Stella's Energy Level Continues To Increase

Okay ... I know this picture does not match the title of this post but she gets her rest when she can ... LOL. That was late yesterday afternoon. We had two walks in the books, one with just the 25' retractable leash, one with the camera. There was a cool breeze and seemed like a perfect time to sit outside and let the hounds do what they wanted.

It did not take long for Sadie to inspect her yard and then head out into the field.

Stella had other plans though. It was a little after 4pm, she had been sleeping most of the day away inside but that doesn't mean she would not take advantage of the hot sunshine. I'll let the photos tell the story but this is her normal process for taking an outdoor siesta. She puts a lot of thought into it.

Sadie is totally opposite. She rarely sits or lays down in the yard ... her nose is woking 24/7, inside or out and seems to be more active as she gets older. She will be 9 years old this month.

She slowly migrated across the backyard while Stella remained sleeping, and slipped into the tall grass ... this always reminds me of the movie Field of Dreams, where the baseball players are moving into the cornfield only to disappear after a few steps.

With the information from Tom's comment on yesterday's post I had to make a fast 45 minute drive to Best Buy to pick up something I had been thinking about for the past two to three weeks. I'll talk about that later after I give it some time to collect data and shows me how accurate it is.

With the temps at 63° when we went out to take our first of mostly like three walks today, I tried to show just how wet the field was with this next photo but it did not turn out as well as I had planned. It didn't matter, extremely wet and the reason I wore my North Face snow boots instead of the waterproof hiking boots.

Again I was going to let Stella go where and when she wanted. Not one time was I able to catch her when she was doing a faster trot but on three different occasions she almost broke into a run like she use to. At the first start she trotted from the house into the field then right after this picture she trotted over to catch Sadie.

You never know what the plan is when these two hounds put their heads and brains together.

Each time I brought the camera up in focus to catch her trotting, she would stop.

She hung back as Sadie and I moved out in a little faster pace. I couldn't keep up with Sadie and by the way she was acting and the sounds I heard in the wooded area I was pretty sure that rabbits were scampering to get away. Sadie is not a rabbit chaser though ... birds are a different story.

With this being our last day of cool temps, I could feel the heat of the sunshine as we turned the corner and headed east.

Each time I looked behind us there was no sign of Stella as I expected but that didn't stop Sadie from looking back in her direction wondering where she was at. At the time that Sadie looked, Stella was nowhere in view. I have to keep reminding myself when she looks this way it's not her eyes she is using but her nose and ears in looking for Stella.

If you look really hard like I did, you will see Stella almost dead center in this photo. I was happy to see once again that she was not over at the neighbors checking out their newly trimmed maple trees.

Sadie was sure that Stella was in our area of the field but that was not even close. She zigged and then zagged looking for her, with no luck.

Once Sadie took off running ahead of me I knew she had found Stella and it was just a matter of time before she would run full speed, tap noses with Stella to let her know it was time to head home.

Stella has moved back to left of center of the field and since we were walking in the sunlight to the north corner of the yard, a little different return path I have been taking lately to stay dry, she was fairly close to us once we walked a little future. She came right over to me when I said "lets go home".

It is still strange to me how all of the white flowers are so small and the yellow ones are not what I consider full size.

This shady part of the yard will be the best later today and this weekend.

For those readers that like following my field pictures and commentary I am including this today. This view use to be my daily picture for the blog but when I went to the different format of compressing each post to have more visible on the home page I decided to change pictures every day.

You can see that the corn planted BEFORE the floods is doing very well and looking the best I've seen. The back half of the field and a half mile to the right is starting to grow. It will be interesting to see if they wait for it to catch up before the pick the corn this fall. I guess they will.

Still no plowing on the field to the left known as 'the field of yellow' nor the huge field behind the one we walk in.

I've been doing a little retraining with Stella using the 25' retractable leash in the afternoon walks. Once she gets the 25' away, I tell her "over here" and lead her toward our direction gradually by retracting the leash IF she does not move that direction on her own. I can tell a difference when she walks without the leash when given that command in only a few short days of training. She had followed that 'over here' command the majority of times before the training but not all the time.

I was going to wait until later today to post this for one long post but this looks like it might be 'a two post day' ... I'll include some afternoon photos and maybe a little rambling for my later post.

Sunny and a cool breeze this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Busy Day For The Hounds

I knew last night that if I did nothing else today, it would be mowing the yard. That would most likely take place in the afternoon because the grass is still wet up until 1pm.

Last week when I was cutting back some of the giant ragweed in the field, the old fashion way, with hand trimmers I had a couple of places I wanted to clear out.

These areas always grow back and I keep cutting them back. Through all of this yard work I was going to let the hounds spend the day outside. I figured with all of that open field they would have plenty of room to occupy their noses. I was wrong.

I ended up using the long handle trimmers the most. I didn't need the garbage can to carry weeds that were cut down to my burn pile in back. Those cheap gloves are still around and still usable after 3 years.

It is kind of an optical illusion but those small saplings, some weeds are growing up through my rock that is on a small bank between the trees. Behind them off the side of the yard is the overgrowth that borders the field next to my property.

It did not take long for me to cut all of that back. I took the first barrel of limbs up to the burn pile on the backside of the yard. I glanced in the 7 acre field and there wasn't a bloodhound anywhere. They were not in the yard, not in the field ... I KNEW EXACTLY where they were ... the neighbors. Sure enough both of them were right next to the lady wagging their tails, while she was hanging her laundry out to dry in the sun.

It might sound strange but it seems to be the norm around around ... even though we had never met, I knew their names and they knew mine. I can't remember when they moved in but his father had lived there before them. We always wave if we see each other in the driveway, or in the yards but had never introduced ourselves. Evidently Sadie decided it was about time we did that ...

After a nice short discussion, they asked if I would be interested in the last of their peppers they had grown in their garden. They confirmed it's hard to have a garden here due to the deer and rabbits, which can eat it faster than you can pick it. I also found out there is no solution to winning the war against yard moles. Also, their Dish Network internet was just as high as my Exede Satellite internet service with never enough data for the month.

Before I could finish my yard work for the day and get back over to their garden to pick up some peppers .... he brought me a bag full of them before I had even cleared out around my trees in the backyard.

I love those kind of peppers and will be including them in about everything I eat. That is how much I like them and for some reason even the hot peppers never give me indigestion.

This was the 2nd place I wanted to clear out. Its where the old fence post is, the one I talked about last spring. This time I am going to clear out to the bare ground again but this fall I am planting rye mixed with grass seed and cover it with straw. It will then look like the area I cleared in April 2015 which is just to the right of the trees.

Instead of carrying all of those downed limbs, weeds, wild flowers to the burn pile on the opposite side of the yard, I made two piles right there that will be burned as soon as they dry out.

The 3rd area I wanted to clear out is the giant ragweed in the field next to the yard and just to the right of our path. They did not cut it last week. The owner of the field would like to have it cut but it's taller and too thick for him to use his riding mower. I told him yesterday when he stopped by as he toured his field, that I would cut it all out once I got my Echo Weed Eater started. He has the same Weed Eater with the same story ... great the first year ... never started again.

Consequently since I could not get it running ... this 3rd area stayed for another day. What you see cut is what I did last week with the shorter handled trimmers pictured at the start of this blog. At this point in time I still wasn't done with yard work and for some reason Stella and Sadie stayed within my sight while I worked in the backyard.

It is always time for a walk though. To them it doesn't matter what time of day nor the kind of weather. They are always ready to go.

This area is a heavy deer area. The deer go down into that gully that is overgrown and into the woods that border first part of our walk.

I think they really do prefer the cut field over the field with lots of flowers and butterflies. They are a lot more active when they have room to run and room to put their noses to the ground and run forever.

With the yard work, the visit to the neighbors, lunch, watching me mow the yard plus the daily hound walk ... Stella found one of the few spots in the backyard with sunshine and took a nap that lasted for almost an hour ... she never moved.

My mower came with a piece to close off the shoot on the side of the mower, to keep the grass inside the mower to be mulched. I've always had the combo blades but I have never used that piece that lets the cut grass be mulched at the same time. It was easy to install and I was shocked at the results. I loved it!!! I didn't have the rows of cut grass that are shot out the side of the mower when it's too tall. I couldn't believe I had not tried that in the 19 years that I have lived here.

Even with it being pretty windy, the skies were again blue as you can see. Very few clouds and the air from the Southwest was on the cold side. The temps dipped to 49° last night and that is perfect weather for sleeping as long as the window is open.

Sadie, being the more active one, spent all afternoon doing only this in a hundred different places.

Stella would probably rather do this more than anything else ... except eat.

Heidi decided she would come outside after her lunch. She never got out of the yard but did a lot of exploring in the front and backyard while I was mowing. I am going to Google search for some kind of dog food that I can give her to help her gain weight. In the past 15 months she has not lost any weight but had not gained any either. She is literally "skin and bones" ... with a blood work test that graded perfect readings. None of the four vets had any suggestions for the kind of food to feed her to get her weight back to the normal range.

By the time I put the mower and all of the other equipment back into the shed, 'the crew' was ready to finally get to go back inside for their afternoon siestas. They had a full day of being outside.

In the meantime I am going to look through this bag of peppers and find a couple that I can use tonight with my dinner of brown rice and steamed vegetables. I am past the 2nd week of my diet changes and am passing with flying colors. The urges for all the good stuff like pizza, Pepsi, ice cream and candy are becoming less frequent as time moves on.

It's nice weather with beautiful days but my allergies are going insane here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.