An Active Sunday Morning Walk

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.

A New Battle With Mosquitoes

Were these mosquitoes late Sunday night in the house because they were small enough to move through the small design of the window screens. I have brand new screens, no holes, and nowhere could I see where they could get in to infiltrate the house and attack me with vengeance just before going to bed. I kept dreaming about them and could feel new bites while I slept.
I know they were mosquitoes because I was killing them at a rapid rate, but where did they come from?

I wondered at the time this morning, why was I putting on my North Face snow boots to keep my feet dry during the walk. The past few days the temperature at 7:30a, was 76-78° and never dropped below the mid 70's during the night. Last night was different, mid-60's ... therefor a lot of heavy dew in the shaded area of the field.

I had not even walked out of the yard yet when my boots were already soaked. I had my first good idea of the day ... wearing the snow boots, rubber tops.

Sadie and Stella were not as energetic this morning as yesterday. Maybe the two walks we took yesterday satisfied them enough, possibly wearing them out. There was nothing planned out of the ordinary today. With everything planted yesterday I only had a few things to do as far as adding some mulch.

Stella has developed two calluses on each hip bone from sitting then slowly rotating on them as she scratches. I have a couple of options I can try from my shelf. K9 Klear Up was sent to me by a friend for Heidi in 2015. His Mastiff had the exact same calluses that Stella has and this stuff worked.

I'm not sure if the Wounded Warrior Ointment I also bought for Heidi last year would be the right stuff for "elephant skin" calluses.

By the reactions of the hounds this morning there seemed to be a lot of deer scent. In this area it could be nothing else. It's been a long time since Sadie or Stella chased deer. I remember their latest chance, I saw the deer but they didn't ... around 5 of them running along this back edge of the field.

Stella was moving along pretty well today on her own. Not a lot of 'herding commands' were needed.

Neither hound wanted to leave this area ... I practically had to drag them away.

Every time we make the final turn toward home, Stella always hangs back for one reason or another. She will then usually trot slowly in our direction. Today she never stopped and trotted right past me like she had somewhere to go.

That was until a very strong scent completely took over her nose and her brain. She raised her nose high and stood there and tried to process everything her nose was telling her. She finally took about two steps in that direction when I yelled "no" ... it was already hot and I had been bitten by something on my back in a place I could not reach ... causing pure insanity.

As Stella and I went one direction, Sadie went the opposite direction. It is a place that she has been running to for the past few days. With her I don't say a word and continue walking because no matter how far I get ahead, she will always come running to catch me.

Is it just me or is this field growing by the hour???

When I mentioned that I wanted to get home and 'eat' breakfast ... that word 'eat' was just enough to get them headed in my direction. Anything food related makes them quite motivated to follow me.

Heidi came outside again Sunday afternoon but only because I didn't have the camera with me. She walked a little in the field but was snooping all the scents instead of walking with us. At least she has finally moved off the couch ... but ...

For the first time in 5 years, since the Yew's are gone, Heidi has decided to move her area for dumping her tanks from the front yard now to the backyard. She has not gone any further than the corner of the carport since the Yews were pulled out.

Isn't that funny ... or strange?

It started first thing in the morning but it got worse as the day progressed. My allergies were out of control today. No meds helped and the allergy attack would hit almost immediately as I stepped outside the door. With the temps in the 77° range by mid-day it was cool enough for the windows to be opened but wasn't for my allergies. Windows closed - AC on.

It felt much cooler than it was showing on my iPhone weather app, so we headed out for our afternoon walk by 4:30pm. That is about 3 hours earlier than the past week or two due to the hot temps. Heidi raised her head from the couch letting me know she had no intentions of leaving her stretched out position with a living room full of cold air. She has enjoyed her time on the couch this summer, continuing the basset hound traditions.

What I found was more mosquitoes than I had seen all summer. When I returned home and was applying Benadryl, I counted around 15 new bites. There is nothing I hate more than mosquito bites. I'll be looking for my prevention lotion before we walk again.

I let the hounds go on their own, even though they did walk to the first corner together. I keep looking at Stella and wondering if a change in dog food would help her. I am thinking of going back to Fromm dry food. I checked Chewy so I could try them for the first time, with their offer of free shipping and $25 off. They carry Fromm products but not the kind of dog food I have used in the past. I can buy it at T&T Feeds in Bloomington, getting a free 40# bag after I buy 10.

As I walked along the back edge of the field, I could see Stella making her slow walk to where she had gone for the first time the other day. I figured I'd stop on the way back to convince her it was time to come home.

She would stop and look at me when I yelled her name from afar, then kept walking. LOL

The picture is somewhat deceiving. She is a lot closer to me, than she is the highway.

There it is, the new spot of interest.

With Sadie walking next to me and deciding not to chase every butterfly that was in the area having lunch, I was able to get my first two pictures of butterflies this year. I have enough of them from last summer, that they have their own folder in my Flickr photo library. (1Tb of Free Storage)

It was okay temps wise but at this time the mosquitoes had bitten me enough to feel miserable and a little irritable. I was able to catch the hounds right behind me with the lens set at 18mm. They were sound to sleep again within minutes of walking inside the house .... another day is finished for them.

Every time I attempted to get closer, this butterfly would fly away. The 200mm zoom was the best I could do to catch it.

It was a quiet day with no yard labor involved. It will be another night of ice tea and baseball, with a little reading as the game is going on. Benadryl has cured my irritability with the mosquito bites, while I checked Google for some strategic plans in the war against mosquitoes.

Some late photos from tonight ...

It was a great day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.