The Hounds Find Deer

As you can see from the leaves, the wind has been from the north and still is today. Most of the time our wind is from the southwest. The best part, it was cool and a lot like yesterday.

That means a lot time outside, eating a salad, reading a book and letting the hounds roam their field.

It wasn't quite 11:15am when I decided to get a hound walk in before their lunch since breakfast was not served until 9:30am this morning. You can see how wet the field is with morning dew. Actually my feet have never been wetter than what they were on this walk.

I went through google images yesterday searching "field wild flowers". Nothing in the field showed up in the results. Yet when I changed my search terms to "field WEEDS in bloom" I found everything that I see daily on the hound walk ... yet, I cannot remember their names today but can remember statistics from the football game I watched last night. That ... is the story of my life.

Lately I have seen more worn paths from deer traffic that cross our path a lot of the times or will run parallel. I am not a deer hunter so I really have very little knowledge about deer, etc. Still about the time I took this photo I could hear a strange sound in the woods to the right of us. We are at the first turn of the walk.

It wasn't a second after I took this next photo that a deer jumps out of the woods not more than 10' in front of Sadie. She is off on the chase with Stella taking up the rear.

Deer and hounds are moving faster than I can click the camera ... auto focus is not instant.

By this time Sadie has fallen back in the chase but Stella is sprinting at full power and howling all the way.

The deer is over the small hill heading north and you can barely see Stella in the center of the photo ... barely.

I continued walking, not running, on my path. I knew that Sadie would come back for sure but today I had a feeling that I would have to walk to the far north edge of the field to look for Stella. Here is Sadie returning soon after her chase.

I thought I could still hear Stella howling so Sadie and I continued to walk through the weeds toward the northwest corner of the field. Luckily not soon into the walk, I turned around and Stella was behind us and was already heading back to our path.

They love chasing deer although it doesn't happen a lot. I think this is the 5th time this year. They are always so proud of themselves after they return from their chase.

Stella was positive there had to be more from where that one came from and she was going to make sure she was not missing more deer for the day.

Once they figured out there were no more deer around, both trotted for the house. Just another normal day in the life of a bloodhound. Both were sound to sleep right after they got home and slept through most of the afternoon.

The last bindweed in the field, there use to be a lot of these.

Stella double checks to see if there are deer near her house before returning inside for a mid-day nap.

My 18-55mm lens mechanically failed yesterday. At the time it would not focus. Later it started making a plastic grinding noise as I tried to turn the adjustment to a different length ... 18, 35 or 55mm. It was not the first time for this camera to do this. I've been thinking for a while to buy a lens that had the range of both of the ones I had ... to eliminate having to switch back and forth between lenses.

I didn't want to buy another camera just to hold and use the different size lens. ZippyPinHead had talked about a 16-300mm lens he had bought and really liked it. I haven't found many times I need a 300mm but they did have a model that was a 18-200mm and that range would cover what I have now between two lenses.

I ordered it late last night and received a tracking number this morning after it had shipped. It should arrive soon after the Labor Day Weekend.

Today was once again too nice to stay inside. While I sat in the shade next to the house, the hounds ... even Heidi soaked in some sun.

Of course Sadie spent all her time roaming the field, she doesn't have the patience just to lay there.

Stella ended her time with some dirt eating. I wonder if that is good for dental hygiene ... doubt it. I guess her nose dirt will have to wear off, since she doesn't let me touch it with a wet cloth.

By 4:30pm it was time for the 2nd walk of the day. Both hounds were excited as usual. No deer this time ... just walking.

It was suggested to use Google Photos to store all the photos I take with my iPhone by the people that sold me the phone. I aways download them to my hard drive which still has a lot of space left on the hard drive. I am going to read more about Google Photos before the next football game tonight at 7pm.

I have used Flickr, which is free for unlimited amount of photos. I can go back to that but it takes so much data I have to wait until after midnight to take advantage of my Exede free data between the hours of midnight and 5am.

I see that Flickr and Google Photos have an iPhone app plus their desktop version. From the short reviews I just read, people favored Flicker. Since I like to play around with computer stuff I think I'll try Google Photos.

Although my computer automatically backs up the iMac hard drive every hour on an external hard drive I still like the thought of having photos and documents saved online somewhere.

Another great day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

The Hounds Get Two Today

 I'm not really sure why but I think it started yesterday when I thought it was Thursday but it was only Wednesday. Maybe it's because the 1st was on Thursday or because of the football schedule on tv.

Being retired I have found one of the nice benefits is losing track of what day it is. Everyday is a 'weekend' ... I love it. Add some great weather today, and I could already see it was going to be a day of two hound walks.

We did our first walk of the day at 5 minutes until 1pm. Temps were in the mid 70's, and there wasn't any humidity that I could feel. The hounds trotted out in front of me from the very start.

Sometimes the hounds have to get there noses deep into the weeds to get what they have found. There are even times they don't mind sharing.

I came with the 18mm-55mm lens today, I think that might be the lens of choice from now on. Yet, when those surprise deer show up, it's always nice to have that 200mm lens on the end of the camera.

I used my voice as Stella's leash again today. She does not need to be leashed at all but lately needs some 'voice motivation' to keep our group together. She is on "partial probation".

We are not quite to the halfway point of the walk ... along the back edge of the field.

Headed home and they both stopped suddenly ... their noses had picked up something in the distance, I didn't hear anything that would make them interested. It's their noses that dictate their activity.

Headed home with a slow walk ... the first of two walks today.

Heidi stayed inside enjoying the opened windows and the cool breeze blowing through the house. I am once again thinking about carrying her to the edge of the field so she will walk with us ... it did work when I did that last April.

The afternoon continued to be great weather. We took our 2nd walk around 5:30pm, taking the 18-55mm lens. Soon after the start of the walk, the lens quit working so no photos.

It's been nothing but college football tonight on tv, here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Enjoy The Day

I thought I was hearing some light thunder last night and by the time the hounds and I were outside for their last trip of the night (1am), there was a light rain.

Woke up to a lot of fog this morning with Sadie and Stella making their normal morning trip. It wasn't long before they returned and went back to sleep until their lunch was served. The temps are to be lower today and when it's in the low 80's that is perfect weather here in 'the tropics'.

I need to mow the backyard because it grows faster than the front yard. I'll get back to mowing them at the same time after this afternoon. The grass was still really wet at 12:30pm, with a morning of sunshine. All of us headed outside after lunch.

Stella is thinking about a nap.

Sadie is thinking and enjoying the sunshine, but a nap is not one of her options. She is trying to figure out where to go.

Stella was down and out within minutes ... a heavy sleeper.

In the meantime, Heidi had walked out front like she usually does and then walked completely around the house looking for that perfect spot to lay down and enjoy the sunshine.

I am not sure why, but Sadie loves the taste of the fine grade dirt that is pushed up through the grass by the moles.

After a short time eating dirt, Sadie decided the sun was just too hot and moved to a shady spot under the tree. That area that I cleared out in April 2015 is the best part of the whole yard.

Never to remain in one spot for too long, or sit anywhere for too long, Sadie was off to explore the field.

Stella woke up only to scratch that itch she had, but she also wanted to go back inside to continue her nap.

Sadie also thought the idea of air conditioning was a good idea and came running for the house when she saw me turn to head to the door.

With the skies turning a little overcast and the decrease in temperature we headed out on our walk today around 5:30pm. Stella was good in that she didn't wander off and I didn't let her hang way back. A few times this week she has pushed her boundary out a little further than I like.

Hard to believe that Stella wasn't that far away when I caught this photo.

At first I thought bought of them had tracked some deer because they took off and got out in front of me maybe 50' and you can see the path's worn down by deer traffic.

Sadie decided to wait on me to catch up and Stella started veering toward me when she saw I was getting close. Both of them stayed pretty close together today.

What I like about this next photo is the bright crimson colored leaves as a 3rd color.

Pretty close to home I called Stella's name ... she didn't hesitate in running toward me. She usually ignores me and stays back, but not today.

They both walked it in toward the end of the walk ... as you can see a lot more purple in the field.

I'll be watching the Washington Redskins play in Tampa Bay tonight. I usually don't watch a lot of pre-season ball but the QB for Washington played at IU the past 4 years and is starting tonight. I'll probably move to something else after he is pulled from the game, which he doesn't know how long that will be.

With that game tonight and college football starting tomorrow night on TV, it is possible in today's method of programming that live football games may be on tv every night from now December when college football ends their regular season. For a football addict like myself ... that's great news.  :)

Question of the day ... camera lens.

Is it worth buying a lens that has the range of 18mm-200mm to be used all the time instead of switching lenses back and forth between my 18mm-55mm and my 50mm-200mm ???

Tamron has a "on sale" price for their 18mm-200mm lens this labor day weekend at Best Buy. (sold out the day they arrived)

We ended the day with steamed broccoli and carrots, with some brown rice and a nice slice of baked salmon here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.