Stella Supervises A Busy Friday

It was cold enough Thursday night after midnight that I had to shut the windows while we slept. The hounds don't like 47°. I left the small kitchen window open just for a little air flow. I forgot today was Friday but with cool temps predicted I had a couple of things on my list I wanted to get finished today. It went so smooth that I was finished by 1:30pm.

I guess this is a sign it's near October ??

I do much better with plants buying them after they have grown instead of trying to grow them.

Stella was ready to walk this morning. She woke from her sleep when she heard me about to leave and actually whined with excitement.

Snow boots were in order to keep my feet dry so my cargo shorts could get wet as we walked through the very wet grass. I actually had to break down and put on a sweatshirt for the walk.

Stella was into hunting for deer scat this morning ... but I stopped her from eating it each time she found it.

She follows the path most of the time.

And ... she has not taken off on me while off the leash.

The path is hard to see but she will follow it every walk we take. There are certain spots in the field that she has to go check out something but lately not too far off the path.

You can barely see the water droplets.

This is the exact spot that Heidi was sniffing yesterday. I forgot to post her photos here but I did post them on my Wordpress blog that's on this blog sidebar

I am not sure if it is a cat or a raccoon.

This was the first thing on the list this morning. It is just a small pile to move by hand. Next week I will have him dump a tractor bucket full right on the new pile I make today by the fence.

The picture does not really show the steepness of the erosion. Anyway that is the spot that I am going to put the rip rap rock. Why not use a wheelbarrow to move the stone?? I figured it would be about the same amount of time to move the rock by hand as it would to dig out the wheelbarrow that is in the very back of my small organized carport shed.

Stella assumed her supervisory position.

A good start.

She decided that she would follow me back and forth from the pile of rock to the fence. I didn't think she would last that long ....

And I was right ... a few minutes later she decided sleeping in the sun was the better option.

Asking if I am finished. She had things to do inside, like eat lunch, no matter that it was just a few minutes after 11am.

I started that rock job at 10:50am and finished at 11:12am.

The next thing on my list was washing windows. Not only the inside and outside of the regular windows but the two windows in each storm window. About an hour later when I was down to the last two bedroom windows, here comes Heidi heading for the door to be let outside. She walked across the yard to 'her' spot and soaked up some sunshine for a while.

Believe it or not that mailbox pole is NOT wobbly ... it is solid ... thanks to the great job of the Indiana Highway Dept 13 (joking) years ago when they had to move it further back after they widened the highway shoulder.

By 1:30 I was finished with my window 'washing' project and was enjoying the shade. At first I thought Stella might be exploring new ground in territory she is not allowed. I really don't want her in the front yard just in case there is a rabbit, a stray dog etc ... that she could chase and end up in the highway. All the years living here, Heidi has been the only hound allowed to be in the front yard.

Stella was only sniffing for the best place to take a short nap to catch that early afternoon sun in the western sky.

Once that mum blooms, it's going to be all crimson flowers.

Stella was eventually end up like this on the couch tonight while I watch the UCLA at Colorado football game. This photo was taken last night with my iPhone 8+ in low light. I did not edit any part of the photo.

Around 3:30pm I got some good news. An email from my TV ad on Craig's List and sold my Samsung 46" that was replaced a few months ago with the Sony 55". I added some new batteries for the remote and one HDMI cable to the package. I still had the owners manual in a drawer with all the other owner manuals. The buyer is getting a good deal and I am getting the TV out of the living room, while not being used.

I've rarely had any good luck with Craig's List.

A beautiful day 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.