Deer Not 30' Away From Hounds

For the second time that I can remember these past few months, deer was so close to Sadie and Stella you would have expected their famous all out sprint after them while baying loudly. Yet, just like last time neither bloodhound noticed. Bloodhounds are bred to flush deer out of the woods and/or to find them after they are shot. It's in their DNA!!! This morning ... not a response and the deer was right there !!!!

It all started around midnight last night as a severe thunderstorms blew in. Since I took this picture in the dark without a tripod the photo is blurry but at least it shows one toad was taking cover inside the carport before the storms hit. One of the best thunderstorms I had seen and heard in a while. You would have thought it was in April or May. The sky lit up like daylight and I thought that bolt of lightning was right outside the window.

It wasn't suppose to last much longer after 1am. I'm not sure when it stopped as I fell into a coma and stayed that way all night, past our normal time to start our day. With a bright sun, winds coming out of the NE it was a little nippy on the walk this morning ... yet after a fresh rain Stella found the grass to taste better than ever.

Sadie ran out way ahead of us, nothing out of the ordinary. Both hounds were into the scent searching mode this morning and you could tell the deer traffic was heavy along the edge of the woods right behind our house.

Stella is walking along a worn path by deer traffic.

In September I started taking pictures of these three areas to track the changing colors of the fall leaves. There are still a lot of leaves still on the trees. The longer we walked, the brighter the sun shined and the brighter the leaves became.

Still ... there was no deer scent in the air nor any sign of them on the horizon. The normal walking activity continued.

You can barely tell from the photo but those areas where the wild growth have been mashed down are deer paths down into the woods or upward from the woods into the field that the deer take.

Sadie was a little deeper into the brush than normal but wasn't beyond excitement. Usually when deer are near she is frantic and has uncontrollable excitement. Not today.

While taking this photograph I noticed something white ... just left of dead center and at the edge of the taller brush. When I took the camera way from my eye that white spot got much larger. Without my glasses it wasn't clear what it was but I thought it might be a white plastic bag blowing around and had become stuck in the brush.

After looking closer at this next picture, I clicked on it to make it bigger and you can see the deer is standing between the hounds, just below the top of the picture or just past the tall brush.

About the time that thought came to mind ...

That "white plastic bag" moved  ... and moved fast.

It is the first time in six years of taking blog photos that I have been able to catch a deer in their horizontal mid air flight ... mid air, yes ... but not horizontal.

You would have thought by now the sounds of loud baying bloodhounds would have been in the chase like they have done in past years. If you were walking with me you would have been shocked at their reaction.

They did not even lift their heads, move a muscle, didn't bay, didn't take off running. The deer had jumped out just on the other side of that tall brush to the right of them. In what I call the 'far right corner' of the field. I couldn't believe it!!!

As they both turned into that area I still did not see any excitement by either hound. In fact Sadie was not even close to where the deer was standing or was bent over eating grass when I first saw her.

Stella finally figured out what had happened so she took off running but she didn't bay like she normally does when deer are in the area ... nor was she sprinting.

Even then she was slow to respond even after she was right at the point where the deer jumped into the woods.

To them ... what would have been a exciting deer chase in the past ... was nothing more than a normal uneventful walk. Neither hound had any frantic reactions to what I saw.

Stella decided it was time for some scratching. You can see today is so much different than yesterday's dark and gloomy sky. I was still trying to process just how big the deer was and how close it was to the hounds when it escaped.

By this point of the walk the deer sighting was a distant memory to me and not even on the radar of the hounds. To them it was nothing more than another of many Friday morning walks.

Stella thought she had found something on the way home. In this area I would suspect she smells the invisible field cat that roams at night, fighting sometimes and keeps the mice under control.

Sadie is looking at nothing in particular. She is probably wondering if Stella is going to end this walk or are we going to stay out here all day.

One last look to see if deer were following us ... they never do nor expected to. It just shows how nice today is even if it's in the 50's. If I were to mow a nice circular golf green out there it would be a nice Par 3 hole.

For once in her life, Stella is waiting for me to head to the house instead of vise versa.

Sadie doesn't have a clue what she missed.

I have started a folder in my Apple Photos program named 'deer'. I don't know why I have not done that before. After I go back and add all the deer photos of the past 6 years into that folder I'll be able to see their trends and when they show up.

It was yesterday afternoon when I ran out of my 20Gb of data that I pay for every month. My billing cycle starts on the 11th of every month so I ran out about 8 days too soon. The main reason for running out of data was during the past month I couldn't wait until 2am to start all of the different macOS High Sierra updates. I did those large (1-3Gb) file downloads during my normal times, thus wasting my data.

I planned weeks ago of running out at the pace I was using data. $15 would get me an additional 5Gb of data. Any of that not used by the 11th would be carried over until I needed additional data again.

A funny thing happened though and so far as of 12:23pm today it is still working. I know and expect download speeds to decrease after my paid data is gone. That is a known fact, a part of the contract. Instead of getting speeds of 45-47Mbps I now get a little over 1Mbps. That 1Mbps were speeds we dreamed of in 1996. In today's world sometimes email won't download, photos won't upload to a blog, websites may or may not load ... so people buy more data to get them through the end of the month.

Last night during the severe thunderstorms, where my HughesGen 5 satellite service never lost it's signal from space ... websites were still downloading fast, my blog where most posts have 20-30 photos each was downloading normal. Another words I was seeing no decrease in internet performance. It was so good that I did a speed test and found Hughes had decreased my internet speeds to 1.46Mbps as I knew it would.

I knew today would be the real test. In the past at lower speeds my photos would not finish loading into the blog post I was writing. So I'd pull out my billfold and buy another few gigs that would put me back to normal speeds of 45-48Mbps. This post has 31 photos that loaded normally, maybe a little slower than usual but they still loaded okay.

I also did a large 3.3Gb file download for the macOS update for beta users. It completed in the same time it would have normally taken. I found that to be really strange and unexpected for two reasons. One, decreased download speeds that should have made that crawl and two, in the morning when many other users are downloading that same update at the same time.

So I have not had to buy additional data yet. It might be my lucky month for the next week.

I almost forgot to tell you that as a test I used the block on the blog to subscribe to my blog by email. I wanted to check to see if it worked and how long it would take for me to get a new blog post in my inbox. I am sad to say it took 14 hours from the time I posted this post for it to show up in my inbox.

For those of you that subscribe via email, is that normal for you ... 14 hours after I post? If so, it might be better if you would either bookmark the blog, added to your Feedly account for immediate updates or look for my blog on other blog lists ... if that 14 hour difference bothers you.

Today will be more of the same activities we do everyday with some added house cleaning in preparation for our Saturday College Football Marathon.

The hounds need to get their noses calibrated it looks like, here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Battle Frost This Morning

With my iPhone weather telling me it was 30° outside I decided to try something different with my North Face jacket that is for warmer temps ... I wore a down vest under it, keeping me warm and freeing my arms to move more than if I had worn my ski parka. With the combination of frost and heavy dew I did not hear the grass and leaves crunching under my boots. Stella enjoyed some frozen green grass before she started her walk this morning.

Also for the first time I turned the heat on low last night while we slept. I keep my house temps pretty cool but I knew it would drop below our threshold since it was going to drop below freezing while we slept.

Contessa made a comment on yesterday's post that none of the hound walks were routine, that each was different. I forget that sometimes since we walk the same path in the same field and seems to be the central point of this blog anymore. I guess I need to get out and drive the local area more, taking photos of that.

This walk was started off entirely different than recent walks. From the start Stella headed north while Sadie and I walked out into the field due east. For some reason I didn't want to let Stella head that direction on her own today. I found out the reason until I came back at the end of the walk.

On the way back, taking the alternate path to the corner of the north property line, both hounds stopped and stared next door and was almost starting to run after the neighbor. He had backed his pickup truck down the driveway to pick up his trash cans by the highway and bring them back to his house. Sadie and Stella thought he might need help.

I had to yell "No" to keep them with me and herd them back toward the house. If I had left Stella on her own I have no doubt that now only would she have been next door but down by the highway once she saw the neighbor step out of his truck.

So I walked over to the middle of the lower field and told Stella she needed to come my direction. After a few steps with me back toward the path, she took off running to catch Sadie and both of them were off due to what their noses had picked up.

I had not made the first turn yet when I glanced down and my hiking boots were completely soaked. It looked like some of that dew had froze just a little. My feet were still warm and dry.

When I see a look like this from Sadie it's time to be aware of what might be in our area and I might have to take off running.

Then I see Stella in this pose and I am almost certain I am going to have to run after them this morning when I am really not in the mood to jog. I only jog to and from the fridge during a close game on tv and it's a short 30 second timeout. I only jog in this field when I am desperate in catching the hounds.

We must have missed the deer by minutes or just an hour. It didn't matter by the way the hounds acted. As far as they were concerned, deer were just ahead of them and reachable if they ran fast enough.

Consequently they were way ahead of me.

About the time I convinced myself that I would be jogging, then running along the back edge of the field heading north ... both hounds made an abrupt right turn into the far right corner where the deer scent was stronger. That was good for me as that part of the field would do the 'herding' for me.

It was at this point of the walk with them picking up their pace that I yelled "Hey" ... getting both of them to stop and let me catch up. Otherwise they were gone.

We were back in the 'walking' mode and the chase for potential deer was over. Their pace slowed to a walk, I did not have to jog or run and we were back to a leisure morning stroll in the cold air.

Stella's nose and ears were telling her there was still something within reach ... luckily she decided whatever it was it was not important enough to take off running after it. I saw nothing on the north horizon.

I have declared my Mahogany tree, a series of 3-4 trees making it look as one (red) ... the 2017 Fall Color Champion. I don't see the other trees making a comeback before their leaves fall off.

With the excitement of tracking deer scent over it was time to head back home. By the way my face felt I was sure the wet noses of the hounds were cold also. That doesn't even phase them though as they are built for cold freezing weather.

I wasn't sure how my photos of the frost were going to look on the blog as I took them, so I took a few different ones and posted them.

The hounds seem to be making the 'alternate' path the normal morning path back to the house. My Garmin VivoSmart watch tells me there is no difference in distance compared to taking the normal route.

More frost examples.

The plan was to mow the yard, mulching the grass and leaves later this afternoon when the temps are above 60°. The front yard grass needs mowing, it's tall enough but this picture made me second guess my decision. I might just rake the small amount of leaves and burn them on the burn pile, leaving the length of the yard as is.

That's the type of tough decisions you have when you are retired and doing nothing.

Could be scent from cats, squirrels, rabbits or even that ugly opossum I saw the other night across the highway as I pulled into my driveway. Whatever it was the hounds tracked it right to the end of the walk.
 

I have had no issues and good results in data use the past two days using Firefox as my browser. For someone that likes changing their mind a lot it's nice to have different browsers, different cars, and different jackets to choose from. My total data use yesterday and last night was less than 500Mb which is good to stay within my 20gigs per month.

The AT&T mail flyer told me they would pay up to $650 for me to switch from Verizon. They would let me upgrade from a iPhone 6s to the new 8's for very little money. I would then have unlimited data for my internet and streaming via DirecTv.

I had seen and heard of AT&T offers like that and already had been told in the past they did not have that service in my area in small town USA ... even with that tower you see photo'd in our walks at times being AT&T. Also, my neighbor told me his AT&T service paid for by his company that he works for, did not work well in this area but works great SW of Lubbock TX.

So I had to call them.

Same results ... they do not service my area with all of that unlimited data on internet, and streaming tv.

I am sure their internet service would never match HughesGen 5 speeds I have. It tested at 47Mbps yesterday afternoon. It's been that fast 99% of the time since I made the change 2.5 years ago.

I've done nothing to the Z4, so I can drive it to the body shop a mile away for an estimate and have them fix the damage I had the last week of September. It's all plastic under the front with a grill and air shields that need to be replaced. I just need to either take the broke pieces off or tape them with duct tap so they can see what the damage is.

A night off from the World Series will give me the chance to watch Stanford at Oregon State at 9pm. I am telling a few friends I am predicting by the end of the season Mike Riley will be fired at Nebraska and will go back home and take the Oregon State job (its open now) for his 3rd different time in his coaching career.

Sadie wants lunch but it's too early, even with her stare down right now. Heidi will come up for air from under her blankets around lunch time. Stella is not ready.

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