Stella Tries To Escape

While I was taking some photos of a morning butterfly, Stella thought it was the perfect time to attempt an escape and head for the neighbors backyard for some possible food left out for the uncatchable field cat. When Sadie heard me yelling Stella's name she thought she would help me find her. Otherwise, another nice morning walk. She did stop in the middle of the field on the way back because she was sure she smelled food from a neighbor's kitchen.

The Hounds Start a New Week ... But Who's Counting?

All the rain in Sunday's forecast never arrived. It did not rain a drop. So with lower percentages for this afternoon and tonight I don't feel real confident we will get the rain we need. It wasn't soon after the sun tried to come up that all the white flowers were back today. I saw a few in different parts of the field. Most things I did today was inside and although it seemed pretty slow, time passed faster than ever.

Sadie's lump felt no different this morning, except a little smaller. Every time I tried to get a photo of her right side, she would move.  LOL

A few steps outside this morning I decided I was going to let Stella do what she wanted. She started the walk like she has the past few weeks, starting on the path and then slowly veering left.

Looking at her I was sure she was headed to the woods. I stood and watched as she stopped walking, looked in the direction of the neighbors backyard then turned right and started walking toward our path. I was in total shock, speechless.

I gave her a few pats on the head and some positive praise as she walked closer to me. She is not in that LOL ... she kept walk right past me ... acting like I was in her way.

She made a left onto our path and started her walk along the edge of the field.

Once Sadie got ahead of her, she glanced back at Stella to see if she was going to have a partner to explore with or was this going to be another solo walk. Sadie has never liked waiting too much for anyone.

Overcast, not really hot but really muggy ... it felt like rain was right around the corner this morning. By lunch that would all change to bright sunshine and the thought of rain was just a rumor.

I tried to sneak on the left so I could take a picture of Sadie's right side but she caught me ... and started running toward me.

A lot of the times Stella likes to follow last summer's ATV path that is now grown over. I can tell by the way she is hanging her mouth that it's hot. She might pick her pace up to get back to the house for some air conditioning relief.

I tried some different things today as far as focus, cropping and settings of 'single point' and 'auto focus area'.

If I had a Facebook account this is a photo I would have posted for some friends to see that don't read the blog. I don't miss Facebook and it's now been over a month since I deleted my account. I also changed to DuckDuckGo for my search engine and only use my gmail account to log into this blog.

Every morning walk, Sadie will get some running in.

Stella sticks with one pace, no running and very little trotting if any at all anymore. Last week when I asked, the vet did not feel anything abnormal with her hips and Stella did not show any signs there was soreness in that area.

The butterflies are slowing coming back ... not a lot of them yet but I'll be taking photos of them when I see them. I see most of them on our afternoon walks.

I looked these up on google search last year and named them in a blog post. I can't remember the the names but do know this is the first 'orange' we have had this year in the field.

Stella didn't stop to scratch herself this morning. She walked without stopping straight to the door ... she was hot and wanted her air conditioned room to sleep in.

This is about as far as Heidi went today after lunch. Of course Sadie had to run over and check to see if she was okay and what she had been sniffing. You never know, it might be food.

When I asked Heidi if she wanted to go for a walk (already knew the answer), she trotted to the door to go inside. She jumped on the couch from a sprint and was asleep within 10 minutes.

I ended up buying a $99 Audio Technica turntable the other day. I was guessing my ears at this stage of life would not be able to tell the difference between a $99 stylus and a $499 stylus. The vinyl LPs are old but are sounding great. Some of them have not been played in over 25 years, just sitting on the shelf.

I did buy the 55" TV. I did have it setup and operational by 3:58pm Saturday with the Reds game starting at 4:15pm. That was after a 45 minute drive each way. I am slowly getting the picture the way I like it with adjustments that are available. I am glad that someone stated on their customer review, the tv would need to be adjusted because the picture "out of the box" was terrible. In fact it was scary how poor the quality was when it was first turned on.

I watched a Blu-Ray DVD last night, so that is hooked up correctly since I had a picture and sound. You would not believe how many people on forums are looking for either a picture or the sound when they hook their tv up.

I was able to check the picture for any changes by setting 7' and then 10' from me. No matter what the distance will be, it will not miss the flying drool that Stella spreads sometimes before I can ask her to move or stop her. I think bloodhound drool could peel paint if I didn't clean up soon after I see it. I also saw signs where she had licked the new remote control for the stereo receiver.

Needless to say ... the bloodhounds are so different than basset hounds.  Entirely different.

For those that use to get emails as soon as I posted a new blog post, something is wrong with that feature on this blog. It's not Blogger because this morning I typed in my own email address in the settings of my private blog and got the invite to accept and get my new blog posts immediately after I saved my settings. I did a one line test blog post and got that in my inbox in less than a minute ... but not on this blog.

I have relisted all of your email address that use to have that and asked for you to get back to me and let me know when you received the invite. So far one reader has replied that they have not received the email and it's been over 6 hours. When I added my email I received the invite email as soon as I saved my blog settings.

Something is going on with Blogger in the background.

With no baseball games tonight I'll probably be in the movie mode. Once the hounds wake up, the bloodhounds and I will go for our afternoon walk.I'll ask Heidi if she wants to go but for some reason ... she has zero interest. I might have to carry her to the field and go on a walk with just her to see if that makes a difference.

Checking the weather radar there is not a storm cloud within 200 miles west of me ... so no rain today.

All is good though here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Just Missed Deer

As forecasted the sunshine disappeared yesterday to make room for light rain that started after midnight. That same light rain started again last night. It was still happening this morning as the hounds and I could wait no longer for a walk. With my North Face snow boots on I was able to keep my feet dry and a light rain jacket over a fleece jacket kept me warm and dry during the walk. The rain was more of a mist than sprinkle ... the hounds didn't care.

Sunday turned out to be a very productive day with some stray small twigs taken off the roof and out of the gutter. Within a hour and a half I had the FJ and Z4 washed and hand dried. By the time I did the short high speed run in the Z4 the convertible top was completely dry as I tucked it under the car cover with rain on the way.

This photo here pretty much describes what type of day we are looking at today. Unless the rains are harder, we will get another walk in this afternoon since both walks were cancelled on Monday. At least it is warm and that's all I care about.

With a lot of time spent inside yesterday, Heidi continues her sleeping marathon today, I continue to look at houses on realtor.com out of curiosity and brain cell exercise. I clicked off a few games of Mahjong yesterday under 3 minutes. I am still trying to get all 160 games of Mahjong completed under 3 minutes but there are a couple that I doubt that will ever happen.

MSN money had an article today on the best towns to live on in every state if you are on a fixed income of social security and a pension. It was good to see that a few of them listed were towns I had looked at in my search the past few years, but not the one I'd like to move to. I might take a closer look at one of them listed.

With the hounds having their noses to the ground for the start of the walk I wasn't thinking about any surprises today. That is their normal activity and we had not seen any deer in person since last November yet there has been a lot of fresh hoof prints seen on our recent walks.

For some reason Stella is in the exploration mode lately (weeks) rather than eating additional natural protein. That a good thing and what I like to see. I noticed on RVsue's latest post yesterday, a dog a the dog park she was visiting had an owner trying to break their dogs habit of eating foul stuff by putting an electronic collar on their dog.

I would never try that on Stella since I don't like any kind of 'shock' training for any kind of dog. Besides what I have read years ago on electronic fences, bloodhounds pain threshold is so strong that they didn't feel the electronic shock to keep them  inside the fence. I am glad we have the land around the house that the hounds can enjoy naturally.

Since I was not expecting any surprises, by the time I turned away from taking the above photo, realizing what my eyes were seeing, getting my camera in the shooting position and focused ... the two deer were about to disappear in the wooded area in the 'far right hand corner'. You will have to look close for their bright white tails.

I was sure that Sadie would lock onto their scent and take off toward or into that wooded area. i was prepared to run after her if I needed to.

She surprised me by showing no interest in heading that direction.

Of coarse Stella was in her own little world oblivious to anything around her.

She gradually joined up with Stella and I at the halfway point of the walk.

Sadie was more intent on exploring the back edge of the field like she does every morning. Deer was the furthest thing from her mind ... and her nose.

It's always hard to tell what Stella is thinking but she certainly has the look as a 'deep thinker' most of the time ... even when she sleeps.

The mist never got heavier, there was very little wind and the hounds had a relaxed slow pace walk. With them back inside and sleeping until their lunch, mostly likely it will be another quiet day inside while it rains lightly outside.

It might take a while but eventually they head back to the yard.  The last 1/4 of the walk may be the slowest of the walk we take on a daily basis.

Somewhat hard to believe that April is almost over. We are way ahead of our average rainfall 4 months into the year.

Not much going on today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Start Monday Early

Little did I know when I snuck up behind Heidi on Saturday that I would be 'out of commission' on Sunday. She was doing her lap around the house in great weather on Saturday when I took these first two pictures. That small amount of sunshine can definitely make a winter day feel much different and is always welcomed.

Heidi is pretty set in her ways. I have found that basset hounds are not as stubborn as bloodhounds but it is part of the pedigree. So the times I have tried to get Heidi outside in previous years has never worked. I guess I could carry her from the couch to outside but she would immediately sprint for the door to go back inside as soon as her paws hit the ground. That would be some exercise for her, I guess. Otherwise she goes outside 2-3 times per day/night to relieve herself and is more than excited when her meals are served. She loves sleep.

We took our 2nd walk on Saturday with no camera and Stella attached to the retractable leash, giving her 25' to roam. With all the ballgames on tv I didn't have time to take our normal leisure walk and that was the reason she was under my control. Our 'halftime' walks have to be quicker than normal, yet Sadie gets in her nose exercise and some running. It's nothing new to them for Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

This morning was a different story. All of us woke before dawn and since we did not take any walks yesterday due to my 'sickness', I felt I owed it to Sadie to get started with her first walk as soon as possible. She gave me a lot of 'stare downs' yesterday when she found out I couldn't take her for walks. This morning we found fog, and a light drizzle after daybreak but it was good enough to head outside earlier than normal.

It was dark enough that I used the flash on this first photo and I should have continued to use it. Instead, I had most of my photos turn out too blurry to post and I was still unable to capture the darkness like I wanted to.

I'm sure that Stella doesn't know the days of the week but she is pretty consistent in coming up with a new routine on Mondays. Why I don't know but she started one this morning. By routines, I mean what areas of the field she will wander off to while Sadie and I continue to make the whole walk.

With it feeling warm and the field not being too wet after our overnight 0.01" of rain, it was a good morning to walk. I didn't really know there was a drizzle until the small spots started to cover the sleeves of my jacket.

With the low light and my unsteady hands (evidently) I am posting more photos than normal this morning that are blurry.

With that drizzle becoming a little more prominent I cut off my walk on the back side of the field and turned onto the ATV path. It's not a lot of difference in distance but is shorter and is usually taken when the weather is bad. Sadie doesn't mind, she can exercise her nose anywhere.

This gives you some idea how the early morning looked. Actually it was darker than this photo shows. You can tell the dormant hay is wet. The fog and mist reminds me of my days living on Whidbey Island in the winter.

Drizzle, rain, hail, sleet or snow ... doesn't matter to Sadie. Tracking the field is like me needing coffee.

It will be interesting to see if this will be Stella's new area for the next few weeks, during the times I let her hang back on her own. It's not new territory for her, she has always roamed over by the woods behind the neighbor's house but it's been months since she has wandered to this area.

Of course she is not going to come while I call her. It's Monday and she is always more stubborn on that day of the week, than other days. It is not too far off our alternate path but she did not move until I walked right up to her, then she gleefully trotted away to the path without me saying a word.

Sadie in the meantime was bring up the rear as Stella and I moved out on the path home.

Both hounds will keep searching right up to the yard but once their paws hit the grass they know the walk is over and the next thing on their agenda is a nap until their lunch. Unless there is scent of the field cat or deer.

It looks like Stella is ready for another new week. College football has started it's Bowl games and will now start being on tv every day/night from now until after the start of the new year. The routines of the hounds will not change but there might be a few more of those 'halftime' walks, that is at a little faster pace. I love this time of year being the sports junkie that I am.

Evidently no cat scent in the yard this morning since both hounds ran for the house once they walked into the yard. Or it could have been that drizzle becoming a little stronger that made them a little more motivated to get back inside.

I read a little about this new law they are passing about Net Neutrality. I won't go into detail but from what I have read, it will take up to a year or longer before it goes into action. It will probably be delayed even longer due to all the appeals held up in court. All of the major internet service providers have come out with statements saying they will NOT be making the changes the media is suggesting as a worse case scenario.

That means they are saying the internet will remain fast and open for all. That they will NOT prevent certain websites from showing up on your computer nor will they charge you more money for faster speeds with plans similar to your tv programming. Yet, in today's climate I find it hard to trust anything that large companies tell us. So, sometime years from now we will find out if they are telling us the truth. I will never pay on a tier system for faster internet speeds.

It always surprises me when the counter in my camera flips to 0001 to start another 10,000 photos.

Not much planned today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.