Sadie Sprints With Eyes Skyward

It was the normal calm daily morning walk with the bloodhounds, starting with wet grass while in the shade and not quite as wet out in the sunshine. In the past it has been deer that lead the hounds to an immediate sprint and a chase ... but today there were 4-5 small birds flying just above Sadie like a WWII fighter planes in a dogfight that drove her to edge of insanity.

We started the walk with Stella leading the way on the left side. That has been her recent path and then close to the first turn she will veer right to join Sadie and I. Since we only took two walks yesterday instead of three, she may have had a little extra energy today.

Sadie did her normal investigation along the edge of the field and woods. With the hay and other stuff growing taller you can see a distinct path of where the deer travel through the night or early morning hours.

Stella is no longer interested in chasing deer (missed last chase), nor chasing birds ... it seems she only walks in the field to find and eat deer scat. In spots like this she will ignore everything I say and will not budge even when I say 'let's go' or tug at her collar.

One the way back home, she did get a little trotting in but no high speed runs like she used to. That was until today, although it was a short burst of speed.

They were both walk along 5' feet to my right side, when Sadie does an unusual bark and takes off sprinting full speed. I saw no deer anywhere in sight and whatever she was chasing was at ground level. Before I could barely get the camera up and focused, Stella sprinted after Sadie but slowed down soon after reaching her.

During this time as I was trying to catch Sadie's chase on camera, I did not see anything that she was chasing ... to the point I was a little confused.

Here Sadie as sprinted from the middle of the field back close to the far right corner where we past during our walks. By this time Stella was totally out of the chase, slowly walking back to that place she never moves. She stayed there all through Sadie's chase and until I walked over to get her to move.

Picture 4-5 small birds flying and darting all over the sky just above Sadie's head as she sprinted after them all over the field. Sadie never stopped one time after the chase started, until the end.

Those pictures don't capture how fast Sadie was running.

Then the birds were gone ... Sadie watched as they flew NE over the next field behind us.

She still made sure not a bird was left before she ran back to me.

While walking from where I was directly to Stella I ran onto a spot toward the back/middle of the field where it looks like a possible deer bed.

With the shaded area on our return path still very wet, these past few days the hounds and I have been staying in the sunshine, walking in the directly to the north side of the yard. Stella likes the new path in that part of the field and in the meantime I found a few new flowers to photograph.

I finished my trim painting early yesterday afternoon. I ended up doing more than I planned on by trying to use up that last 3/8 can of paint. I was at the local hardware store just as they opened up at 8am. I needed to buy some more of that 4-star dog food they sell and I wanted to buy some calk/silicone along with my first purchase ever .. Gorilla glue.

You can see the red foundation paint I pictured the other day is covered up again. It's pretty amazing when I power wash the house next spring that some new spots might blow off where the green paint has bubbled up but that red paint will always be there. It does not move even with a direct hit of the power wash water.

I missed this spot in August 2010 and again yesterday. I will have to lie down a little lower to see and paint over that small spot of gray just left of center and below the door trim.

It wasn't until this morning as I was taking pictures of what I had completed as a reference for future years to see if I am having damage in the same spots every couple of years ... when I noticed I missed another spot on the green paint. I am not sure how I did that. With my new plan for green paint, it will not be a problem to paint over that spot at the same time I paint under the door.

When I was about to finish yesterday I had between a 1/4 and 1/2 gallon of green paint left. It had been opened and closed a few times over the past 7 years for touch up work. The paint can lid was to the point it was not sealing all the way after I would tamper it down with a hammer so I decide I'd paint on the back side of the house until the paint was gone.

I still have one never opened gallon of paint on the shelf left from the house painting job in 2010. So it wasn't a big deal about getting rid of what I had left in the can I was using. It shocked me I was able to paint the exterior side of the carport and still having just a little paint left in the can.

From the way the attic looks they built the carport the same time they built the house, yet the exterior back side of the carport has wood siding instead of the aluminum siding the rest of the house has. I cannot say I have ever been a fan of the lattice design here on the front between the living room windows but I've never figured out what else to do with it.

I am up for suggestions for that area.

By the time I put the ladder away, cleaned the paint brush and my hands, I couldn't remember what day of the week it was ... Thursday or Friday were my guesses. I had also lost track of time. There was still plenty of daylight to mow the yard and the sun was much higher in the sky than I would have guessed. I found out it was only 5pm and my paint project had been put up and away.

Then ... I saw again ... I had forgot to paint the trim inside the carport, very similar to me forgetting to high pressure wash the fence until I was about to put that equipment away. No big deal, because my new plan with the one gallon of paint that has been sitting on my shelf since 2010 is to paint the carport, the front of the house and whatever I have left in the can.

With my lawn of green grass, clover and weeds I thought it was looking pretty good since March when it looked the worst ever from the mild winter and high mole activity. This morning it was sad to see that the moles have returned. I've tried everything over the 19 summers that I have been here, to kill the grub worms thus keep the moles out of the yard. Probably impossible to do living next to a field.

Due to the hounds paws, I am not a fan of spraying chemicals of any kind on the yard or driveway so the weeds grow wild and the moles tear up my yard. What's the solution?

I was so tired and sore last night that I told myself I'd take the day off today. I have so far and it's already 11:30am. I usually get a burst of motivation right after the hounds have their lunch kibble and I must admit I have a "slight urge" to paint the trim of the carport today. With no rain in the forecast until Sunday night I would also have Saturday to do the same thing and still recoup for a day.

Weather so far this spring and summer has been unbelievable good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

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.