Sadie Still Cannot Find The Black Cat

As the hay gets almost shoulder high at the edge of the yard, other places in the field it is not as high as my knees. With this comes pollen and that is a huge problem for me. There are times even the allergy tablets are not good enough, at least the ones I buy off the counter. Maybe I need to start taking some of that 12 hour stuff. Anyway, all of us survived the holiday weekend.

The highlight of the weekend was early Sunday morning while sitting at the computer, when I heard a familiar sound of a helo. It sounded as if it was landing right outside my window in the field. I knew there was not enough room at the landscaping business for it to land nor behind the trees, but the familiar sound was extremely loud. That could only mean it was hovering about the power lines and other towers that are behind the trees and run through the gully.

I wasn't quick enough to get outside to take a better picture, so this was zoomed through a window screen and did not turn out as clear as I had hoped. It would have been gone if I had gone outside. It was hovering right above that tower for a few minutes, hidden by the tree limbs.

As it turned out, we had not started the morning walk yet. I am not sure how the hounds would have reacted to something that loud and strange. Had I known the helo would be more exciting than the Indy500 I was going to watch later, I am not sure I would have tuned in. All I'll say is about the race ... I'm liked who won, there were too many yellow flags, it took too much time to watch, too many commercials again and a spectacular crash that without modern safety technology the driver would not have survived that crash in the past let alone 'walk away' from his crashed car as he did.

With it hotter than usual, more gnats and mosquitos, and the additional treat of plugged sinuses ... the walks for me were not that enjoyable. Sadie of course loved them and demanded 3 per day. Stella is stuck in the gear for low energy but managed to make it through them at her pace.

Monday was so quiet inside and outside you could hear a pin drop. Very little to no traffic on a major US Highway. The heat, although not really that staggering hot, zapped the hounds where they spent most of their day sleeping inside. Heidi had not moved so long in her stretched out position on the couch I had to look close one time to see if she was still breathing. She slept for hours in one position.

I use to put this view of the field across the highway as my 'starter' picture for the blog everyday. I included it this morning because I found the different shades of green to be interesting, along with the freshly planted field behind it. You can see the reason why they replanted part of the field in the post before this one.

You have the taller grass along the highway that will eventually be mowed by the state highway department if not the local field owner. That turns into the deep green of the corn growing, somewhere around a month old, then the dried out light brown of the dirt they cleared on Saturday which was all under water a few weeks ago.

As the wild ragweed surrounds and covers my burn pile for next fall, I decide to mow back to that pole some say is my property line. 70 some years ago my driveway continued down that direction as a one lane brick road where they could bring their farm equipment to work the field behind my house. From what I was told that equipment was a team of mules and a row of plow blades. There are a lot of fallen trees back in that woods.

Even though this Tuesday felt like a Monday when we got up, it was the same routine I have written about before. When Sadie wasn't at the door looking to come inside as I poured my first cup of coffee, I decided I needed to go outside and see if I could find her. I didn't see anything that was tanish/red walking through the taller field.

Then right at the end of my search, I saw her tail moving in the tall hay.

I don't know if she was tracking the black cat's path backwards but once she arrived in the yard she had locked on the scent. It was confirmed in the middle of the night fairly close in this vicinity, the black cat is what Sadie smells. I didn't get up to see it last night in the early morning hours, but I heard one of the biggest cat fights in the middle of the night and loud enough it seemed to be right outside the window.

At least the cats keep the mice away. Sadie only goes on this search in this area the first thing in the morning. Other times we are outside, the only time she had gone in this area is if I walk over there. With the shade, it's the best part of the yard.

She finally decided that was all the time she had for the search. It was time for her short nap until our morning walk ... all have been quite wet lately and I've had to wear my snow boots to keep my feet dry.

With the cooler temps forecasted, it would be a good day to high pressure wash the fence, the house and carport. It will be interesting to see if I can produce enough motivation to get that finished today. Yesterday I got everything I wanted to do finished, so I have a clean house, a clean kitchen and two loads of laundry done.

Apples free app that came with my iPhone called "Reminders" does it's job well. All of those 'to do's' I am behind on show up in red print along with the number of them waiting for me to complete. they show up on all of my Apple devices so there is no way to escape.

I didn't wash the Mini last week because I thought it was going to rain on Sunday but I cannot use that excuse anymore. That might be the trigger to get me moving in the direction of the high pressure wash machine.

I have lived her a long time, almost 20 years, and it is amazing how a lot of things change while many stay the same. The weather is always changing yet the land and trees stay the same. This photo was taken October 2014 in one of the most colorful falls we have had in a while.

Sadie is telling me it's time for our first walk of the day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Last Day Of Warm Weather

With gusty winds starting early this morning, the hounds have only a few hours of warm weather left this year. I really doubt we will see 70° until March or April after today.

In 'the tropics' there is always a weird winter day where the temperature might be 70° and then snow two days later ... so there is that chance for that I guess.

We hit the trail a little after 10am and it was windy and 68°. I could feel just a little chill wearing a t-shirt and cargo shorts. It is suppose to be a high of 40° by Saturday. You can see that a lot of the leaves have blown into the field and there are still a lot of leaves on the trees along the wooded area.

I could tell that Stella was going to be hanging back today. I didn't even bother calling her, with Stella and I continuing our walk. It would give Stella some good exercise to catch up with us.

You can barely see Stella but you have to look pretty hard. I wanted to catch just how far away she was as Sadie and I made the turn to the back of the field.

It was not long before Stella came sprinting up behind us. She loves running, so maybe letting her hang back isn't a bad thing, at least in the first part of the walk.

Of coarse both hounds headed for the right corner of the field. The deer scat is not just laying up on top of the grass so I am not sure what they are enjoying so much ... because they are 'nosing' their way through the grass to bare ground.

Once again Stella isn't moving and is ignoring my calls to come on. After her Monday situation I really don' t want her to stay back in this part of the field ... but Sadie and I continue our walk.

Once again a 18mm shot just to show how far away Stella is. I think you'll see her about dead center near the tree line.

Sadie doesn't know what to do and wonders if Stella is every going to catch us. I am pretty sure she isn't and tell Sadie "let's go".

Stella acknowledges she hears me calling her as we walk toward home.

Then just basically goes back to what she wants to do ... "stubborn" is a key word in the AKC description of the bloodhound breed.

Once Sadie and I cut across the field toward Stella and calling her name ... she finally gave in and started walking toward us.

The sound of helo's are always very distinct to me. We first caught the sight of it just about tree line height but my camera missed the picture of it through the trees. I waited it to get near the tower and focused my camera in this area. Based on the altitude and the path of flight, I am pretty sure they were checking those high power lines.

Sadie only chases two things in flight ... birds and leaves. When she heard and caught a glimpse of this helo she wondered if she might have a third thing to chase in flight. Luckily she turned and followed me home.

As far as lunch time being served, along with the change to Daylight Savings Time, I think we have come up with a time that will not change next spring when the changes take place again. So during the fall/winter they'll eat around 11:30 and 12:30 during the spring/summer. That is also about the time Stella starts howling to be fed.

Short time outside after lunch. The winds had increased from the morning walk. Sadie found the first two tree limbs to be the start of the 'burn pile' for next summer.

Even with twigs that small, the burn pile will be just as large by next spring.

Heidi made her normal daily appearance outside after lunch. She is hanging in there but no changes in her skin condition or weight. Both do not look good to me but they have been stable now for over a year and four different vet procedures that did not work.

Stella is pretty interested when she either hears Harley's flying down the highway or sirens of the small town police department. Today someone had made a costly error in the high speed they were traveling. Does that mean it's getting close the last week of the month to meet their ticket quotas?

We were able to get one more afternoon walk in before it rained. The skies started changing around 1:30pm, the winds from the southwest were becoming stronger ... so we headed out.

I wasn't planning to let Stella go out at her own pace. As long as she was walking our direction, that was fine ... but no hanging back.

I was told yesterday that these oak leaves are ones will turn colors but will stay on through the winter and not fall off until next spring.

The hounds will always find places to stop and investigate no matter how fast I want them to move. It's their walk any way ... let them go.

I'm not sure what Sadie was smelling or hearing. I looked that direction and didn't see anything that she would have stopped for.

Clouds are turning darker even in the north.

Both of them were on a pretty good pace. The far right corner was not part of the walk this afternoon.

While I thought all three of us were walking along the back edge of the field, I turned to look and saw Stella had snuck away and was headed up to that corner where she would have never come if I had called her. Luckily she heard me, she turned and started walking slowly toward me. She NEVER runs when she has to do something she doesn't want to.

When she is irritated and walks, that pace is slower than slow, as I have mentioned before.

Dark skies to the east.

And back to the southwest. The winds were really picking up at this time plus that chill I spoke of earlier was getting colder.

We made it back with no issues, and the last half was into a strong headwind.

I did not notice these red leaves yesterday while I was burning the bank. This is just to the right of the burn pile that I had.

Sometime around 5:30pm the sky got really dark, very windy but I had time to slide the car cover on the Z4, although it needs one more hand wash before the winter.

We are preparing food for the weekend of football and college basketball, so there may be more games than food is available. My vegan diet continues and I continue to feel pretty good.

Will Friday night be 'movie night' tonight or will it be a college football game.

The rains finally came to 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.