Heidi Surprises Us On Sunday

For once the local tv weatherman was correct. Much cooler temps after a night of rain while the hounds slept. While we got to bed early, we all woke up early to a light rain, overcast skies and the temperature at 60°

That's quite a change from the 70's in the morning and mid 80's during the day.

The hounds had a pretty good weekend, surviving another weekend of nonstop football, getting in walks in between games or at halftimes.

While it was a little sad to see all of the flowers gone, it was great to walk with the field cut and I could keep better track of where they were running off to. We thought about walking this morning but there was still a very light rain going on.

Stella's favorite is eating the wet grass after the rain. She does not vomit it back up so I can only assume she eats it because she likes it, instead of trying to settle an upset stomach.

Even with sporadic big drops of rain hitting her, Sadie could not figure out why we couldn't take an early morning walk. She didn't hesitate though to head back to the house once it started raining a little harder.

Just like I thought they would, the farmers let the hay dry out for a day on Saturday, let the dew dry out Sunday morning ... then rake and bale the house sometime Sunday afternoon before the expected rain later that night.

With dad running the baler, his son ran the rake ... they still did not want to take that area giant ragweed next to my yard. I tried getting the Echo weed eater started. It has a steel cutting blade and would move right through that ragweed at ground level ... it ran and then shut off. I still need to play with some adjustments before giving up hope and having the local hardware store fix it.

After they left the hounds and I took off for a Sunday walk. A big big surprise ... when I asked Heidi if she wanted to go for a walk ... she jumped down off the couch and headed out to the field along with Sadie and Stella. I couldn't believe she walked right into the field without any coaxing by me.

From the start I could tell she was going to go at her own pace. There were a lot of smells for her to catch up on, after 5 months of refusing to walk with us. I can only conclude that she does not like to walk in the field when the grass is tall (like Winston) and the temperatures have be lower than it was in June when they last cut the field.

The longer I waited for her to catch up with us, the slower she walked and the faster the bloodhounds go out in front of me. I decided to let her roam at her own pace since she was taking her time of moving to different spots instead of a direct path.

Stella was right behind her as far as doing her own thing. Only Sadie and I were in the walking mode and she stayed out in front of me for most of the way.

By the time we made that last small turn toward the house, I could see Heidi up ahead waiting or possibly stopping her exploring once she saw us. She started wagging her tail ... something I have yet to catch in a photo ... and then kept up with Sadie and Stella as we walked back to the house.

She has not gained any weight this summer, yet has not lost weight so it's been stable for the past 15 months. She eats the same amount of kibble that I feed the bloodhounds, twice per day but that doesn't help either. With her blood work coming back perfect in her last trip to the vet in the spring at least I know that she has nothing wrong internally.

Once the field is mowed, you can see our paths from the grass that has been mashed down. I knew the path was not going to be straight this year because of all the flowers we walked around instead of on.

Saturday was another bright sunny day ... it was perfect.

This was early Saturday morning for their first walk of the day. Really wet with heavy dew but nice to have it cut.

They both had a lot of places they wanted to check out. Luckily I did not see anything hanging from their mouths whenever they would raise their heads out of the small piles of hay.

It was pretty slow trekking back to the house because there was just too much to smell on the way.

Even after a 2nd walk of the day in early evening, Stella couldn't believe that she had to come back inside the house. Both of them are still being supervised when outside and that will probably continue for months to come.

I just bought my 2nd gig of data this morning for the home internet connection. For all of you Apple users that read my blog ... I have not had any major issues with the new OS Sierra. My screen has locked up a couple of times to where I had to reboot the computer but nothing as far as software malfunctions. Yet I don't do as much as a lot of the 'power users' but enough to see it's a good upgrade.

I have moved the blog back to one blog post per page. For older posts you can click the link here at the bottom "older posts" or over on the right sidebar all of the posts are listed in order, with the most recent on top. That's a Blogger design, not mine.

I may post later tonight ... it will depend if the rain will stop long enough for us to get a walk in. It has not been raining for the past few hours so I'd say the chances are good for a 2nd post today at the normal time of 6:30pm or so.

All is good this morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Are Loving This Weather

Today was my first day of reading my monthly data limit of 15Gb with Exede internet service. They slow the speeds way down ... even slower than 'dial up' based on what www.speedtest.net tells me.

They claim they slow downloads down to 5Mbps but I don't even get that during my free data after midnight. I stopped calling about it because nothing every got fixed.

It doesn't take much go go over 15Gb of data in one month. Once that data is used by you or running in the background, it's gone and you never get it back unless you want to pay. This month I found out the hard way by working with Google Photos before midnight. I also updated and added apps to the nee iPad Mini I bought a few weeks ago. I DO track my daily usage on an excel spreadsheet and could see weeks ago I was going to run short ... even if I reduced my daily usage. So I can buy more at $10 for 1Gb. Or I could change my plan to 18Gb per month for $10 more per month ... but ... I'd lose my free data period between midnight and 5am every day.

All of this doesn't effect the hounds though ... their daily routines stay in place ... food, sleep, walks, fetch, conversations.

There was really heavy dew today and Sadie snuck out the north side of the yard. That pole shows the property line between the field and my yard. Jim's recent survey is not even close to my survey I have from when I bought the house in 1997. He isn't concerned and neither am I. He lives a couple of houses down from me.

When I told Stella to "go out there", she went straight out from the house into the field and then came running back when she was finished. There were still more spots to investigate in the yard before I had to make the "coffee" call ... where they both come running to the house. Strange how keywords can get them to do things ... like "football" they lay down and sleep, "eat" they sprint to the house from anywhere, etc.

We took our first walk of the day around noon and you can see how wet the field is in the shade. The sun was hot though so the AC is running today for the first time in a while.

There seemed to be more things to stop and smell for them today. They both like eating the fresh dirt pushed up by moles or whatever. They both took their time on this walk ... it was slow and a little long to complete.

Here is one of the last ones left in the field, whereas a few weeks ago my side of the field was full of the purple mist.

Sadie makes the first turn on her own but it didn't take long to have Stella sprinting toward us to catch up.

I like the different colors in the field ... some won't last long and it will turn tan and brown, in exchange for the leaves on the trees turning different colors. From the early starts it looks like it could be a quite colorful fall season this year.

I can tell and alway have, Stella really enjoys this field. She would probably stay out here all day if I would let her.

Sadie is just as interested as Stella is when she finds different scents. She really is more of a tracker than Stella is. She is more focused, somewhat serious where Stella likes to play around on her trips out in the field.

No matter what ... Stella is always on her own time ... and that's perfect, the way it should be.

I call these things "little green sticky things". They are better than velcro. They will stick to skin, hair, clothing, shoes, show laces and I have no idea what their official name is but I don't care for them. They are everywhere after we finish our walks.

I was going to mention it before but now I remember to ... this summer had very few lightning bugs, not many gnats, mosquitoes, or tics. The ticks basically disappeared after April, the mosquitoes never showed up and the gnats were not that bad either. It was very enjoyable to sit outside most of the summer when we were not in "the heat dome".

With those slow speeds I spoke of, it takes forever to upload photos into the blog. It takes forever to download a news or sports website with photos and videos. I guess I will need to quit being cheap and pay $10 for another gig of normal speed of 13Mbps - 19Mbps.

After lunch we decided we'd go out to check the weather ... it looked beautiful during our walk earlier. As you can tell, the energy levels were up and you could see by the look on Heidi's face along with the tongues of Sadie and Stella ... the AC had to be turned back on.

While they stayed home to monitor the AC, I put the top down on the Z4 and head out for a quick drive to the store with a nice 25 mile drive. I replenished my supply of fruits and veggies for the week. The change of diet a week and a half ago has brought on a few urges to fall off the wagon but I have been able to fight through them each time.

I didn't notice at first what was going on when we went out after 6pm. The is a reason we were so late and still need to get a walk in. The smell of wild onions was strong but as I glanced up I could see the field was being cut just like I had hoped it would. It also looks like I was not awake enough from my siesta to hold the camera steady.

I'll get better photos tomorrow when they come back to roll it, but you'll notice they have a brand new tractor. I looked at photos from last June to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was.

I guess the old saying "beggars can't be choosy" is true ... I would have liked to have that field cut a little lower than they are cutting (that new tractor had a new mower, cut nice and low) it plus that corner of giant ragweed growing out of control would be nice to get out of the way. Looks like I am going to have to get that Echo SRM-225U fixed to get the job done.

It might be just my eyes or the time of day but the past few days it sure does look like the old Nikon lens shows with more color than the new Tamron lens. Can you tell which photos were shot with each lens?

It might be slow uploading photos to the blog due to my speed restrictions for hitting my monthly data limit but that is not the reason for the late posting ... our afternoon siesta ran a little longer than planned ... but it worked out great because it gave them time to start cutting the field.

'The tropics' of Southern Indiana are really nice right now.

Late Entry

Right after the post we took off for walk before it got dark. I could resist and the hounds LOVED that 'their' field had been cut. With that new tractor, came a new mower and a sharp blade ... the field has never been cut as good as it is right now.

They don't cut the field twice in a summer/fall too often so this was a very nice surprise.

Sadie was almost 'beside herself' with excitement. The photos did not catch that but she was going back and forth, looking back at me to start the walk.

Not only did I find the field cut short, but it was not beat down with a high speed dull mower blade but a nice cut that left the ground soft instead of having to step on small spears.

Some way this guy missed all the action and survived.

Of coarse Stella was oblivious to anything around her, including my voice repeating "come one".

That sunshine didn't last long, it was gone for the day.

The home of those "little green sticky things" I spoke of earlier.

Heading back home. They will probably rake the field early Saturday morning and then bale it into rolls in the afternoon or will come back on Sunday. I'll try to get photos of their new tractor around my college football games. I am going to have to look because I am pretty sure I took a photo of their new blue tractor last summer.

Enjoy your weekend!!