Stella Has Changed Routines

After Sadie was gone in September 2018 I always wondered if Stella wanted to walk in the field because she wanted to or because I wanted to. There were too many times I would have to practically beg her to join me on the morning and afternoon walks, causing me to wonder. She is always changing her routine but recently the change has been huge. This is her response 99.9% of the time when I ask her "you wanna go for a walk" and there's her answer.

Where she use to whine around 9am just months ago to take the walk through the wet field, only canceled by rain, anymore she is sound to sleep at 9am and will join Heidi in sleeping right up until lunch is served. With the hot afternoons I try to walk early evening but it doesn't matter to her. Here it is late morning and the response is the same. "I'm not going anywhere no matter how many times you say let's go"

With lunch served, if it's not raining she spends about an hour sunbathing. I can't help but think those warm stones make her hips feel better or her back.

Heidi enjoys her bed now being right next to the central air vent. With the temps in the 80's now, she will spend most of her afternoons here, next to the cold air. I have not caught her on camera but she still likes to go outside on her own every afternoon, do a little wandering and then lay under the sunshine if it isn't too hot. Otherwise ... right there on her dog bed.

I decided to watch Stella's walk one day. I was even prepared to follow her next door if that is where she wanted to go. I'd even go as far as two houses down if she wanted to check out the water temps for the neighbor's pool. So I stood and watched to see what she would do.

It turned out to be nothing more than the "new normal", her afternoon walk and only walk of the day for so long that I can't remember when it started to be this way.

Yes, the hay is that tall again, where you can barely see her tail. All the rain has been good for the hay growth but the fields across the highway are still not planted and it's raining again as I type this. About the time it dries out enough to get tractors and plows in the field, it rains.

While I was giving her the chance to go anywhere, she walked from the previous photo over to our return path and came home without a word of any kind coming from my mouth. She does that day after day and goes no further than she has to, to relieve herself.

She likes to shake off all the hay seeds and yellow pollen before she comes back inside.

And the "official" end of the walk by walking along the side of the house.

Sometimes her walks are not even what you have seen. They are not any longer than a quick search on the driveway and back to the house. A few times I attached the 25' retractable leash to her thinking that might lead her to the field ... she sits there and makes sure her 85 lbs are as low as possible so there is no way I can move her. Similar to a heavy rock you are trying to move.

Along with her changes to routine, I have seen and felt changes with me and blogging. I admit I love having the extra time to enjoy the day and I seem to get a lot more done around here without taking the time to put a blog together. I take daily photos but not nearly as many as I did in full blogging mode. Nothing official to announce but a post or some hound photos here and there are about all I can come up with.

Both hounds will be 10 years old this summer. Is that the reason for a slower pace summer this year? I think Heidi may be 10 years old since her age is really an estimate. When I picked her up 8 years ago from GABR they estimated she was around 1-1/2 years old but no way to tell. She shows no signs of older age except some graying on her nose and around her eyes.

Stella is so laid back in personality that there isn't a gray hair anywhere on her. I have noticed more crud around her eyes this summer than usual, from the pollen in the air. She still gets the hip/joint supplements 2x per day but there are times she looks like her hips are bothering her as she tries to lay down. No yelping of any kind but she takes it slow and easy to lay down.

Things are good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

It Was A Great Weekend

Between rain on Saturday and hearing gunshots in the field across the highway on Sunday, out of sight (common in rural area), Stella canceled both of her morning walks. We were able to walk later Sunday once she realized she was safe and the weather was tremendous.

With temps in the 40's at night and back up to the 70's by late afternoon, a wet field is to be expected. My hiking boots were soaked soon after we started.

When I glanced outside this morning waiting for Stella to give me the word to walk, it looked like the field had grown over a foot taller since Friday. I could see the path was going to be another morning of heavy dew, basically both of us would be soaked by the end of the walk.

Stella didn't hesitate and knew right from the start that would would take the 'rain option' where she will start the walk on the return path, then move over to the regular path about the time we get to the first corner.

It seems like a Monday for some reason. It will be another day full of outdoor activity. I have a few saplings that I cut last month that need to be cut to ground level. I also will be going around the edge of the roof checking all the screws that attach the gutter to the soffit. It seems like after every winter I find one or two that need to be retightened.

She was doing a lot of smelling this morning, no eating and was on a pretty fast pace for her.

The old return path was beginning to disappear with the growth of the field. We took this way a few times last week in the afternoon so I wanted to go this way this morning to keep it visible. Stella had other ideas

She was following the normal return path that ends up in the north part of the yard. I have to follow her otherwise the chances are high that she will sneak over to the neighbors backyard.

She stopped to glance back at me to see if I had gone the other way and what the possibilities were of sneaking away.

About the time I thought the walk was ending, she decide she had one more spot to smell before heading inside and turned around to do it. At first I thought she had seen a spot of mud she wanted to bite into.

It is official ... the morning walk has been recorded.

A good example of just how wet the field was this morning.

Where's Heidi???

She has been boycotting all attempts of getting her picture taken since Friday. With all the sunshine yesterday she spent most of the afternoon alone sleeping in the grass in the back. If not there she has been camping out on the couch or in her big leather chair, depending  how cold it is with the windows open.

With warmer weather the flies are showing up inside the house. A few other bugs have been seen outside in the carport area and I had two mice that decided to torment me and the hounds for a few days until they were eliminated. I luckily didn't find one in my shoe but did find a couple of pellets meant for them. Someway those pellets were moved from inside the cabinet under the kitchen sink to my computer room where the shoes were sitting next to my desk.

They love Stella's hair they find in the trash after I brush and comb her.

That is about all that has been going on. Since I am not sure I'll be doing much with the camera this afternoon I am going to post this now, right before lunch.

Stella Out Smarts The Rain

It was not a surprise to hear it raining as we started the day with the normal routine. It was "oh dark thirty" and Stella didn't step off the carport floor while Heidi snuck out under the overhang for her early morning trip. I poured the kibble into their dishes during that time like I do every morning. It wasn't a hard rain today but a steady rain.

Obviously the downspout is blocked by leaves ?... it was a clean gutter just a few weeks ago when I checked and leaves are not even on the trees yet. A bird nest ??? I'll be able to reach over the edge while standing on a 3-step stool and pull out whatever is blocking the downspout.

Stella in the meantime had to do some thinking this morning. She could hear rain drops and she could smell rain so she did her normal secondary way of bypassing the rain ... walk along the side of the house, a left turn immediately outside the door ... slide between the shed and car ... thinking that will keep her from getting wet.

She had come up with a plan though after a few minutes of analyzing. She HAD to pee but she hates getting wet and she never does that inside the house or on the concrete floor. Well trained as a puppy, 4 owners ago.

Some way she figured out it was not really raining but the sound was coming from the overflowing gutter with the blocked downspout. She knew there was a way around it.

She needed to curl around the edge of the house, missing that dripping water.

She was successful, staying on the dry river rock and coming back as soon as she was finished.

You will never fool Heidi though. She knows what is going on outside and it's not within her threshold for activity. She will get up when it's time for lunch and not a minute sooner.

I am going to buy two or three more of these but with a different planting strategy since two of them has died due to lack of water the past two winters. This one is in front of the carport and for some reason gets enough water from the rain, although it is still under the roof overhang.

I will move the walking stones back towards the house on the dry side of the mulch, where you can barely see the dead Azaleas. Then plant the new Azaleas where those stones are so they can capture the water when it rains.


My wandering around realtor dot com continues. Some places have been eliminated while a few new spots have been added to my search. Yes, I have questioned myself on whether it is out of boredom, rainy weather and a real desire this time. There is an area that I always goes back to year after year when I look.

Since Bloomington Indiana is rated as a top retirement city, less than 100,000 population until you add in the 42,000 or so undergraduate students at IU, it has been added as a possibility. It has great medical facilities, public transportation, top restaurants with any kind of food imaginable along with sports in the Big Ten Conference ... I have looked around and bookmarked some areas.

If you were to drive over the causeway on Hwy 446 crossing Lake Monroe you would think you are in the Pacific Northwest near Whidbey Island. A lot of lakes in the area if that is your thing. Why would I make the 25 miles move? That's the million dollar question that has no answer at this time.  :)

For some reason I have lost my urge to read books. Not sure where it went but it's no longer there. I returned the books to the library and I did not finish reading any of them. I really think I am in a funk of some kind until my sunny warm weather returns and I can get back outside doing something. Doing the dishes and laundry don't seem to excite me too much, although the dishes are done.

That's about it this morning. I am headed back to realtor dot com see if I can find somewhere new I can research. (Where did the spell check icon go on WordPress today?)

Nonstop rain today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Saturday Morning Showers

A loud roar of thunder and lightning bright enough to light up the bedroom woke me a little after 6am. From what I could tell neither hound moved or sat up in the corner of the bedroom where they share a spot to sleep. I knew that I was not getting up that early again today and was back to sleep in seconds. Would our morning walk be rained out ??

The field was not as wet as I anticipated but it took forever to get Stella from the corner of the house, then into the yard and then into the field. She must have been remembering the hour before when I let her out to start the day and it was dark and pouring rain. She is not a fan of any kind of rain. Once she started the walk in the field she was okay as we continued on with an occasional rain sprinkle hitting my hand.

I couldn't capture this fast enough but she was tangled up in the thorn bushes. Bloodhounds are not problem solvers and their only response to a puzzle like that is just apply more force to tear away. That type of movement has resulted in a trip to the vet only one time in 21 years. Sadie sliced the inside of her ear open when she was a puppy by a razor-sharp thorn.

We are supposed to get almost 2" of rain today but it will be hit or miss as the thunderstorms roll though the Ohio Valley. I hope that does not cancel the Reds game at 2:10pm today. Currently there is a huge storm that won't miss us, southwest of us in Missouri.

Only two basketball games tonight as the single elimination tournament slowly reduces the 68 team field to four teams after this weekend. There have really been some good ballgames this year if you are a basketball fan, some questionable calls by the referees and some exciting last second finishes.

You might be able to tell I am grasping at straws this morning for something to write about. I've tired of the political scene and understand we have moved into the next Plan B in Democratic Party strategy. It's a long way to November 2020 and I've had enough of the political bullshit I could puke. So the tv stays off the news channels, in fact none of them are even programmed in my tv remote control.

I'll glance at the headlines online but that will be about it.

Stella continued her policy of not getting her feet any wetter than necessary and walked just off the edge of the path. I didn't feel the same saturation I felt this last week on the walk. That was strange because I saw more spots of standing water from the storms last night, which Stella and I walked around.

I had another good day of following my eating plan. I could not wait until Monday morning to see if I had lost a pound or two these past 7-10 days so I hopped on the scale this morning before I did anything. It was nice to see I had dropped two pounds and that is right on schedule for weight loss ... actually the experts tell me to expect to lose 1-1/2 pounds per week. I can live with that.

I'm going to leave you with the photos of the rest of the walk and step away from my computer. I'm not sure what I will be doing today. Due to weather I might be reading a lot today. I think a little 'cabin fever' has set in plus ... the words are hard to find this morning.

Heidi has the best plan of all for surviving a crappy weather day. I still say she is the smartest of all three of us.

It's still good though, in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.