Stella's Birthday Was Yesterday

Even with a calendar reminder, plus the App "Reminders", someway I forgot to notice Stella's 8th birthday was last Wednesday. We made up for that yesterday with a hand full of treats and a manicure for her. She seemed pretty content as she, Sadie and I stood under the Mahogany trees in the backyard late Saturday afternoon enjoying the shade.

The pace here in 'the tropics' has almost come to a complete stop. I am working with what I have in the flowerbeds. I am waiting for mums to bloom at the local landscape biz and enjoy not having the Yews in front of the house. Since it was so nice outside yesterday I turned Sadie and Stella loose in the field and let them wander as they pleased.

They didn't go far, didn't run off and was more than happy to run back to the house when I called them. They were outside for almost an hour. They were both asleep within minutes after drinking water.

To break up the pace I thought I'd trying something different today on the blog. I only pulled a few photos from this morning's walk instead of the usual 25-30. I thought I'd include some photos from the afternoon or early evening if I took any ... then get back to posting at the end of the afternoon sometime after 5pm or 6pm.

That way I am not including yesterday photos with today's post.

While I walked this morning, Sadie did nothing but thoroughly explore the field and the far right corner. She was changing directions in an instant it was as if she was looking for something but not finding it. She covered a lot of ground by running and trotting until she closed in on a scent.

Stella was on her own exploration and spent more time trotting or at a very fast paced walk. Most of the time she was not around Sadie nor I and only within view with a 200mm lens.

I think that's a sign she is feeling better and getting back to her old self. She made a quick left turn about the time I took this photo. She was trotting to the 'no-fly zone' and I wasn't even close enough to start running after her.

By the time I reached the rolls of hay I could barely see her as she went down over the small hill toward the woods. She was on deer scent and headed to the woods ... until I yelled her name. She did an abrupt turn and started walking toward me ... she had been caught.

Sadie continued her field exploration and was totally unaware that Stella was heading to the woods without her.

I finally got them headed in the direction of home. They headed for the north part of the yard while I walked through the wet weeds, flowers and grass along the path. While they slept until lunch, I took off in the Z4 for a Sunday morning drive before it got too hot. It was only 70° when I left and the cool air felt great with the top down.

The hounds are taking these fantastic days for granted. They forget what it's like to have temps in the 20's and a strong wind blowing colder air on their walks. It will not bother them but I dread just the thought of that type of weather. All three hounds slept through the afternoon. I sat outside and read for a while with them inside.

Afternoon walks are much slower paced than the morning walks. That doesn't mean their noses take a break. They were very slow on the afternoon walk today at least during the first part of the field.

There were a few butterflies out but not nearly the number of them a few afternoons ago. Sadie was not into chasing them and at times would almost touch them as she walked by them with her nose to the ground.

It would be history in the making if both hounds walked slowly together following the path to the back of the field but that has never happened in the two years I've had two bloodhounds at the same time.

I'm calling this my favorite butterfly due to the color. I don't see a lot of them.

I continued my walk. Sadie headed off for the far right corner of the field and Stella found a spot and didn't move.

I have no idea what the name of this tree is but it looks like it should be in southern Florida not in the Midwest. I like the deep colors it produces.

At first I thought Sadie was joining me but she ran past me headed toward the 'no-fly' zone.

I had to zoom in with all my lens had to offer (200mm) to see that Stella thought she had time to check out the far right corner of the field. She had time, I didn't. That 80° temperature was starting to feel too hot to me.

When I yelled her name and she stopped, I knew I had her attention. Now, what would she do? She slowly turned and started walking toward me.

To the right of me, Sadie came running over the top of the hill and acted like I couldn't see her ...

Sadie moved past me and then away from me again. I wonder what she was smelling to make her go as fast as she was?

Again, I don't know the name of the tree but this one always starts changing color this time of year. That is at the first corner on the walk as I take the return path home.

I thought Heidi was going to join us this afternoon. Maybe she thought I was taking my camera, when I asked if she wanted to go. She turned from me, ran and jumped up on the couch. I took that as a 'no'.

The past two afternoon walks without the camera she has come out with us but decided to search the very first part of the field while the bloodhounds and I did the complete walk.

I gauge how rested I am by the times I take to complete Mahjong games. Being tired equals higher times, well rested equals lower times and a lot of them. Such was the case yesterday and today as I did most of my games in 3:10 or less. I find that game easier to play on my laptop using the touchpad mouse to eliminate the matching tiles.

Not sure what's on the agenda tonight. Still not in the mood to watch players trying to make their NFL teams and my interest in MLB will start again the closer they get to their playoffs. Even that is months away.

With stuff done around the house, the lawn cut on Friday, laundry finished yesterday ... it's time to start a new book from my bookshelves. It's just hard to believe how nice the weather has been in August. Will we have a hot September as payback for these below average temps?

It was a quiet Sunday here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

Stella Had 8th Birthday Last Wednesday

I took this picture today of Stella and it turned out to be my all-time favorite picture of her. This look on her face is an accurate picture of her, fits her personality. I missed her 8th birthday last Wednesday and did not blog about it. She is only a couple of weeks away from celebrating her 2nd year living here.



I guess it comes with the breed, but she too destroyed a lot of my stuff when she had separation anxiety. She has not tore anything up since December 2016 during the times I go to the store or to Bloomington.

She has been kinda sick the past 6 months but has started to regain her lost weight. Plus her coat is getting soft again. She just ran this week for the first time since January. She use to run full speed all over the field. I mean a fast run. But no more.

When she could not jump into the back of the FJ a couple of weeks ago, I knew that my suspicion was correct ... her hips are sore and/or weak. She is a great bloodhound and just needed someone to put up with her destruction while she got better.

Her original owner finally told me what happened to Stella to cause her fear. I wrote about that here on the blog.

So she was 8 years old on August 9th.

She is a great great bloodhound.

The Rain Will Not Stop

The forecasted rain has arrived and has rarely taken a break. Along with that, the temperatures cooled to the low 70's with the air conditioner turned off and the windows opened.

That's a pretty nice change from the 'heat dome' we experienced just a couple of weeks ago.

For those that have asked, this first photo that I always start the blog with in the left corner is the field of soy beans this year. They alternate it with corn each year.

From what I see on Wunderground and Intellicast, it looks like the day may be called off for outdoor activities and that will give me a chance to catch up on some domestic things on the list, inside.

From two nights of solid rain, and light rain this morning you can see my gutters have not been able to keep up with the flow of water. Consequently the large amounts of water coming over the edge of the gutter has moved my mulch around. It takes a lot of water to do that.

I have underground drainage pipes connected to my gutter downspouts. I'm not sure if they are filled over capacity or if there is a plugged pipe somewhere. The 'pipe' is the typical 6" dia black plastic.

Even with the light rain this morning when I took my first shots of the day, Sadie's routine is to always dump her tanks. She was trained that way as a puppy 8 years ago and has never let weather change that. Here you can see her searching for that one special spot, while getting wet.

I think if I would let her, she would stay outside most of the time ... yet was back to sleep within minutes of being inside.

Yesterday afternoon Heidi made her daily appearance outside. She caught up on her sleep yesterday, as she does every day. With the rain outside today, she will be getting a bath and a manicure right after I post this. I might take a ride to the vet later this afternoon to use their scales and see how much weight she has gained. She has filled out well this summer.

A 'night person' should never drink ice tea at 11pm. The tea and coffee I make is strong ... at least from the feedback I get from people willing to have a glass of tea or a cup of coffee. So with 32oz of caffinated tea in my system near midnight, the chance of sleep was slim.

I was still awake at 3:15am taking advantage of my 'free data' period between midnight and 5am, by installing some updates and running my Bitdefender Virus Scan.

I had to force myself to try to sleep and shut the lights off to the sound of a downpour of rain. I thought the house might be floating by the time we woke up by the way it sounded. The 10-day forecast shows 6 of those days having temps in the low 70's ... how nice is that? Is it too soon to even think that fall might arrive early this year?

I also made some changes to the blog while I was wide awake last night. All of those blogs I deleted from my list a few months ago were added back to the blog roll. There are a few that are not and will not be coming back. My house rule is once a blog starts preaching religion, telling me what I should or shouldn't do or who I should vote for ... they are gone off the list, never to return.

If there is a blog you use to read from my blog list let me know what it was and I'll see if I can add it back to the list. I will say the 3-4 retirement blogs I listed a few months ago fell into the deleted section and will not return.

Mary over at "Me - Retired" had a great design idea for building a bed inside a van. She and her husband used material I would have never thought of using in making an area for a bed. Take a look to see what they did in their Toyota Sierra van.

I forgot to mention last week while I was getting ready for my 'binge watching', that Stella turned 7 years old on the 9th of August. Her 'gotcha day' is the 30th of this month so I'll do a post about that later.

Two good things happened during my 4 days of binge watching tv last week. I decreased my data usage a LOT, thus getting me back on schedule to where I will not be going over my 15Gb limit by the 27th. It also got my head out of the news, on tv and online. I have not gone back to news sites online, nor have I tuned into new channels on tv.

I have no sites that could lead me in that direction listed on my Feedly account (free) ... so if it's not about sports or hounds, maybe some camping ... I don't see it. Not a surprise how much better I feel not following stuff that I cannot control and was simply sick of hearing about.

I'll continue to 'hide' down here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.