give me the stare down begging for a walk.

By early evening it was time to take the hounds out. That field looks pretty to many but I am ready for it to be cut and baled. I usually pull of 5-8 ticks off of me after each walk and I have not found any on the hounds. I've only done one dose of Nexgard for them back in late April or early May.

The hay is tall enough that it's hard to keep track of them at times. I've mentioned I'm sure too many times by now.

Stella was wagging her tail during these next three photos but I never saw what she had found and she didn't pull up anything from the ground. Those three photos were taken in rapid sequence.

She was coming when called today which was a pleasant surprise.

Do you see either one of them?  I don't either.

I'm headed back outside to enjoy the nice weather. I can't believe it's already 8:30pm with over an hour of sunshine left.

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

Some Rambling & Catchup

Maybe it's been the off and on rains, or the 99% humidity this morning but I felt like writing and posting something. So here it goes.

Stepping outside this morning the humidity was so thick it felt like a wet soggy oven, if there is such a thing. Spotty thunderstorms predicted but it looked like rain was right around the corner.



Rain it did ... hard ... heavy and straight down. For the 2nd day in a row those types of rains showed up and to me it was good for the fields just planted and my lawn that I had cut again on Monday.

By lunch time the sunshine was out in force, the humidity had gone as high as it could on the percentage scale and the hounds were out just long enough to decide that being inside with the air conditioner cranked was better than outside ... neither were begging for the walk.

Still the best place to be is under the shade of the Mahogany trees in the area I cleared out last April to make it part of the lawn. I still need to get some chairs, procrastination as it's finest.

Yesterday was a different story though. With rain most of the day here in 'the tropics' none of us ventured outside much. I became addicted to Mahjong again and was able to improve my completion times on a lot of the games played. The hounds found their favorite sleeping spots and never moved, only to get up and eat lunch.

Every time we went outside it was raining lightly at a minimum and most of the time was still coming down hard enough that all three hounds had no interest in getting wet. To say the day should have been cancelled was probably a pretty good idea.

Heidi has always gone outside in the rain as long as she stays under the overhang in front ... but she didn't stay outside long.

On suggestion from a friend the other day, all of us got up early on Monday ... Sadie woke me up about an hour earlier than usual ... they were fed breakfast then all of us went outside to enjoy the start of the morning. My only problem is the sounds of nature are overtaken by the noise of the highway since that is prime time for people going to work. I've noticed an increase of traffic also with the new freeway nearby (interstate in the midwest) that opened last fall.

Yet it was nice drinking coffee outside. Sadie was tracking moles I believe by the location and how she was exploring. Stella was wondering why are we up at this time of day and why are we outside ... she like Heidi, prefers to go right back to sleep after being fed breakfast.

Stella finally decided to move to her favorite right corner, at least her recent favorite but never went anywhere. It must have been her way of begging to go back inside.

By this time Sadie was finished and was ready to return inside but then Stella took off into the field ... she had to go find out what was up ... they both disappeared into the tall hay for over an hour.

To me the hay looks like it's time to cut. It's turning brown, it will not grow any taller and the wind and rain keeps blowing it downward. I'll be happy when they cut it. It's getting to hard to control the hounds and they both have been going way outside their boundaries slipping away out of sight.

So my curiosity got the best of me and I had to search on the blog for last summer. I wanted to see exactly when they cut the hay. I thought it was in July sometime, but here I can see I was complaining about it July 13 and this link shows they didn't cut it until July 31.

So it looks like we will be walking through the tall stuff for another month of so. Other neighbors behind me that have fields away from here have been baling hay for the past two weeks as they drive by the house with their equipment. So I was hopeful and still am that the field will be cut soon. I believe that is another reason Heidi has no interest in going on the daily hound walk.

Now for some rambling ...

I've received a few emails from friends wanting to know why I quite Facebook. It's been three days since I did and I have not had any urges at all to log back in and have that reactivate my account. In the meantime they have enjoyed the new blog on Wordpress where I've put up more photos than they were seeing on Facebook. A few from this blog have signed up to follow that blog.

I'll be posting to both blogs and at times the photos may be duplicated, just a lot less content over there ... straight photos.

You have also probably have noticed I have been playing around with this blog's design. I've deleted about 20 some blogs from my blog list for one reason or another. I'll not go into the reasons why I did that but I'm happy with that change to a lower amount of blogs to follow.

I've taken away some things, then added them back today ... such as the "other links". I found out that some readers were using those links more than I thought the links were being used. Plus I also find them handy myself. The other change back and forth has been to the "most popular posts". It really shows how much this blog has changed over it's life of not quite 5 years.

There are three settings for those favorite posts besides letting me determine how many of those posts I want to show up. Those three options are all time, last 30 days or the last 7 days. When I changed to 'all time' a day or so ago the posts that were read the most were all dealing with RVs ... when I moved them back to "last 30 days" the most read posts were all about the hounds.

Since that has been the direction this blog has changed to over the past year, I will keep it at "last 30 days". I will say though I do plan to travel in the future but that will be determined by the number of hounds I have at that time. For example ... Stella rides very well in the FJ and wants to go for rides all the time, but what she doesn't do well at is getting out of the FJ if we are not at home.

The times I let her out of the FJ at the place where dog food is brought ... she freaked out and if I had not had her leashed she would have taken off. Either the traffic noise scared her, or the strange surroundings. Due to her background she may have thought I was going to leave her there and she may have been trying to run off before I could do that. I related this experience to what it would be like (noise & different area) to stopping at a Rest Area. So that is a factor in my travel plans.

As far as blogging, all of us go in stages where the urge is not there. I see from my blog list that some have stopped blogging without saying anything. I see some bloggers blogging less frequently without saying why (non of my business) and I see some bloggers still writing but admitting they are finding it hard to write or are in some kind of blogging rut.

So I can't say that I will be blogging here daily like before but I will continue to blog about the hounds here and anything else on my mind, just not as frequently. There will be some days that all I feel about doing is posting a bunch of photos and nothing else and in that case I will be doing that on the Wordpress blog located here for the same reasons I stated the other day.

Speaking of photos of the hounds. In the upper left side of this blog I have added the link to my Flickr account that has more photos of past and current hounds, vw buses, the viaduct, and my trip to the Ford Museum years ago. The photos are sharper than here, and a lot more to look at. I don't think you have to sign up for anything to see them. Some have been made for the public to see and others are private. Let me know if you have any problems viewing them.

I still find it amazing how quiet the house is when all three hounds are sleeping their afternoons away. They are not a noisy group to begin with but ultra quiet when they sleep.

For those of you that are forced to use Windows10 ... I feel your pain. Of course my pain with it is only what I read about but it sounds like it is nothing but malware with tons of holes in it for the hackers. If I am wrong with that assessment, then I guess I'm wrong ... but it doesn't sound like it.

That's it for today here in 'the humid tropics' of Southern Indiana.