Freezing Cold Temperature Energizes Stella

If you look closely at the post title again you will see the name "Heidi" is not found anywhere close to the word "energized". There is a reason for that and long time blog readers recognize that Heidi as officially declared Winter 2018-2019 has arrived in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. She did go outside in the dark and freezing cold while I poured their breakfast but one second after finishing she sprinted for the dog bed with a sleeping bag and Mexican blankets.

Stella also sleeps next to her during her short nap after breakfast. It does not matter to her that she wakes me up in the middle of the night it seems, at 6:15am ... to go outside. As I open my eyes I hear whining and sometimes a wet bloodhound nose nudging my hand. But that signal is not that she needs to go outside ... she wants breakfast. So she will go outside with Heidi first thing in the morning but stands at the door looking inside while I am in the other room pouring out her kibble.

It's the first part of the walk where she relieves herself, in the field. I could tell a few steps into the field that she was energized this morning. The frozen leaves under my hiking boots were crackling with each step, that only hit wet soggy very soft ground underneath them. No wind makes a big difference when it "feels like" 29°.

She spent most of the walk out in front of me. Glancing on each side of the path in the heavy grass I could see fresh prints from either deer or bear ... I wasn't sure which yet.

When she trotted ahead of me I had a sneaky suspension that she might get away from me today or at least try. She didn't have time to stop and eat deer scat ... she was tracking scent and it seemed the freezing overnight temperatures brought out every deer in the local area.

We change time tonight at 2am ... officially Sunday morning but as I will just wrap up my last football game on tv (Pac12) a little before that, it will still be night to me. I've never been a fan of Daylight Savings time but I understand the reasons for it. For many years Indiana was one of the few states that did not change time ... then someone with enough power got stupid and their idea was passed as law.

Stella did a lot of trotting through the field today. I was late on quite a few shots trying to catch her running. I didn't think you would want to see blurred photos that were too hard for me to see after I downloaded them. Is the Cosequin working? She has almost completed her 3rd bottle.

This time tomorrow it will be 7:37am when the sun is rising to this point. I will guarantee you I will not be taking this type of photo of the sun rising until next spring. Maybe not.

Whenever Stella stops suddenly, perks her long ears up and stands as still as possible, I prepare to run as fast as I can. I am not in shape to do that but you never know. Could she be feeling that good that she would sprint from me like she use to? I don't think she is in shape to sprint either but running might be an option. If she ran I still would not be able to catch her.

She had almost taken off for the far right corner of the field as she turned the corner but made an abrupt left turn while hopping in the air to turn and headed away from me. I was too far behind her to do much but zoom the lens a little further to see her. She started running with her nose to the ground parallel to the back edge of the field.

I thought she was gone .....

When I saw this through my camera view finder I KNEW she was gone.

She was headed either to the field behind us or straight ahead to the north woods on the other side of the field. Sadie took off after her last year deep into that woods and found her. I was so far behind that I was not a factor in the rescue mission.

As she trotted/ran away from the 200mm zoom lens setting I relaxed, picked up my walking pace but did not run, knowing she was headed north to those trees ahead. There is a big vehicle path in that woods so it would be easy to find her ... but I thought I would give it one last desperate yell to see if she might feel sorry for me and stop ....

She stopped on a dime, turned and looked at me (blurred photo) and then went back to the ground to track scent. I was happy that she stopped and evidently my breathing didn't keep my hands still enough for the camera to catch her staring back at me.

The sudden adrenaline rush was over, my cardio work out was finished even without jogging ... as she stayed near the path investigating other deer tracks. There were markings all round us that deer had been in the area.

It's a strange pattern but when I leaned over and looked into those 'holes' there were fresh deer hoof prints deep in the grass.

You can barely see them here but by the way they were I am guess a group of them were heading in that direction toward the gully and the corner where Stella had turned earlier.

Her running was over for this morning. She kept her nose pressed to the ground the rest of the way home.

A different angle of those north woods and a slight touch of editing.

I might think the morning walks are over when I walk into the yard but I don't decide that. Stella had plenty of things to check out before she came to the house. I guess I need to splurge and buy a camera or two to mount somewhere outside so I can see what kind of animals are moving around the area at night.

The after walk routine for her when she comes back into the house goes like this. She will lay by my desk chair as I download the photos and lick her feet and legs dry after the walk through wet grass. Then she will curl up as close as possible to my chair and sleep for a few hours whether I get up and leave or not. Sometimes she is so close I don't have room to roll the chair back to get up away from the desk.

The leaves are going to need another day or two of drying out before I can do anything with them. The problem is there is rain in Monday's forecast. I will be using the mowing technique that I did a few weeks ago where I mowed in the same direction back and forth, blowing all of the cut leaves toward the field. That final path along the edge of the field and yard mulched all the leaves that were left.

I had a brain flash yesterday about how to backup my photos on the external hard drive. After I had backed up the large file I remembered that if I left the drive connected all the time, each day I could move my photos to that drive just like I moved them to Flickr. This morning proved that was a good idea. It worked perfect.

Therefore I decided not to wait to see if the Flicker CEO would change his mind as he participated on the Flickr forum answering questions. His tone of answers were like any good politician and I could tell any changes people were asking for were only a dream.

I had already deleted my Flickr account late last night along with the Yahoo email address I had to have to log into Flickr.

Today is one of those times I wish I lived in the city like those commercials I will see today while I watch college football.

Why???

I am almost out of food and between the time I post this on the blog and the start of the first kickoff at 12 noon for my college football marathon, I don't have time to grocery shop on a Saturday where the place will be packed and the cashiers will be slow.

If I lived in the city I could buy my groceries online and have them delivered within hours !!!!

I guess you can't have everything when you live in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Can't Believe It's October

The day may have been shortened with two afternoon MLB baseball games today, but I had a few things I wanted to get finished before they started at 1pm. It's amazing teams can play 162 games in the regular season and have two divisions end in ties for the leader. These games today would decide who was a 'wild card' team Tuesday and who would start on Thursday, not having to play in a one game playoff ... winner take all. I am expecting these soy beans to be picked any day now. I hope it's next week so I can keep the windows closed due to dust and not have temperatures in the mid to high 80's outside.

Stella is now starting to show how excited she is to walk in the morning. There no "Sadie staredowns", nor hopping up and down while I grab my ballcap ... just a little wag of her tail and some light whining. Once I open the door she takes off for the backyard while I stand on the small porch taking the daily photo of the field across the highway.

I knew before we left it was going to be wetter than normal ... I found out at the end of the walk just how much more. The thing is ... I hate getting wet.

It has been interesting to watch Stella on these walks the past couple of weeks. She has shown no interest in ignoring my calls and taking off out into the middle of the field or to the neighbor's backyard. She might veer a little either way off the path but that is about as far as she goes. Why the change?

Again today there was never a time that I had to tell her "come on".

It wasn't until the photos were downloaded into my computer and I had the chance to look at them to see I had a bad day taking photos in the morning. Too blurry, nothing seemed really sharp. Of course on some of the plants in the field,  I needed a macro lens to capture the small droplets of dew.

I am not sure why I couldn't get this photo sharper but it does show just how wet the field was this morning.

That spot on her head is one of the small growths that was cut off last Wednesday. It was about the size of a tick and has scabbed up over the weekend. Her inner left front leg looks good where three staples were added to close the cut from the larger growth. She gets the staples out this Wednesday. Also after four days of eye ointment, the eye were the two tumors were removed really looks good.

I was starting to take a step back in her direction to get her, when she started walking toward me.

Then she surprised me by breaking into a run where I was pretty lucky getting two photos taken just in time. Her ears give her away showing the speed she has. Although she has yet to sprint full speed.

Terrible photo but you can barely see the droplets of water.

No she will not walk alone all the way to the yard. There is one spot up there she likes to check out before I catch up to her.

The only flower like this in the field this week, on our way back to the yard.

It's another Monday for her. A little time drying herself off, then a nap until lunch. Then another nap after lunch before a late afternoon walk. Bloodhounds lead a rough life.

The first sign of how wet the walk was.

These will be dry in no time once the sunshine arrives.

I hope to see all of these crimson buds bloom in the next few days like the yellow mum below.

Yesterday Stella decided to walk out and enjoy the sunset. Heidi had other plans as she took off around the house, exploring every inch of the way. She actually has the better nose compared to Stella but not as good as Sadie's was.

After a hard day what else is there to do but sleep while setting up. Yes her eyes are closed and she is snoring lightly. The vet tech said her nails are trimmed back as far as they can go and they still look long. Such is the nail of a basset hound.

For those that updated their Apple devices to the new iOS 12 and you use iMessage, it was big news today that there are some issues under the new iOS that texts are getting filed wrong and everyone's conversations are showing up in other people's accounts. I have nothing to fear but I am guessing there are some people across America sweating bullets with that news.

With my windows cleaned spotless, a great job if I do say so myself, I have been able to see if Stella is still trying to escape from the bedroom through the window above the bed. After the four times I have had to go out to the store, library or just a drive ... there are zero bloodhound nose smudges on my clean windows. She uses her nose to poke at doors or windows to see if they open, even in the car.

These mornings are so nice anymore to sit outside with morning coffee that it is almost hard to get up and start your day. This might be might favorite time of year living here. The atmosphere makes the yard grow faster where I could move every third day. Raking leaves will be right around the corner since it's October.

After lunch we did our normal trip outside. Where Sadie use to roam the field after lunch, neither Stella nor Heidi comes close to heading that way. Bother are more interested in going back inside for a nap. The sunshine was a little brighter than Stella liked, so she squinted her eyes.

Once Heidi relieved  herself, she immediately went back to the door to be let in.

Stella thought more about what she wanted to do the rest of the day. Her days rarely change even when the seasons do.

About the time I was heading to the living room for the start of the first baseball game, Heidi walked by me heading for the door not ten minutes after she came inside. She wanted to soak up some sunshine and stayed outside by herself for a little bit over 30 minutes.

But in the end ... their afternoon routines kicked in and that meant siesta time for both of them.

It was too nice to stay inside to watch baseball and not as hot as they forecasted ... so I headed outside to enjoy the weather, even if it was just sitting in a chair.

Another fine day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.