Stella Jumps At Dirt

Up too late makes a late start to the following morning. It didn't matter though because we couldn't see that well until a few hours passed. At first Stella would not even go out and turned around inside the house. Later she decided it was time to head out for her morning walk. Since it had been raining last night, she took 'her wet field route' and didn't wait for me.

Due to the misty air I wore a light rain jacket but that didn't keep my cargo shorts from getting drenched with the tall wet grass. Stella's face and ears were soaked within ten feet inside the field.

Sometimes though you just have to sit and think for a while. I didn't say a word to her today and let her dictate the pace and direction of the walk.

No sounds, no sightings of dogs, cats, deer, or people yet she had to study what she was smelling off in the distance next door

At first I thought I might be tracking through the wet field after her but she suddenly turned and headed back on the path. I could tell she was pretty relaxed this morning. That is saying something since she is always in a relaxed state of mind until any kind of food is involved.

Since she started by walking on the return path, she likes to cut over to the regular outgoing path right at the corner of the woods. Smart bloodhound.

The path was sloppy with all the rain yesterday and Wednesday, I could hear my boots splashing water sometimes but Stella kept a pretty even pace on this walk. All the deer scat must have been washed away.  :)\

No signs of that AT&T tower this morning.

More nose/scent exploration.

Then suddenly turns and heads for home.

Anytime I walked in front of her to get some photos from the other end of her, she would walk back in front of me and then slow down, way down. I think that is her favorite thing to do on these walks.

Does she hear someone? Smell something? I could see nothing in the direction she is looking.

Another walk is complete. We are suppose to have a day of sunshine tomorrow and that will be a nice change of pace.

Here she is dodging a small patch of mud. She jumped at it right before this pictures but the camera or user was not quite fast enough to catch her with her front paws in the air.  She was just getting ready to take a bite out of that fresh new dirt that had turned to mud. If she likes something she will eat it as long as it is not a dead animal. We don't run into those.

This walking as close to the house as possible morning routine has lasted longer than I expected. Looks like that landscaper I hired needs to show up and pull some weeds.

I can't remember if I mentioned the other day when I didi my monthly measurements and had not logged in my food intake for weeks ... I ended up losing a couple of pounds, the fat calipers showed an additional 2mm but my stomach was the same. Strange movement I'd say and a little surprising of eating what I want when I want for the past few weeks. I can't remember now when I stopped logging my food intake.

It was cool weather this morning with all the windows open. Heidi slept through most of the morning and moved from the dog bed in the bedroom to her chair in the living room, then on to the couch. I guess she was restless this morning.

Not a damn thing went on today. Even Heidi didn't want her photo taken and acted like she was sleeping with her head up.

Looking for action in 'the tropics of Southern Indiana ... it's the weekend !!!

Busy Day Beats The Rain

It was a day of beating the rain. Stella got her morning walk in before the rains that didn't show up this morning. She had a second walk where zero photos were taken and Heidi got a little sunbathing in but was back at the door before I could grab the camera. I needed to mow the yard if it was going to rain for the next three days. I just mowed it TWO DAYS ago. Yet I finished in time since the rain showed up an hour after I put the mower away.

It was another successful day in retirement here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Is It Laziness ??

At first I thought it was just another morning of heavy dew, so did Sadie, but looking at the fields across the highway and the outer edges of the highway I could see the predicted rain took place sometime after 11pm. It's not often we see fog but when it happens it's pretty nice to look at. As far as 'laziness' I call it 'retirement'. Anything not done today can be pushed to tomorrow or weeks, or months ahead.

I told myself last month I'd dive right into my full page list of things to do this spring and summer. It just needed to get warmer. At the same time I wanted to get all of the things that would happen outside finished before the hot temps in July and August. There is still time but I am going to have to make some drastic changes in my approach. Printing out a list of things to do was a start but that was about all it was.

As I picked up that piece of paper on my computer desk to look at those 26 items staring back at me, I brushed off the dust and found really only 4-5 of that HAS to be done this summer. I think once I get started and marking them off as they are completed, I'll finish most of the 26 items before college football season starting at the end of August ... that is when my world stops until the following April after the NCAA Final 4 in basketball.

As I tip toed out into the field of wet grass in my North Face snow boots, I swear that the grass had grown 6" from yesterday morning. With the days filled with bright sunshine and an occasional rain, the field and my yard grows fast. Luckily with the difference in color we could see what path to follow.

Last week before I noticed anything, Sadie sprinted into the woods and down over the edge heading toward the bottom of the gully. As I got close to the edge of the woods I could hear her breaking small twigs and running over what leaves were left from last fall. This morning I thought she might make the same sprint into the woods but as she looked back at me she knew I had her in my sights.

Yesterday morning the tips of the taller grass were barely visible. It shows you how much difference a day can make.

I was not even to the halfway point between my yard and the corner of the woods where we make our first turn. With the lens turned to the maximum 200mm I barely caught the hounds at the corner of the  woods.

It's interesting how the sun, the shade, and field decide what looks dry and what is still wet from the early morning hours. I can't remember the exact time we took this morning walk but it was probably between 8:30am - 9:00am. As usual both bloodhounds are off the leash roaming at their leisure. Actually that is unheard of in the bloodhound breed.

Yet Sadie and Stella along with Heidi seem to know their limits and rarely take off running away. It was 7 years ago this June when I picked up Heidi that had a note on her adoption paperwork that she was "a runner" and needed to be leashed at all times. I did that for ONE day and realized she wasn't going anywhere.

Stella's previous owner that lived on a large farm in Kentucky told me if Stella did take off that she would always come back. I couldn't take that chance with the highway 80' away. Yet after a week, maybe 5 days, I saw that as long as I was outside with her she was good off the leash. Sadie was on the leash for every walk for her first 5-6 years. I'm not sure what changed my mind but she has never been on a leash in the last 3-4 years and always stays in the back field.

Consequently during our morning walk at least, the hounds roam as they wish. My Garmin watch tells me we walk close to a half mile and the hounds usually take 13-14 minutes before we get back to the house.

I mentioned the other day I had not heard any ATVs in the field as I did a lot late last summer. This ATV path going across the back of the field from the north to south into the gully has almost grown over with lack of traffic. I wonder if the owner of the field (neighbor) put the word out the field needed to grow for them to bale hay in July?

As Sadie and I made our last turn for home, Stella was to the left of us taking her own sweet time to return to our path. Once she saw we might get ahead of her, she came walking slowly towards us.

The farmer in back of us planted his field a couple of weeks before the guys across the highway. I am still guessing it's a field of soybeans. In another few days I'll find out if I am right or not. Remember that I am not a farmer, no background in farming do I don't know anything about planting crops, so anything I say is just a guess on my part.

If anything, in the 2 years and 9 months that I have had Stella, she has taught me one thing ... PATIENCE.

Her afternoon walks are even slower. It's funny because she doesn't roam too much on those afternoon walks and strolls very slowly along the path for most of the way. If I am in front of her, she will walk by me to take the lead, then slow down again. She does not walk around me, but right next to me as if she was trying to move me off the path.

Usually toward the end of the walk I can finally get ahead of them where the camera angle is from in front of them instead of behind them.

All the way to the yard, they will take their time and sniff almost every inch. By this point in the field I am assuming they are smelling the scent of the field cat because I don't see any signs of deer traffic in this part of the field.

Stella would like to pay a visit to the neighbors next door. She will stand facing their house on all the walks. It's not what she sees but what she hears, that has her interest. Or possibly the smell of food.

Well the day is promising, sunny great temperatures outside. I'll take a drive in the Z4 and then try to attack just one thing on the list to see if that will give me some momentum. Of course to do that I will have to break away from my computer Mahjong game which I play daily to see if I can complete more games under 3 minutes.

I use the internet a lot in finding how to do those DIY jobs with house or lawn maintenance. There is a lot of good information out there but also some articles recommend opposite ways of doing things. Such as, are vents in the house foundation left open during the summer and fall to let the crawl space breath ... or closed all the time to keep the area locked tight and dry???

Do you put calk around all the outside edge of the storm windows or leave the bottom edge slightly open so condensation has a way to escape??

I saw a headline in my reading this morning that ticks were going to be bad again this summer. Yet I have not seen nearly as many as we say in 2016? or 2015, when I counted over 100 ticks pulled off of me and the hounds in the month of April. They were so bad I put a counter in the upper left corner of my blog. So far this year I have seen less than 10 on any of us.

With the field of tall grass (hay) so close to our yard plus our multiple walks per day in that field of tall grass, there isn't anyway to miss the ticks. I just have to do an inspection of me and the hounds after each walk. I guess that is the price of living in a rural area.

I got bored yesterday and was in the mood to play around with the blog. I changed some fonts in the title and posts. I tried some different widths, trying to make the page wider. Those went back to the original theme width since most of my readers look at this blog from their tables or phones. So making the blog wider would not have made a difference to most. Maybe the computer experts are right when they say desktop computers are on the way out.

Not only did I go back to Facebook a few weeks ago to follow the groups on my list, yesterday I decided to add back the small group of friends that I had before. I don't think I had more than 15-17 of them listed last time. A few told me they missed seeing the hounds when I would post a picture or two on Facebook. They have no time to visit the blog. Each time those photos I put on Facebook are the same as what is on this blog, just not as many.

Some say that dogs look like their owners ... I am beginning to wonder if the owners (me) don't start adopting the bloodhound lifestyle. After all, about the only thing I do anymore is eat, sleep and take dog walks.

It's been a great spring so far here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.