The Hounds Move Back To Old Routine

Yesterday didn't consist of much. I escaped from the house for over an hour to replenish my food supply. I looked at some different dog food without buying any ... and that meant Stella was left at the house with Sadie and Kong balls stuffed with treats.

She had been on what I call a 'hot streak' recently when I have left, by not having the separation anxiety where she would be destructive. By the way Sadie was panting when I got back and her dog bed moved to a different location on the floor, I suspect they had a long period of wrestling. Heidi stays in the living room while I am gone, for her own protection against possible rough bloodhound playing.

It was good to see Stella roaming and slowly inspecting the field yesterday afternoon. It was nice enough to sit outside in sunshine while the hounds, including Heidi, moved about the backyard. We did take a walk but without the camera this time. It was strange to see them walking close to me most of the way.

It was around 8pm when I glanced outside to see this. Another beautiful sunset here in 'the tropics'. Spring is one of my favorite times to live where I do. Since I like hot weather, there is really only about 3 months out of the year of bad weather for me.

Once the hounds woke me up this morning, it felt like it was later than the normal time of morning. They were about an hour early and of course wanting to eat breakfast more than they wanted to go outside. Still they go outside before eating breakfast for a very very short trip before they are back at the door wanting in because they know I've been pouring out dog food.

As it looks, a nice day is on the way. Temps in the low 30's and heavy dew, with a predicted high of the mid 60's. It looks like from the reflection from the sunshine I will be mowing part of the back yard and all of the front yard.

"The routine" came back today. Both hounds had deviated recently where they would just stand in the yard staring at me and wanting their walk at 7:30 or 8 in the morning. They use to slowly roam the field exploring while I was inside making my coffee. Today that routine returned. By the time I came back outside Stella had already completed her loop in the field to the north side of the yard. Notice that she always glances back to the neighbor's yard where she visited the drainage ditch a few weeks ago.

Once I said "come on" she came trotting to the house. Within minutes inside both bloodhounds were laying next to Heidi sound to sleep until the first walk of the day. From the amount of dew, it may not be dry in the field until after noon.

It's good to see everything so green. The old dead vines and stems in the field have disappeared, replaced by growing green grass. During the walks I can see a lot of new growth instead of a lot of weeds. It will grow until July when they make their first cut of hay. I hope as it gets warmer this spring that Heidi returns to participate in the daily walk. Something tells me that won't happen.

For people that blog on Blogger, a few days ago I mentioned I started loading all of my photos first, before a word is written. I am finding it much easier to write the post that way and it's faster. Very little format adjustments if any, to get the paragraphs spaced after the photos.

My other blog on Wordpress with just a few photos per post and only a sentence or two of content is working out well. I can post there multiple times per day if I want or just a photo and a thought. I can confirm for whatever reason, the same exact photos on each blog look different on the different blog platforms. Photos on Wordpress are much clearer and a sharper quality. I have that blog listed on my sidebar.

You can't beat the weather right now in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Survive Last Night's Hail

That beautiful morning I posted about yesterday slowly started turning toward the forecast. Stella, Sadie and I decided to go out to check the sky one last time late yesterday afternoon. You could 'feel' that rain was on the way.

Even Stella could smell rain was on the way. I was told when I got her that she was afraid of thunder. So far in the previous storms I haven't see any freaked out fear, just a little slow pacing.

She came and got me a little after 7pm. It was really dark outside and the storm had started. We were getting pounded with small rock size hail. I grabbed the camera to take some photos of how white the yard was becoming with hail ... battery light was flashing and no photos were taken. It didn't last long but it was strong storm.

This morning, the air was clean, the robins were singing their musical and the hounds cautiously checked out the yard and field for any damage or new scents. The sun was trying it's best to poke through the gray clouds.

We went back inside as usual. I needed breakfast and coffee, the hounds needed their nap. A few hours later it was back outside and it's the normal time for the first walk of the day but not today ... the ground is saturated with some water still standing. Sadie forgot her bone was left in the yard from the other day. It was spotlessly cleaned by the rain ... she decided it was time for some Monday morning fetching.

Remember that Stella doesn't like to play fetch and she hadn't wrestled in a while. Sadie was more interested in fetching not getting mauled by Stella ... they both lost interest in what the other wanted to do and went their separate ways.

The robins were out in full force this morning. The morning was filled with their music. They all sounded pretty happy to me and I was surprised that when they did their low level flyby's, Sadie did not chase them like she normally does. She was still more interested in her clean bone.

While I was walking around taking photos of the robins, Stella decided to sneak off. No doubt looking for new food sources. Yet, she came running when I called her. She knows that tether can be installed anytime I guess and enjoys her freedom instead.

Sadie in the meantime contemplates what she plans to do for today and this week. MLB starts in 7 days, she likes baseball.

A few off topic notes --

• 2 of the 4 college basketball teams playing this weekend in the NCAA's Final 4 are being investigated or have been punished for academic fraud within their basketball teams. The NCAA is a huge profit making machine with billions of dollars in revenue yet has a 'non profit organization' tax status. How corrupt can that be?

• I would prefer to use Firefox as my default browser but with all the built in security measures, it doesn't open websites correctly at times. Safari is faster today after the latest update last week but it has the same problem with opening websites correctly ... like my blogs. So I stick with Google Chrome, which is fast, and opens all websites without any issues.

• Can you believe it is only a couple of days from April? That seemed to be a pretty fast winter ... one where I saved a lot of electrical usage that will equate to my May bill being paid with the credit built plus a check for a refund of overpayment. I am on the monthly plan paying the same amount every month based on previous year's average and then settling up on the annual month of May.

• 19 years ago last week I moved into this house. I've never lived anywhere this long. I had only two basset hounds at the time, my first ever named Harry and another basset named Maggie. Both bought as 8 week old puppies and great bassets. I'll have to do some posts about each of them in the future. 

• Is anyone else not voting this year because there is not one presidential candidate to like? That is all I am going to say about politics on this blog. At this time I don't think I am voting this November.

• For a sports addict, I am about to move from a winter of basketball into a summer of major league baseball. Daily routines will remain the same. Life is rough being retired.

Not intending to but by looking through Facebook photos of the person that gave me Stella last August, I saw the name of her original owner off to the side of one of the photos where she had either commented or liked it. Her name was listed on the vet records that were given to me. I contacted her on Facebook thinking she might like to see that Stella was doing well with her bloodhound friend Sadie. She was happy that I contacted her and was happy to see her updated photos. Facebook and the internet make it a very small world we live in.

I have some errands to run today. Stella will get her chance to improve on her separation anxiety. She is on a 'hot streak' where there has not been any damage on my recent 'escapes' from the house. No matter what, she is still a great bloodhound. She will never get in trouble for what she does.

It's still trying to become sunny here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Go For A Ride

I was right ... once the bloodhounds heard me grab the FJ keys, they were up, awake and excited. They have become to like the short trips around town.

Heidi heard me but tried to ignore me and wouldn't move. She will not hesitate once I get her moving off of her blankets, becomes active and does what Sadie and Stella do ... it's just a matter I guess of getting her started.


She did a pre-trip pee and jumped up into the front seat of the FJ and proceeded to take her normal position of riding 'shotgun'. Sadie and Stella were already in the back and waiting to go.

I didn't know where we were going, so I thought I'd take a look at the old steel bridge across the highway. I wanted to see what the water level was like after the recent rains compared to last May when I blogged about it here.

This area looks a lot nicer in May when plants have bloomed and the scenery is green instead of the dead look from the midwest winter.

I knew when I left the car that Stella would jump into the front drivers seat so she could keep an eye out for me. I also knew there would be bloodhound drool involved ... and there was. It comes with the territory when you own a bloodhound.

She doesn't seem to like it when I get too far away from her eye sight. She always has to move to where she has a better view of me walking away from the FJ.

In this area the terrain is hilly, small fields are scattered anywhere a tractor can get into where they can plow, disc and plant the field. I guess a lot of small fields add up to a large field of crops when it comes to making money.

Here is a photo of my house from across the highway. Notice how the field behind my yard all moves downward toward my bank for all of that underground water.  That bank in 2008 was filled with 3 more of those large sycamore trees and solid with smaller trees.

The neighbor's house has been for sale since July 2014. That is the month and year the current owner bought the house. That does not include the year before that the previous owner had it for sale. Both owners want about $40K more than what it is worth. It has not been lived in since July 2014.

From there I crossed the highway and went straight ahead. This road is just a few hundred feet from my house. Part of the land borders the field that we walk in every day. I did not want to take any photos of people's houses along the way but I wanted to capture some of the wooded, hilly terrain.

That yellow sign stated Do Not Enter to keep the area contamination free. Those smaller barns must be where the turkeys are first raised. Owned locally but part of Perdue Farms. I was tempted to drive to the top of the hill but we turned around in the lot to the left.

Another older steel bridge is closed.

Last month a man in a natural gas company truck stopped by the house to give me some information about converting from electric to natural gas for power. With the EPA laws that may or may not change, my electric bill may increase more than I want. All of the major power plants in Indiana are coal based and future laws will dictate if my electrical power stays at a reasonable cost.

You can see here where they are installing new natural gas lines. There a lot more of these around the area that I did not take photos of.

Every road we drove on was narrow, hilly and pretty empty. I met a couple of pickup trucks along with way but you could tell it was a quiet Sunday. In the direction we were going I knew that we would be driving through the covered bridge that I took photos of in October 2014. I didn't know how the hounds would react but they ended up not saying a word.

Heidi spent most of her time standing with her nose out the window to pick up the scents of turkeys, horses and cows along the way. I had Sadie laying down in back with Stella standing to the left of my head, panting enough to where I could smell bloodhound breath ... it was great to be able to leave the windows down.

This company is still open but I thought their old building with advertising on the side of it was kind of cool looking.

We had driven in a small circle from the house but as we left town and headed home, the hounds recognized this highway as the way to go home ... they started whining, knowing where they were headed. All of them were pretty happy to return and wanted back inside the house so they could finish their naps that I cut short. They were all sound asleep within minutes.

It was a shorter drive than planned. My bladder dictated just how long the drive was going to be. There is not a lot to see around here. It's a small rural town. The county is large and has the 2nd highest unemployment rate in the state at 8.2% and a lot of the area is what I called 'depressed'.

It's very wooded and hilly here but 4 miles west it is flat, where fields go as far as you can see. The hounds and I will try to drive in that area this week.

It was a very relaxing day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.