Heidi's Afternoon

It was just after her lunch that she moved out into the backyard. That's been rare in the last 12 months. I was picking up the sticks that blew into the yard a few days ago. Sadie and Stella were in the field. It was good to see Heidi outside enjoying the 60° weather.

For new readers that are not familiar with her skin issues, in the fall of 2014 her skin condition worsened and the steroid shots were no longer working. You can search "Heidi's Skin Treatment" in the search box and read all about it. Her skin is ugly but it is soft and supple, something that was not the case at times these past two years.

Different vets have told me that hair will never grow back where you see that slightly red skin on her legs and stomach. Without hair it just magnifies all the folds and loose skin that basset hounds have but hair covers. It looks worse than it is.

She feels like she has gained some of her weight back, when I lift her. I'll find out for sure during her next vet visit for an annual check up. Past blood work tests have proved to be normal, nothing going on inside that is bad.

I think this vet visit I am going to ask the vet to give treatment as if she or he is seeing Heidi for the first time and not basing treatment on her past 6 years. Any suggestions?

She seems happy, she wags her tail a lot even though I find it hard to catch it in motion with my camera.

Sadie stands by just to make sure everything is going okay. She knows it's rare when Heidi spends any amount of time outside. Plus Sadie is the 'supervisor' of all things here in 'the tropics'.

I took the hounds back inside because I wanted to load up the Countryman with both trash containers. One would be my bagged trash with anything not recyclable. The other container would hold those recyclables.

At the county recycling center, nothing needs to be sorted. That makes it much easier for me and I've been recycling on a regular basis for almost two years now. When I had to sort it before I rarely made regular trips to the center.

Based on my measurements of the height and width of this particular trash can, I was pretty sure that two of these trash cans would fit in the back of the Mini Cooper Countryman with room to spare.

When I returned all the hounds came outside. Even Heidi started for the door without me asking her if she wanted to. She must have remembered how nice it was earlier. Sadie and Stella had to supervise me taking the two cans out of the car. I had to hose out and rinse the one holding the bagged trash.

By the way Heidi was acting I thought the chances were good that she might go one the walk today. Sadie and Stella had already moved to the field while I ran back inside to grab the leash and my camera.

With the ground still soft and slight wet in spots I wondered if Heidi was really going to walk. She has never liked getting her feet wet when outside. That is one reason she hides under the roof overhang when it's raining and she has to pee ... it's dry.

So this afternoon it did not surprise me to see her step to the side of the muddy spot on the path. As she tip toed around it and out into the thick grass I was pretty sure she was about to 'cancel' her walk.

She didn't go to far but her nose and tail were working non stop. By this time Stella has ran way out in front of me and was headed for the woods behind the neighbors house. She must have known I was busy with Heidi and she tried to escape.

Sadie was somewhat confused. She stood halfway between Stella and Heidi not knowing which direction to go. She kept glancing at Heidi and then back in Stella's direction. She is the leader of the 'group' and doesn't like leaving anyone behind on the walk.

Heidi was sniffing around when I had to take off after Stella or she would be long gone. As I looked back at Heidi I knew the walk for the bloodhounds would have to be canceled until later this afternoon. I had to catch Stella and bring her back first before returning to Heidi.

I wasn't going to leave Heidi behind.

How can you leave a face like that??

Once she saw that I had Stella under control and trotting back in her direction, without hesitation Heidi turned and went trotting toward the house wagging her tail all the way. The door opened and she sprinted for the living room and jumped up on the couch for her siesta in the afternoon sun.

It wasn't long after they all went back inside when they were sleeping like they normally do every mid-afternoon. The house gets so quiet while they sleep that I am not sure I could ever live without a hound, at least one.

After all of this activity there was still time for another walk with just Sadie and Stella. I was also able to take a nice drive in the Z4. It's been a great day today, now if I can just get those dishes finished before I start my college basketball marathon tonight that will last for the next three weeks or so.

Snow is coming this Saturday in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

A Surprise In Editing Photos

This morning definitely looked better than it did yesterday just after lunch. There was no rain forecasted yesterday for the afternoon and for the next three days.

I took this next picture just a little before 1:00pm yesterday. At the time I had no idea it would be nice enough to take the Z4 out for a drive only two hours later. It was nice to pull off the car cover, warm it up and head down the highway, even with the top up.

It was the normal routine this morning but Sadie was more than excited when I asked if she wanted to go for a walk. Her favorite place over by the burn pile was no longer her focus. She heard the word 'walk' and was ready and so was Stella.

No jacket today, cool breeze and a blue sky. It's hard to believe we are suppose to get snow on Saturday. It will not matter because by that time I will have started watching all of the college basketball conference tournaments on tv. I will not catch all of them but a lot of them. So it can do whatever it wants outside this weekend.

From the start of today's walk Stella seemed pretty interested in following the path of Sadie. Notice her black tail? Her mom was a 'black and tan' bloodhound. Since that black is only on the lower half of her tail, it was the reason her original owner named her "dipstick".

Sadie was in her element with excitement and another walk. How many of these walks has she been on in 8-1/2 years? How many times has she hopped up and down before every one of those walks? She never grows tired of them.

As I turned the first corner and prepared to take Stella's picture I was kinda surprised that she was this close to us. She was right on schedule. That's rare for her.

That is until Sadie saw a bird on the ground up ahead. If you look closely straight ahead of Sadie, near the bush line, you can see a bird just getting airborne. Sadie has never caught a bird, or a falling leaf or even a deer ... but anyone of those three things will set her off in a high speed sprint.

Of course if something is that interesting to sprint after it, then Stella has to catch Sadie and find out what all the excitement is about. By that time the bird was long gone. Still the hounds thought it must be around here somewhere and they continued searching the airstrip of the bird.

I was not quite to the back edge of the field when they each started trotting in different directions. Were they going to get away from me? Sadie had found something in the center of the field.

Stella had thoughts of heading to the 'no fly zone' ... or was it something she smelled in the air?

I think I found the reason for each of them to not bother exploring the back edge of the field. Just as I made the final turn home on the path, I see this. I am not a hunter but if I am not mistaken that looks like a deer hoof print to me and it's pretty recent.

Without saying a word, Stella decided it wasn't what she wanted to do, heading to the 'no fly zone', she had something else on her mind today.

Yet, she had to pace herself. The slower she walks the longer the walk will last. It is a nice morning out so why not enjoy it for as long as possible?

Following the path on a wet and saturated path ... I see two more of what I think are deer hoof prints, while they were running.

Neither bloodhound showed any interest in the prints I had found. They were on their own path, at their own pace. Neither ran out of their invisible boundaries.

Like I said, you can't run all the time because the slower you walk the longer the walk will be. This is a sequence of Stella's final path back to the house.

I mentioned earlier I took the Z4 out for a drive yesterday. Too cool for the top down but it's still a fun car to drive. I decided to take it out to the freeway and head to Bloomington. I wanted to have my friend look at a couple of things I found after washing the car last fall and see what he suggested. I tried to keep it 5 mph over the speed limit but there were times when on long stretches of highway where I could see no cops were up ahead, I accelerated a little bit more.  :)

As soon as I got home from that trip I grabbed the 25' retractable leash. I wanted to walk the hounds for their second time yesterday but I was in a hurry to go downtown for dinner at the Chinese buffet. All you can eat for $8.

I had just let the dogs out when I returned home from dinner and saw one of the best sunsets I had seen in a while. The pictures do not do the sunset justice. It was a lot more beautiful than I could capture with my camera.

I was only going to include this middle picture in today's post. It wasn't until this morning when I was editing all of these pictures I had downloaded from my camera, when I saw two deer in the picture above and only one of them in the second picture below. I was totally focused on trying to take a picture of the clouds.

The hounds were outside but didn't smell or hear the deer across that highway. In all of the years I have lived here, I have had hounds stand up here on the hill and stare back at the deer that are staring at them ... but fortunately I've never had a hound take off running across the highway to chase the deer in that field. When I see deer over there I am either putting the hounds back inside or grabbing their collars if I see they have noticed deer across the highway.

There was the time last year when the hounds and I were outside late, when I see a deer running across the highway toward the neighbors yard ... followed by at least ten more. You could hear the thundering herd as they broke tree limbs while sprinting into the woods south of my burn pile.

The hounds never noticed. They squatted, they peed and returned to the house in the dark like nothing was going on.

With the sunshine out today, I'll take the Z4 out in a different direction. Still not warm enough for putting the top down. It's a nice change of pace just to cruise over the hills and through the trees. It isn't much further west where the land is all flat, few tries and all farmland.

Sadie and Stella have decided they have waited long enough for me to finish this blog post. It is well past their lunch time kibble. Stella is howling ... Heidi is barking ... Sadie is hopping up and down.

It's time to eat!!!

Retirement is pretty good right now in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Surprise!! Sadie Gets Her Walk

Glancing outside about an hour before the predicted time that the rains would stop, I saw it had stopped ... Sadie, Stella and I didn't hesitate going outside. Cabin fever will do that to you. I wanted to take a stroll around the yard and check for any damage or downed tree limbs.  Sadie had other plans. She had not even got into the driveway when she stopped, turned and gave me the look to "let's walk".

While Stella was checking out a very small piece of the rip rap I had put in a few spots on the bank in the yard, Sadie was more interested in getting into the field.

I was walking behind the old fence in back through the area where overgrown brush burned out and was planted with grass seed a few years ago. I noticed this tree just off the yard and in an area between my fence in the rear side yard and the field.

I don't believe I have seen any tree do that if it was near the yard. I was planning on burning off this overgrown area last summer, when I caught some of the field on fired down by the highway.

After that I decided I would not burn any of the upper part of this area because I didn't have enough water hose to reach it, thus I'd have nothing to control the fire if it moved into the field.

You can see the new green growth, so I am hoping all of the grass seed I have planted the past two weeks has not been washed away and will start sprouting soon.

This is just to the left of the tree pictured above. You can barely see the sign frame that I take a picture of every morning from my carport step. So this is on the northeast corner of my property. My survey from 2000 say this is not my property past the fence and the neighbor's survey from 2014 says it is my property. Who knows?

Sadie had enough of looking at the yard, she wanted 'her' walk to take place. A few steps into the field showed me what I expected, a lot of water. The higher we climb the wetter the ground will be. Can anyone explain why?

I continued walking, hearing the 'squishing' sound of the water coming up over the sides of my boots, just above my sole. The more steps I took showed me we could continue and possibly get the whole walk in without turning around early. Sadie figure the walk was on no matter what ... so did Stella.

Is it my eyes or imagination? ... but it looks like the chewed tree limb is reducing it's diameter with a slightly new design. The edges are not as smooth as they once were. The stuff must taste good.

After Stella's performance the other morning I wanted her to stay fairly close to Sadie this morning. I didn't have to call her much and she walked along with us with no problems and no leash ... I didn't bring it because I wasn't planning to take the walk when I came outside.

I could tell by the way the brush was mashed down just how hard the rain was along with the strong winds last night.

I am not quite to the back of the field on our path when the water level rises. Even as I stepped around this puddle into the higher grass, I still had to walk in visible water.

Stella is never thrilled when she gets her feet wet. She walked slowly, one step at a time as her paws became soaked. She was almost in slow motion as Sadie waited for her up ahead.

Nothing bothers Sadie on a walk, rain hail sleet or snow. She waited for Stella to catch up.

Once she had made sure the back of the field was 'clear' she took off running for the center of the field, while Stella walk right beside me. Stella was so close the 18mm lens setting could not pick her up in the view finder. Also for some strange reason, my focus setting changed back to a 'all focus' instead of the 'single point' that I use. It normally does that if I take out the battery to charge it but not between using the camera on different days.

You may notice how the field angles downward toward my backyard. The underground water moves toward my backyard, veering left and over the bank just in front of my burn pile. I believe it is also the cause of the ground swell I get along the back side of my house. I have a lot of work to do this spring and summer to fix that.

The sun is trying it's hardest to move through two days of overcast skies. As I write this I can see it getting brighter outside. Sunshine for the rest of the week sounds good to me but I am not thrilled about the potential for snow on Saturday, even if it's 1"-3".

I might want to get back to the house but that doesn't make Stella walk any faster. It doesn't matter what Sadie does either on this last part of the walk because Stella will do what she wants to do on her own time. This next picture makes her look skinny. I am hoping the recent change of dog food with higher fat and more protein puts the lost weight back on.

She also doesn't seem as energetic as she was this time last year. Pictures from a year ago show her and Sadie running in the field together. I can't remember the last time Stella was on a full out sprint in the field, not counting her escape the other day down into the wooded gully.

We might be getting close to the yard but that doesn't mean there isn't something she can find to eat. At least they baled the field a second time last fall so it's been nice to walk through this winter without the taller grass.

Those dishes and vacuuming are still waiting for me, I'm pretty lazy today. I think I'll play some mahjong and make a few more trips outside.

Another uneventful day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana today.