Stella Tries To Escape

While I was taking some photos of a morning butterfly, Stella thought it was the perfect time to attempt an escape and head for the neighbors backyard for some possible food left out for the uncatchable field cat. When Sadie heard me yelling Stella's name she thought she would help me find her. Otherwise, another nice morning walk. She did stop in the middle of the field on the way back because she was sure she smelled food from a neighbor's kitchen.

Hounds Start Day Late After The Rain

The day may have started a lot later than normal but as you can see we have another thunderstorm headed our way that is about 30 miles west of us while I start this post. When I woke up this morning to let the hounds outside and feed them breakfast, it was pouring  rain hard outside so I wasn't sure if the hounds would go out for their first trip of the day. Heidi stood by the door barking for food while the bloodhounds had to go bad enough they sprinted to and from the field. They were at the door waiting for me by the time the breakfast kibble had been poured.

What better time than to catch up on some sleep with it raining that hard. I was up past 2am just to start the latest macOS beta update. It will download and install after I click the button for it to start, so I no longer have to stay up through the night to click the different screens for it to continue. Between 2am to 8am the update can use that free batch of data HughesGen gives me every month. With the update for the iMac and my laptop computer, it took a little over 6Gb of data for both computers. Besides that it was a restless night of sleep filled with the strangest dreams. My Garmin VivaSmart watch told me I was awake for a total of 20 minutes during the night. That's a lot of tossing and turning.

I decided if I showed a dirty leather couch with Heidi sleeping once I could again. This is Heidi around 2:30pm today as the bloodhounds and I took our first walk. She never does a lot of tossing and turning when she sleeps, it's all solid sleep with a few dreams of running at times.

For some reason Stella was ready to get the walk started today. She didn't hesitate by sitting at the corner of the house nor did she try to fake me out by heading north instead of east with Sadie and I. She stepped onto the wet grass and marched toward the path, with a purpose, whatever that might be.

With a quick left turn she was heading for the center of the field behind the house looking for that perfect spot like she always does. It has made the walks much easier to do with her following the path and at times leading Sadie and I on the walk. Not a lot of verbal herding has been needed the past week and a half.

The rain did bring cooler temps but not that cool. It's cool enough that the AC does not turn on but hot enough outside that some AC would be nice. That strong wind from the southwest that the tree leaves are showing, is blowing warm air, not cool.

That is northeast up ahead with patches of blue sky. The sky behind us looks like rain is near. While I was waiting for Stella to get on the path, Sadie had already started her own walk. She was obviously happy we were walking when the chances looked slim earlier today.

Stella took her time following her nose through the field to the path but she made it eventually. She then walked as close to me as possible as I tried getting this photo and reminded me she was still in charge but walking on my foot. Nothing like feeling an 80# hound place their paw squarely in the middle of your boot.

Sadie was nose to the ground and out in front of us.

Interesting to see those small pieces of undercoat hair. Not only do I pull that out every day but I brush her daily just because the shedding she is still doing this summer. I've never seen it this bad and she is the only one shedding hair compared to Heidi and Stella.

She got a little trotting in today's walk but not the full speed sprints she normally does.

While I was taking photos of Sadie ... Stella was walking her pace without any stopping and getting way out in front of us.

Once Sadie saw that, she took off trotting to catch up, thinking that Stella must have found something she needed.

After more investigation she found out it was a false alarm.

I did not say a word to Stella but she decided it was time to head home. She started walking without stopping again. I'll say it again, she is the funniest hound I've had in 31 years.

Only one butterfly was seen this afternoon on the walk. As you can see a lot of their food source is used for the year. They might not be around much longer.

Stella walks too slow on the path for me to follow her and then when I stay in front of her she speeds up to be right on my heels, making it hard to take a picture of her.

They still find time to explore even when we get closer to the backyard. The walk is never officially over to them until they step in the backyard. If there is field under their paws, they think they can take all the time they want to complete the walk.

Once they heard that rumble of thunder, they became a little more motivated to get back inside. Rarely are they in front of me at this point of the walk.

This is for the Apple users that read the blog. With each new update even in the beta version I see small changes, all for the better usually. You can tell they are getting close to the official release in a month or two. The system runs faster, files open faster, photos upload to the blog and Flickr faster and the one obvious change I noticed today was the 'transparency' feature brightened things up since I use the 'dark' mode.

I had been using solid colors as my desktop on my iMac. It was between dark gray and black, so my email, iMessage and preference screens were darker than you see. Today I changed my iMac background to the one on the right under 'Dynamic Desktop'. Since the Dynamic Desktop changes colors automatically based on local time, my borders around these darker screens brightened.

Some of the sidebars that had been the same dark color as the menu's of preferences, Apple mail and iMessage changed to a lighter gray color that made things easier to read. Plus not all the fonts were bright white like they were after their last update. Due to privacy, I cannot do screen shots of those because I am not sure my friends would appreciate our conversations or emails to be shown on the blog, if you know what I mean.

For example that lighter gray color you see as a border on the screen shot above was the same color as the darker screen inside around the images and list before last night's update. All of the fonts were bright white. Subtle changes.

My Reds game turned ugly early last night, so I went from watching baseball to watching an old old movie that was being shown on HDnet channel. Some of you may remember this movie from the early 90's or late 80's ... called ... Officer and a Gentleman. I like watching it for the scenery. All very familiar to me because I lived there for ten years. The motel, the bars in the movie are in Port Townsend and the old abandon stone base is at Fort Ebey SP, just around the corner from where I lived. The ferry ride and landscape brought back a lot of good memories.

I'll try baseball again tonight as usual but my patience is running thin again with the Reds while they are in a losing streak since their All-Star Break. Before that break they had been the hottest team in baseball for the previous month. After a hard day all of the hounds will be doing their normal sleeping, with Sadie in her big leather chair with her head on the ottoman, Heidi next to me on the couch and Stella stretched out on the floor near any AC floor vent.

I hope to get back to my tasks at hand after the rains leave us.

A fast day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana today.

Back On Facebook - I Must Be Bored

The rains arrived as predicted. It was one of those rains that was steady, quiet, straight and strong enough at times to block all satellite connections for my tv and internet services. Maybe it was because I was bored while it rained, or it might have been because I really did miss some of the services I had with a Facebook account. I've RE-started a new Facebook account this morning and am slowly building it again with photos and the few friends I have scattered all over the USA and Canada.

Some of the groups I use to follow did not have a Twitter or Instagram account. A few local pages were nice in case of weather or electrical emergencies and were helpful. I use Twitter to get all of my up to the minute sports news. I opened a Instagram account months ago because a few bloggers had moved there to continue their blogging as well as some old friends that have photos of their dogs. So I guess social media is nice to have as long as the verbal wars and disagreements stay away. Most of my friends are not local so it's a good way to stay in touch. I have a few friends only on Facebook that enjoy photos of the hounds there but rarely if ever come to the blog.

If you would like to add me on Facebook, here is a link to my account.

https://www.facebook.com/steve.floyd.31105

I do post a few photos of the hounds but none of them are different than the photos you see here on the blog.

I was so busy trying to rebuild my account, I worked right through the time I normally feed the hounds at lunch. They did not bark, howl or whine for food today ... they slept right through lunch with the sound of quiet rain creeping through the open windows. With the rain, none of them were going further than the roof overhang to relieve themselves ... except Sadie. She wasn't in the yard long before she sprinted back to the door to be let inside. She waited for Stella and Heidi to join her.

Heidi moved so fast after her bathroom break that I took four different photos and only this one came out clear. She ran to the living room, dove onto the floor and started her daily rolling on her back while growling at herself. She was sleeping soon after her burst of energy.

Even with a lot of good rain ... none of it reached my flowers and plants in the flowerbed, which you will see below.

We didn't do much Sunday so we didn't blog. I found out how out of shape I am in when I woke up Sunday with very sore muscles in the back of my legs just from my activity on Saturday. It was nothing strenuous. I did a lot of bending over while I was on the roof cleaning a couple of gutter downspouts, pulling weeds in the front flowerbed and finished by washing the Z4 which sits low to the ground. Ibuprofen was my best friend on Sunday. All outdoor tasks were cancelled.

The hounds felt the same way. They spent most of Sunday sleeping but still got their two daily walks in. Heidi felt like I did ... she wanted to do nothing and did nothing.

By accident this morning I think I have found Stella's allergy source. This is her itching yesterday. It was also a day where I kept taking allergy tablets myself. That is just a hint of what may be wrong with her, that will talk about below.

We had a lot of good solid rain last night but I never heard it while I slept. This shows why my plants do not get rain water. I planted each plant in the middle of the flowerbed so when they are fully grown they will not grow past the landscape edging. Also, the corner where the edging turns left is the approximate location of my septic tank inlet. That area would need to be dug up for them to clean my system, if it's ever required.

Therefore I still have to water my plants even if it rains. You can see that one Azalea has been brutally beaten down by a sub zero winter and a hot summer. I am not sure it will recover and continue to grow. I have two more on the other side of the porch and each of them look more like the full leaf green one.

Sadie wasn't sure we were going to really go for a walk through the wet field this morning. I could tell there had been a lot of rain by the way the ground felt, very soft. Also my yard was turning green before my eyes. It's amazing how much it changed in a 48 hour period. Just last week I considered bringing out the lawn sprinklers to water the yard if I was not going to get any rain.

I have no explanation for Stella. This morning she started walking on the path in her slow pace but the difference was ... she never stopped walking. 99.9% of the walk she walked with only one time she stopped for some deer scat. She never lowered her head to the ground but that one time during the walk ... it was like she was walking in her sleep.

She walked and walked ... LOL

Sadie was doing what Stella normally does. But I don't have to call Sadie catch up as she does that on her own.

You can barely see Stella hidden behind the brush.

This is the only time she stopped walking during the half mile walk.

With thunderstorms predicted for this afternoon and the dampness in the air, my painting project is on hold until the weather is dry and hot again.

Yes, Stella is still walking in slow motion. She is walking along the overgrown ATV path from last summer that runs parallel to the back edge of the field but much further left of Sadie and I.

She almost stopped as she circled something that interested her. About the time I started walking her direction in case I needed to get her to move ... she took off walking again towards our return path by the last turn of our walk.

You can barely see the path we take, which moves right next to the right of the roll of hay. Stella has crossed the path waiting to see if I tell her to stop and turn around.

I did tell her 'no, come here' and she was about to me when she dodged to check out one more thing before she started her walk home. Yet, she never put her nose to the ground.

Sadie was on her own and always ran to catch up to me.

Notice that Stella is in the exact same pose as she walks ... I should have shot a video of her instead of having the camera catch her in stop action. No, for those that are wondering, this will not turn into a Vblog.

A little verbal herding kept Stella headed in our direction. She would love to go over and visit the neighbors backyard and check for any food that might be out for the wild field cat.

Instead of sitting and scratching this morning when she returned to the yard, she stood and waited for me to take her picture. Then she turned and started walking toward the house. She has NOT scratched at all this morning inside or outside ... and I have not had to take any allergy tablets today, with all the windows open due to the low temperatures.

Have you figured out what I think may be Stella's itching source???

Pollen.

I look at Wunderground every morning to see what kind of weather I have to look forward to. This time of year I look at their block for Precipitation and Pollen. When I started thinking about it I remembered noticing that Stella does not scratch all the time and even not every day. Just like I don't take allergy tablets every day or all the time. I also saw that Wunderground's pollen count was pretty accurate and I can usually feel it in my sinuses first thing in the morning when I look at their site.

I'll start paying more attention and see if what I said here about Stella's allergies proves to be fairly accurate.

This is not the pose I wanted of Sadie when I took this picture but she moved at the last second and turned her face away from the camera.

With the Reds and Cubs having the night off from baseball, it might be a night to catch a movie on tv or a DVD off of my shelf. I don't watch hardly any prime time tv shows but I do have my DVR set to automatically tape new and older shows. That library is building up fast. I am going to have to change the settings to only 'new' episodes.

What might some of them be?

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives is one of my favorites. There is some great food on that show and luckily he has stopped a few places in Indiana within driving distance. I like watching Mexico Life, Caribbean Life, Beachfront Bargins Hunt, Mountain Living, Building Off The Grid, F1 Racing, IndyCar Racing, Hometown, Dr. Jeff Rocky Mountain Vet, and Comfort Food Tour. I also have various college football programs that include the Pac12, and the BigTen.

Luckily I put the car cover on the Z4 Sunday afternoon while it was sunny. Rain was predicted for Sunday night, which did happen. It's good to keep the rain, pollen and dust off of it when it's parked.

For those readers that use Apple products I still like the new macOS on my Mac and laptop. I have not put it on my iPhone and won't until it is officially released this fall. I am currently using the 'beta' version on my computers.

So ... not much going on today. Rain off and on, at times very heavy. Temps are still cool, no AC and the hounds and I are enjoying this weather rain or shine here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.