The Hounds Have A Good Week

It was nice to feel the temps slowly crawling back into the 80's this week. I can't say we were fans of the humidity though so a lot of mid-day to early evenings were spent inside where it was cool.

For some reason all the hound walks were done without taking the camera. I must say for some reason and it's probably just a coincidence, Stella was behaving much better just walking and no photos being taken.

The camera didn't miss anything exciting but me being inside almost did. I was at the kitchen table playing my games of Mahjong close to 9pm one night ... when I glanced out the big window I saw 8-10 deer across the highway running along the edge of the field and trees.

By the time I snuck outside quietly, keeping the hounds inside the house, all of them took off sprinting across the field out of view. During this time was one of those times the lens was not getting enough light possibly and wouldn't focus so I could get the photos.

About the time I was giving up, one deer came back alone to check out the recently planted soybean field. Sorry but this was the best I could do zooming. I didn't want to walk out into the driveway and spook her since she was lifting her head each time she heard the camera's beep when auto focused. Even then the photo of her wasn't clear and sharp.

That was the 2nd time in two weeks I've been lucky that the hounds either didn't see the deer across the highway or were inside the house at the time. There is no way they can afford to run across the highway chasing deer ... that highway is never good to runaway hounds.

We moved through a pretty slow week, between thunderstorms to light rains and periods of sunshine all in the same day at times. Overall the weather was nice enough to take the hound's walks in early morning and then around 8pm. Between that, they did nothing but sleep inside with the AC running nonstop.

Today was nice and for the first time in a long time they both headed straight back into to the field instead of going north and on the outer edge of their boundary.

By late afternoon it was perfect to sit outside, listen to the birds, enjoy the slight breeze and the sun sneaking in and out of the clouds. Sadie and Stella didn't get out of the backyard while we were out. Stella enjoys the SW breeze.

It wasn't until she saw that Sadie might have something she needed, that she decided she had to get up to check it out. I think both of them are more interested in the soft dirt that is pushed up by the moles more than anything else.

Although I cut the yard on Tuesday, one level lower than before, it has really grown back fast these past few days.

All of these photos today were taken with the 55mm-200mm lens. One thing you might have noticed, something that will make it easier to tell Sadie and Stella apart ... Sadie no longer wears her collar.

I noticed the other day it looked too small as her extra skin under her neck hung over the collar. That collar as been passed down among previous hounds. It was also on the last rung and could not be lengthened, so I decided she didn't need it. I have one she can use when she makes her trips to the vet.

By the time the next photo was taken, their tongues hanging out were telling me they wanted to get back inside to enjoy their air conditioning. They had enough of the warmer temps today.

After I took my coffee and the mail back inside, I returned to see that Sadie may have been having second thoughts about coming inside. She started sprinting toward the house though when she saw Stella running for the door.

Heidi is doing well although she doesn't spend a lot of time outside with us. She was out this morning while I was picking up some tree limbs blown down the other day by the thunderstorm. I didn't have my camera with me. She normally likes to sleep all day in front of the cold air inside. Sleeping is her favorite hobby besides eating.

Her skin is looking the best I have seen it in a while. All four of her paws have a lot of hair growing back but they are still not at the normal thickness of hair.

I spent most of my week surfing the internet looking at houses and land for sale in the states of AZ, NM, CO and UT. It's nothing new, I've done it before and saved a lot of those searches in the past. There were more houses than I expected still listed for sale 6-10 months later.

I don't have any immediate plans to move but I will in the future. I am also back to looking at RVs, trailers and forums. That will all change in about 8 weeks or so when college football begins again. I am addicted to college football and most likely need some sort of counseling for it.

Life is good here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

A Rainy And Dreary 4th Of July

The weather experts were right on the money with their prediction of a wet holiday weekend. Once again this morning we woke up to rain hitting the leaves of the mahogany tree outside the window.

Two of the three hounds were in a deep sleep, snoring and didn't wake up immediately. They do know that when I get up, it's breakfast time for them and eating may be their favorite hobby.

I could tell by the skies we were not going to get much done today at the house. I forgot it was a Monday. I need to buy groceries, wishing I had delivery. My mind has been wandering lately and I'll touch on that later in this post.

Again the hounds headed in the direction I am not wanting them to go ... what happened to the 'good ole' days where they would walk straight back into the field and explore along the tree line?

Luckily Stella will come when I yell her name. By the time I do that she is far enough away that a yell instead of just calling her name is needed. I guess I shouldn't be that alarmed. When I first moved here in 1997, my first basset hound Harry, would go that direction, but all the way over to the 2nd house north of me and lay on the top step of their swimming pool. Or he would head south and check out the landscaping business ... sometimes take an afternoon nap, before they would call me to let me know he was there.

Sadie knows that is not the right place to head so she usually watches Stella walking into trouble and then looks back at me to see if I am going to do anything.

A little after 1pm we tried going outside again. I guess when they said "scattered" thundershowers it meant it was to be a light rain anytime we went outside. It was't long after these next three photos that we headed inside as the rain drops became bigger and more frequent.

By late afternoon it had stopped raining but we still had that dark overcast sky. Sadie wanted a walk but with standing water in some parts of the field ... a walk wasn't going to happen. I grabbed my camera and a chair and took all of these photos sitting down.

You might notice a slight difference in the quality of the photos today. When you are stuck inside you find things to do. Today's special task was to take a new soft micro cloth and clean my camera plus both lenses. I think it made a big difference in my photos today.

With raindrops hanging from the short grass in the field, Stella thought that made the grass taste even better. She couldn't eat enough of it quick enough and didn't want to share with Sadie.

I guess the highlight of the day was seeing the reactions of each bloodhound when they heard a loud popping sound, only to see this large piece of bark from the sycamore tree pop off and fly overhead into the backyard. I probably have more bark laying around than anything else.

The hounds are not happy unless they can slowly drift as far away from the house as possible. As the rain started to fall again, they slowly headed for the house ... but not fast ... slower than slow.

Amazing after I cleaned the 55mm-200mm lens, it worked for all settings. Lately it would not focus past 135mm.

With rain the next 5 out of 6 days, I'm not sure when the next hound walk will be ... maybe Tuesday afternoon after the yard is mowed.

The past week or so my mind has been drifting back to traveling. That topic stays hidden most of the time. I knew last August after a lot of thinking, once Stella arrived most likely my traveling would be put on hold. Well the urge to do something hit a few days ago and with the bad weather I have spent most of my time inside looking at houses, trailers, vans, motorhomes, etc.

I always come back to the same answers and ideas I have had in the past. From my testing a few months ago I found out real soon that it was much easier to walk two bassets and ONE bloodhound on standard 6' leashes compared to TWO bloodhounds and one basset hound.

If you would see how fast those two partners in crime take off after deer or birds in the field, you would know that walking them unleashed anywhere traveling is disaster waiting to happen. They would have to be leashed even if I were boondocking.

I always come back to converting a cargo trailer after I spend days looking at motorhomes, vans and travel trailers. So I think what I am going to do since I don't plan to travel until the number of hounds decrease over time, is to get a cargo trailer and take my time converting it. I could take trips locally to test things out as I went. Plus it would give me something to do since my house "to do" list was pretty non-existent this summer.

I have all my research from past year but it was just last year that I really started thinking about using a cargo trailer. I have a lot of photos of different mods, photos from different people using a cargo trailer to travel in and all kinds of sites bookmarked showing the 'how to' or their step by step process.

Stella has yet to do any damage to the inside of my FJ when I leave the hounds in the car when I make a short grocery run but I am not sure what she would do if she was left in a cargo trailer even with the AC or the heater turned on. There would be some times I would take off for a bike ride, a hike that didn't allow pets and maybe even a museum here and there.

I see some sunshine trying to fight through the clouds right now so it's all good here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella's Deer Chase In July

After giving an overcast day a chance to dry out the wet field after a night and morning of steady rain, I thought me might be able to fit a walk in before the next storms were scheduled to arrive around 6pm. After starting the walk it looked like the ground would be dry enough ... but my 55mm-200mm lens wasn't working smoothly when I tried to focus.

Right after this photo the hounds took off into a sprint, chasing something at ground level. I was too busy turning off the camera, taking off the lens and putting it back on, to see what they were chasing. Hoping that would get the lens to work properly.

I zoomed in for this next photo since they were way ahead of me.

As I approached the corner of the field I didn't see a bloodhound anywhere but at the same time I didn't see anything running on the horizon or along the edge of the field.

They were both pretty intense on what they were finding on ground. At times small birds would take off from ground level, where the hounds had flushed them out.

While the hounds explored their favorite spots, I saw this red leave shining bright from a distance away. Everything is green except this.

All of us headed along the path towards the turning point near the high power line tower. Stella trotted over to "the no fly zone" and when I turned around to see where she was ... I saw her in this stance ... I knew she had locked into to some deer over near the next wooded area where we never walk.

About this time the camera lens decided it wasn't going to work. It didn't move either way as it tried to auto focus. By the time I did the shut down drill and reinstall the lens I was way behind all of the action that had taken place. I saw deer hopping sky high as Stella and Sadie took off after them.

I headed over the small grade to see where the hounds were. No deer but they were double checking all of the deer scents that had just passed through that area. They had always came back to me so instead of walking all the way over there I headed back to the path home.

When I got to this point of the walk, I turned to check the horizon and didn't see a bloodhound anywhere, I thought it might be a good idea to start walking their direction just in case they had headed into that woods. I thought Sadie would have shown up by now, but she wasn't around either.

As I glance a little left, I see a deer sprinting as hard as it can, way before this photo was taken. I didn't see any bloodhounds chasing it though. Once again the camera lens decided not to cooperate so by the time I caught the deer in the next photo, she had ran through three lots of green grass and through the small woods behind my neighbors house.

By this time the hounds are not even close to the woods and the deer is already out of the woods to the north of my house and is headed into the woods where we start our walks.

This is the corner of that small wooded area behind my neighbors house. Stella has the right scent path of the deer but she was too late and too far behind to see any deer.

Stella was proud of her chase though. After all that deer was running for her life and Stella had flushed her out into the open field.

They both decided they would track that deer all the way to the house, even if the deer had cut into the woods nowhere near the house.

As I write this I have lost internet connection. The first clap of loud thunder was at 5:07pm so Wunderground was pretty close on the time of the next round of storms. It's forecasted to rain all day for the next 6 out of 7 days. Tuesday is the only day I'll have no rain scheduled, where I can mow the yard.

It's a hard downpour here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana tonight.