Walk #2 Was Diverted

In a short period of time this afternoon we had a lot of things going on. Nothing extraordinary by any means but a lot of different pictures and a surprise I remembered I had bought myself only on Monday. We tried to take our walk but plans changed midstream. There is still time for walk #3 a few hours from now.

While I was out spraying water on these brown spots in the front lawn, I figured the hounds had broken free as they walked outside after their lunch. When I didn't see any of them out front watching me I had a vision of all three hounds sprinting through the field to the 'no fly zone'. If's it's not going to rain I guess I'll have to water this area.

To my surprise as I walked from the front yard and stepped around the corner of the house, I saw Stella and Heidi immediately doing what they normally do on a day where the sunshine is just right, with no mosquitoes nor humidity.

Sadie also did her normal thing if I am not around, by hitting her 2nd most favorite spot not too far from the yard. So they had not taken off for the 'no fly zone' like my wild imagination had me believing.

Once Sadie saw that I knew where she was, she went back to doing what she does ... eating.

I slowly walked around Stella and saw her stomach moving very little with each breath so I knew she still had a pulse. There was no eye movement ... she was out cold.

Heidi had already figured out she sleeps better inside with the AC on ... she demanded to go back inside.

Sadie wasn't sure but she thought food might be involved so she came sprinting toward the house. How did she know I was going to fix myself a snack?

Stella may have looked as if she was in that deep sleep but with Sadie making noise as she approached the house and with me talking to Heidi ... I noticed just ... barely ... some eyelid movement.

Still she did not get up to follow us into the house. That was fine, I was going to fix some a snack anyway.

Look who has woken up and is standing at the screen door looking inside ... wanting inside ... She was acting like she was asleep just two minutes ago. They say a Bloodhound can hear 4x better than a human. Add the factor of food or the smell of food with their 200x better nose and this is what you get ... A bloodhound wanting to come inside.

I took my small bowl of fresh pineapple with cottage cheese and proceeded to add a couple of new things to the blog. If you notice along the border under Stella's picture I have added two pages "Bloodhound Property Laws" and "Favorite Photos". I also added some links to the sidebar under the heading "Other Stuff".

By 3pm I was ready for an early walk, our 2nd of the day. This was going to be more of a picture exploration for me rather than a hound walk. They would be happy just wandering along our path as I looked for things to take photos of.

Once again there were 4-6 butterflies on the Butterfly Milkweed.

With my new reference on my other monitor, called the 42 butterflies of North America ... I am pretty sure this is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

Sadie was also not into chasing butterflies for the 2nd afternoon in a row. Not one flew off the Milkweed as Sadie walked by them.

Not pictured but hidden in this group is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail as it flew away when I walked by. My first guess of the three black ones are Polydamas Swallowtail with a maybe a Monarch on the far right. Any corrections are welcomed.

Every time I walk out in this field it looks like it has grown since the last walk only hours before. Stella's in deep in thought.

Sadie letting me know she is not eating what I think she is eating. Her left ear gave it away that her head at just moved up from the ground.

Stella made the slow trek around the flowers, around any butterflies and off the path at times to catch up with me.

I'm glad I was wearing shoes because I almost stepped on this bee.

It looked like more ATV activity than I remembered this morning. A sound nearby confirmed the kids were out enjoying the great weather. I didn't know yet if we would finished our walk or have to move in a different direction. Most likely nothing bad would happen but two possibilities could affect them and me wishing I had made another decision.

That's a dad doing the driving. I hope they ladies to the left holding those smartphones are using them as cameras or shooting video and not texting.

I decided I would prevent the bad possibilities from happening. Sadie was showing a lot of interest as she looked at them. She has never seen a 'live' ATV. Luckily Stella was way behind me doing her own thing. I decided it was time to take a different direction.

We slowly walked by a Ornython Swallowtail and another Eastern Tiger Swallowtail heading for the north corner of our yard. There was something I wanted to take a picture of in the field to show you and remind me what it would look like if they had not cut the field in June.

Could this be a Viceroy?

The hounds were confused when I told them to turn around. They finally caught on that we were going to be walking a different way. It took some coaxing to get them headed in this direction.

I'm guessing here ... the Emperor Swallowtail

As we neared the post that is the north corner property line, I saw more Milkweed that were full of butterflies. It's no wonder they call those orange flowers the Butterfly Milkweed. Sadie left them alone as we walked just past our yard to get our picture.

Normally they will cut down over this hill and even bale what they cut but this time they left the side of the hill uncut. So this is what the field would look like if they had not cut it in June. Not bad really. I could live with it if they decide not to cut it in the future.

A different view of my little used north side yard ... I had put my high pressure washer away after washing the fence along the driveway last spring and then remembered I forgot to wash this one. IF I don't pressure wash it within the next three weeks, the task will be moved to my 2018 To-Do List.

I had to use the flash on this picture because even in the middle of the afternoon it was almost pitch black when you looked into the woods. I always tell people, if you come out to see me after dark and drive up my driveway, don't hit that mysterious man standing in front of the woods.

I get little to no visitors after dark ... LOL ... I wonder why.

For weeks I have been fighting off urges for junk food, ice cream and candy. I eat and like fresh fruit but sometimes that is not good enough to kill a craving for sweets. Monday while grocery shopping I walked by something that brought up a memory and it could work for killing a sweet tooth ... Stauffer's Original Animal Crackers.

Low fat, no trans fat, no cholesterol and if I stopped at 13 crackers it would only be 100 calories. I found them in my cabinet today, up high and forgotten about only 48 hours after buying them. They worked for killing the craving for sweets.

Even the hounds will get one or two ... but it makes Stella drool too much so I have to stop giving them at 2 each.

Stella watch me walk to the mailbox and back sitting like this.

This week is 'flying' in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Butterflies Dominate Afternoon Walk

Heidi may have cutback on her outside activity today but that didn't mean she didn't get outside to wander a bit. Just after lunch all of us went outside. While I went down the hill to the mailbox the hounds didn't even move out into the field. That's different.

Stella let me know they have called a meeting ... I was to pay attention ... they had demands.

With a 3-0 unanimous and soon to be 4-0 vote, even with fantastic weather outside but only a little over 5 hours of sleep last night ... we all voted on taking a siesta. They marched to the bedroom as soon as they were inside, each to their nighttime sleeping spots and it was lights out just a little after 1pm.

As you may have noticed the story and descriptions are below the photo they are talking about. That might be different from the old blog but here it will be the norm from here on out. Why?? I like opening the post to see a picture first, before any written content.

I wasn't two steps into the field just after 4pm where I saw so many butterflies flying in groups of 3-4, that I couldn't get my camera setting adjusted fast enough. I have found over time using this camera the AF-area mode "Auto-area AF" is better for butterflies and "Single-point AF" brings the hounds into better focus. I have to manual change that setting each time.

This afternoon was so active with butterflies and hounds ... some of the hounds ended up a little less sharp due to being in "Auto-area AF". This leads me to believe the possibility of me using manual settings is not going to work with my type of photographs during a walk, where you do not know what will happen or what will show up next.

As we approached that bright orange flower I saw at least 4 butterflies having dinner. Would Sadie chase them off, trying to catch them?

No .... she trotted right by them without any of them flying away.

I am going to have to start putting up a list of butterfly and flower names on my 2nd monitor to use while I type a post or a website that could be a quick reference for their names. My memory for names like this is terrible. But if you asked me about a ballgame played 50 years ago, I can tell you what happened in a nano-second.

With all the butterflies in the field this afternoon I let the hounds roam where they wanted. I never called them once. All the photos you see of the hounds in this post show them following their noses and desires.

I could tell we had slept through a perfect afternoon. The 74° was nice, no mosquitoes and I couldn't feel any sticky humidity. Sadie and Stella were on a slow meandering stroll while Heidi was stretched out on the dog bed in the bedroom deep in sleep.

I bought that dog bed for her the day I picked her up from GABR. By the 2nd night, Sadie applied the Bloodhound Laws and took ownership. Heidi didn't mind, she moved to the bed for the last 6 years. Something gave me the idea that was where she slept in her first couple of years before I knew her.

I have to admit that I was a little surprised that Stella was moving along with us and not heading over to the woods behind the neighbor's house.

I kept waiting for it to open its wings ... but never did.

Then just as I started to walk away, it started to open them. Once it heard the beep of my auto-focus it flew away. I then stopped and turned to the beep setting to off.

Chasing butterflies was not Sadie's interest today nor did Stella want to eat anything. Sadie wanted to sniff the whole field, Stella just wanted to get the walk over as soon as possible ... it was too hot for her based on what her tongue was telling me.

This butterfly cooperated and opened it's wings about the time I took the picture.

While I continued my butterfly search along the back edge of the field, the hounds explored behind me. Those power lines run for over a 100 miles south of me and even more than a 100 miles north of me.

The butterflies seemed to be much smaller in back of the field compared to those at the start of the walk.

Stella must be in disbelief that I have not called her name or said "come here" or even "over here". She was looking to see where I was and what I was doing. With this photo zoomed in, we are pretty far apart from each other.

Sadie had already started her slow march back to me.

Stella followed her lead from a different area.

When Stella's tongue is hanging out that way she has only one thing on her mind ... get home as soon as possible.

A little after 4:15pm on a sunny day here in 'the tropics" of Southern Indiana.

You'll notice Sadie over on the left edge of the picture just starting her sprint to catch me. She never fails to do that, no matter how far back she stays. Stella would have never moved by then.

9 year old bloodhound speed ... same motion has a race horse sprinting down the homestretch.

Only she can get her ears flying ... very few other species can.

She then slows her speed to brush by my knee close enough to touch it and let me know she is back.

Sadie was in the studious mode today ... not chasing.

If I only knew their names.

I knew from my internet data spreadsheet that I was using data faster than my daily plan. Finally as I was writing this post, at 4:48pm HughesNet Gen5 let me know I was at 0 and my internet speeds would slow down.

For the first time and with my curiosity, I pulled out my $9 bill and bought 3Gigs of data. That is much cheaper than Exede Satellite service charged, plus any of that 3Gb I don't use in the next 2 days 7 hours and 14 minutes, will be carried through to the next month if I need it. My download speeds went back to the range of 45Mbps - 48Mbps. I've been very happy with my switch to HughesNet Gen5 this past April.

Once again I find myself searching for that one thing I was going to write about ... but can't remember. Honestly that really bugs me and it's most likely about the time I click the "publish" button ... I'll remember what it was.

The weather is so nice we will probably spend time back outside as the sun goes down. There will not be anymore posts tonight but there might be some new pictures from tonight on tomorrow's post.

With a total of 8 hours of sleep since midnight in two sections ... I feel good. Any of you Apple computer users playing around with the new "beta" version of their Mac OS ??

It was another fine day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.