Stella Runs Away Further Than Ever

Tonight I thought I'd be writing about about our morning walk plus a few photos of the lunch break for the hounds ... one of the times that Heidi makes an outdoor appearance and a chance to photograph her ... but the afternoon walk went beyond distances we had ever traveled ... at least the three of us. Stella took off running and didn't come back ... until Sadie and I finally caught up with her.


For some reason I've been very motivated today and still may not be finished. I have time to do a few more things between the time I post this and the Cubs/Nationals baseball game at 8pm local time. I've done one load of my laundry, washed three of Heidi's Mexican blankets, stored the two window AC with hopes of a new central air unit by next June, vacuumed the house and cooked a large lunch. All while deciding to request some friends to comeback to my new Facebook account and not just keeping it a 'reading' account for me.

The fields are still pretty wet I'm sure based on how my yard feels from all the rain but with cooler temps some might have a changes to combine their corn or soybeans. I barely caught these two passing the house while I was outside with the hounds.

These were the two best photos of Sadie and Stella from this morning's walk.

I was so energetic today that I went outside to seal around my windows and to fill with silicone the hole around the new satellite coax cable they inserted through the 20 year old hole on the side of the house. They peel out the old calk silicone every time they install a new system for the internet and tv. I always fill the space back up to keep it dry under the house. That cable runs under the house from the satellite dishes to the tv and further back to my computer room.

This is Stella starting the normal afternoon walk ... where it looks like she can barely walk another step ... so slow she drags her paws. No excitement was expected at this point.

I was not even close to the first turn when two red bloodhounds ran by me at full speed with no intentions of slowing down. All of the photos were taken with the lens set at 200mm, so that gives you some idea how far behind I was.

By this next photo I knew for sure they were going to be out of my sight and I might even have to do some slow jogging if I were to catch them. I saw to new ATV tire tracks in the large path they wore down this summer ... I was pretty sure where the hounds were heading ... way ... way past 'the no fly zone'.

When I saw what Stella was doing on the right side and how fast she moved away from Sadie ... I knew she had plans of her own ... she was on a mission.

Sadie decided if she was going to enjoy this adventure she better put it in high gear to catch Stella.

Doing her best effort to catch Stella.

If nothing else ... both hounds were getting some great aerobic exercise while I was huffing and puffing in a slow jog 75 yards behind them.

When I caught a horizon with no hounds in view, I picked up my pace and started yelling Sadie's name since she was the nearest to me. I knew Stella was long gone.

After a slight diversion, Sadie changed direction and headed the way Stella was last seen.

Still shooting photos with the 200mm setting but I am getting closer to that large electrical tower.

As I change the name of the hound I am yelling for ... Sadie stops to wait on me as I start yelling 'Stella'. Sadie was positive that was the direction she saw Stella heading.

So we are now approaching the farthest corner of the field behind the house ... those tracks will veer to the left into the woods of the next property owner that is 4 houses north of mine. It is also the new path that 8th grader Christopher takes across the field into the deep gully where the deer hang out.

Just to make sure I made one final glance to the left, looking at the 'northern woods' for Stella before running into the next field.

Sadie has stayed by my side this whole time since I caught up with her. She waited for me and then trotted along side of me. As we turned the corner into the woods ... who did we see up ahead ... ????

When Stella is locked in this pose, not moving .... she either sees, smells or hears ... deer, dogs, cats, people, or ATVs. I was hoping she would go no further and come back in our direction.

Once she heard me call her name and see Sadie running after her to rescue ... she acted as if she was afraid of what she had found and was happy to be running back in our direction.

Sadie did what she always does when she finds Stella in the field or when Heidi comes inside after a short trip out at night ... she taps noses.

With Sadie's 'nose tap' telling Stella we are going home, both hounds ran past me, following the path we came in on and headed home.

Stella may have thought she was in trouble but she wasn't. I wasn't mad and only called her name loud in hopes that she would hear Sadie and I were coming to find her. Then again after all the running she did to get her, she may have been tired and had decided to walk home.

Yes that is drool hanging from the bottom of her mouth.

Once she shook her ears out ... she was ready to cruise back to the house for an early evening nap.

The two partners in crime ... NEVER a dull moment when you have bloodhounds ... LOL

Evidently the Equifax breach of personal information has had an affect on me. Added to the OPM in 2015, Yahoo in 2016 and Equifax in 2017 all of my information for the past 20 years is now in someone elses hands. Actually it probably doesn't mean anything in my case ... I'm a 'nobody' really, and do not a lot to offer financially or in assets to any hackers that are interested.

So in that case I am more open online ... screw it.

People now know exactly where I live, even strangers. If you look close you can see in this blog the exact name of the town I live outside of, and I am back on Facebook ... 'the king' of spreading your private photos and information on 'their' website to all parts of the world to make us all just one big happy family ... worldwide.

I guess you can say I no longer care about online security.

So the temps are cool, the windows are open, Sadie is snoring while sleeping in 'her' large leather chair, Heidi is passed out on the couch and MLB playoffs are on a little more than 2 hours from now.

All is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

Retirement Works Even In Bad Weather

As a warning today, there will be some 'rambling' in this morning's post. This post IS LONG. I'm sure after a month or so of not blogging publicly there are some things to catch up on. Yet the way my brain is lately, not everything will be remembered at the same time to post so they might be scattered over the next few days. Sadie and Stella must have figured out they were back in their infamous limelights ... They did some things yesterday afternoon and this morning they had not done in months.

With a Sunday afternoon of steady light rain and some very early this morning ... the field and ground were saturated with water but nothing that my hiking boots couldn't handle. As you see in the top photo, with a new blog Stella attempted to start her walk her own way ... like due north and away from Sadie and I. She stopped right there when I called her name and slowly walked our direction ... she is stubborn as ever.

I have been letting her roam on her own on the morning walks but by the afternoon the walks have a require time limit due to my lack of patience or at a halftime of a ballgame I am watching. So the camera stays home and is exchanged for the 25' retractable leash for Stella. This morning with the rain there must have been a lot of new scent to check out.

Stella has been running a lot more lately. I have not been adding any kind of meds or supplements, just kibble 2x per day. Like I said yesterday she wrestled with Sadie for the first time in 10 months based on the photo file I have as reference. When they took off around the first turn leaving me behind, I was sure deer must be in the area ... but it was something else.

Another thing they did this morning for the first time in many months was sprint to their favorite 'right hand corner'. This is a known lounging area for the deer as they walk out of the gully but the hounds had not been there in at least two months, maybe longer. What I have to watch for now, is the newly developed ATV trail that goes down into the gully.

Luckily they stayed in the area as I picked up my pace to catch them to block any chance of them running away. When they find something interesting they fall into an instant state of unconsciousness and don't hear a word I say.

With the late morning weather of cool, wet and humid I had a pretty good idea that my job as a 'slacker' would be in full force today ... at least until 1pm when the first of four MLB playoff games are on tv, squeezed around the Bears/Vikings NFL game Monday night. For a sports addict like me, this time of year I don't have enough time to sleep nor enough tv's to catch all 15-16 sports channels showing football, baseball or hockey.

Strange how that ATV trail happened a few days after I told the neighbor 8th grader that deer follow the edge of the field but come up out of that gully. I am pretty sure he has some small hidden field cameras mounted down there. When talking to him weeks ago he told me his cameras picked up Sadie and Stella the time they went out of bounds into the north woods.

I am still 'fine tuning' the blog. Google was kind enough to give me 'bhounds3' as a new gmail account. So that is the blog contact email address now and the contact page has been updated. The 6 yr old gmail account 'houndsnrvs' was hacked sometime last year. I still used it until I deleted this blog a few weeks ago. Apple mail was moving over 100 spam emails per day into the junk folder under that 'houndsnrvs' account. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the spammers to find this address because this is the only site it is and will be used.

As you can tell it's been a dismal growing season for hay the 2nd half of the summer. The weeds, grass, flowers are so short I doubt they cut and bale the file again this year like they normally do. When they picked up their 8 rolls of hay a few weeks ago, the shoved the one that had busted wrapping into the wooded area.

Exploring was definitely the theme of the morning ... deer scat supplements were not on the agenda of the hounds this morning ... it was noses to the ground to process and identify who or what had been in 'their' field last night.

If you look back at posts in February and March you can tell from the photos of Stella just how much she has changed ... for the good.

As usual, just because I am headed home reminding them verbally I am wanting breakfast ... they let me know they will decide how fast we finish this walk. Everything is on their schedule ... I'm just along for the ride.

Stella would still love for me to just leave her outside. She did disappear one time when we were not blogging. It took almost an hour after our walk ended before I saw her walk up the two steps to the door.  I have no clue where she runs off to but I am thinking new territory ... the woods behind my neighbors house to the left of me viewing from the field.

Lately with all the late ballgames on tv finishing in the 1am-2am local time, mornings are starting later thus their breakfast is later. It makes no difference to them. Even with a late breakfast they howl to get lunch at the normal time, less than two hours later. Heidi joins the howling by barking.

She is alive and well but always sleeping when the camera is taking photos. She squeezed in one photo after her lunch break ... back to the couch ... baseball is on tv.

With the floods last May the farmer plowed the flooded area after it was dry enough to plant corn a second time. Thus when they picked it a few weeks ago, that back uncut area was still too green ... so the majority of his field still needs to be harvested.

When I hear the farm equipment slow down on the highway to make the right turn into the field, I have enough time to close all my windows if they are open and put the car cover on the Z4 if it is off. Luckily this time the wind was not strong nor blowing my direction.

Last week sometime I raked a small area of the yard and burned a few small piles of leaves. Later that afternoon as we stepped outside for our 3rd walk of the day the smell of smoke filled the air. I thought my neighbors may be doing what I had done that morning around noon. The longer we walked the more I realized that "Houston ... we have a problem" ... a fire was out of control in the north woods. That is never a good sign with the field so dry.

The local fire department showed up behind a neighbors house to put the fire out ... that is now 3 neighbors in the last 11 months that has had a fire get out of control and the fire department was called. I am one of those 3.

The leaves are trying their best to change color for the month of October fall foliage but a rainy weekend killed their efforts ... so far 9 days into the month it's been a pretty bad performance.

You might think that Sadie chased the butterflies away since that is one of her favorite hobbies ... but it's the change of seasons and dead flowers in the field that has moved the butterflies out of the area.

They were nice while they lasted.

At the end of September I decided my car needed a roadtrip so the I took off to see my old college friend 98 miles away down the freeway. It's amazing how poor a 2-year old freeway (interstate) can be where the highway connects to a bridge. I did not realized on the way down that cheap plastic plugs and screws were working their way loose every rough bridge junction I hit going 75-90 mph.

After arriving at the house I was showing my friend my 'cheap' black plastic grill BMW would put on a car like this. Everything looked fine. As I drove back home with the top down I did not hear anything until I slowed down the exit ramp to a stop sign to make the turn home ... I heard plastic or something dragging the pavement.

I continued the short distance home thinking I could 'nurse' whatever had broke, back to the house where I could see what it was. I was pretty sure it was that stupid cheap ($100) plastic grill. There is one last bridge on the highway about 500' from my driveway. I hit that bridge junction not expecting the loud bang I heard as something plastic caught itself on the connection to the bridge ... most likely made of steel. With that bang being as loud as an explosion my rear view mirror was showing a million black pieces of plastic flying out the back end of my car bouncing down the highway.

Once I take the time around all the baseball games this week, I will fix this well enough to drive it to the body shop a few miles away for them to fix. I don't understand a car that was so expensive when it was new ... why there is so many plastic parts under the car plus the front lower grill. After seeing some old silver paint overspray on the black plastic piece I believe this is a result of a poor repair job that the previous owner paid too much money for.

My burn pile is dying out well and is much smaller than it was in April. By next month when I burn it, the flames will be as high as the picture shows. You can see where I have burnt the tree before. I hate wild ragweed and I will burn that dying ragweed to the left of the pile ... with my water hose turned on and near me just in case the fire decides to go into the field or woods unexpectedly.

The first game is on the tv in the background. The hounds are giving me their 'stare down' for lunch and Heidi will wake up once she hears that kibble hit their metal food bowls. I don't sit on the couch for 4 straight baseball games ... it's on in the background and I watch "situational" baseball ... when something is going on.

Let me know if you have any issues with the new blog, something not working as it should on your tablet, phone or computer. So far everything seems to working okay.

Overcast, muggy with humidity and the ACs are about to be turned on with 12+ hours of MLB Playoffs ahead of me. All is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.