The Hounds Take Off Out Of Sight

The walk started off wrong right from the start. It was 37° after I had declared "winter is over" just a week or so ago. We were starting the morning walk at the latest time ever, a little past 11:30am.

Then without looking, for some reason I changed lenses on the camera before we started ... thinking I was taking off the 18-55mm and putting on the 55-200mm. I didn't bother to look at the size of lens I was changing to.

At the beginning of the walk but too far to return, I realized I had the 18-55mm mounted instead of the 200mm zoom. Only later would I realized that was a BIG mistake.

The walk started normal, nothing out of the ordinary and even as we approached the first corner where we veer right I didn't notice anything unusual.

Nothing looked different .... but in this next photo ... they are getting ready to sprint. You can barely see along the bush line straight ahead about ... about "1 o'clock" position.

Then in a split second .... Sadie and Stella were gone!!!!

To give you some idea just how fast they were running (sprinting), I was taking photos as fast as I could and these are the only ones I could come up with. You can click the photos for a larger view.

Due to the small 55mm lens, you can barely see Sadie and Stella at the bush line chasing deer that by this time are too far ahead of them to catch.

I always thought it might happen. It did happen when Sadie was a young 1 or 2 year old in the dead of winter and deep snow back around 2009 or 2010. That time I never found her but she did come back to the house about 6 hours later.

Today it happened again.

As I watched them take off sprinting faster than you would ever imagine a bloodhound could run, I saw a least 5-6 deer at the back of the field by the high power tower, along the bush line we walk ... they were "flying" to get out of the area ... all headed to Stella's "no fly zone" she visited a month or so ago. I saw around a total of 10 deer split into two different groups.

I instantly had two thoughts ... I'm not going to find them and I wish I had my 200mm zoom lens on the camera. I actually remained perfectly calm during this whole evolution. I mean what else could I do?

I would not be able to catch them, so no reason for me to run after them. I didn't need to scream their name because they wouldn't hear me and besides, if they did their focus was catching those deer, not obeying "come here'...so I didn't yell either.

When the last deer disappeared and both Sadie and Stella disappeared over the slight hill by the high power tower I slowly walked up the path, thinking of my options. I had no doubts that both hounds would follow the deer to the back of the 'no fly zone', jump over or get over the fence someway and chase those deer into the woods.

So I walked up the path ... mentally conceding defeat ... that both of my bloodhounds were gone!

As I got close to the horizon I didn't see Sadie nor Stella. I wasn't mad, wasn't talking to myself because I knew it just happened so quick and they did what they are bred to do ... flush live deer out of the woods or track and find the deer that had been shot.

As I crested the small incline walking on the return path ... what do I see but Sadie and Stella !!!!

They had probably backtracked to check out the scent because by this time the deer were long gone into the wooded area north of the field. As I called out their names - they came sprinting to me - looking and acting proud of the way they had chased the deer out of "their" field.

With them wagging their tails of joy, I patted both of them telling them "good dogs" where they immediately headed down the path to go home.

They still needed to check out a couple of more areas on the way back but basically this walk was over.

Times are always exciting with the hounds in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella Calls Off Walk

I have just enough time to get the post for the night finished before the first ballgame comes on in a few minutes.

When the winds started pounded the storm windows this morning, Sadie, Stella and I decided it was time to go outside and see where the rain was.

There wasn't any rain at the time but checking the skies to the SW, then the NW and the NE ... a lot of movement up there but no rain. Stella sat and enjoyed the wind ... she likes that for some reason. Sadie walked around not aware it would be raining within the next 30 minutes.

Stella moved out to the backyard to face that strong SW wind but all she saw were dark clouds. No rain drops yet.

Sadie gave the final okay to go back inside ... there wasn't anything to see outside.

The rains blew in hard and it lasted for a couple of hours turning into a light rain for the few hours after that. Yet, when you eat lunch and are use to going outside right after the meal ... weather doesn't make a difference.

Or maybe that rainy weather made a difference to Stella. She didn't like it but still had to dump her tanks as she was trained to do after eating.

While it rained all day I was able to get all of those things done that needed to be finished inside the house today and by 6pm, the hounds thought we might need to go outside and check the field to see if a walk was possible.

Stella started her inspection, but Sadie was not going to move out of the yard. In fact she stood and gave me the stare down, wanting to walk. That's the look you see.

After more inspecting further out in the field, Stella finally decided it was to wet and called off the walk for today. After the official announcement, she walked slowly back inside.

Sadie is still begging for a walk as I type this but I am minutes away from 4 college basketball games tonight that should finish around 12:30am local time. It is March Madness ... what did you expect??

Everything is green and we are now almost to the amount of rain we should have for this time of year.

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

Stella's & Sadie's 1st Trip Of Day

It's never good to have coffee at 10pm ... not even a cup. That gave me way too much time on my hands late last night. I will get to that story later in this post.

With a late night I was still up earlier than normal this morning. I even beat the hounds in waking up. It is somewhat funny that they too are in the process of changing with daylight savings time.

You can see by the photos this morning it was still dark enough that the flash automatically got involved. Not a drop of rain overnight, when the predictions called for a 75% chance of high winds and thunderstorms. From the way the skies look, maybe the storms are delayed until later this morning.

Like any one of us, the energy level of the hounds change just like ours. I could tell right from the start this morning their's were going to be a pretty low. No running, no wrestling, Stella not howling for her breakfast and Sadie not hopping up and down excited to eat. Heidi did sprint from bed to her food dish and then sprinted just as fast to get back on her blankets ... she never goes out until after lunch.

Today instead of running, they slowly walked out into the field to find that perfect spot to dump their tanks. Those are out there somewhere, never the same place so it takes them a while to find them. I'll not bore you showing their process.

Today's trip was short. They didn't wander, they did what they had to do and came back to the house without me saying a word. Normally they run to the house but today each took their time walking one step at a time. Is it because I woke them up before 8am and before it was really bright outside?

Or is it the weather?

Stella may run fast but she also has the slowest walk of all time ... really slow. That's the normal first trip outside for Sadie and Stella. The are back to sleep with Heidi within minutes of walking inside the house. They usually sleep until around 10am, when Sadie will come and tell me it's time for the first walk of the day.

Last night while I was updating older post, making all them "full" justified and I saw what Blogger did once I updated an older post last night, making it the most recent after I clicked the update button ... yes, the one right below this one on the front page ... that lead me to search for information about the "why". I didn't find a lot of answers but a lot of Blogger people had been searching on Google asking the same question.

I sat for a while looking at the blog trying to decide whether to delete that post so that my most recent post was the last one I made about the hounds taking a 7pm walk. I tired a few different things in hope that post would fall back to its original order around March 19 ... it didn't.

From there I started thinking that maybe that full justification really didn't look right. I thought back to my times at work when I would not choose that option writing papers because of the uneven spaces between words ... although that even right edge sure looks nice. I didn't like the uneven spacing between words.

So my brains cells start gathering all of this information to process. It's late, way past midnight. The brain cells are in the over-active mode. I have a lot of blog ideas running through my mind. Time of day was not a factor.

You can do that when you drink just a cup of coffee at 10pm at night.

I then did a search on what kind of justification was best for a blog. At the very top of the search was my answer. When I read this it did not take me long to decide to go back to the posts I had change and change them back to NO justification.

Why??

As soon as I saw "hard to read" ... that was all I needed to know. I didn't want you to have problems reading the blog on a smart phone, or a tablet or a laptop ... I wanted to make it normal as possible. After I changed those post back to the original format, where the spaces between words are the same ... it certainly was easier to read.

So you will notice all the posts have the jagged right edge but each space between the words is the same ... as it should be.

Well I need a 2nd cup of coffee and I have to make some plans today to get some things done ... something more than living on the internet. March Madness is back on tv tonight with the first college basketball game starting a little after 7pm ET, so I am good for the next 4 days. :)

I just remembered what I was going to say yesterday but couldn't remember. I am not sure what Blogger has been doing lately but I noticed that some of the blogs on my blogroll on the left side, were gone!!! Some of the blogs I've been reading for at least 4 years, were not there. So I went back and added them to the sidebar along with a few new ones I found. There is a lot of good information there if you are interesting in traveling via a RV. Not many have large hounds, if any at all.

Will it finally rain today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana?

"The Tropics" Turn Cold

{Note: So much for my editing my older posts, changing the justification from left to full. What just happened??? Like I mentioned might happen ... when I clicked on the "update" button, Blogger moved this post that I wrote last week some time and made it my most recent post. Being a par-time perfectionist ... I hate when something like this happens. Not a happy blogger right now as I type this. You would think with all the experience Google has, they could at least take care of how their blogs operate. It cannot be that hard to do!!!!}

This post was written and posted on March 19, 2016

Experiencing a little cold front here in 'the tropics' this morning. They predicted it and it has come true ... but I am still sticking with my declaration from a few weeks ago that "winter is over".

As I promised, our lives here on Thursday and Friday stopped around noon and I was bolted to the couch until almost 11 pm with one college basketball game after another. Four different channels were showing them at the same time. So between the many commercials, and close games in the last 5 minutes of games, there has been a lot of channel surfing ... along with texting old friends from college scattered around the USA.

The hound's daily routine didn't change much as you will see in the photos further down this page. The weather basically went from this to this ... compare the two Stella photos for the current weather.

Yesterday - Sunny

Today - Rainy & Cold

It's not that cold, somewhere in the 40's but that is a 30° drop from the temps just the other day. Yesterday was cooler and nice. The hounds had their morning walk, lunch, sleeping. Somewhere later in the afternoon between games or breaks in the action ... we took off for the afternoon walk.

Heidi is starting to come outside more often. I thought she might even be tempted to join Sadie and Stella for the walk but she had other ideas. She likes the front yard and I feel confident she will stay near the house since she has never headed for the highway.

Stella did well off the leash on the walk. I didn't let her get far in either direction and she came when called. About half way she decided she had enough of the strict control ... so she started to play with Sadie. Sadie is never interested in playing while on a walk ...

They both sprinted for the house when I said "lets go home".

As I was close to the yard I noticed Heidi was on the north side of the yard checking out the fence line. She laid in the sunshine even after we came inside. Only when I asked her from the window, if she wanted to eat, did she come running to be let inside. Her appetite has always been good.

This morning has been a different day though. Neither Sadie nor Stella want to stay outside long with a light off and on rain. Sadie is into eating grass today and Stella is not motivated to do much of anything. They will be happy to sleep again today with the cooler temps ... while I watch another 8 basketball games.

Even with the 40's and light rain ... all is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.