Sadie & Stella Take Off

With weather like this every day it's hard to stay inside. Sadie and Stella felt the same way although for some reason Heidi is back in her mid-winter hibernation mode. High temps in the 70's make it perfect weather.

For our mid-day walk I had barely made it to the yard and saw Sadie and Stella both running toward the back of the field direction in back of the house. I have no idea what they had picked up but their noses were to the ground and they were off at a fast pace.

I continued to follow the path walking the same pace I always do, knowing that both of them would be within view.

I was not even close to the first corner and they were already in the middle of the field. It wasn't until Sadie stopped to look back in my direction that they slowed their pace. I expected them to head over the top of the hill and go toward the woods.

They were not chasing deer nor birds, just jogging further and further away from me. I don't recall this ever happening when they were not involved chasing deer. I guess they really do like the field cut. I still had not made it to the first turn.

By the direction Stella was heading along the back edge of the field I thought she was well on her way into the 'no fly zone' but I wasn't going to start running after her yet. I continued with my slow pace while keeping an eye on them to see what they were going to do.

Even with this much sunshine, it didn't feel hot. It's hard to believe it's almost July and we are having highs in the 70's for weather.

I cannot figure out why they were in such a hurry to get to this area of the field. They sniffed around a lot but didn't look like they had found any 'natural protein' to eat. I wondered how long they would stay out here if I didn't get them walking back to the house with me.

I wanted to take a picture of the tightly rolled hay but Sadie had other ideas. Evidently something she liked was wrapped up inside the roll.

A single feather out in the middle of nowhere.

After checking the mail, grabbing some water to drink, I headed back outside for an afternoon of reading. Sadie was checking to see if another walk was possible. It had been about 30 minutes since we returned from the mid-day walk.

Once she saw I was not going to get out of my chair to go on another walk, she decided to sneak up on me as if I couldn't see her.

Stella got to the point of indecision ... whether to answer my call and head back to the house or turn and make a run for it back out into the far field. After a lot of thinking, she decided it was best to return to the house.

It was another great day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Take A Record Number Of Walks

It was after 5pm before I heard that familiar sound of a tractor right outside my computer room window. They had waited for the daytime sunshine to dry out the hay and flowers that were cut on Saturday, yet rain clouds were overhead and predicted rain was just hours away.

With the day being so nice and it being so much easier to take a hound walk, they took a record number of walks yesterday ... 4 of 'em. I could tell by the amount of hay laying in rows there just wasn't as much as in past years. With all the rain this spring and sunshine that was hard to figure out.

I was standing at the corner of the house taking this zoom'd photo. I didn't see the guys inside the tractor smiling until I downloaded the pictures. Were they joking about something or seeing me with a zoom lens pointed at them? They don't know they are on a blog seen by only a few people but scattered all over the world.

The raker and baler were working pretty well. Intellicast weather radar was showing rain about 50 miles away ... it never showed up nor did it rain after midnight where they said there was a 75% chance of rain. With the warmer than normal winter and the nice weather this spring I find it strange the small amount of hay they were able to bale.

By the time I took my two pictures that I take every day across the highway at the corn field and then from the corner of the house toward the back ... Sadie and Stella were already starting their walk. I decided while putting on my hiking boots that I would let each of them walk on their own ... where ever they wanted to go. With the field cut is is of course so much easier to keep track of them.

It looks so much different when the field is cut and baled. Basically back to being a 'clean' field and less stuff for them to find to eat. Most of their favorites are now inside those rolls of hay.

Back to the 4 walks day ... Sadie likes to walk after their noon lunch for walk #2. I usually wait about an hour after they eat before we do that. Then in late afternoon she and I are ready to take off again after all of them have slept all afternoon. With the weather so nice after 7pm ... that results in a 4th walk.

Of course that gets my number of steps I take per day above the normal range. It equates to almost 4 miles of walking and even at a slow pace my heart rate gets to a level where I get a workout. The days I mow the yard is just an added bonus.

Yet, my 'to-do' list has come to a complete stop. My Apple Reminder app tells me I have 7 of them overdue. All are fairly easy things to do but would be very time consuming. Some of them would take more than 8 labor hours to complete. For some reason, over the years I have been pretty consistent in that I am motivated to do things on that list in early spring and not again until the hottest time of the year ... mid to late August.

With the temps at 50° when we started the walk, it was sweatshirt and shorts weather on this morning walk. It was about at this point in the walk I remember this last winter when it was 9° and a strong cold wind blowing in my face. I prefer this weather to that freezing weather.

With total freedom given to each hound on this walk, they headed in opposite directions. Sadie went to the far right corner of the field and Stella took off toward the middle of the field and possibly to the NW, a direction she had never taken. That is typical for them when I don't 'herd' them during the walk.

Most of the time, even when they bale the field twice in the summer, they normally get 16-18 of these rolls of hay. They normally haul it away after it is rolled but it looks like they will store it here until their next cut in the fall or pull it as they need it next winter.

Once Stella glanced up and saw that Sadie was busy with what she found, she started walking in our direction without me yelling her name. What I missed was her running.

While I was taking a picture of the busted roll of hay, Stella had RAN from the middle of the field to the corner of this hay in the short time I took the picture.

Then it was back to 'noses to the ground' for each of them. I am sure that deer use this path to walk from the gully to the woods on the far north side of the field.

This reminded me of the time times I turn my lawn mower to start a new row and miss part of the taller grass. This is just one of the few spots in 7 acres that he missed with his much larger mower.

Sadie took off almost trotting on a scent she had found. She was not into chasing sparrows today because just outside the left edge of this picture there were 5-10 sparrows on the ground having breakfast. A few days ago Sadie would have sprinted after them but today her interest was somewhere else.

While Sadie and I walked toward the house, Stella was heading for the 'no fly zone'. I was sure she was headed for the woods. If that were to happen I would have had to go get her and lead her back to the house.

Back to my 'to do' list, I never worry about what I get done or don't get done. It will all be completed eventually but only when I feel like doing the type of work I will need to do. I'll have a major rush to get things done before last week of August when a new college football season starts.

It took a while and even longer than I had planned but Sadie and Stella finally made it back to the yard. They spent almost the same amount of time at the end of the walk in the area behind the house as it took for me to complete the walk.

With the fantastic weather we have been having I am back to picking up three different books to read and most of that reading is outside. With the disappearance of gnats, bugs and a few mosquitoes, the hounds have time to roam the field right behind the house and I can keep an eye on them while I read.

I've recently been cutting my time on the computer way below my daily limit of data. That daily limit I set on my spreadsheet stretches that 20Gb of data evenly over the 30-31 day period. Currently I have about 1.2 Gb's in the bank based on my decreased usage.

Besides my normal sports reading, Twitter, Facebook ... I've took a look at houses for sale the other day on Zillow and Realtor sites. There are 4-5 towns out west that have always interested me with 2 of them places I have lived in the past. Nothing excites me too much in the housing market.

Even though I really like my Mini Cooper Countryman I still look at what FJ's are for sale in a radius of 250 miles from home. Many to choose from but very very few have the same options I had with my blue one. I still will not make any trade until I decide when I travel and what I want to use as far as trailers. Nothing has changed my mind about traveling with the hounds.

Traveling with two bassets and one bloodhound wasn't that bad but hard. Two bloodhounds would make that impossible. I knew that and analyzed that before I decided to pick up Stella and bring her home. I could walk Winston and Heidi with a "splitter" and one leash. When I have tried that here with Sadie and Stella ... it didn't work and was a total disaster each time I tried it.

I have a few more weeds to cut along the driveway this afternoon. It is so tempting to buy and spray weed killer and make that all so easy but I don't want any chance of that getting on the paws of the hounds or in the air. So I will continue to cut them as low as possible with my weed eater and let the sun kill them.

Not sure but I might post again tonight after we take some afternoon photos.

I cannot believe how long this fantastic weather has lasted here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

We were out soon after 8am. I would have been drenched with water/dew if the field had not been cut. I still feel small droplets of water coming off my hiking boots with each step. Cool enough to wear a sweatshirt ... but the hounds were "noses to the ground".

While Sadie started chasing swallows almost immediately, Stella was more interested in finding supplements to her diet with hopes I wouldn't catch her soon enough. The word "no" was used a lot this morning for both hounds and each time their findings were dropped to the ground.

That didn't mean they couldn't exercise their noses. There was plenty of time and plenty of field to do that. We walked a little further today along the back side to keep everyone within the cut path so we would not mess up the piled rows that they will rake later before baling.

With the yard mowed yesterday and the forecasted rain blowing out for another few days replaced by sunshine today I wasn't sure what plans I had for today. It looked like the chances of rain were slim for this afternoon but very good later tonight after midnight.

I had a lot more weeds to cut along the driveway bank. I did that until my battery ran out of juice. I did take the Z4 out for another drive of about 50 miles.

This morning we walked by the electrical tower to the woods on the north side. Here is a picture from an angle never seen before. I am standing at the far NE corner of the field, the tall tower would be to the left. Looking back toward the house you can see just how much incline there is to the middle of the field.

I look for them to rake and start baling late this afternoon. Once that is done that will put us back on our regular path which can be seen since it's a darker green.

It is funny how excited they get when we get ready to head out for these two or three walks per day because when they get back home, all of them are in a deep sleep with ten minutes.

Today wasn't much different than yesterday afternoon, except less sporting events to watch. So I spent most of the day outside reading a couple of books. There were no bugs or gnats to bother me, Sadie and Stella enjoyed roaming the field even after two hound walk.

I thought the way Heidi jumped off the couch that she was going on with noon walk with us. She was only needing a place to lay outside under the sunshine while Sadie, Stella and I took our walk.

With all of them outside it was time to cut their nails and brush them. All three of them were very cooperative in the nail trimming expedition so they were awarded peanut flavored bone treats afterwards.

I remember how nice it was to walk around 8:15pm last night so we are going to wait until then for our 3rd walk of the day.

I found out a couple of things concerning my 2012 Mini Cooper S Countryman and the slowness I had with Google Chrome. I always suspected a previous owner had added those red stripes, stock design, to make it look like the model above what it actually was. If you remember I took all of the red striping on the car off in March.

These side panels were a dead giveaway because of the "John Cooper Works" side panel, plus the front bumper and by a couple of other features I knew that this was not a John Cooper Works model. That would make it sportier, a little more horsepower and worth more.

Did they change out these side panels, add red mirrors and the red inlets in the front grill and the stock red stripes to make more on the trade-in value or just because they wanted that model?

I found out the true specs of the car last night as I was curious enough to find a decoder that could break down the VIN in detail. In that description it stated the car came with black mirrors ("outside mirrors same color as car") and the HP was for the Sport model that I have, not the John Cooper Works model.

I was also suspicious at times when I looked in Google Images for my car and I could not find the model with the stock red stripes with a black roof. That model of car always had a red roof, along with red mirrors and red grill intakes.

I am going to buy the stock side panels for the "S" model that I have and still try to find some black mirrors to replace the red ones, taking the car back to it's stock description. Those black mirrors are hard to find, even used ones for sale.

I mentioned the other day I was having problems with Google Chrome when using blogger. I tried something this morning because the only recent change I had made was adding the "Pocket" app. That gives you the ability to save a website into Pocket so you can read it offline. It's a great feature for those using laptops yet is a standard option with the Safari browser.

It was a pretty quiet day in retirement here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.