Stella Felt Good This Morning

The hounds were energized as soon as their paws hit the door step this morning when I opened the door for the first time this morning. During the time I was pouring out kibble, they normally go out into the field, dump their tanks and are standing by the door waiting to get inside to eat by the time I am finished. But not today ....

When I didn't see anyone but Heidi standing at the door, I glanced out different windows and caught Stella sprinting ... sprinting ... in front of the carport chasing Sadie around the house. By the time I got outside to get them, they were on their 2nd lap at least, probably more.

The house rule has always been, "no hounds allowed in the front yard" due to the chance of chasing an animal across the highway or seeing anything of interest near the road. Yet once they saw me they knew it was time for breakfast.

So it didn't take me long this morning that I could tell that the hounds were about ready to release any 'cabin fever' they had over the weekend where frigid temps kept us inside a lot. Stella had no interest in hanging back today as she was following Sadie up to the first corner of the walk. She broke out to the middle of the field while Sadie was hot on a trail on the edge of the gully and heading for the far right corner.

By the pace of the hounds, you would almost think that deer had been here just hours before. I have no idea about when or how deer migrate through the field or gully. I'm not a hunter so if they don't have a batting average or a yards per carry stat, then I don't know much about them.

The beautiful day here in 'the tropics' got an early start this morning. The sky was looking great as we walked along the path. I had also figured out this morning why all of us seem to be starting our days earlier, the hounds wanting to walk earlier and eating earlier ... all of us are still on Daylight Savings Time.

The camera didn't catch Sadie's movements around this corner because I was walking but she kept going back and forth around that corner, not ten feet in distance. I knew that once she was finally finished she would sprint toward me to catch up.

She was so intense in what her nose had found, I thought a few times that she was going to charge through the dead ragweed down into the gully.

I turned around just in time to catch her sprinting toward me to catch up.

This might be one of my best 'bloodhound ears' photos ... I might have to start a page at the top or a link where there is a folder of nothing but photos of basset hound and bloodhound ears 'in action'.

The books I have read about dogs and bloodhounds over the years, tells me that when they are searching like this and even eating stuff we don't want to see or want them to ... it's all part of them identifying who, when and what have been in that area.

With no wind this morning it was cold but felt warm ... if that makes any sense.

It's interesting to see that what the AKC calls a 'red' bloodhound matches the light brown or tan color of dormant hay.

As I walked toward home I called Stella and she actually started walking our direction to join us back on the path. That was a pleasant surprise and a definite change for the past month or so. Maybe she is starting a new routine.

Just because we are in the field near our house and the neighbor's, doesn't mean they stop tracking scent in the field. They do this all the way to the backyard and even sometimes in the backyard depending what they find.

The field is not bad to walk through since it wasn't cut and baled a second time last fall.

Just because I want to get inside and we are close to the house doesn't mean they want to. This is a common reaction to me saying "come on" ... it really is normal bloodhound obedience that is noted in their AKC write-ups and something every bloodhound owner knows before they decide to have their lives changed.

Juuussssttttt one more thing to check out.

But no problems to Stella. It's a new week, she'll sleep beside my desk chair while I write this post and will not be really active until she is ready to eat lunch. At that time, if I happen to be late, she will start howling ... LOL

Our weather in 'the tropics' at this time is normal for this time of year.

Hounds Energized This Morning

While Heidi kept care of the house as usual in cold weather, the bloodhounds were having a lot of fun this morning.

Stella Thought She Hid

 

On this morning's walk in freezing temps, Stella ran out front so far away I couldn't see her. Then I saw something a little bigger than a dead weed or dead hay ... plus it moved. So when I yelled Stella's name, it startled her ... she thought she was well hidden.

No Leaf Left Behind

With a full day of rain on Wednesday the plan was to let the leaves that had fallen to dry out until Friday when the whole yard would be raked a final time. The rain that stared in the middle of the night on Wednesday morning, took most of the remaining leaves from the trees near the yard. So as we started our day out with our normal walk, there was nothing planned but a few household tasks.

It was still quite wet early morning and cold. I decided to do the walk with the bloodhounds before coffee was even made. I needed to make a quick trip to Bloomington to return the mop I had bought because I found the corrected refills for my older mop on Amazon late last night. I could drink my coffee on the way there.  Both of them were full of energy this morning. They took that first turn at full speed just like a race horse.

This gives you some idea of what the rain and wind did to the remaining leaves that were on the trees  Monday.

With today and Friday have fairly high temps in the afternoon I was pretty sure I could finished the Leaf Project for 2017. Then when the Z4 parts arrive next week I can jump right into that job before the month of December gets here and the temperature drop to where that repair work would be quite uncomfortable.

Sadie spent a lot of the walk this morning looking back to see if I was going to keep up with them or not. Their morning walk pace was much faster than normal. I was hoping they were not going to attempt to escape toward the north woods, I wasn't in the mood to do any jogging ... at any speed.

Along the back edge of the field is always filled with strong scents of something. Probably deer.

While Sadie and I were lagging behind this morning, Stella took off like she was out on her own solo walk. She even chose the path we were to follow.

During the time we had lunch nothing had changed with the plans. I had no intentions of raking leaves today. I wanted to do some house cleaning, cook some meals in advance and possibly a load of laundry. So with the dishes hand washed and set up to dry, Sadie thought it was the right time to take the early afternoon walk. She did an inspection of the backyard before we got started and noted all of the leaves that had fallen since Tuesday.

I could see that once those leaves dried out today it wouldn't be much of a job to rake the last of them from the backyard, the north side yard and for the first time of the year, the front yard.

With a 15° bump in temperature it was the perfect weather to take a way. The sun was out but wasn't hot and the interesting thing was ... I couldn't feel any kind of wind, nada, zip.

If you look closely at the next picture you will see with Sadie stretched out from running her ears are in a position I have never seen them before. Not only have the flipped upward but have curled back forward at the same time. Whereas Stella's ears in the above photo is just the normal flapping up and down while she runs.

Sadie had definitely locked into something and was moving non stop with her nose to the ground.

That is until she heard something squealing. I heard it too and like her I could not tell where it was coming from nor what it was.

Stella in the meantime had figured out that Sadie and I had left her behind. She sprinted from the first turn all the way up to the ATV path. I thought she might follow Sadies earlier path but Stella really likes taking that ATV path back to our final turn. She will take that path almost every afternoon walk, but not in the morning.

You would think that she could tell that Sadie and I are just to the right of her but she is acting and running as if she doesn't know where we are, like we really have left her behind.

Sadie decides to start home, with her nose and ears still active.

Stella is taking the short cut to meet Sadie ... as all three of us hustled our way back home.

This is what we are looking at to rake to complete Phase 2 of the leaf project. The longer I walked and felt no wind I kept thinking it was the perfect time to rake the leaves. I was sure I could get the backyard and side yard finished, then do the front yard tomorrow. My house cleaning was moved to Friday afternoon once Phase 3 of the leaf project is completed.

I know that is not enough leaves to worry about in most peoples eyes. But it's my DNA ... I have to have a clean lawn before the winter starts dropping snow. It's just like I cannot mow just part of the yard in the Summer. I have to mow all of it wether some parts of the lawn need it or not.

I prefer the yard to look like this. Raking also gets the dead grass or weeds out of the yard.

It was time to try the new battery operated toy out on the driveway, which was covered in leaves. By the time I decided to take a picture of it I had already blown the leaves from the top of the driveway and was starting toward the bottom of the hill.

It is not as powerful as my electric leaf blowers, nor is it as loud. It works well enough, it's extremely light and didn't take a lot of time to clean off the driveway. I think it will do fine for what I want it for. I moved all the driveway leaves along the fence. Tomorrow after my two 20v batteries recharge I will move those leaves up and over the spaces in the fence to where they will stay on the bank until next spring for the annual bank fire.

The total leaf job took less than 2 hours. Yet I could feel how good of a workout I got just with the normal movement of raking. Start time for the final leaf raking project will depend on wind direction and air temperature Friday morning.

Now that I have recovered a little from more yard work, I'll get that load of laundry finished before the NFL game or college basketball games tonight on tv.

The big surprise of the day ... Sadie was sitting next to my desk chair this afternoon. She ever does that when there isn't any food around. So I knew she was trying to tell me something was wrong. She had plenty of clean cold water. She had been fed and walked twice, so it was strange as she sat as close to my chair as possible.

I took a look at her closer and started petting her and sure enough ... I felt a tick, then saw another one that had attached near her ear. Those were the only two ticks I found. Once I removed them, she was hopping around acting happy as if we were going out for a walk.

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