Where Did Summer Go?

Wasn't it just weeks ago that the first picture of the blog was always of sunshine and hot temperatures? Maybe it's the overcast skies or the cooler temps ... but summer feels like it happened long ago.

I am not a fan of winter ... I love hot weather. I could see from the clouds today it was going to be about the same as late afternoon yesterday. Which is okay I guess but I prefer sunshine.

I thought I might catch this farmer a couple of fields away across the highway but by the time I picked up the camera and ran into the front yard to get an angle to see him, he was already to the edge of the field.

It looked like a large mower where he was mowing his corn stalks to ground level. I could tell there were some difference in the height of the corn stalks based on the path he had created.

It started raining about the time I took the photo above and he disappeared to side of the field to his left which is blocked by the row of trees. I never could tell if he was mowing or cutting the stalks to ground level and that became more confusing when I saw both sides of his machine in the upright position so he could travel down the highway.

What ever he was towing did not look like mower blades when he lifted each side to the upright position for traveling down the highway. Before I could really tell what they were, he was out of sight.

With cooler temps today it really didn't matter when we took the walks. Before the hounds went anywhere they had to check out the 'new area' where I had mowed yesterday. I'm sure there are a lot of new scents for them to check out. It's nice not having to pull out 5-6 burrs from each hound now that the ragweed has been cut.

Stella thought that Sadie may have started the walk without her this morning and without me ... but when I yelled 'coffee' Sadie came running to the house. That word 'coffee' seems to work first thing in the morning to get both hounds to come back to the house so I can have MY coffee ... it's not for them.

By the time we started the walk today the sun was barely out, no wind and the temps were a bit nippy. Like I have said before, for whatever the reason, I don't believe we are going to see the bright vibrant colors when the leaves change color this year. So far those bright colors have not shown up before the leaves have died.

By the first turn I thought Stella might decide to walk with us today but once again she found that one spot she likes and stayed behind. Sadie moved out toward the middle of the field for a short time but sprinted back to the area where the deer hang out.

As long as their noses get a workout I know they are enjoying their walk.

While we continued to walk, Stella never moved from that spot. It came to the point I actually thought she might not move until Sadie and I had walked all the way up to her.

While looking through the lens at her, she acted as if she became startled or surprised that we had left her. It was nothing new having her stay back while we walked but she acted as if she was surprised and came sprinting on the path we had taken.

Her nose made a change and she started to move in our direction. Once she saw us, she stopped running and slowly walked toward us, almost with a look of disappointment.

Of coarse Sadie had to make nose to nose contact to make sure it was Stella.

I have continued to look at different internet options and I have called again today with the local company that installed my Exede Satellite Dish in 2014. Even moving to DishNet and keeping that 15Gb per month at the speed I have now, it's the identical cost.

I called the local company I had before Exede to see if anything had happened in the past two years, possibly having wireless internet in my area. They offer a much lower monthly fee and UNLIMITED data .... but ... the trees I have on the north side of the house block would block the signal from their tower a mile or so away.

DishNetwork tells me they can give me the same TV programming for $35 less per month, guaranteed for 2 years, plus add the Pac12 Network that I would love to have so I could see ALL of the Washington Husky games here in Indiana. I can see them on ABC or ESPN at times but not every game. Once again that is a contract issue (money) between the Pac12 Conference and Directv.

I did have a Directv customer service rep tell me things have changed since AT&T bought Directv and a lot of those things are not as good as Directv had before, so he did not know if they would ever get Pac12 or not.

I noticed something interesting last night as I was downloading photos from my iPhone to the computer. Due to only 5Gb of iCloud storage I do not have that on automatic settings to synchornize with every picture is taken by my iPhone. I found it interesting the difference in picture quality of the two photos I took just minutes apart, with the same lighting.

Can you tell which photo is from my iPhone and which one I took with my Nikon D3200 w/Tamron lens?

The back seats are still upright in the FJ but the more I thought about it yesterday ... the hounds have to be able to ride even on short trips. I'll just have to plan to vacuum the inside out more often and maybe a weekly swipe to clean the inside of the FJ windows. I do the same inside my house so why not the FJ?

I can confirm that Google Chrome uses less data than Firefox and Safari, for those that work with a data limit to be on the internet. That data also includes what it takes to upload a lot of photos into a blog for any post that you are writing.

As I sit here wearing cargo shorts and a sweatshirt, I am declaring that fall is officially here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Hounds Had A Huge Surprise

It's been a week where I keep forgetting or get mixed up on what the day of the week it is. That could be from staying up lately past 3am on a regular basis.

The air had a feel of rain this morning but the forecast showed it wasn't possible until after midnight tonight. The winds were pretty strong from the SW - S, strong enough where I had hopes it would blow what leaves I have out of the yard.

Sadie and Stella inspected the backyard and the field this morning, since they had some major excitement last night a little past 7pm. We had gone outside and it was so nice I decided to take a break from the baseball game on tv, pulled up a chair to enjoy the last part of the day.

The mistake was, I changed my camera lens back to the Nikon 55-200mm because I wanted to see if it was really giving me more color in my photos compared to the new Tamron. Once again the intermittent performance of the lens cost me in some great photos.

Why? ... the hounds had an unexpected deer chase.

Sadie was standing beside me while I rubbed her back when all of the sudden her head pointed to toward the field with her ears cocked up and her nostrils moving really fast ... I looked to see what got her excited ... a deer was not only standing but actually walked from the edge of the field by the woods towards us. I started trying to take photos of that but the Nikon LENS DID NOT WORK !!!!

By the time the lens focused the deer was almost back into the woods.

Of coarse both took off after their surprise. The deer turned and headed for the woods once she heard Stella baying as she ran. That is Sadie leading the pack but by the time they got to that edge of the field Stella had beat Sadie to the spot.

Stella made one final inspection to make sure the deer was gone.

So, this morning both of them had to double check and make sure that deer had not been near their yard while they slept last night.

After their lunch we took off for the first of two walks today. Heidi was barking to go outside but she didn't want to walk and stayed back to do her own inspection in the yard while we were gone.

I am assuming moles are pushing the ground up in the field like this ... am I correct?

With the wind blowing from the south, it sure felt like rain in the air. As I glanced back to see where Stella was (on the left) I could see the skies in the west looking like rain was near. Looking at maps when I got back home, the rain is in the center of Illinois so maybe our local forecast is correct.

About the time that Sadie and I were on our way back to the house ... starting the 'last half' of the walk, Stella had picked up a scent and was moving across the field at a fast pace in front of us but going in a direct away from us.

I was actually surprised that she stopped, turned and headed toward us when I yelled "hey Stella".

As we made the last turn I asked Sadie "where's Heidi" ? She immediately took off further up the path to see if Heidi was waiting like she does at times when she comes on the walk. I knew that Heidi was back at the house but wanted to see Sadie's reaction.

Of coarse when Sadie took off running, Stella had to also just in case she was missing something that Sadie was getting.

Sadie stands looking for Heidi.

Sadie is double checking to see if Heidi is behind us. Still no sign of Heidi.

She then turned and started trotting toward the house trying to pick up Heidi's scent.

When she saw Heidi in the yard, she ran over and touched noses like she always does. The camera caught a moving semi truck in the background.

Heidi is becoming more active each day. Her nails have been cut back shorter than they have ever been, could that be the reason? I have also changed her dog food.

Heidi is just making sure Stella is who she says she is.

One last scratch in the yard before we go inside.

If you remember from a few weeks ago when they cut the hay field for the 2nd time, they left the corner of the field by my yard uncut because it was all giant ragweed. I was going to clear it out but had not made up my mind which way I was going to do it. The neighbor who owns the field stopped by a few weeks ago as he toured the edge of the field in his pickup truck and mentioned he wished they had cut the field further back close to the wooded area.

In prior years they have cut that area all the way over to the edge on the far right side of the photo above but it was never full of ragweed like it was this summer. I like it being cut because that gets rid of all of those small burrs that not only attached to the hounds skin but my shoes, shorts, or shirt when we walk. The hounds also like eating those burrs that are attached to the ragweed or the brush it is mixed with.

I decided a few weeks ago to start the process I'd cut all of that ragweed with the Echo Weed Eater that had the steel blade and could cut saplings up to 2" in diameter. When I couldn't get the Echo SRM-225U started after a week of trying ... I pulled out my manual tree and shrub trimmers.

The plan was to cut the giant ragweed, let it dry out in the field and then take it over to my burn pile. That was a slow process, so I decided I'd continue to cut and let it dry in the field ... only burn it right where it laid. With Stella supervising my work, you can tell there were a lot of delays in the job.

You can see that even after I made my first cut with the manual pruning shears there was still a lot left. That is when I decided I'd wait for that to dry out and then burn it with my water hose nearby so I would not catch the field on fire.

The problem was ... the burrs ... the hounds were bringing them inside, they were eating them and were getting stuck in their coats. While I was cutting everything they were in my socks, on my shirt, wrapped among my shoe strings ... so I became a little more motivated to get rid of that brush. Plus I didn't like the way it looked.

I kept cutting and then dragging the tall stalks to my burn pile but that wasn't working as well as I had planned. My burn pile was getting taller and on the edge of being unsafe, since the flames will get 15'-20' high.

Yesterday I cut more and started to rake it over to the burn pile but the brush was too thick for a garden rake ... so the thought of burning it where it was even a better idea.

A new day brings a new idea. Now not wanting to burn it and taking a chance on catching the field on fire I decided that my small mower set at the highest level ... could turn into a small brush mower. I took the shrub trimmers and was able to cut the brush and ragweed pretty close to ground level.

I raised my mower to the highest level and mowed over all the dead brush along with any of the green stuff I had not cut yet. I later called my neighbor (owns the field) and told him I had made "a command decision" and had cut the brush back ... something he tried to do with his riding mower last spring.

So before:

And after:

Not bad for a small 22" Sears Craftsman 6ph push mower. If I could only have it get rid of my yard moles, things would be perfect.

As much as I would like to use Firefox as my browser I have already moved back to Google Chrome .. in fact, I changed the browser in the middle of writing this post.

Firefox started today by having all of my websites zoomed to less than 100%. The highest I could adjust the text and screen was 125% but it would jump back to less than 100% ... which is too small on my 27" monitor. Once I started this blog and loading all of the photos ... which I load all the photos first and then type commentary between them (the fastest way to write on Blogger) ... Firefox would get to the last photo and never load it ... just set there working trying to load that last photo while hanging up my screen.

I saved the blog post, opened Google Chrome and went back to the blog post to finish it without any issues loading photos nor screen size.

In my "Activity Monitor" I am also seeing that Google Chrome uses less data than Firefox does in the same amount of time doing the same kind of web surfing and writing a blog post.

Speaking of data again ... I called AT&T last night out of curiosity. I had the most recent flyer in front of me, giving me all those great bargains to come back to AT&T for my wireless internet and phone.

Where the customer service rep I talked to a few nights ago was ready to place the order and everything in my location checked out on his AT&T computer ... trying to get me to make the decision that night .... it was a different story last night.

The AT&T customer service rep checked out my location and told me that AT&T wireless internet was not available where I lived, nor was streaming tv on Directv through the AT&T system nor was their U-verse television service. The only thing available was AT&T cell phone service.

Just like I had assumed when I got the flyer ... I was not going back to AT&T when I have dependable service with Directv, Exede Satellite Internet and Verizon for my cell phone.

Well I have to go ... Sadie is giving me the "stare down" to let me know she would like to walk now before the rains show up.

The wind is blowing the leaves off the trees today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Will The Hounds Ride Again?

I knew the job would be a long one for a couple of reasons. The last time I "detailed" my FJ was a year ago August. Even with the hounds taking short local rides in the FJ to stores, DQ, buy dog food, etc ... I knew there was going to be a TON of hound hair hidden in every nook and cranny in the back.

As I pulled the cargo area rubber mat out, my fears were confirmed. Combine the amount of hound hair, dried drool in places you could not imagine, spilled coffee and one spilled vanilla milk shake from a long time ago ... with my "everything has to be clean" mentality ... it was a long long day.

Before I get started with that story I have to add a great sunset from our walk on Monday night. Even Sadie and Stella were impressed enough to stop and look when I took the photo.

After a late night of MLB playoff games, we were still up pretty early Tuesday morning. Sadie thought at first we could fit a walk in before anything but she came trotting to the house when I called her. Stella was already waiting at the door so she could go back inside and finish her morning nap.

While pulling the FJ out into the drive, getting the electrical 100' extension cord plugged into my vacuum, I let the hounds roam the field. I knew that would not last long but I had a plan B for Stella so she could stay outside without roaming off while I worked on the FJ.

With that look at me, plus taking her sweet time getting back to the yard when I called her ... I pulled out the 80' tether that I anchor in the field and connected it to Stella's collar. It had been a long time since she was tethered but she didn't mind it. Plus she could stay outside on a beautiful day while I cleaned and washed the FJ.

I decided to clean the inside before washing it. I figured it would be a good way to get the hard part done first. I started in the back with a vacuum, a rubber dog hair tool that was suppose to collect the dog hair and get it off the felt material the hair had attached to. Along with that I had a pail of warm water and detergent so I could clean the hard rubber windows sills, dashboard, and inside of the windows where the dried drool was along with nose smudges on the windows.

It was a slow process because once that hair from the hounds attaches to any kind of surface it's hard to get off. The attachment on my Oreck vacuum worked great but there were a few times that dog hair removal tool I had bought a long time ago, worked like magic in removing the dog hair from the surface so it would be vacuum.

I spent 3 HOURS just doing the inside !!!!

It took me longer than I thought it would to wash and dry the outside, along with cleaning the windows inside and out plus all of the door jams. By the time I got through it had taken a total of 5 hours to clean the inside and outside of the FJ.

The more I cleaned the more I started wondering if the hounds would ever be allowed to ride again. Granted it had been 14 months since I last cleaned it with detail and I know I could clean it more frequently but even when I did that years ago ... it still took just as long and there was just as much hound hair, drool, and nose smudges on the windows.

It was as clean as any car or truck you would see on a car lot for sale. Later that night I felt all of that bending, wiping, reaching under the seats, under the dash on the floor along with going up and down a step ladder so I could wash and dry the top.

I was sore and tired but the hounds did not have their walk yet for the day so off we went, with me having the retractable leash on Stella.

Today was a different story, even after staying up past 3am to watch the Cubs/Giants game in San Francisco which went 13 innings. We got up fairly early and had that walk in before lunch. We went at the hounds pace, no leashes just roaming.

Stella started to sprint toward me and Sadie but stopped immediately when she found something of interest. She gets distracted easily.

I hope this shows how nice the day was. It's been this way for weeks and about the time I think it's amazing ... my local tv weather shows me it's suppose to be nice this time of year and all the temperatures are close to the high and low averages.

Heidi has been feeling a little more active lately. She goes out by herself a lot and sits in the sunshine and then comes to the door when she has had enough. She is barking again when she wants something or when we get back from the walk.

Yesterday while on a tether, which this photo does not show, Stella walked out in the middle of the field, laid down and slept most of the afternoon in the sunshine. This afternoon without the tether she found another spot to lay in while I moved some of the cut giant ragweed into our burn pile.

While I continued to get as much of the cut ragweed picked up and put onto the pile, both bloodhounds were slowly sneaking further and further away. Sadie saw me. Stella ignored me. Once everything was put back into the shed, I walked out toward them expecting to go all the way to them to get them to come back with me but Sadie started running toward me and then Stella followed her, so I only had to walk about halfway to them.

For a change of pace I opened up Firefox as a browser late last night and downloaded the latest updates since last April. It has improved so much I have made it my default browser for the time being. I am always going back and forth between Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox. I am finding Firefox is much faster than before, it is loading some websites where I have a user name and password where last spring the sites would not open and it will work with LastPass, my password protection program, where in the past they didn't get along.

I think it might use more data than Google Chrome does and that will be a factor if I continue to use Firefox. Data is key to me.

Speaking of data, being a long time DirecTv customer who was bought out by AT&T I have been getting bombarded with mail offers, email offers to come back to AT&T for my wireless service along with bundling with Directv for some pretty big discounts. They advertise $650 credit which I assumed they would also pay my penalty fee for breaking a Verizon contract.

But that $650 was only a tease ... it is spread out over 30 months of credits for the new phone I would have to buy because Verizon iPhones can't be used on AT&T service. Besides all the money it would cost me to switch from Verizon and Exede to AT&T for UNLIMITED DATA on my phones and computers ... the speed is a factor. With Exede my download speeds are usually 12-19Mbps and most of the time above 15Mbps. AT&T says they will give me "up to 6Mbps" depending on strength of signal.

After googling "AT&T Wireless Reviews" .... I find unhappy customers all over the place and a lot of the complaints are the same ones I had with AT&T over 2 years ago when I made the switch to Verizon after 15 years with AT&T.

It might cost more but I'll stick with Directv, Excede Satellite Internet and Verizon for my phone. It will be interesting these next few years as AT&T gets rid of Directv DISHES and all their tv will be streamed over the internet with unlimited data. Of course it will start with cities and urban areas before it ever reaches us out here in 'the tropics' .... By that time I will probably have other tv options where I can still see all my sports without using Directv satellite dish and not be forced to switch to AT&T.

That's all for today. The hounds are in a deep sleep but will probably be able to wake up when I ask them if they want to go for a walk between the two baseball games tonight.

Fall weather is beautiful here in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.

One last note about that "will the hounds ride again"???  As usual, today Heidi was in the passenger front seat as she and I took our trip to the local recycling center while Sadie and Stella stay home to watch the house. That's the normal routine for the recycling trip, so I will guess they probably will ride in the FJ again.