Since it dropped into the 50's last night after reaching a high of 80° yesterday I knew the field was going to be extremely wet this morning as I put on my North Face snow boots. That would make no difference to Sadie. While I was lacing up the boots I decided Stella would have what I call total freedom this morning ... she could go anywhere she wanted at her pace ... I was not going to be 'herding' the hounds this morning.
It was a perfect quiet morning for our walk that started a little after 9am. Things were back to 'normal' since we our internet service had been fixed on Saturday. I was up early to upload over 300 photos to Google Photos and Flicker since July 26. I then move them into their own individual albums. Before I knew it, my 'free' data period was over at 8am. A little more reading online, two cups of coffee and Sadie let me know it was time to walk.
Since she was very active this morning I was sure we had just missed some early deer appearances. A lot of things were getting Sadie's attention just after starting the walk through the wet grass and wild flowers that are starting to grow for their fall cut.
Stella followed along laidback as usual, casually walking one paw at a time ... in no hurry.
That is until she saw Sadie sprinting toward the middle of the field. She actually ran again for the 2nd morning in a row. I know what is wrong with her though. It's her rear hips. She couldn't jump up in back of the FJ yesterday for our local drive. I helped her up as he put her front paws on the bumper ... Sadie was already inside ready to take off.
The way both hounds acted and me being so far away that I had to use the 200mm zoom on these next three photos, I was sure that we had just missed some deer. I thought they might be back in the far right corner of the field so I glanced in that direction once I caught up with the hounds.
It was good to see Stella running slowly but hard enough that both of her rear paws were off the ground as she ran. She and Sadie were all over the first part of the field up to the first corner turn.
As I turned into the sunlight you could see the heavy dew reflecting off the grass and wild plants.
Just as I was about to reach the rolls of hay I turned to find Sadie staring at me in the far right corner. She was having a blast running all over the field. Stella was not in sight as he was behind us on her own path.
By the time I had walked by 4 of these rolls of hay, Sadie had sprinted toward me and ran right up next to me. She covered quite a distance in the time it took me to walk only halfway in front of the hay rolls.
As usual I could barely see Stella's red coat through the growing field as I was on my way back home. The cooler overnight temps had chased away all the mosquitoes so far this morning. I forgot to mention the other day, that a light spray of 50/50 water and vinegar DID keep the mosquitoes off of me on my afternoon walk. Bethers had suggested 100% vinegar but I thought I'd try the 50/50 solution first since I had that mixed for Heidi's skin allergies.
I told Sadie to 'go get Stella' ... she had Stella in her sights of her nose within a minute.
She ran towards Stella and tapped noses, and like always Stella turned to follow Sadie. That message by touching noses must be pretty influential for Stella to follow Sadie's direct order.
I started to call the hounds for them to move over to my path on the last part of the walk. Today I decided to keep quiet and see what they would do. I was pretty sure that eventually Stella would walk into the north part of the yard near the property line pole that I was asked to leave up years ago.
By the time Sadie was almost home, she was soaked from the field. Her legs and paws were just as wet.
I might want to get back inside to make a small breakfast but that doesn't mean that Stella wants to. She is always on her on 'clock' unless food is mentioned ... then she will run for the house.
Still waiting for her to finish.
Slowly but surely she starts towards the yard. Instead of a direct route toward me, she walked far to her right and entered the yard just inside the property line pole. I find that to me not only interesting but amusing.
Sadie wasn't going to wait much longer. She was reading for her morning nap ... Stella took her time, she wasn't going to hurry for anyone.
The Daylilies are trying their best to show me they can grow after planting them only a week ago. I'm not sure how long it will take for them to get fully grown but they will cover a lot of area and still have nice blooms. That's the reason I chose them.
This is to the left of the porch under the living room windows Saturday afternoon.
This is from this morning showing how they had closed over night. They will get shade until about noon. Then that sunshine moving to the west will blast them with bright sunshine all the way to sunset.
I am going to go on a plant exploration sometime this week in Bloomington and hopefully find some Hostas to add to these areas. Once I get all the planting done and the ground settles a little, I'll cover all the exposed ground with Cypress mulch.
A little rambling before I go this morning. I had so many pictures from this mornings walk and was only able to get my choices down to 21 pictures for the blog. With the day as nice as it's going to be I can see later tonight I'll do another blog post with pictures of the hounds taken throughout the afternoon. I continue to read "Inside of a Dog" by Alexandra Horowitz. I can see a lot of what she says in all three of the hounds.
I really cannot figure out my internet data usage. By paying only for 20Gb per month and only 2Gb per month on my phone I am still very careful how I use and what I do on the internet.
Here is what I find strange and it makes me wonder if it is costing me more data to use HughesNet Gen5 for my internet service. When I had Excede Satellite I averaged below 500Mb of data per day. My internet use has not changed just because I have changed service.
I get faster speeds now ... 48Mbps instead of 10-12Mbps. My free period changed from midnight to 5am with Exede but 2am-8am with HughesNet. I normally use my free data early in the morning but not every day. This morning uploading those 300 photos took almost 200Mb of data, luckily it was on my extra data that HughesNet gives me for free.
Friday when my internet service was down I viewed and did my normal online reading on my Verizon account on my iPhone. By the end of the day I had used 358Mb, way below my self imposed 667Mb average.
Yesterday after the tech rep fixed my internet service, it was past 12 noon. I did my normal internet reading but spent a lot of time away from the computer. I cannot say that I did anything different than what I did on Friday with my iPhone.
Last night at midnight when I logged my daily data use into my spreadsheet ... Hughes told me I had used 895Mb !!!!
895Mb from 1pm to midnight compared to my use on Friday with Verizon 358Mb doing the exact same kind of internet surfing. My Activity Monitor was showing I had used a little over 500Mb of data.
My iPad, iPhone and MacBook Air had Wifi turned OFF during this time as part of my test.
The Google Chrome Extension I added a few weeks ago called Data Saver shows how much each website I visit uses in data. I can choose to look at their counts for 1 hour, 3 hours, 1 day, 1 week, 30 days and 60 day intervals.
In all cases Facebook was the leader in data use, using twice as much data as the #2 in line ... Blogger. My blogs use more data than any other website I visit except Facebook. If I use Google Photos or Flickr between 8am - 2am, then they are a close 2nd place depending on how many photos I am uploading.
So this morning after 4 hours, minus the time it took us for our walk ... I did the photos upload during my free period and I have not spent one second on Facebook ... I have only used 99Mb of data in a 4 hour period.
99Mb ... 25Mb per hour roughly ............ how could HughesNet show that I used almost 900Mb??? I would have had to been on the computer every minute of the day and night for that to be possible.
Also I have all automatic updates in the background .... shut off
Also I have an extension called Disable HTML5 AutoPlay that works well blocking videos that want to play automatically on different news and sports sites.
I have AdBlock Plus to do what it sounds like ... block ads.
I can't think of anything else I can do to stop any data "leaks". I'll be anxious tonight to see just how much data HugesNet tells me I have used after a very similar internet day compared to "their" 900Mb day on Saturday.
Since switching to the faster download speeds of HughesNet, my average data usage is 723Mb per day doing the same thing I did with Exede and averaged less than 500Mb per day.
Any ideas?
I cannot believe this weather we are having this summer in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... it's been great.
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