The Hounds Have a Bad Day

Wow ... what a day. So much happened today I am not sure where to start.

The weather was fantastic and we spent most of the day outside ... well, not all of us and I'll get to that.

After lunch was served we headed out for our daily walk with Heidi staying back at the house protecting the yard and hopefully would find my missing steel hinge pin for my lawn mower. The walk started out normal and I decided I'd take and post as many pictures with the camera lens set at 200mm.

I decided by the first turn, with Stella stopping at her normal spot recently, that I was going to let them do whatever they wanted and I was going to walk nonstop. That would turn out to be a bad decision but one that I had been doing at least the past 5 years !!!!

Still going normal at this time and I was not aware of what would be happening for the last half of the walk.

Stella decided to run to catch up with Sadie. I was already veering left, following the path to the back edge of the field. The hounds were headed for the far right corner where what I call the 'deer highway' is located.

I have walked the edge of the field in back and when I took this picture I was about to make the final turn heading home. I could tell by Sadie not running toward me that they might not join me for a while but probably would before getting out of their sight.

I knew for a fact that when Sadie looked right at me and didn't come running like she normally did ... most likely the hounds were moving into "new territory" ... they were NOT going to catch up to me. I just had a gut feeling I would be sitting in my chair outside at the house waiting for them.

Getting closer to home ... no sign of the hounds.

Another 50' closer to home, no signs of the hounds.

I got back home, pulled up my chair and waited for the hounds. I really thought when I lifted the camera and focused at the corner I would see them running home. Once again I was wrong. In fact I was really wrong.

After 5 more minutes, no sign of the hounds and now I am a little concerned. I wasn't going to walk all the way back to the field, so I hopped into the FJ without my camera. They were still at the back right corner doing what the pictures were showing before. They were startled when they saw my FJ or most likely it was 'a vehicle' ... they didn't know it was me.

Once Sadie saw me turn around to go home. BOTH HOUNDS STARTED RUNNING BEHIND THE FJ !!! They ran nonstop and as hard as they could. So I guess one good thing out of this is they had some nice exercise.

I didn't consider this to be a good experience for them. Back to that theory "you give them an inch they will take a mile" and will try to do that again in the future. They will always try to stretch their boundary.

With the winds pretty calm and blowing toward my property and not the neighbor's I decided to burn my pile of tree limbs. I stretched the hose out from the house and found out that it reached all the way to the pile. I didn't need another hose to add to the one I had.

I stood there with the hose next to me and the water turned on, plus a rake. Since Stella kept wandering off I put her on the tether anchored in the field. That didn't matter since she moved into the yard and slept most of the time sleeping in the sunshine.

There was a reason I had to tether her.

Now the 2nd bad thing of the day happened. While starting the fire, Sadie and Stella headed into the woods behind that fire. The had NEVER been in that area ... ever. That woods follows the neighbor's property out to a country road. The woods is pretty deep and thick, walkable but not real good since the ground stays wet and muddy most of the time.

I made sure the fire was under control and headed into the woods calling their names. By this time I am pretty pissed about the whole day of having bloodhounds. They have really tested me on this last excursion.

Once again, Sadie stopped looked right at me and then turned and kept walking away from me ignoring my calls. Stella understood my tone of voice so she started coming toward me. Or it might have been the cussing I was doing.

So Stella was attached to the tether where she slept outside most of the afternoon. I moved Sadie inside with a pretty stern lecture between the woods and inside the house. I doubt if she cared. I snuck around and looked in the windows since she had free run of the house. She and Heidi were sleeping on the dog bed in the corner of the bedroom.

So much for the lecture.

I ended up burning the bank just to the right of this burn pile with hopes of burning all of the dead ragweed and leaves. I was able to clear most of that area but it did not burn as hot as I expected and some was left behind. After I made sure that all the simmering pieces of wood were put out with water ... the hounds and I took a walk.

Sadie obeyed every one of my comments while Stella was on the 25' retractable leash. Neither one of them tried to veer to the famous spot of the far right corner of the field this time.

So Heidi wins the "Hound of the Day" award today. It was great weather with Thursday and Friday being even better with temps in the 70's before it falls with highs in the 40's on Saturday.

A rough day for the hounds here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Hounds Enjoy A Day Off

After the big day yesterday fighting fires ... there were no plans for today except kick back and relax.

That sounded good over coffee but it wasn't long before Sadie demanded to take the morning walk.


The temps (low 70's) are perfect and they look to continue for the next week or so ... except for tomorrow where the high will be 59°. Sadie was more than happy to get started and always starts the walks by grabbing my left hand by her mouth as if she were leading me out into the field.

Stella veered off left almost immediately but was only looking for a spot to dump her tanks ... then ran back to join Sadie.

Recently there seems to be a lot more scents making them more active. When I see them moving like that I make sure my camera is ready to take any pictures of deer jumping out of the woods or running in back of the field.

I let both hounds roam without calling them. At the point where we turn to head home, I stood and waited for them to finished their exploring.

Before I turned around, Stella was trying to sneak off into the 'no fly zone' ... yet, she came immediately when I called her.

With Heidi back at home outside I decided to check Sadie to see if she could find her when I asked "where's Heidi".

I could see Heidi up by the trees wagging her tail when she saw us. She will not go on walks with us but likes to hang out in that part of the yard while we are gone.

Sadie meets Heidi.

Here Stella thinks she is going to escort Heidi back inside but Heidi had other ideas.

The sky looked like rain was on the way. The radar showed some small storms a state away so I figured I had time to rake the leaves from the bank or fence line up to the middle of the gravel driveway ... where I burned them. There wasn't much of a chance of the fire spreading, in the middle of gravel ... but I did keep my eye on it.

Since there are still a lot of leaves on the trees I am not concerned about getting every leaf right now. It was good we burned them when we did because by 2:15pm it was pouring rain.

Some suggested I brush the hounds weekly to cut down on the amount of dog hair caught in the FJ. I use two tools on all three hounds. Sadie has the softest coat of all and I can practically brush her non-stop with the rake and the mitt, never running out of hair. There is not one time I move that rake lightly through her coat that I don't get some excess hair out of her.

Heidi rarely sheds any hair and it doesn't matter what the season is. Using the rake very lightly across her coat, I might get just enough to cover the tips of those metal prongs ... with the mitt, close to zero amount of hair.

Stella loves to lay down and get brushed anytime that I want. For some reason she also rarely sheds hair. If I run the mitt across her coat multiple times ... I get nothing. If I move the rake across her coat a few times lightly ... I will not even fill the rake with hair.

Sadie is the dog hair culprit in the FJ.

We are going to wait a few hours to see if it dries out a little more before we take an afternoon walk. Last night our 2nd walk of the day included the 25' retractable leash on Stella and no camera.

As I write this it's a little past 4pm and I can feel a siesta coming on.

Another good day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

A Very Exciting Day

For a day where nothing was planned the hounds and I had a lot of activity, some excitement and a few answers.

I'm not sure where to start but I can say my first trip outside this morning Sadie and Stella went no further than this before they started heading back inside.

From the overcast skies, their lack of ambition and me not having my morning coffee yet ... it didn't seem like much was going to happen today. I'll give you a hint though ... wind and fire don't mix!!

By 10:30 I had two cups of coffee moving through my system, activating all my nerve endings, getting good blood flow and my brain waking up as those brain cells reacted to the caffeine in my system. It was time for our first walk of the day.

I could still feel the winds kicking up at 10-15mph, it was warm but not uncomfortable. It was going to be a good day.

Stella decided to deviate from the normal path and head to the left ... the far left ... although today she came toward our direction, without hesitation, the few times I had to call her.

She and Sadie met up before the first turn. I didn't see any deer but I could hear tree limbs breaking down in that gully to the right. I was preparing myself to get ready for some great photos ... thinking a deer chase was near.

It certainly looked like the pair was on to something.

No matter how hot the action is, when you have an itch ... you have to scratch it.

As we moved up near the far right corner of the field ... there was no action ... there was no deer chase ... in fact both hounds backtracked their way just to make sure they had not missed anything.

I think this is about as close I am going to get to some nice color this year for fall leaves.

All of us had made the last turn to head home ... when all of the sudden, Sadie took off to the left and was moving in all different directions, faster than my picture taking ability could keep up.

She gave up and decided nothing was there. I glanced toward the house today and I was certain that I did not see that much leaf color yesterday and they might not be there tomorrow with a prediction of rain ... so I decided to capture some history just in case.

As I continued to walk to the house the hounds continued to veer far right. They were on their own path home. Since I was going to back the FJ out, drag out my leaf blowers/vacuums from the shed ... I didn't mind them taking their time on the way home.

I came up with an idea to cover folded down backseats in the FJ, not only to protect them but hopefully to control the amount of dog hair getting on the seats. At first I had a pretty colorful Mexican blanket laid across the back of the seats ... that was until I was looking in closet for a 50' extension cord.

There is sat, in a different closet from the other Mexican blankets ... a blanket with colors that matched the FJ. Since the blanket matched I was now positive I would not be trading it in for a silver one. Later on I confirmed it, because I also found where that strange noise was coming from, that I mentioned over the weekend.

It might not make a difference but I hope to keep the dog hair from getting in between those seats that are folded. Also there is a felt type material on the back of those seats and that material is like a dog hair magnet ... so we will see how that works out.

Of coarse we had to check it out and take short test drive. Sadie was so excited about riding the FJ again she was beside herself with excitement. She practically ran over Stella and jumped over Heidi as she hopped up and down in front of me as we moved toward the FJ.

The short test ride worked out well. Heidi was in the front passenger seat looking out the open window. The two bloodhounds were in the back and within a couple of miles both were laying down.

That was not the excitement of the day though ... remember ... fire and wind?

With the strong winds yesterday from the south instead of the normal southwest .. a lot of leaves had collected along the back of the house and in the small side yard on the north side. I decided with a leave blower I'd blow all of them "with the wind" and eventually get them down close to the highway to let normal traffic flow and southern winds to blow them out of my yard.

The first part worked great ... I had moved a large pile of leaves down along the side of the front yard. Sadie and Stella sat and watched the whole evolution. About the time I started blowing them a little closer to the highway .... for some strange reason I decided to burn them.

I convinced Sadie and Stella they needed to stay inside while I burned the leaves I had moved to the lower front yard. Without that 2nd water hose I had nothing for fire control except a garden rake. I had a plan as I stood in the field to watch the fire progress.

I had been wanting to burn the brush on the north side of the yard for many years but never took the time to do it. So it was good to get the bank cleared along with my small pile of leaves that were in the front yard.

My plan was to walk along the fire line between the field and the brush area and push burning leaves back into the area that was already burned. That was keeping the fire from spreading into the field.

The previous picture and the next picture, I am standing in my front yard facing the direction the fire was moving.

I was able to keep the fire from moving down the bank toward the highway. Although both neighbors burn their banks every spring from their yards down to the edge of the highway shoulder.

It was a little exciting as I was in the middle of the brush fire, pushing the fire line back into the burned area ... at the same time that fire was migrating to my right down the bank slowly toward the highway and also to my left through the trees on the opposite end of the fire, approximately 60'-80' away.

This shows how much the fire moved among the trees along my fence toward the field in back. I was walking in that brush trying to push what burning leaves and brush I could, back into the burned area to keep the fire from spreading with my garden rake. I was also using the old technique of stepping on the fire with my old expensive New Balance shoes that were designated "yard shoes' years ago. All without my water hoses.

That burned area got as far as the right side of the picture below or almost three sections of fence ... opposite direction from the fire moving down the bank toward the highway.

 
Remember when I spoke of my relationship with 'Murphy's Law" the other day ... maybe yesterday??? well as I was working the fire line .. I pulled my rake through some thick burning brush .... MY RAKE HANDLE BROKE????

So all I had left to control the fire were my shoes. By this time I was almost finished anyway but I still had fire moving toward the highway and in the opposite end 80 feet away toward the field in back !!

So a small pile of leaves, this side of that burned area, that curls out into the yard ... and one match ... with off and on wind gusts ... burned that much area.

There were a few good things that came out of all of this ....

The leaves were gone. That area among the trees I had wanted to burn for 10 years or more was finally burned. The field did NOT catch on fire. I did NOT catch on fire and no passing cars caught on fire .... so all of that was good.

Yet ... the best is yet to come.

Since I was filthy with fire smoke, black fire soot on my legs and a little on my face ... I was dirty enough that I could crawl under my Toyota FJ while it was running with hopes of finding what that 'strange noise' was. The one that I have been hearing off and on for many months.

I also wanted to check out something that I thought might be the culprit of the dash warning lights I spoke of the other day.

The catalytic converters are shot ... wore out. Sometimes the one in front would make a vibrating sound on the inside while the engine idled. From what I have previously read that is also why I have the check engine light. It is also the 'strange noise' I have been hearing sometimes but not all the time.

I was scared it was a transmission noise, so I am glad it's an expensive catalytic converter repair instead of a more expensive transmission repair. If those are bad I am sure the O2 Sensors are bad, thus the reason for the codes the reader found for O2 Senors.

By 2:15pm, I was clean, I had my FJ answers and a new blanket that matched the FJ colors so the hounds could ride in back again and the fire only burned what I wanted it to burn .... plus the hounds were sleeping in preparation of their late afternoon walk.

An interesting, successful day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.