Sadie Looks For The New Black Cat

Sadie was on the prowl a little bit earlier than normal this morning because I was up and making coffee in the middle of the night. A few weeks ago while the bloodhounds and I were outside right before sundown, I saw a black cat walk across the corner of the north property line back into the field. Sadie has no doubts that same cat pays us a visit during night time hours.

I remember many years ago when I would hear my grandmother telling us she would be up wide awake at 3am most of the time. I found that hard to understand as a child or even older. Why would anyone want to get up that early??? 50 some years later I am finding my answer.

When you are a night person but go to bed at 10:30pm, you can expect an early wake up call ... but 4:30am was a little ridiculous this morning. Yet I was wide awake and making my two cups of coffee and telling the hounds "go back to sleep", which they did ... I didn't.

So right off the bat our morning routine had changed a little bit. I was able to slide my data usage over into that 2am-8am time slot where I have an extra 50Gb of data allowed for the month (billing period) and the hounds were able to sleep until their normal wake up time.

Since I house trained Sadie as a 12 week old pup to go out after her meals, she has followed that training every time she eats for the past 9 years as of this June. Today was no different but that is not the same for Stella and Heidi. They go back to sleep after their breakfast, Heidi on the bed and Stella behind my desk chair.

Sadie will always take off out into the field but never past that first corner of the woods and rarely, if ever toward the neighbors house. The good thing is, unlike Stella, she will come running whenever I call her. I let her out on her own this morning but could see from the window she was no where in view inside that tall grass.

As I called, I barely saw the tip of her tail moving through the field coming from the middle of the field out toward the corner. If it was going to be like her recent routine she would come running through the wet hay/weeds at the north corner pole of the property line. She did ... but a strong scent stopped her in her tracks.

The black cat ???

She went in circles, zig zagged, then back along the edge of the mowed lawn tracking that cat scent and finally headed my direction when I said "come on".

Sorry about the darkness of all the photos but they were taken before 7am and even with a light adjustment, they did not look better with more light.

I swear the field and my yard are growing by the hour. I just mowed the yard a few days ago and it looks like I will be mowing it again today, no later than tomorrow. I am a huge Indy500 race fan but it looks like a lot of sitting time on Sunday with 75% change of thunderstorms. Another reason to get the yard mowed before Sunday.

I am betting the race will be postponed and will be ran under the sunny skies on Monday. It will not matter to me since I'll be sitting on my couch instead of at the race. I've spent more than enough time at that track during practice, time trials and one race where it rained and you waited hours for the track to dry.

Speaking of lawns, Jon Katz over at his blog Bedlam Farm is trying something with his lawn that I have thought about in the past but never had the guts to try. As tall as the hay gets near my yard in back I am not sure it's the right thing for me to do. Let me know what you think of his idea to mow around the edges a few laps but let the yard grow into a field.

I am loving this new computer with the Fusion drive. As the new computer is used, it will index itself and becomes even faster and will not reach it's optimum speed/performance until a few weeks from now. All my photos download from the camera to the computer instantly, while uploading to the blogs much faster than the normal time.

Who knows, the Retina display may add a few good years to my eyes based on the amount of time I spend on a computer reading or working on Excel spreadsheets. No matter why it's a huge improvement over a very good picture I had from the LED monitor.

I am settled again with no computer crisis. I have plans to sell the older stuff and all of my Apple 'toys' are synchronizing information as designed.

I am going to try to get Heidi out for a photo shoot later today for the blog. I might have to carry her outside since she has been pretty lazy while waiting for those hot summer temps in the high 70's, just not near 70. I'll probably post again later today even if she has other plans.

My photo from the past is May 2004. I met up with a new friend near the Arkansas Recreation area in southern Colorado to do a couple of days of camping. I was driving the tan Panel Van (just purchased) from Salt Lake City, UT to here in 'the tropics'. Dave had bought the green bus from me and converted it to a camper.

We did not know each other until the purchase, site unseen. It was sitting in a junk yard in Truth or Consequences, NM after I blew the engine a few miles north on I-25. It was my very first VW Bus purchase, off eBay in Tucson. He picked it up and towed it back over the mountains to his home, where he rebuilt the engine and told me what happened.

The weather continues to be beautiful here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Feel The Heat

With the air smothered by the smell of honeysuckle and the first real feeling of 'sticky humidity' we headed out for our Friday morning walk. Allergies have been ragging through my sinus system to the point I could tell that May was officially here. Sadie is almost positive the new black cat has paid us a visit.
I can't remember the last time I used only 100Mb of data in a 24 hour period but it happened yesterday as I went full work mode here in 'the tropics'. Again this year, instead of using Roundup or another spray weed killer I am sacrificing a better look for less chemicals ... weed eating the weeds as low as possible and let the sunshine kill them the rest of the way.

I prefer a whiter gravel look to the driveway but have decided no chemicals works ok. This past week starting the walks Stella has been taking a path way to the left of the return path, yet she had been keeping our pace and before that spot she stops to scratch at every day, she will have veered back in front of me.

Every day is the same for Sadie. It doesn't matter what the temperature is, if there is rain or snow, once she hits the field she is there for only one reason ... to track scent. Our afternoon have been spent outside with me wearing a "hound mitt" brushing out all of her undercoat and letting the hair blog in the wind. It's amazing how much hair is brushed out.

Rabbits like to head into this direction. I am not sure if that is what she saw but I was just happy that she turned and headed back on the walk instead of charging into the woods. My legs were already dripping with water up to my knees and I wasn't enthused about running through brush and thorns after her.

I know lately I have been saying this almost every post, but it's strange to me. Throughout the whole walk Stella has two places, the same every walk, that she will stop and scratch. This is the first spot. Any ideas why?

With my North Face snow boots drenched, lower legs drenched, my lens hood that I installed a month or so ago for picture picture quality is now a valued protector of the lens because as the grass gets taller ... wet marks are showing up on the outside of the lens hood as we walk. I hold the camera up high while we walk but at times that will not prevent it from being hit with wet hay.

What can be so interesting at bare ground level through all of that thick grass and wild flowers?

Since yesterday was laundry day, Stella's collar was thrown in with Heidi's blankets. It came out nice and bright. I forgot it was outside drying in the sunshine until Sadie sprinted toward it right before the downpour of rain started late yesterday afternoon. At the time I thought it was strange that her first move was to the right toward the front yard and not south out into the driveway.

When I saw Stella panting yesterday I knew the inside temps were above 80°. With all of the windows open and a breeze stronger than any fan could produce I held off turning on the AC. It's about a month too early for the AC but it's temping as the humidity becomes stickier each day. The AC is like my heater in the fall, I like to see how long I can hold off before turning them on.

I would say that Stella is basically her normal self, except for her lack of running and wrestling with Sadie. Has becoming a year older had that much effect on her activity? She would eat the whole 40 pound bag of kibble if I would let her. She shows no sign of pain jumping on the couch but runs in her sleep.

Where's Heidi??? With a bath and manicure yesterday she has been recovering with solid hours of non-stop sleep. I even carried her outside yesterday afternoon to join us and as soon as her feet hit the grass, she turned and sprinted for the door. I guess she wanted to keep her nails clean as they were cut back the shortest I can remember, without drawing blood.

What ever Sadie and Stella found must have been good tasting ... I didn't catch the tongue until I downloaded the pictures from the camera today.

The pictures may not show it but there is a lot of doubling back to pick up our slowest walker. Not picking her literally but going back enough times to remind Stella that we would like to end this morning walk sometime before the day ends. She will walk at her own speed, not ours. I can't afford to leave her behind with her increased interest this week looking at the woods to the north or the neighbors house.

It might take a while on the return path but there is always a scent they may missed on the way out. Slowly they inspect every inch back to the yard.

I guess the weather experts might be right this time. As I write this the sunshine has disappeared outside of my window and that rolling thunder seems to be getting louder. The hounds are in their sleep mode until lunch. Heidi's is in Bertha's chair stretched out across the ottoman, Stella right next to my desk chair and Sadie protecting her water bowl with her nose just inches away.

I took this picture with hopes of showing you just how much taller the hay is near the yard compared to what we walk through. Each morning we take the walk, our path had been covered by night time growth.

It's been a few days since I swapped out my 27" LED monitor for a 21.5" Retina iMac. I am somewhat surprised that I have felt no buyer's remorse with my new iMac purchase and missing the larger monitor. I thought of selling the other monitor but first I want to buy an adapter so that I can hook up my old PC to it and see what is on that Windows XP professional hard drive. I turned it off after losing the war against malware in October 2007. It has been sitting wrapped in plastic, on the floor of the closet that houses my stereo.

It's too hard to mix and match Apple and Windows so I am not sure what I would do with that hard drive even after I turned it on. Yet, it would be a good computer for my old Microsoft Flight Simulators, or the Falcon 4.0 F-16, and one of my old time favorite games ... Sim City. So maybe after I take a break from working around the house ... I'll check out those possibilities.

Things I have noticed with the new computer .... the new wireless keyboard is fantastic and I swear my typing speed has increased. It was fast before but my fingers seem to float over the keys even faster. The retina display is still noticeable and not even close to what I thought was a good picture on my larger monitor. My pictures download faster and upload to the blog faster. Programs open much faster and it takes less than a minute to boot up.

I have yet to see the "spinning beach ball" known as the "hourglass" on a Windows PC. For some reason I still think there is hope for recovering my old iMac, yet it does not fail to remind me quickly that it is not healthy with hanging up at startup, or the amount of time it takes to boot up before I can use the cursor to open something ... only to see that "spinning beach ball".

I found yesterday showing some differences in a day with no computer time and the camera only taking two pictures first thing in the morning. Both hound walks were done without taking the camera and as much time as possible was spent outside. It will be a day of my "inside to do list" because the rain has just started to fall lightly.

It's warm and mugging in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

Sadie & Stella Very Active This Morning

I made the mistake of leaving a window open plus a few windows had the screen windows down instead of the storm windows closed. That mistake did not fail to remind me just how cold it was last night. The living room thermometer was showing 58° ... big mistake.

So I guess we will be pushing those warmer temps out one more day before they start. It was still too nice to not take a walk with the hounds. With it below 70° Heidi stayed in bed, hidden under my Marmot sleeping bag. Sadie grabbed my left hand with her mouth and led me through the yard to the field, while Stella stopped to have some morning grass.

You can see how fast the grass is growing. It is not that tall all over the field but just in areas the hounds dumped their tanks over the winter months. I saw how cold it was when I stepped outside for the first trip of the day so this time I put on the Mountain Hear Wear down parka, my ski cap and a light pair of gloves for our morning walk.

A few steps into the field Sadie released my left hand and took off sprinting in every direction possible. She was unconscious as she turned on a dime and moved in different directions back and forth across the field. Was it the cat or deer ?

I turned to check on Stella and I was happy again to see her running. It wasn't important that she was running to meet me. It was important to see for the second day in a row that she was running after taking some time off. I was almost to the point of taking her to the vet for a blood test to see if she was sick, due to her lack of running. She loves to run.

By the time I clipped off a few pictures of Stella, I turned to continue to walk and saw that Sadie was already close to the first turn. She was still going crazy with tracking scents, moving in short bursts of speed in different directions back and forth from left to right.

By the way Sadie was action I thought it might be possible for a deer chase this morning. That was fine with me, I would have let them sprint as far as they wanted or until they wore out but I would only walk to catch up with them. I found out there were no deer to chase, only their scent to track.

Stella ran past my leg at full speed toward Sadie. Then immediately ran into the bushes where you could see the deer had mashed some of them down to ground level. Stella was in deer heaven for a while.

Once again, when I turned to continue the walk, Sadie had taken off for the far right corner and Stella was following at full speed. A first for her in what seems to be in months. I still have not looked back through the blog or her pictures just to see how long it's been since she has sprinted somewhere.

At this point I had to yell Sadie's name. She was on the move and was headed down into the gully. It would be nothing but deer scent, thick bushes and deep mud at the bottom. They can both go to the very edge of the gully but not down into it.

She turned immediately when she heard her name and took off down the back edge of the field. Stella and I could not keep up with her today. When her tail is curled and her nose is to the ground she is really locked into something and pays attention to nothing else while she is on the move.

Stella decide she was finished trying to keep up with Sadie and went back to her own pace.

The field grass seems to be growing by the hour. There are a lot of new tall sprouts of hay coming up. It always seems if they do that second cut in the fall, there are less weeds in the following spring with a lot more hay to cut in June.

While Stella and I walked at our normal pace, Sadie continued to search and explore a long way in front of us. Her nose was to the ground all the way to the backyard.

I let Stella hang back where she was in the field while I approached the house. She came running to catch up and had to check out what Sadie had found so close to the house.

By this time and the area that they would not leave, I was pretty sure that big blonde cat we saw a few weeks ago by the neighbor's woods had paid us a visit while we slept. She also might be a great mouse hunter because it has been so long since I have seen a mouse inside the house, that I can't remember the last time.

It's on the chilly side but it's a beautiful day today. We will get in another hound walk later, maybe even two more. I'm motivated enough to get some domestic things done around the house today and might head to the Chinese Buffet downtown for dinner tonight. Not only does it taste good, it's all you can eat for $8.

I don't know if you noticed or not but I edited my pictures different on yesterday's second post. I was going to say something about it but forgot until it was too late to mention. Instead of clicking the "enhance' icon in the Apple Photos program for each picture, I only clicked the "auto" under Sharpness. That kept the lighting and color as the lens captured the picture but tweaked the pictures just a little for a sharper view.

With today's pictures I did a little of both and some not at all. Sometimes the "enhance" will make the hounds too dark or the grass too bright green.

I called Exede customer service yesterday to verify what I was having done next Tuesday was okay for a current customer. The local biz that installed the dish in June 2014 will be changing out the modem and adding updated equipment onto the dish ... for faster download speeds.

Exede customer service told me I was getting a deal that new customer get, everything was fine and it was correct to call them next Tuesday after the changes are made to cancel my old account number. I forgot to mention yesterday, in addition of a $16 per month savings and more data per month, that on the 3rd month of billing they will give me a $50 credit. That will make my bill only $17 after taxes in July for 20Gb of date per month.

For those of you that live in rural areas or even in towns that have only DSL internet service ... I can tell you living up here on the hill I get high winds and severe storms at times ... my satellite internet has been more reliable than any DSL service I had before. It's very rare that I lose the satellite signal. My download speeds are between 12Mbps - 15Mbps.

That is all from 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

The Hounds Don't See Everything

I was really sorry to hear that two online friends, fellow bloggers and hound owners had to make the hardest decision of all for their two daschunds. Hopefully their memories of all the great times they had with their dogs will get them through this period of sadness.

I can't say much was planned for today here for the hounds and I. Another week has flown by and in a way it's really hard to believe we are a day away from the month of April. Since I cannot find the steel 5" long hinge pin for my mower that I lost last November while mowing the yard for the last time of the year, I headed to the local hardware store.

I'd started by filling up a bag of free popcorn from their old style popcorn machine, walked around adding things to a future shopping list on my iPhone as I ate the popcorn. Just to make sure I headed toward their back shop where they repair any kind of lawn equipment. I thought there might be a chance they had the same pin in their stock for different mowers. I hope to mow the complete yard by next Wednesday before the rains show up.

With the weather last night I wasn't sure if a walk this morning was even a possibility. There was a lot of rain last night, still showing some spots of standing water, but after Sadie gave the field an early morning inspection she let me know the field was walkable.

Cold at 50°, windy but with waterproof hiking boots and a jacket on, it was a nice time to walk. With the recent rains, things are really getting green again and growing fast.

Surprise ... surprise ... look who is out near the front of the pack. Stella even ran a little bit today and didn't "mope" through the entire walk.

Anytime Stella veered off course or lagged behind, Sadie made sure that Stella got back on course. Running to get her wasn't needed today ... just that stare and some mental telepathy.

Without a word Stella moved back to Sadie's direction.

The deer scent was so strong today that both bloodhounds not only walked into the heavy bushes, but Sadie was almost ready to go down the embankment after them. She popped back out into the field when I yelled "No" but Stella still needed to check out a few things before she moved.

By their activity, once again I could tell just how much deer traffic there had been this morning. Yet, I was to find out later that deer scent would not be the most exciting thing on this walk.

Sadie was on her fast pace along the edge of the field. I was keeping track of Stella to make sure she stayed to the left and not go right into the gully area.

Very focused on what she is finding.

But Sadie still had time to tell Stella to get her ass in gear.

Then again ... Stella started to move and join Sadie on the walk without me saying a word.

I am sure the added wind this morning also flipped up more scent than normal for them to investigate. Stella was more interested in scent today rather than her normal natural protein supplements.

We had just turned the corner to head back home on the final leg of the walk when I noticed something on the horizon, near the neighbor's wooded area where Stella has so much interest in.

Whatever it was, it was huge and it was moving. It looked just like that unidentifiable object that Stella was chasing a few months ago into the woods.

It's the huge field cat I see sometimes at night when I pull into the driveway. Or it might be a neighbor's cat, I don't know. What ever, that is one big cat.

Would either hound notice?  If so they would be gone in a second. There is an 'escape' something in the wooded area where the cat got away once before.

So far so good. Neither hound had noticed the cat, nor smelled the cat. I quietly urged them to follow me on the path. Saying "come on" as many times as it took for them to walk next to me away from the direction of the cat.

Stella never veered off the path and Sadie walked to my right ... close call. I didn't know if I had enough speed today to be chasing two bloodhounds out of control. At least I know there is a cat in the area and can keep a look out for it on future walks.

Again the concern is always ... chasing an animal that leads the bloodhounds to the highway. You never know what a dog or cat will do when there is a hot pursuit from behind them. So even if they would get some great aerobic exercise chasing the cat in the field, you never know if that is where the cat will stay. With deer you have a pretty good idea they are headed for the woods.

I am feeling pretty good about starting my 'to do' list on Tuesday after college basketball is over the previous night. I could start on Monday but it's "Opening Day" for major league baseball so I will probably be couch bound most of the day watching baseball and then that night for the NCAA championship game in basketball.

There is a lot to get done this spring and summer, much more than last year. Time will tell how much blogging I do during that time. I won't stop blogging but it may not happen on a daily basis.

The hounds are good here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.