Sadie & Stella Don't See The Deer !!!

It started like any other day .... mmmm, not really but that is a different story and a different post. As the water slowly recedes from the fields, the sun is out and the temperature is perfect this morning. Excitement was to follow with shocking results !!!

After being up until 4am trying different things to fix my iMac, that was still freezing up a few times even while I was not connected to the internet (a test), we didn't start our day until about an hour later than normal. Sadie of course started her detailed inspection of the yard for last night's activity.

Stella sat in the driveway contemplating her plans for the day and if she was willing to get her paws wet if she walked out into the grass. She didn't go any further than this and turned around to follow me when I headed back inside. It was only 8:30am but it was really nice outside.

About 3 hours into my reformatting, reinstalling my macOS Sierra and all my files (different blog post later), I decided it was the perfect time to take our first morning walk in a while. While the computer worked installing the macOS onto the erased and clean hard drive, we headed outside. Sadie was so excited, she took off ... but not for the reason you would think, by this blog post title.

Stella followed the path ahead of me and in fact ahead of Sadie too. It was a great morning to be walking. I was going to let the hounds have their freedom to do what they wanted, but not until I had Stella move past that first corner.

This is where the excitement started and what the hounds missed !!!!  I glanced up just in time to see the first of five deer. Stella never saw the five different deer jumping out of the gully and sprinting for their escape into the corn field in back. They took off one by one, slow enough for Sadie to catch them ... but ....

They were both too interested in finding and eating fresh natural protein, most likely deer scat. Now remember the bloodhound's DNA is to "smell and flush deer out of bushes or woods" and in the past they have taken off immediately as fast as they could run after them, but not today. I was shocked at their response.

Deer #2, even gave me time to focus and take it's picture ... you see Stella not even lifting her head.

Deer #3 was a little bigger and a lot faster. This is along the back edge of the field about where we turn to come home. As usual the deer jumped over that small hidden fence into the not yet plowed corn field.

Deer #4 actually walked out from the gully and did not really take off running until halfway to that point of escape the other deer took. Still ... no response from either bloodhound!!

Deer #5 was about the same way. Started out into the field walking, then took off.

Sadie finally realized what was going on and took off sprinting but no baying or barking. Stella is still chowing down on her diet supplement. She is usually the first one howling and sprinting in deer chases. It was shocking to see no response at all from her.

By this time Sadie did not have a chance in catching any of the deer, they were long gone. She was running as fast as she could. You can barely see her just a little right and above center. Some deer turned to go into the field behind this one, while others followed that path north, past the large power tower and then into the woods.

Stella still has not moved with all of this excitement going on. I still cannot believe it.

Sadie realized she had missed them but at least she had seen the last one. She decided the best thing she could do was to backtrack their path and see where she made the mistake.

For what had gone on, she still was not showing her normal "deer excitement" that I have seen in the past.

Stella had no idea what she had missed. She slowly walks to catch up with Sadie.

That is until she found more to eat. Sadie knows which direction the deer came from and she is going to find out if there are any more deer headed her way. I couldn't tell her they were all gone for today and maybe even for months.

Stella still eats and has no clue she missed the deer that she loves to chase.

Sadie is still searching for what she missed.

Stella finally figures out something is going on and takes off running to meet Sadie. I continue to walk the path and enjoying the day.

Yes, at some time recently there were probably more than one deer where they are sniffing but that was long ago and the deer are gone without being chased.

Stella finally picks up their scent and shows some urgency ...

They both head back home and a day of excitement for me at least, turned out to be a normal 'walk in the park' to them. As I type this an hour later I still cannot believe they deer were right under their noses, without an immediate response.

I had to use the 200mm zoom to catch this, just to show you how far away Stella is from me. She is not wanting to chase missed deer though ... she is wanting to go to the neighbor's wooded area where the big blonde cat hangs out.

They decided there was nothing else to do but to head home and wait for lunch to be served.

We will definitely get another walk in later this afternoon. With as many files I have to transfer back to my cleaned hard drive, I'll not have access to my iMac until later this afternoon. This is my last try to fix the issue that crashed my computer on Thursday and if this doesn't work I have two options.

1.  Buy a new iMac, which I am probably due for after 6-1/2 years of use. I don't have enough RAM and my hard drive is 60% full. My 2 year old laptop teases me about buying a new desktop computer, with its faster processor, more RAM and bigger hard drive .... all of this blogging process is much faster on this newer computer.

2.  Save some money and connect this laptop to my 27" monitor and use this as my main computer, with a 2Tb external drive as the main hard drive.

3. Move my large Photos Library to an external drive and reconfigure the setting where the Apple Photos program will used the library file on the external drive as the main source. Then delete the current library file from the internal hard drive, free up ~260Gb or over half of my iMac hard drive.

It's late and Stella wants lunch ... I have to go. She is lucky that her food quantity is not based on deer performance. LOL

I'll write about my computer information update in a different post for those that are interested.

A beautiful day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Sadie Gets Her First Walk In 3 Days

Cabin fever for all of us had maxed out by this morning. Sadie slept, had some lunch, went out to check the water levels, slept some more and then stepped into my computer room to give me 'the stare' ... it was time for a walk.

The ground didn't really look much different than it did 4 hours ago but I had come up with an idea that could get me to walk them. I'd put on my North Face snow boots. They are not big nor bulky, lighter than the hiking books, with more rubber over the top of the foot. I'd stay dry no matter what.

Stella stopped for a quick pee break and the trotted toward our path. Sadie didn't wait for us and was way in front, nose to the ground and extremely happy.

It was her first walk since the morning of May 3rd, before the rains came. It seems longer than that since it was nice weather. Even the temps at 60° felt warm.

With the grass taller only means they needed to put their noses deeper inside it. There are a lot of new scents after a rain so they both were quite active.

This is just to the start of the far right corner. Neither one of them stayed too long before they came exploring along the edge of the field. After another day in front of the computer reading and looking for some answers, it was nice to be outside again.

Stella followed her own pace today. It didn't matter what Sadie was doing up ahead, nor what I was doing. She wasn't running today but glided across the field enjoying her walk.

As you can tell the hay is not nearly as tall here as it is near the house where the hounds spent the winter fertilizing it. It also looks like Stella has gain a little weight this week.

Sadie found something interesting enough to hang back as Stella and I kept walking. There is never a worry about her because she will always run to catch up on her own.

This running is good for her. That dark spot on her lower leg is a place she licks every night before she goes to sleep. She has done that for years for some reason. It's never bare skin, just wet hair.

While we waited for Sadie to catch up, Stella stopped abruptly, sat down and looked in the direction of the neighbor's wooded area. Did she smell that big blonde cat? Something had caught her attention enough to perk her ears up.

It looks like she is walking away from us as we get to the backyard but it's a new habit she has had the past week or so ... she will always use the path to return to the yard instead of walking straight from the field's tall grass, unless she is not on the 'official' daily walk.

As you can tell, she was in no hurry today ... she must be resting to watch the Kentucky Derby tonight.

The water is slowly moving out. That is only part of the field showing, not a sandbar. It looks like the row of crops out in the middle of the water is stable ... maybe they don't have to do anything to this field but let the sunshine do it's work.

I ran a free app called Dr. Cleaner by Trend Micro to clean up all my junk files and optimize my hard drive. It found and deleted over 2Gb's of junk files. It has more features but I would have had to buy the professional version. Instead the website I mentioned in my last post called Make Use Of, recommended a free maintenance app that would analyze, repair and do some general clean up of the hard drive.

It reported there were no problems with my hard drive and did a little cleaning. I shut down the computer while we were on our walk and so far since we have restarted the computer I have not had those small frustrating issues I've been having the past couple of days since the restore of the hard drive.

So, I thought I'd wait to see how things workout before I do a clean install of my OS and start all over like it's a new computer. That option still is interesting to me.

The Kentucky derby tonight on a track rated 'sloppy' will open the large number of entrants up to where anyone can win. The days I use to go to the California race tracks every day, I never bet when the track was rated muddy or sloppy.

All the hounds are happy and sound asleep here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Some Saturday Computer Rambling

It was nice to finally have some sunshine Friday afternoon. It wasn't hot but bright. Heidi even took the long way back to the house after an after lunch break outside.
By the time she walked up the driveway from the middle of the yard, she decided the best place to be was back under the blankets, rain or no rain.

She camped out in Sadie's chair for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

The cooler temps didn't stop Sadie though. She knew the rain had stopped and with a little sunshine there had to be a chance for a walk, at least in her mind. She surveyed the property line for any new scents after the rain, hoping to see me head to the field with my camera in hand.

But it wasn't going to happen. Even in the backyard, water was coming up the sides of my shoes when walking through the grass. Did you notice Sadie's ear flipped up in the picture above? I did not until I loaded it into the blog.

Stella could tell from a distance that she wasn't going to get her paws wet and was more interested in returning inside, beg for some of my dinner and prepare to watch (sleep) some Reds baseball.

By 6pm you would have thought we had moved to some lakefront property as the winds picked up and all of that water was showing some small wave movement. I could tell it was starting to recede ... maybe not.

The 75+ year old fence post made it through all of the rain and high winds. It is much more stable and stronger than my mailbox pole that the state highway department moved for me when they repaved the highway in 2006. I could also see some of my new grass growing on the left side of the post along the bank.

More rain was expected, so we woke up fairly late with a light rain this morning. It must have started after 3am because it wasn't raining when I went to bed. I still think I see some of that water draining out of the field.

Sadie gave the wet field a detailed inspection when she got up. There has been a lot of growth after all the rain but this portion of the field is the tallest grass.

She tried to get Stella to move and talk me into walking. It wasn't quite noon when the rain stopped and it looks like we should have at least through Monday night before there is a chance for more rain. There's enough time for that weather forecast to change.

Heidi wasn't out long and refused to walk in the wet grass. She took a few steps in it to relieve herself but jumped back on the mulch to walk behind the yews. She rarely likes posing for pictures.

She and Stella woke up this morning with some gunk around their eyelids. Wunderground shows the allergies are high today, my sinuses agreed.

Tall wet grass must taste good after a lot of rain. Stella couldn't stop eating grass and walked back inside with a few strands of the green stuff hanging from her jowls. Are her ribs starting to fade away?

I thought I'd check and make sure before canceling today's walk. I looked at the edge of the field, on the path next to the yard ... If it is this wet at the low point of the field then there is a lot of standing water the further into the field we'd go. Umpire's decision ... no walk today.

Maybe the sun can dry this out within the next 4-5 hours, we will check back then. It does not look hopeful though.

Sadie lives to walk. She wasn't too happy about today's cancellation. It's been 3 days since her last walk in the field. While I was on the roof yesterday afternoon she took off and I saw her almost at the first corner (turn) of the walk ... just stepping into the woods. Would that count as a walk?

Stella does not like to get her paws wet. You can see she is not that happy walking back to the house ... or was it because I called her to come inside. Yet yesterday while I was on the roof cleaning the gutter out, she wandered back to the neighbors drainage ditch. That sent me over the edge of insanity when I saw her. Too close to the highway, I wasn't a happy camper.

Here are some pictures of the hounds watching baseball on tv at night. Normally Sadie is in her chair with the ottoman but Heidi had taken that spot and wasn't moving. So she joined Stella on the couch next to me.

As the game went further along, they both gradually moved in their sleep to gain a little more space to sleep while I was being pushed toward the arm of the couch with barely enough room to sit. This is a nightly routine for them whether I am there watching tv or back in another room on my computer.

These last three pictures were taken with the iPhone 6s camera.

With the weather the way it was the last couple of days I've spent a lot of time on the computer trying to find out why my computer is not operating as fast as it use to before the crash a few days ago. My internet connection is still faster than ever, testing at 48Mbps downloads and over 5.5Mbps uploads, so it's not that.

I usually find a lot of good information concerning Apple computers over at the MacRumors Forum. I did this time also. It's always the place I go before I download any kind of software or apps. I also check out the CNET Reviews before adding anything to my hard drive.

Through the searches I was doing on Google, looking for answers or ideas on fixing that "slowness" that has gripped my restored hard drive, I ran onto another great site that has so many good articles, you cannot stop reading them. This place is good for Window PCs and Apple computers. Click here to see the site called MakeUseOf for some great information.

{Note: As an example of my newest computer issue I will discuss in a few sentences below ... at this point right before "the site .... " I clicked my curser there to add the website name. That froze my computer until I got a message that Blogger was 'not responding'}

Neither of those links are affiliate links. I copied the link for Macs but you can see PC drop down menu at the top of the page along with some other categories.

Even though my computer is currently frustrating at times, with the freezes and hangups doing just some simple tasks ... I like researching stuff like this and seeing if I can find a fix that works plus learning new tips and tricks for normal computer use along the way.

I've tried all three browsers (Firefox, Chrome & Safari) the past 24-36 hours. I always try to use Safari as my default browser but I always come back to Google Chrome. I don't see much difference in battery use between the three but I do see Chrome being faster and using less data to do normal internet surfing than the other two browsers. All three browsers were freezing at times ... but that might have been a weather thing since it hasn't been bad today.

During all the rain I lost my internet signal just once and only long enough for the house power to go off and right back on. Even with 800' visibility with storm clouds, my internet signal was never affected.

I did take a break from the computer yesterday afternoon and pulled my ladder out of the shed and got up on the roof. I wanted to clear the blockage on the front gutter as well as pick up all the smaller twigs laying on the roof from the high winds on Thursday night.

I needed to repair my downspout on the north side of the house right next to both satellite dishes. The wind was so powerful during the night on Thursday it not only pulled the gutter downspout out where it is mounted on the side of the house but also at the point it connects to the gutter ... taking the screw with it.

When I saw yesterday afternoon how that was hanging over my internet satellite dish, no wonder all three browsers were freezing even though I never lost signal. Who knows, maybe that wasn't it. It wasn't touching the dish in anyway but it was in between the transponder and dish.

My computer problem since I restored it after the crash has been software issues. Like clicking the button here on Blogger to upload photos ... click it ... takes forever to move.

Click on a cell on an excel spreadsheet, computer freezes. In Windows you would get the hourglass, on Apple we get a spinning beach ball.

I do run the Activity Monitor all the time so I can see it on my 2nd monitor, to track data and any sudden unexpected data surges. With a monthly data allowance you have to do that. On that same screen I can also check the memory being used or what percent of the CPU is being used by different programs.

That is where I saw it really did not make much difference in which browser I used.

I ran a free app today called Omni Disc Sweeper. It will show every file on your computer, categorized and hopefully tell you where you have files you can delete to free up hard drive space. Remember I bought this iMac in 2007 and the hard drive is only 500Gb.

Side note ... I remember in 1995 when I was thrilled to buy a new computer that had a hard drive with 350 Mb's .... megabytes. We wondered then what would we ever do with so much space on a hard drive. LOL

It will be 7 years of use this October for my iMac and I have only used 299Gb of the hard drive. The funny thing is, 252 of that 299 is nothing but picture files. I did not see any 'dead' files just laying around that I could delete.

So, since I do enjoy 'playing around' with stuff like this ... I am seriously thinking of doing a clean install of the OS, then ... restore my files from my back up on Time Machine. The difference is, the other night I only did a restore from that back up and the OS worked after that, it booted up.

I ran disk utilities again last night after 2am, and it found nothing needing repaired on my hard drive. Yet a 'clean' install of the OS gets rid of any hidden lingering issues ... sometimes.

If I decide to do that right after this post, it will take some time but maybe only a few hours. I noticed the other night it loaded my photo library only 45 minutes after I went to bed with the restore working on it's own.

It's times like these it's good to have not only everything backed up on an external drive but also a second computer, a laptop.

Is doing a clean install of the operating system just something to do while I am stuck inside or will it fix those small issues that have been popping up? Or, are these occasional freezes a sign that my hard drive is getting ready to die soon due to age and use?

With that last possibility, yes, I have looked at new iMacs to buy as a replacement. But, I've also been looking at cars on cars dot com also. LOL (That has to be being bored in bad weather)

No matter what, the rain has stopped and the sunshine is out ... that is always a good thing here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.