Deer Not 30' Away From Hounds

For the second time that I can remember these past few months, deer was so close to Sadie and Stella you would have expected their famous all out sprint after them while baying loudly. Yet, just like last time neither bloodhound noticed. Bloodhounds are bred to flush deer out of the woods and/or to find them after they are shot. It's in their DNA!!! This morning ... not a response and the deer was right there !!!!

It all started around midnight last night as a severe thunderstorms blew in. Since I took this picture in the dark without a tripod the photo is blurry but at least it shows one toad was taking cover inside the carport before the storms hit. One of the best thunderstorms I had seen and heard in a while. You would have thought it was in April or May. The sky lit up like daylight and I thought that bolt of lightning was right outside the window.

It wasn't suppose to last much longer after 1am. I'm not sure when it stopped as I fell into a coma and stayed that way all night, past our normal time to start our day. With a bright sun, winds coming out of the NE it was a little nippy on the walk this morning ... yet after a fresh rain Stella found the grass to taste better than ever.

Sadie ran out way ahead of us, nothing out of the ordinary. Both hounds were into the scent searching mode this morning and you could tell the deer traffic was heavy along the edge of the woods right behind our house.

Stella is walking along a worn path by deer traffic.

In September I started taking pictures of these three areas to track the changing colors of the fall leaves. There are still a lot of leaves still on the trees. The longer we walked, the brighter the sun shined and the brighter the leaves became.

Still ... there was no deer scent in the air nor any sign of them on the horizon. The normal walking activity continued.

You can barely tell from the photo but those areas where the wild growth have been mashed down are deer paths down into the woods or upward from the woods into the field that the deer take.

Sadie was a little deeper into the brush than normal but wasn't beyond excitement. Usually when deer are near she is frantic and has uncontrollable excitement. Not today.

While taking this photograph I noticed something white ... just left of dead center and at the edge of the taller brush. When I took the camera way from my eye that white spot got much larger. Without my glasses it wasn't clear what it was but I thought it might be a white plastic bag blowing around and had become stuck in the brush.

After looking closer at this next picture, I clicked on it to make it bigger and you can see the deer is standing between the hounds, just below the top of the picture or just past the tall brush.

About the time that thought came to mind ...

That "white plastic bag" moved  ... and moved fast.

It is the first time in six years of taking blog photos that I have been able to catch a deer in their horizontal mid air flight ... mid air, yes ... but not horizontal.

You would have thought by now the sounds of loud baying bloodhounds would have been in the chase like they have done in past years. If you were walking with me you would have been shocked at their reaction.

They did not even lift their heads, move a muscle, didn't bay, didn't take off running. The deer had jumped out just on the other side of that tall brush to the right of them. In what I call the 'far right corner' of the field. I couldn't believe it!!!

As they both turned into that area I still did not see any excitement by either hound. In fact Sadie was not even close to where the deer was standing or was bent over eating grass when I first saw her.

Stella finally figured out what had happened so she took off running but she didn't bay like she normally does when deer are in the area ... nor was she sprinting.

Even then she was slow to respond even after she was right at the point where the deer jumped into the woods.

To them ... what would have been a exciting deer chase in the past ... was nothing more than a normal uneventful walk. Neither hound had any frantic reactions to what I saw.

Stella decided it was time for some scratching. You can see today is so much different than yesterday's dark and gloomy sky. I was still trying to process just how big the deer was and how close it was to the hounds when it escaped.

By this point of the walk the deer sighting was a distant memory to me and not even on the radar of the hounds. To them it was nothing more than another of many Friday morning walks.

Stella thought she had found something on the way home. In this area I would suspect she smells the invisible field cat that roams at night, fighting sometimes and keeps the mice under control.

Sadie is looking at nothing in particular. She is probably wondering if Stella is going to end this walk or are we going to stay out here all day.

One last look to see if deer were following us ... they never do nor expected to. It just shows how nice today is even if it's in the 50's. If I were to mow a nice circular golf green out there it would be a nice Par 3 hole.

For once in her life, Stella is waiting for me to head to the house instead of vise versa.

Sadie doesn't have a clue what she missed.

I have started a folder in my Apple Photos program named 'deer'. I don't know why I have not done that before. After I go back and add all the deer photos of the past 6 years into that folder I'll be able to see their trends and when they show up.

It was yesterday afternoon when I ran out of my 20Gb of data that I pay for every month. My billing cycle starts on the 11th of every month so I ran out about 8 days too soon. The main reason for running out of data was during the past month I couldn't wait until 2am to start all of the different macOS High Sierra updates. I did those large (1-3Gb) file downloads during my normal times, thus wasting my data.

I planned weeks ago of running out at the pace I was using data. $15 would get me an additional 5Gb of data. Any of that not used by the 11th would be carried over until I needed additional data again.

A funny thing happened though and so far as of 12:23pm today it is still working. I know and expect download speeds to decrease after my paid data is gone. That is a known fact, a part of the contract. Instead of getting speeds of 45-47Mbps I now get a little over 1Mbps. That 1Mbps were speeds we dreamed of in 1996. In today's world sometimes email won't download, photos won't upload to a blog, websites may or may not load ... so people buy more data to get them through the end of the month.

Last night during the severe thunderstorms, where my HughesGen 5 satellite service never lost it's signal from space ... websites were still downloading fast, my blog where most posts have 20-30 photos each was downloading normal. Another words I was seeing no decrease in internet performance. It was so good that I did a speed test and found Hughes had decreased my internet speeds to 1.46Mbps as I knew it would.

I knew today would be the real test. In the past at lower speeds my photos would not finish loading into the blog post I was writing. So I'd pull out my billfold and buy another few gigs that would put me back to normal speeds of 45-48Mbps. This post has 31 photos that loaded normally, maybe a little slower than usual but they still loaded okay.

I also did a large 3.3Gb file download for the macOS update for beta users. It completed in the same time it would have normally taken. I found that to be really strange and unexpected for two reasons. One, decreased download speeds that should have made that crawl and two, in the morning when many other users are downloading that same update at the same time.

So I have not had to buy additional data yet. It might be my lucky month for the next week.

I almost forgot to tell you that as a test I used the block on the blog to subscribe to my blog by email. I wanted to check to see if it worked and how long it would take for me to get a new blog post in my inbox. I am sad to say it took 14 hours from the time I posted this post for it to show up in my inbox.

For those of you that subscribe via email, is that normal for you ... 14 hours after I post? If so, it might be better if you would either bookmark the blog, added to your Feedly account for immediate updates or look for my blog on other blog lists ... if that 14 hour difference bothers you.

Today will be more of the same activities we do everyday with some added house cleaning in preparation for our Saturday College Football Marathon.

The hounds need to get their noses calibrated it looks like, here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Prepare For Rain

Where we live in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana, we are teased a lot. Not in the way of making fun of us, but hanging that 'carrot' out in front of us. Warning us of thunderstorms, snow storms, tornadoes, and possible rain ... a lot of it misses us on a consistent basis ... too consistent if you ask me. So needless to say, the hounds and I are a little skeptical of the prediction of thunderstorms happening at 2:54pm today. We'll see.

That would still allow us to get at least one walk completed before it arrives and a few other things on the everyday things to do around the homestead. With us taking our first walk of the day way past the normal time ... all the butterflies were clear of the milkweed, giving Stella plenty of room to trot right by and get this walk started.

She has been feeling better. She has been gaining some of her lost weight back and a little added energy each day. Her coat is getting back to being really soft like it use to be, yet I have not changed their dog food since last February.

For some reason the time seems to be really flying right now. 10 days have passed by in August and it's already early afternoon as I write this on the 11th day of the month. With time passing, our environment starts showing we have peaked for the summer and fall is just up ahead. The cornfield across the highway will continue to get browner.

These leaves will start turning very bright reds and yellows.

And the berries separating the field from the woods will start changing color and dying off. I think I am going to go berry hunting later this afternoon because I have not seen the owners make their annual trips around the field picking berries. Did I miss them or is not time to pick them yet?

It does not matter to Sadie if there are berries to pick, rain on the way, even snow ... all she cares about is getting 2-3 walks in per day and being fed.

The walk had a strange feel to it today. Just past 11am (not normal time), only 72° and no feeling of humidity, no sunshine, no wind, very little noise in the air, no mosquitoes but a lot of butterflies. Plus, Stella seemed to have just as much energy as Sadie and led most of the way.

Was this the butterfly that had Sadie sprinting full speed, jumping in the air trying to catch it? Same color but I doubt it was the same one. This morning I counted at least 12 different butterflies this same color ... yellow.

Stella has zero interest in butterflies. She will walk by them, over them and through them without giving them a second of her attention. Even yesterday while she was following Sadie in the all out sprint ... it wasn't the butterfly she was interested in ... it was the fact that Sadie might get something interesting and leave her out. She was more curious about what Sadie had found, not that it was a butterfly.

With Sadie walking right next to me along the back edge of the field, Stella did her slow trek across the middle of the field where she would meet us on the path home.

She may look innocent in this picture but believe me ... she has plans and it's not meeting Sadie and I ... it's to see if she can get away with 'sneaking' away from us and head north to the woods.

How do I know that? Because here she is walking past our path without looking at us nor slowing down ... she is heading north, over the small hill and down into the field. That is until I called her name and said "over here".

Sadie took off running in the direction of going home. More or less telling Stella "let's go" and they both flew by me as if they were never going to stop.

With them heading in the general direction of the house I decided to get some last-minute photos of the butterflies that were still around.

Stella acting as if she is in a hurry to get home for some reason. I don't know why, food or dog bones were never mentioned. It's not hot yet. Maybe just a sign of how good she is feeling today.

Sadie was going to explore the rest of the field all the way home.

To stay out of our way, these butterflies were on the west side of the field just outside my yard boundary. I counted 8 of them on the milkweed viewed through the lens ... but was not able to capture all of them in the picture.

I have not seen many of these orange ones until today.

This picture confuses me because the yard isn't as tall as the picture makes the grass look. It was tall enough to mow this morning in case it rained. WeatherBug app radar was showing significant storms southwest of us, heading our way. Remember that 'tease' I told you about earlier?

Those storms may look like they are heading right for us on radar, rain or snow, but about the time they hit the state line they seem to split in two ... following I-70 and the Ohio River ... while we stay dry. We need some rain, so I hope it happens this afternoon or tonight.

If I didn't know any better from the activity of state highway paint crews and all the fast new construction or improvements to the intersection downtown ... I suspect they are preparing for "Close Encounters of a Third Kind" on August 21st or better known as "The Eclipse"

Residents along this highway have been warned in the paper that we should expect increased traffic like never seen before during that epic event. All driving madly heading southwest to get a better view of the eclipse, with those strange glasses in hand. So when I heard that familiar sound of a highway dept truck re-painting lines on the highway I was a little suspicious.

When they had not come back to finish the white line on the right side of the highway after three days, I imaged that paint crew traveled all the way south to the state line. I'll probably hear that high pressure sound this week as they come back north to finish the job.

It's time for a little Friday
ramblingrambling.
I forgot a lot of stuff I was going to 'ramble' about.
Note:  As of September 14 they never came back to paint the other white line.

Last night at midnight my HughesNet Gen5 account reset, giving me 20Gb of internet service. Data usage with them since my change a few months ago has kept me in the analyzing mode trying to figure out where this data is going. I have checked and double checked for any leaks, any programs running in the background, shutting off automatic updates, while keeping my Activity Monitor on the 2nd monitor so I can see it at all times.

Last night I turned off the computer at 12:07am ... 7 minutes of new data. In those 7 minutes I had one tab open and was reading different blogs. HughesNet's data meter showed I had used 100Mb's ... I was down to 19.9Gb available with 7 MINUTES!!!!

My computer Activity monitor showed that one open tab reading blogs took 23Mb.

With Exede I averaged around 483Mb per day in data use. With HughesNet I have been averaging 732Mb per day in data use. I am doing the same type of internet surfing as before. I have not changed the number of photos I upload to the blog. I don't stream video and rarely watch any kind of videos during the time I have to pay for data.

When I upload my daily photos to Flickr and until recently Google Photos ... that would take around 80-100Mb for a 100 photos. I have recently stopped using Google Photos and find that it's .52Mb per photo uploaded to Flickr, that I use as an online backup.

So maybe there isn't a leak and I am just using more date because of the free data periods changed when I went to HughesNet. Now I get 50Gb of free extra data from 2am-8am. Before, Exede gave me unlimited data between 12:01am - 5am.

I use to use that a lot until 2am. Now I am rarely up past 2am and not much earlier than 7am where I can use only 1 hour of that additional free data. Anyway, I am still happy for the faster speeds, meter accuracy, invoice and the customer service of HughesNet.

Being a football addict I am a little surprised that I have not watched all of the preseason games this past week. I may have watched a play or two depending on the team or 15-20 minutes but not a whole game. Is something changing inside my brain or is it those announcers in the booth talking non-stop ... if they need to breath the have the sideline reporting to fill in for them. THEY NEVER SHUT UP!!!

As I start this sentence I am trying to recall what else I was going to write about ... but can't remember.

I guess my blog move is official now. Last night I had Kelly over at TheBayfieldBunch to take my old blog off of their sidebar. They were my leading source for generating traffic for the old blog. I didn't think it was fair to have a blog hanging there for people to click if I had no plans to blog on that site anymore.

I had a good response from readers asking me where they could find this blog, what happened to use or if the hounds were okay. It was a case I had to move the blog without making a public announcement due to some trouble makers. I have seen only one of them visit the old blog and it was during a time between those short posts I deleted within 12-24 hours, looking for readers that still needed to know we had moved.

Hopefully the hounds and I can stay somewhat 'hidden' over here. It's been a good move and I like the blog changes to what we have now.

After back to back days of taking the afternoon walks, Heidi has disappeared from any photo shoots. She is back to sleeping, eating, sleeping, eating and more sleeping ... only two trips outside per day to relieve herself.

For those readers that have asked ... Stella has been getting "Buffered" aspirin 2x per day, 650mg each dose ... vet recommendation, starting August 1st.

I like bulleted comments.

• My trip to the local library the other day resulted in nothing of interest.


• Started a movie a night later, didn't finish.


• Glanced at a NFL game, didn't finish.


• No urges for siestas.


• No cravings for junk food or fast food.


• For those of you "think" you'd love to have a bloodhound ...
  
  
  
  • Remember long glue-like drool.
  
  
  • Remember a shaking head can produce results like a water sprinkler.
  
  
  • Anything can happen when they shake their heads.
  
  
  • Their wagging tail can clear off a coffee table of food and drinks.
  
  
  • Dried drool on an automobile is some of the hardest stuff to remove.
  
  
  • They LOVE food ... theirs and yours.
    
    
    
    • Expert counter surfers.
  
  
  • They are a GREAT house dogs and FUN to spend every day with.


• When will I get back to scanning these stacks of old photos?


• Landscaping project has slowed to a stop.

It feels like a Friday here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.