The Hounds Have A Late Start

The rains that were in the forecast for this weekend finally arrived. It sounded like a good excuse to catch up on some sleep but they arrived late and were very light. The reason the hounds started their day late is because the hounds let their slave sleep in this morning. Those times the past couple of weeks where I was up until 2am - 3am finally caught up with me. That didn't mean the hounds had a late breakfast ... kibble was still served at 7:30am.

With a piece of cold pizza in my system by 12:30pm and the other two pieces in the oven warming up, Sadie was going to have to wait for her first walk. We never do walks soon after their lunch yet the hourly weather forecast was a factor in the plan. First we would watch the Tour de France that is always taped by the DVR, too early in the morning for me to watch. Needless to say that once Sadie was on the walk mid-afternoon ... she took off running ... she was thrilled getting back into the field.

Even though the skies were dark I guessed they would hold off long enough for us to get our short half mile walk in. I only needed around 9 minutes for me. With Stella's pace 15 minutes of no rain would be nice.

Stella took the lead in her normal slow pace. Rain was not a factor in her planning ... never is.

Last night with a three hour rain delay in the Reds game, the first pitch wasn't until 10:10pm. I justified starting to watch it to the finish by telling myself it was just like a west coast game when they play in San Diego, Los Angeles or San Francisco. With a steady rain during the game I wasn't sure it would finish and I'd still get to bed at a reasonable hour. I assumed wrong.

I guess due to the high chance of rain today and for their game tonight, they decided to get that Friday night game finished unless they were flooded out. It ended around 1:30am, I was tired and I knew that I would definitely get up to feed the morning kibble but it would be straight back to bed, skipping any coffee.

As we rounded the first turn on our walk I felt a couple of drops of rain but decided to charge on. Sadie was in her element as was Stella. I knew that neither hound would want to turn around just because of a few drops of rain.

I could tell by the boots I was wearing it had rained earlier in the day. Good for the yard.

Stella attempted her escape but turned in the direction of the our path when I yelled 'no'.

With her out in the middle of the field, Sadie was already trotting along the back edge of the field. She was making up for the missed walk earlier this morning.

We were not quite to the first corner on our way back when I looked up ahead and it was a background of solid light rain. I told the hounds "lets go" and took off trotting with my camera lens pointing downward.

It was raining steady enough I could hear it hitting the bill of my ball cap ... but it didn't matter to the bloodhounds. They are not fans of rain so it shows it wasn't raining hard enough for them to be concerned.

In fact Stella wasn't concerned at all. I was standing under the mahogany trees in the backyard as I took these photos. The rain is coming down harder as I waited for the hounds finish their walk.

Sadie decided it was raining too hard for her and came running toward the yard ... not Stella.

In fact Stella was almost making a right turn toward the neighbors yard/woods when I yelled 'no' again. She seemed to obey that word better than others today. You can see the rain against the background of the trees.

She never increased her pace. The rain came down in a steady stream and Stella walked into the yard slow as she ever does.

As you can tell it wasn't a sprinkle but wasn't a hard rain either. Both hounds were happy and asleep minutes after coming inside. While Heidi was still passed out on the couch, Sadie laid down by her water bowl to sleep and Stella was partially on the legs of my office chair. She will never go to sleep until she licks her paws and legs dry after a walk in the rain or heavy dew.

As I typed this it started to rain harder. Hopefully the Reds will get their game in tonight or I'll make it a movie night. The yard and plants will look better in a few days with some much needed rain.

All the severe storms have been missed 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 Take Their 1st Walk Ever In Rain

As the hounds went outside first thing in the morning while I poured their breakfast kibble, I could tell the weather experts were correct today ... it had rained over night. There was just a little standing water in the flowerbed (normal spot) where I am going to have a large rock dropped soon. Wunderground was showing rain 75% and down to 50% chances solid until Friday morning ... finally after a couple of hours I decided why not?  Sadie and Stella would take their first walk ever in the rain.

I had a choice to either walk in the light rain getting my shirt and my arms soaked or wear a rain jacket and still get my shirt and arms soaked since was very humid ... like 99% humid. I chose the rain jacket and zipped up to the bottom of my chin ... that kept those mosquitoes that were buzzing by my ears and nose away from their target ... my arms.

I can barely call it a light rain ... you could hear it, but not feel it. It wasn't a real rain by any means but it was outside our box, outside the norm. I lowered my mower yesterday and used a tape measure to confirm the blade would cut at 2". A little shorter than normal (1 notch adj) but recommended for my lawn by Scotts lawn care.

You will notice just left of the flowers the ground gravitates toward the house. That 'ditch' was not there when the area was overgrown with wild brush, small saplings and extremely thick to even try to walk in. I am going to have to fill that in with dirt and replant grass. Any ideas how to prevent the water from naturally taking that path towards the house?

By the time Sadie and I were in the field and I could hear rain drops hitting my rain jacket sleeve, I glanced back towards the house and Stella was still sitting under cover in the carport looking right back at me. Smart Bloodhound. Did that mean she wasn't going to walk?

Finally she slooooowly walked to the corner of the house, hesitated until I said "come on" and then slooooowly walked into the field. Sadie and I were already following the edge of the field heading our normal start north.

Once she decided the rain wasn't that bad, she had a little trot to her step and trotted right past me to catch up with Sadie.

Of course Sadie was oblivious to any weather change. I doubt that she even knew it was raining let along feeling it. The only thing important to her was WALK ... and that was what she was doing. I don't recall her being this obsessed with taking walks when she was younger ... she will always come to let me know she wants to walk, no matter where I am or what I am doing.

Where I barely found a small yellow daisy yesterday and took a picture of that, this morning there were more of them and much larger. Amazing what a little all-night rain will do for plants.

Stella's new routine this week is stopping right at the corner with Sadie but instead of walking toward the neighbor's woods or out in the middle of the field, she has started walking in the direction of our return path and joining Sadie and I with the walk 3/4 finished.

I could have included the other 4 photos that show the sequence of her walk, but they all looked the same as this one, just in a different location. I've never had a hound bloodhound or basset, that walks as slow as she can and does most of the time.

In the meantime, Sadie was right along with me. You could tell that she was happy to be walking and she thought it was a good decision that I decided that a little rain never hurt anyone.

Stella sees Sadie and I but that doesn't change her pace. She is doing a slow loop toward us, probably to check if I am really paying attention to what she is doing and if she can sneak away for some possible 'natural protein supplement' that she likes to find.

You can see she has almost reached our worn path that's hard to see ... just to the right of her nose.

From this point on, both hounds wander in all directions while I continue to walk and turn to take pictures. They gradually herd themselves back in my direction the closer we get to home.

You can tell by my ballcap it was a very light rain. Since I have officially named my North Face snow boots my all-wet, rain and snow boots, I can see us taking more walks just like today and not cancelling them just because there is some rain outside. The rain jacket also worked out well, even in humid weather.

Before letting the hounds back inside I went in to get 'their' towels so I could dry off their underbellies, legs and paws. Stella decided once she was inside that I needed to do a better job of drying her legs and paws off ... I took photos of her doing that but she was licking them so fast that both photos were blurred.

I would like to keep the windows open today with the temps staying in the low 70's. Yet with the humidity showing 99% and my new addiction to cold air inside, I've closed all the windows and turned on the AC ... feels much better away from the sticky humidity.

I found out this morning that a huge data user is when I upload photos to Google Photos and Flickr. I try to do that only during the time where HughesNet gives me free 50Gb of data between 2am-8am. Lately I have not been using that free data for saving every photo taken that day to those two platforms. I know it's probably overkill since my computer is backed up automatically with Apple's Time Machine to an external disc but I like having my photos backed-up on an online site just in case I have disaster here.

So far this morning after uploading photos to this blog and posting it, plus my normal internet reading I have used only 134Mb. Yesterday I had used 200Mb of data in the first 1-1/2 hours.

As you can tell from the picture of the cornfield, it's going to be a day of rain and gloomy weather but a nice break from those high 80's and low 90's. I've pulled another book off my shelf and today feels like a reading day.

Nice and quiet this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.