Stella Escapes

It started like all the other days, nothing out of the norm. With rain predicted from Wednesday thru Saturday, I decided I was going to take my new toy out for a drive this morning plus stop for some fruit and veggies on the way back.

What I shock I was in for.

All the Kong balls and Kong bones are filled with treats, Heidi had run of the house while the two trouble makers get to stay together in the bedroom with the door shut. It was time for a road trip.

The sunshine was bright, the engine on the new toy was idling quiet, as I waited for the convertible top to open ... it was looking like a great morning for my 40 mile loop through the country, one that I use to drive when I had my other Z4.

I've had hounds for 29 straight years and I've never seen anything like it. Luckily no harm done, Stella is fine but you are not going to believe this story. I still can't believe it although after her anxiety attack last November when I was gone 12 hours, I thought there was a possibility ... a WILD possibility of this happening.

I always leave Sadie and Stella shut in the bedroom. Heidi gets the run of the house for her own protection. I caught both of them tormenting her once when I made a quick trip to the library and back. Why the bedroom and not some other room???  There is nothing in the bedroom that would bother me if it were totally destroyed. After what I saw last November when I was gone too long, total destruction by Stella is possible.

The other rooms have computers, tv's stereos, cameras, furniture and food ... all the important stuff in life. Clothes, bed and dresser can be replaced. I was gone over 4 hours Monday with zero damage. Plus, she has had months of a "hot streak" where nothing was damaged and there were no attempts of trying to dig her way out of the room.

I have two small windows in that bedroom where the window sill is 3'8" above the floor. Since one of those windows is above my bed and I don't want her jumping out of that window, I close all but 2" to let the air flow. My floor is hardwood, the bed frame has rollers that sit on rubber stops to prevent it from moving.

This time of year I have all my windows open with screens on the bottom half of the window. Those screens have two metal sliders that lock it into the storm window frames ... very hard to get out. The screen size is 16-1/2" tall and 33" wide.

Do you get the picture?

I leave this morning around 10:15am and return at 12:40pm, gone almost 2-1/2 hours. As I pull up to the house at the top of the driveway, Stella is sitting by the FJ with her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. She is hot because it's 80° or she has been running around looking for me ... or both ... but more than likely just sitting in the sun waiting for my return.

I don't know how long she was outside. I don't know where she went, even if she went anywhere outside the yard. I immediately glanced at the door and it's closed. I was pretty sure how she got out ... the WILD possibility had actually happened.

She had slide the bed still on those rubber stoppers over by the open window. While standing on the bed, she tore a hole in the screen probably 3"-4" in diameter. I had expected to see the whole screen tore out but instead she had gotten the screen out of the storm window even though it was locked in by two sliders. It was laying on the floor.

The corner of the bed had embedded paw prints but must have slide some away from the window when she jumped. I found the corner of the bed 3' from the wall at an angle. I don't know how long she was outside. I don't know where she went, even if she went anywhere.

The window space she crawled through is 16-1/2" tall, 33" wide. Her chest is approximately 13" deep. The window sill is 3'8" above the floor. Once out the window she was almost 5' above ground level.

I was thrilled, shocked, and confused when I saw her sitting there. With a high speed highway 100' down the hill, bad things are waiting to happen when hounds or any dogs are running loose in this neighborhood.

Needless to say she was happy to see it was me getting out of the car. I guess from now on that 2nd window will have to be closed down to the last 2" so they have air flow.

After all the excitement and then fed lunch, Heidi decided to spend time by herself in one of her favorite sun locations while the bloodhounds slept. I found a spare screen window to use until I replace the screen in the other window.

I grabbed my three books I got from the library Monday and spent the afternoon reading while all the hounds slept.

Never a dull moment with the hounds here in 'the tropics" of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Are Back

The hounds and I took a couple of days off from blogging. With the weather being fantastic I was spending less time on the computer and more time outside doing stuff.

By the time I'd glance at the clock it was usually past 7pm and not enough time to take and edit photos and then blog. I believe the frequency of posting is going to be reduced for a while since the weather is so nice outside. I'm thinking maybe 3-4 days per week, instead of daily or twice per day.

I also realized that all I seemed to be blogging about was Heidi's skin and the Bloodhound walks. Both of those are not really adventurous topics, yet I have had enough readers let me know they like seeing photos of the hounds, and some like hearing about the slow life in 'the tropics' ... so it may not be boring to all.

As an update, Heidi's skin continues to look good after the water vinegar mixture. There was one day I only did one application. Once again to see if food makes a difference I am giving her kibble that has chicken and rice and after 2-1/2 days she has not shown any kind of skin reaction. She had a skinless cooked chicken breast on Sunday without any kind of reaction. I am hoping the added carbs will help her put some weight back on.

I had the yard mowed Sunday by 2pm so I could watch the last day of the Indy500 time trials at 4pm. As with every lawn job, Stella is my inspector and will let me know if I've done a good job or not. I think she was pretty happy with the cut on Sunday.

After a short nap early Sunday evening ... she decided she needed to expand her inspection to something she had not done since arriving back on August 30th.

That felt so good I guess that it was time for a spine adjustment with a full-body shake. Then ... into the house for some water and some more sleep.

Stella passed a HUGE test today concerning her separation anxiety. It's been so long since she has damaged anything while I am gone I can't remember the last time she freaked out. She has had a long string of good results during the times I have left for an hour or two. Today I was gone for over 4 hours. Expecting the worse I slowly opened the bedroom door to find it just as I left it ... except the treats were eaten.

We waited for the temps to drop a little and then took off for an early evening walk.

As you can see the hay continues to get thicker and taller. Based on what I see as undergrowth, they are going to get a good supply of hay in July as they roll it into those large 2,000 pound rolls. Last year they had 16 of those rolls and I see them getting a lot more than that this year.

Stella stayed, what I would call "nearby" most of the way. I had to call her a couple of times to keep her from going up into the far corner but she didn't have a problem with it.

Not sure what kind of flowers these are but they look nice so I took a photo of them.

Every spot had to be shared today ... no way one was eating something without the other.

They both came running when I called them and if you look closely you will see both of them have their ears flopping and folded over the top of their heads.

This is where Stella debated whether to ignore me calling her name and veer right or decide to obey and follow me and Sadie.

She ended her walk with a short trot at the end to the house. Then ... more sleep was taken as soon as she came inside.

Under the "other stuff" part of the title, it was time for a new toy. I had not bought anything in almost a year or longer with the Nikon D3200 Bundle being the last thing purchased. No need for new computers, I don't miss the iPhone but during the past few months or so I had thought of trading my Mini Cooper S or selling it.  The FJ is here to stay because I love driving it and it's the perfect vehicle for the hounds and any traveling.

When I saw an old photo of my 2003 BMW Z4 I had a few years ago, I kept thinking to myself I wish I had not sold that car on an impulse. I only drove it on good weather days, so not a lot of miles per year, but it was fun to drive down the highway with the top down. I sold it during a time I was downsizing everything ... I always regretted getting rid of it.

For a couple of months I had been glancing online off and on to see if anything interested me. It wasn't until Friday night when I went to my friends car lot website where I have bought almost all of my cars, that something did interest me. There it was ... a silver 2003 Z4 3.0i.

I started doing some research on what it was worth, it's history (CarFax) and looked at other's that age within a 500 mile radius. This was a good deal, with low mileage and only ONE owner for the life of the car. It was serviced on a regular basis at the BMW dealership ... it all seemed good.

Time to spend the weekend talking myself out of it and reminding myself all the reasons I didn't need it. But that's too logical and I've never been logical ... I like having fun.

So after going to bed last night saying I wasn't going to trade for that Z4 ... I get up this morning and after only one cup of two coffees ... I call my friend and to tell him I'll be over to test drive it. Quiet, purrs like a kitten and a nice smooth 6-speed manual transmission.

So I gave him my 2006 Mini Cooper S he sold me a little over 3 years ago and he gave me this:

I always knew there was a reason I kept the car cover for the Z4 instead of including it with the car when I sold it. It's good to be back in a real sports car instead of a gokart. Mini Coopers are great cars and I enjoyed mine but it was time for a new toy.

Everything is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

It Was Wet But We Walked Anyway

When we went outside I didn't feel any rain although cars passing the house had their wipers on. I didn't think it would be anything more than a little time outside for them to snoop around the backyard and for me to take some photos.

It looked bad toward the west but the radar showed most of the rain was south of us and it had been looking that way most of the day anyway. After a couple of minutes I told Sadie and Stella "lets go" and headed out. My shoes and socks are in the drier (huge embarrassment) dryer as I type this ...

I decided for this afternoons photos I wouldn't do any kind of editing at all. I glanced through all of them but didn't crop, sharpen or enhance with more color ... I went with what the camera caught.

This is NE as we walk toward the first corner. I won't know how to walk once they cut this field in a couple of months. I'm thinking the hounds probably like moving through the tall grass more than they do a field that is cut at ground level.

I let Stella go today ... her pace ... whatever she wanted to do.

By they way there were both acting I was sure we would see one of those large birds (turkey's??) take off from ground level and gain altitude, even some small birds that might be nesting on the ground ... but there was nothing but a lot of scents for them.

I don't recall ever seeing the gully so overgrown and green as this year.

Stella was all over the place today going from one scent to another. Plus she didn't want Sadie to find something if it didn't include her.

I caught Sadie chowing down on something as fast as she could and before Stella came over to meet her. I am not sure what it was because I turned my head so I would not have to see it ... it must have been good as she is licking her lips as she ran to catch up to me.

Stella was back in her favorite spot today and stayed there even after Sadie and I had made the turn to go home. I called her name a few times and she would look up at me, then keep looking around. Finally she decided she might want to catch up with us.

It did not rain, didn't drizzle but my feet/shoes were soaked and so were their stomachs and ears ... still it was a great afternoon walk.

I just checked Heidi's skin a few minutes before posting this and also rubbed on more water vinegar mixture. It does look better today, less red and more skin has started to dry out and start to flake off when she itches. I will not skip a day again that's for sure. It makes a big difference to keep rubbing the mixture on her a few times per day.

The call from the Toyota salesman last Monday kind of got me thinking of trading the Mini Cooper again. Even though for the past couple of years I've lost the urge to buy anything different. I looked through different dealerships locally and on cars.com but didn't find anything I really wanted.

My friend has a very nice 2003 Z4, 6-speed manual on his car lot this week. It has low miles and a good price. I doubt it will last long but it was tempting to call him to hold it for me and then trade in the Mini Cooper and go back to a Z4 ... they are fun to drive.

By last night I had not found anything on my internet searches that I wanted to trade for. Even with my short trip to town this morning to buy dog food, I felt like keeping what I had. It drives great and is fast when I want it to be. The feed store is a place the local old farmers hang out, especially on bad weather days ... putting that 40# of dog food in my Mini Cooper trunk was their humor for the day. It looks pretty small parked among all of their pickup trucks.

The bloodhounds are snoring so it's all good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.