Photos Of A Highly Active Hounds Walk

I am not sure of the reason but after a normal Saturday of college football on tv way into the early morning hours, the hounds woke up energized ... more than normal. This is the most active I've seen Stella in almost a year and Sadie was sprinting at times. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

It's Seattle weather today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Test Winds From The NW

With yesterday afternoon having light rain off and on, we didn't do much. The hounds slept, I played Mahjong and started a new book. You'd be surprised how much faster a day like that goes compared to the days I worked. The hounds and I were in for a shock this morning and it was coming from the Northwest.

I could see by the way the hounds were sleeping last night, it was getting quite cold outside. How do they know that? Their sleeping positions change from being stretched out in the summer to curled in tight balls during the winter. Heidi is the only one that demands a blanket.

So when we glanced at Intellicast weather radar this morning, I saw that 'light blue' of snow had moved across the northern part of the state 150-200 miles north of us. We dressed accordingly and started our first walk of the day a little past 10am.

For some strange reason it felt warm, no wind as we started. In fact it felt too warm for the light gloves I was wearing. With Sadie taking off on her own and Stella veering off on her own to the left of me ... I continued to walk under skies that looked like snow was on the way. (not in the forecast)

I decided while putting my coat and hiking boots on that Stella would have free reign this morning. She took a path that was totally unexpected ... she followed Sadie and I for most of the time.

I could tell by their nose activity this morning, there was a lot of deer traffic while we slept. Both hounds stopped at numerous places to smell and identify what was in the area.

It was about right here that I felt just how cold it was. Even though the cold freezing winds were coming from the NW or left side of picture ... I had not felt anything until I got to the first turn. Had the neighbor's woods blocked the wind?

The wind a was mid-January freezing type wind. Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago I was making this same walk at the same time of day in cargo shorts and a t-shirt??? How many days until Spring??

Sadie charges past me at a high rate of speed ... she loves this field. I've been letting her out on her own in the afternoons for close to an hour. She can explore and roam as she wishes. I do check on her by looking through my binoculars just to make sure she is within view behind the house and not in the field to the north of our house. (too close to the highway)

She never cares if Stella is with her not ... she will explore the field in detail.

Just as I made the final turn home, I could barely see Stella walking across the field heading north while we were going in a southwest direction. I just assumed I'd find her over by the neighbor's woods and kept walking.

Out of nowhere, Sadie bolted in front of me and started running to the right of me while I was looking for Stella up ahead of me. There were no birds launching from ground level. I didn't see any deer. What made her do that?

It wasn't until my camera lens focused on Sadie that I saw Stella. She was not up ahead of me by the woods but way off to the right side of me past the main "ATV Racetrack" ... I cannot remember a time she had been in that part of the field ... except the deer chase she was on last year.

Of course neither one was going to leave that spot with me just calling their names. I walked all the way over to them and about the time I reached them ... they both headed back toward our path without me saying a word.

We took the normal path home all because Stella had decided that was the way we should go today. She likes to make her own decisions.

I was not quite to the yard when I turned to see where the hounds were, possibly getting a picture of both of them from the front of them instead of the back or side of them.

Here is Sadie rolling in something but was fast enough the camera didn't catch the full roll. She jumped back up and looked at me to see if there was a chance of another roll ... luckily I saw nothing nor smelled anything that she might have rolled in. She ran up to me very proud after her gymnastics exercise and let me know she did not stink nor was there anything to wash off her soft coat.

So another successful Saturday morning walk ... freezing temps ... and a full day of college football along with another World Series game tonight. Luckily a lot of the sports channels will replay some of these games this week so I will not need to tape them while watching another game.

Here is a 'highlight' from this past week. I took this with my iPhone camera and forgot I had the 'live' setting turned on. I don't know if that feature will show up on the blog but from my computer I could not only see a 3-4 seconds of her but HEARD her licking the bottom of the ice cream container.

Sometimes when you can't get to that last drop of ice cream, you just have to dig a little deeper.

I have a cluster of good games on at 3:30pm and maybe a clear schedule for the MLB game at 7:30pm before my late night Pac12 games that start at 10:45pm. It's a typical Saturday for a 'sports addict'.

Firefox took a call third strike for me this morning and has  been put back on the self in my apps folder. Their icon is no longer on my 'dock'. It's a consistent problem I've had with them over the years and one of the reasons I always stop using them.

• Some websites do not have correct format, while those same websites show up correctly in Safari and Google Chrome. 
• Sometimes the sentences on websites run together. 
• Columns were incorrect on the football tv schedule I printed this morning. The website did not have the proper format and single lines were wrapped into three and for lines inside columns.
• This website looked correct on Google Chrome and Safari. 
• The schedule printed perfect from Google Chrome.

So I have made the full circle this morning and have gone back to Google Chrome. 

I have an insurance appraiser coming to my house next week to tell me what it will cost to fix the Z4 grill and shields underneath the car. I have a good body shop a mile away from me, one that I know does good work. Of course the insurance company tells me they recommend body shop that is 30 miles from me which will guarantee their work plus they will pay to tow the car. 

I have priced out what I think needs replaced with BMW OEM parts and the total cost is not quite what my deductible is. One way or another the Z4 will be fixed but I am interested in what cost the appraiser comes up with.

The way TV is viewed in today's world is changing rapidly. I will not list all the companies that you and I know are getting into streaming tv shows. That is all good, except when you live in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana, in a rural area, all of those that offer unlimited data to do this 'streaming' is not available in my area.

I wonder what changes will be made in the next 1-2 years because in the past 3-6 months the number of companies advertising their tv services is increasing rapidly. Like "YouTube TV" ????

That is about all I have for today. I have to wonder if it is just a coincidence that after I posted pictures of my burn pile burning last week, then was reminded about the California Wildfires by someone making a comment on that post ... that my blog traffic dropped around 50% this past week, starting the day after those fire pictures.

Interesting.

Still ... blog traffic does not determine how exciting days are here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Sadie & Stella Play During Walk

We've gone from a hot bright sunny afternoon on Thursday, to overcast skies and rain this morning. The skies are here but the rain is not suppose to arrive until early afternoon. The day was so nice yesterday we had 3 hound walks, I mowed the yard/leaves and still had enough time to add a few more Mahjong games to the list of being finished under 3 minutes.

With the forecast of rain today I wanted to stay outside as much as possible yesterday. Two of our walks included the camera, the last one included just the retractable leash. With three walks and mowing the yard for 48 minutes, my Garmin told me I had a lot more steps yesterday than my normal amount.

I'm not sure if Stella tracks the number of steps she takes every day but I do know on those afternoon walks she is entirely different than her morning walk by walking as slow as possible and she has no interest in running anywhere.

We were on our way back, had made the final turn for home ... she continued to walk in slow motion, while enjoying the warmth of the sunshine at 66°.

Heidi even came outside late afternoon for her 3rd time for the day. I thought she was walking with us, but she only wanted to make a lap around the house and spend some time laying in the sunshine. She stayed outside relaxing even after the bloodhounds and I returned from our walk. That is her normal path when she comes outside.

This morning was a different story though. It was 45°, spitting a few drops of rain but not enough to cancel our morning walk. Both hounds were happy we were out and Stella decided early in the walk that she was making all the decisions today for Sadie and I.

We were about to get started when Sadie hears what I heard over in the woods to the right of our house. By the sound of it, a very tall tree cracked ... then made a sound of dropping to the ground. From the tree tops I could not tell where it was but that is the 2nd tree since the summer I have heard falling ... each sounding like a tall large tree.

As Sadie ran far in front of Stella and I ... I had to walk over toward Stella to 'herd' her back to our path. She was heading lower in the field, trotting toward the neighbors house ... ignoring every word I was saying.

Once she walked over to the normal path we take, she took off running for Sadie.

Both explored more than anything, falling behind me and then running past me to get ahead.

I am not sure what the reason was ... but Stella heading left in this picture, suddenly spun around as she walked away from us and let Sadie know she wanted to do a little wrestling this morning. It caught Sadie off guard and she was already on the defense.

Just as fast as they started, Stella then turned around and started running up the path made by the ATV, heading north woods, with a head wind providing all the scent she needed. I took off running and yelling her name because by her pace ... she was not going to stop.

Either she finally heard me yelling "No" or decided she had done what she had planned ... to get me jogging this morning ... she stopped and waited for me to catch up.

Just as I caught up with her and Sadie ... Stella took off running full speed down the path and toward the house. I had not seen her run that far for that long since her last deer chase sometime a year ago.

I didn't run this time ... I thought she would spend enough time snooping around for me to catch up and even pass her. She did not disappoint.

She had me and Sadie waiting for her to come back into the yard where I saw I had twice the amount of leaves on the ground than I mowed and l cleared yesterday afternoon. I am hoping for a weekend of high winds with hopes that the leaves blow all the way out of the yard.

I am still using Firefox for my browser. One website it does not work well with is Flickr. When I load my photos of the day into Flickr, the cursor hesitates and bounces around when I try to highlight the photos that I want to add to an album.

With having no interest in the three college football games on tv tonight, there will be no interruptions by switching channels to different games besides tonight's World Series game from Houston. I am hoping the Astros are the first team to win 4 games ... it's tied 1-1 right now.

Apple seems to be pushing out their macOS beta updates about every two days and we are up to #5 as of last night around 2:30am. They will continue to tweak things, improve and fix any reported problems ... before their make their next official release to all users. I had to sign up for the beta program.

For some reason this morning I am being hit big time on my phone with spam calls. How do I know they are spam calls if I don't answer the call?  I go to Whitepages, type in the phone number that is calling me in Whitepages 'reverse search' and it will tell me if it is a spammer. Then I add that number to a Contact I set up named 'SPAM' so when they call back in the future I can tell with a quick glance at caller ID if it is a legit call.

All of my spam email disappeared when I deleted my old old old blog gmail address 'houndsnrvs'. I was getting over 100 spam emails per day on that 6 year old gmail address.

It's a quiet Friday so far here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.