For various reasons I decided today, on all walks, Stella would be on her own. She could go at her own pace, in any direction she wanted and that Sadie nor I would be a factor in anything she did. I was guessing we would find her by the woods behind the neighbors house or possibly heading north to the woods. Either way we would be able to find her. So why the freedom??
The thought did occur to me that letting her go where she wanted might be a way to get it out of her system, realizing that might take a week and close to 14 trips of freedom. More than likely the decision was based on me. I was finally getting tired of saying "come on" to a very stubborn bloodhound. Yep, that was the real reason.
She walked the return path leading Sadie and I ... her normal routine. Like always she had other plans past this point of the walk.
The first one I have seen this year.
I am almost at the first turn when I see that Sadie likes today's policy just as much as Stella ... I turned and headed east.
With perfect weather lately, the local farmers have been working non-stop. They put in a lot of hours in a work day.
I took one last look to check on Stella's location and sure enough, she is migrating toward the neighbors. Would I find her in their woods or their backyard by the time Sadie and I got back?
That ATV path from last summer has almost disappeared in the tall grass. It would be coming right at the camera if you could see it.
It was perfect weather to walk this morning. Sadie was covering a lot of ground in a short period of time. Stella was completely out of view, at least mine without my glasses. I never wear glasses on the walks, with or without a camera.
I thought I saw movement up ahead a long way away. My 200mm zoom barely picked up Stella. She is more in the middle of the north part of the field than close to the highway.
Sadie continued to chase invisible birds and acted confused she either didn't see them or get them airborne.
We were not walking fast but I was keeping an eye on Stella. It would be easy to catch her being this close to her. Sadie had already started running that direction to let her know it was time to turn for home ... plus she wanted to find out exactly what held Stella's interest over there.
Without me saying a word, she did look in our direction, then turned around and walked around the corner of those woods.
Once Sadie touched her nose, Stella started her slow walk toward the yard. As you can see from this angle of the field we had quite a climb on a short steep hill.
Last night past midnight the field filled up with different sounds of different animals. I wish I knew what they were, possibly deer was one of them but then a reply that sounded like nothing I had ever heard since moving here 20 years ago. As I was shutting the door and turning off the computer the conversation was so loud that I thought someone might have pulled off the highway into the driveway and was talking loudly ... but it was all animals making the noise.
The sounded very close to the house, just outside the bedroom window ... maybe it was cats and not deer ... Sadie seemed to have found the spot they were sitting. Still not sure.
Both checking out that spot before they head for the house. Slight overcast today with scattered thunderstorms but the percentages are pretty low for this area.
Unless I can decide just to choose the best photos, these posts will have over 35 each post if I wait to the end of the day to post something.
We took our afternoon walk a little earlier today, around 3:15pm due to the cooler temps. As I had my head down setting my Garmin VivaSmart watch to track time and distance, Sadie took off sprint toward the trees. I barely saw the squirrel scampering up the tree trunk.
Not catching the squirrel did not decrease Sadie's enthusiasm for her walk, she did what she always does in the field ... track scent with a little aerobic jogging added to her workout.
Stella had 'free range' this afternoon also. She didn't see what the difference was nor why it was such a big deal. She followed the path at a very slow pace with just a few stops on the way to check something out. Overall, she did well without any verbal herding on my part.
We barely caught a plane coming out of the clouds on it's decent into the Indy airport 70 some miles north of us.
With it looking like rain most of the afternoon, that never arrived, we didn't really do to much. The hounds slept, I did some of the household chores and ended the afternoon up with a couple of half loads of laundry. No water issues this time either.
After reading the book yesterday putting me in the mode to read more, I have a few on my bookshelf bought years ago but never read or finished after I started them. Temps are border line for the air conditioner but it seems to like running today after it was 12 noon.
Heidi is in a huge sleep mode, only getting up to eat and the short 2 minute trip outside after her noon meal. I guess her inner clock is telling her it's in the 80s again today.
Nothing more to report from the front lines here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.
