For reasons unknown it's now a rare event when Heidi decides she wants to do the complete .45 of a mile walk through the field. Today was a surprise around 4pm when she cruised through the backyard and never stopped. Maybe it was the great weather with no humidity that had her in the mood for walking.
Between taking a lot of good pictures of her during the walk, trying to catch Sadie chasing butterflies and keeping track of Stella ... I ended up with 58 afternoon pictures to choose from. I am posting more than normal but there were just that many good photos of them.
Like I have said before, Sadie does not hurt the butterflies but loves chasing them. They are much too fast for her to actually catch. You can see Sadie making a quick turn trying to catch just one with two more butterflies up ahead.
Another rare thing is getting all three hounds into one picture. It happens but not much and is usually hard to do because they are always going in different directions, but not this afternoon.
Sadie gives me her best all-time photo for leaping at a butterfly flying away. It's funny how she leaps at them, yet my camera never catches her in that pose.
That orange flower is the one I would like to transplant to my front flowerbed. They bloom every year in different places in the field. Would it bloom every year in one specific spot?
Heidi's nose is just as good as those of Sadie and Stella. Maybe not statistically but with a purpose of flushing out rabbits.
A little orange in an area that is all green this time of year.
The pace is slow for all the hounds. Normally Heidi has hung back by now but I could tell today that he was going to complete the walk. You can see the gradual climb.
Compared to June 2015 I cannot believe how much better she looks. She is definitely back to her old self. I am not sure if it was the probiotics I was giving her, or the supplement the vet gave her a year ago. That vet supplement was the same as what she would give a dog coming out of surgery. She has gained more weight back than she lost in early 2015.
Walks with hounds are never fast, aerobic thresholds are never met but their noses are working a 100mph.
With extremely short legs, Heidi maintains her consistent pace.
That is until her powerful nose picks up a scent that needs identified.
Sadie didn't have anywhere particular to go nor was there anything on the ground or air that she was chasing. She just remembered there was another place that has some of that 'natural protein'.
The "fly-by" didn't bother Heidi ... she kept walking the same speed and no need to hurry.
I think by now you can see how I could take so many pictures in just one walk. We haven't even got to the butterfly pictures yet. There weren't many of them today. It was like the cool weather ran them off.
I am already walking along the back edge of the field. I'll not leave Heidi behind like I do Sadie. She will run if I call her name but I always give her time to go at her own pace. Basset hounds teach you to slow down and that everything doesn't have to be a rush to get there or finish.
She is about 12" tall at her shoulders, so you can see how fast the wild flowers, grass and plants are growing.
With overcast skies you would think rain is nearby but that will not happen until tomorrow and it looks like it might rain all day and most of the night ... if Wunderground is right.
I could barely see Stella still at the first corner of the walk. What is interesting, in less than a minute when I looked for her again, based on the time showing in the picture file, she has moved to the far right. She covered a distance in less than a minute that would make her almost have to trot or jog ... to escape.
Once I told Sadie "let's go get Stella" ... Heidi made a sharp left hand turn to take a short cut through the field to meet me.
Here she is back on the path again, walking the gradual downhill.
Still time for an interruption, with her nose telling her to check something out.
If I were to turn and face perpendicular to Stella she had already walked past me toward the north. This afternoon she did not even look up when I yelled her name ... she just kept walking. She had no intentions of walking in our direction nor back to the house.
Still after 'herding' her back to us ... there was just enough time to look at the butterflies.
At the pace these three amigos are walking I estimated our arrival time back at the house to be sometime Sunday afternoon.
It will be even harder to see Heidi in the field with a few more weeks of growth.
Their noses slowly lead them home.
You can tell by the cut grass of the yard we are almost home, but that seems like a mile away. Sadie and Stella are still checking things out in back of me. They met Heidi and I about the same time we reached the corner of the house.
You might think with three blog posts and a lot of pictures that I have spent all day in front of the computer. Without having to edit the sizes of pictures in HTML, to make them sharper in Blogger I can put a blog post together here much faster.
I also had to ride my bicycle for an hour and a half. Took time to eat and then took a short siesta before the 4pm walk. Of course when I sleep the hounds sleep. Maybe they have finally taught me after three years of retirement ... how to live like a hound.
I only changed the color of the blog template (WordPress calls them themes) ... so it might stay this way for a while. I'm not sure what it is but I am one or two things away from being a 100% satisfied with the way the blog looks.
I keep repeating myself but I can't believe the weather this summer in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... one of the best summers ever.