Basset Hound Battles Rain

The light rain did show up about an hour after it was forecasted. It was never heavy rain but enough to prevent us from taking any afternoon walks. I think you will see by the photos each hound had a plan to survive an afternoon of "Seattle Weather", low 40's and light rain. Heidi felt I was keeping the living room a little too cold today so she requested the sleeping bag be brought out to her big leather chair in the living room.

PNW Weather Hit's "The Tropics"

While sitting outside this morning enjoying my first cup of coffee, the weather reminded me of those when I lived on Whidbey Island NW of Seattle. It was mid 40's, light misty rain and signs it had been raining during the night. Besides being in Indiana and not Washington, the other difference was ... zero wind here. Both Heidi and Stella were back to sleep since they finished their breakfast and I wasn't sure at that time if any walks would be taken today. Rain was in the forecast for most of the day.

Stella is starting to show her independence again after a short period of hanging close to me most of the time since September 15th. We had just started the walk where she found something interesting,  that she never moved. I had to backtrack on the path to talk her into walking.

The dead ragweed really looks bad when it's wet and overcast.

She eventually started her walk back toward me. She is also starting to show more tracking than the past few weeks. Again like yesterday morning, I saw a lot of fresh paths where the grass was mashed down sometime last night or early this morning. Those paths were not there yesterday.

Once she decided it was time to get going, I barely caught her running when I turned to see where she was. She trotted right by me and then veered toward the edge of the woods. There is a single narrow path that follows that edge of the woods where deer go in and out of the woods.

By this time that misty air was turning into a very light rain, so light that I would not call it rain but it was more than a heavy mist. That didn't bother Stella, she kept marching on.

If you look close there is one of those paths I talk about that veers right from our path and heads to the 'far right corner' of the field. It's the mashed down grass that is behind her. She stopped when I told her to "come on". It was too wet for me to be walking through the tall grass to go get her. I was glad she turned around.

She trotted back toward the path and never stopped. In fact she never veered off the path that passes the two rolls of hay and runs parallel to the back edge of the field. She went into a slow walk to make the left turn towards home and I am nowhere near that corner.

I would pay any amount of money to know what she hears or what she smells when she stops and looks like this.

While I follow the path ... she continues over on the old ATV path, where Heidi was walking the other day.

You can see this overcast light rain weather is set in for the day. As long as it's not cold I don't mind a day like this on occasion. Looking at the trees in the distance I didn't see much change in the leaves turning color from last Sunday.

I was never close to Stella on the way home. She stayed out front and trotted away from me a couple of times. There is one area she wants to get to before I get there telling her to move and I think that is why she is always trotting in this part of the walk.

I stopped to wipe some rain drops from my camera. It took no more than a minute. When I looked up I didn't see Stella anywhere. How could she disappear so fast???

Zooming the camera lens closer to the neighbor's woods I still don't see any sign of a tan tail, which is hard to see now with the taller straw that is also tan. About the time I was going to get my jeans wet from that tall grass by walking that direction ....

I took a final scan of the field and barely caught Stella to the left of me ....

She finally agreed it was time to get home and jumped back on the path.
 

There was nothing to see, no sounds out of the ordinary but she was very curious about what was happening toward the highway. She might be smelling a scent that is in the field across the highway. This time of year the deer traffic increases, not on the highway LOL but crossing it from my yard to the field or vise versa.

Heidi continues to be more active than she had in months. She comes to get me to let her outside more times during the day. A lot of those times she will do nothing more than find a sunny spot and sit in the front or back yards.

This morning she decided the two fleece blankets I washed yesterday, didn't need to be on the couch but on the floor, where she could sleep a little before lunch. It took some time for her to drag them off the couch into the perfect positions on the floor. The clothes dryer collects a lot of dog hair from all the fleece and Mexican blankets, but the hair is hard to remove from the fleeced ones.

With my loss of interest in the NFL games, I'll finish another book today and start a new one. Neither Stella or Heidi was too enthused to do anything outside after lunch. Heidi took a lap around the house and Stella never left the carport.

Not raining but still a little cool. I contemplated whether to take a trip to see an old friend today. At the time I wrote this post I wasn't sure what I was going to do today but felt the urge to do something different. I knew the hounds were going to sleep all afternoon and it looked like the rain had moved on with no more expected the rest of the day.

It looks like I might be raking leaves this week. A little at a time instead of waiting until the end with a major project on my hands. There is always hope that strong winds will blow them out of the yard to make my raking job easier. 

A 'non-eventful' day here in 'the tropics' of  Southern Indiana.

Tuesday Morning Energy

I could tell from the first few minutes of the day that the bloodhounds were "high energy", the basset hounds were normal level. Right now after being back inside for about 10 minutes it's so quiet you can hear a pin drop because they are all sleeping. You would not have thought that just 10 minutes ago when Sadie and Stella were sprinting through the field and playing.

They actual had two running sessions. The headed deep into the field to dump their tanks plus smell any fresh deer tracks.

Luckily neither bloodhound moves into that wooded area. It is wooded for only about 10' and then drops immediately into a huge gully probably 50' deep. Another thing I find amazing is with Stella being that far away she will always come when I call her name ... as does Sadie.

Stella takes a different route when called. She will head north and then to the edge of my property where the pole marks the corner of my lot, while Sadie runs straight to me.

This morning after being on a full run, Stella was distracted by a smell and then decided to eat a small tree limb that had been burned last week while raking leaves.

They weren't done yet ... normally after this sequence they are both ready to come back inside but today Sadie met Stella head on. Stella zipped around her, then stopped as both started playing, something they were doing inside the house.

By now you would have thought they were finished but after Sadie stood up, Stella takes off running with Sadie not far behind. Another interesting fact I have mentioned before that is kinda of weird ... outside Sadie will be the one on the bottom, laying down ... inside Stella is on the floor laying down while they play.

They both ran faster today after each other than I had ever seen before.

Just like that ... they stop and head back to the house to go inside ... sleeping soundly within 10 minutes.

Where were Winston and Heidi during all of this?  Inside dry and warm, sleeping next to each other wrapped up in blankets by their own design and rearrangement. All four hounds did go out earlier in the dark and then sprinted for their food dishes for breakfast. I filled them up while they were outside.

I think they have caught on to the new feeding arrangement, moving to 2x per day, only after a few days.

It's a cool damp day so far in the tropics of southern Indiana.