Last Day Of Warm Weather

With gusty winds starting early this morning, the hounds have only a few hours of warm weather left this year. I really doubt we will see 70° until March or April after today.

In 'the tropics' there is always a weird winter day where the temperature might be 70° and then snow two days later ... so there is that chance for that I guess.

We hit the trail a little after 10am and it was windy and 68°. I could feel just a little chill wearing a t-shirt and cargo shorts. It is suppose to be a high of 40° by Saturday. You can see that a lot of the leaves have blown into the field and there are still a lot of leaves on the trees along the wooded area.

I could tell that Stella was going to be hanging back today. I didn't even bother calling her, with Stella and I continuing our walk. It would give Stella some good exercise to catch up with us.

You can barely see Stella but you have to look pretty hard. I wanted to catch just how far away she was as Sadie and I made the turn to the back of the field.

It was not long before Stella came sprinting up behind us. She loves running, so maybe letting her hang back isn't a bad thing, at least in the first part of the walk.

Of coarse both hounds headed for the right corner of the field. The deer scat is not just laying up on top of the grass so I am not sure what they are enjoying so much ... because they are 'nosing' their way through the grass to bare ground.

Once again Stella isn't moving and is ignoring my calls to come on. After her Monday situation I really don' t want her to stay back in this part of the field ... but Sadie and I continue our walk.

Once again a 18mm shot just to show how far away Stella is. I think you'll see her about dead center near the tree line.

Sadie doesn't know what to do and wonders if Stella is every going to catch us. I am pretty sure she isn't and tell Sadie "let's go".

Stella acknowledges she hears me calling her as we walk toward home.

Then just basically goes back to what she wants to do ... "stubborn" is a key word in the AKC description of the bloodhound breed.

Once Sadie and I cut across the field toward Stella and calling her name ... she finally gave in and started walking toward us.

The sound of helo's are always very distinct to me. We first caught the sight of it just about tree line height but my camera missed the picture of it through the trees. I waited it to get near the tower and focused my camera in this area. Based on the altitude and the path of flight, I am pretty sure they were checking those high power lines.

Sadie only chases two things in flight ... birds and leaves. When she heard and caught a glimpse of this helo she wondered if she might have a third thing to chase in flight. Luckily she turned and followed me home.

As far as lunch time being served, along with the change to Daylight Savings Time, I think we have come up with a time that will not change next spring when the changes take place again. So during the fall/winter they'll eat around 11:30 and 12:30 during the spring/summer. That is also about the time Stella starts howling to be fed.

Short time outside after lunch. The winds had increased from the morning walk. Sadie found the first two tree limbs to be the start of the 'burn pile' for next summer.

Even with twigs that small, the burn pile will be just as large by next spring.

Heidi made her normal daily appearance outside after lunch. She is hanging in there but no changes in her skin condition or weight. Both do not look good to me but they have been stable now for over a year and four different vet procedures that did not work.

Stella is pretty interested when she either hears Harley's flying down the highway or sirens of the small town police department. Today someone had made a costly error in the high speed they were traveling. Does that mean it's getting close the last week of the month to meet their ticket quotas?

We were able to get one more afternoon walk in before it rained. The skies started changing around 1:30pm, the winds from the southwest were becoming stronger ... so we headed out.

I wasn't planning to let Stella go out at her own pace. As long as she was walking our direction, that was fine ... but no hanging back.

I was told yesterday that these oak leaves are ones will turn colors but will stay on through the winter and not fall off until next spring.

The hounds will always find places to stop and investigate no matter how fast I want them to move. It's their walk any way ... let them go.

I'm not sure what Sadie was smelling or hearing. I looked that direction and didn't see anything that she would have stopped for.

Clouds are turning darker even in the north.

Both of them were on a pretty good pace. The far right corner was not part of the walk this afternoon.

While I thought all three of us were walking along the back edge of the field, I turned to look and saw Stella had snuck away and was headed up to that corner where she would have never come if I had called her. Luckily she heard me, she turned and started walking slowly toward me. She NEVER runs when she has to do something she doesn't want to.

When she is irritated and walks, that pace is slower than slow, as I have mentioned before.

Dark skies to the east.

And back to the southwest. The winds were really picking up at this time plus that chill I spoke of earlier was getting colder.

We made it back with no issues, and the last half was into a strong headwind.

I did not notice these red leaves yesterday while I was burning the bank. This is just to the right of the burn pile that I had.

Sometime around 5:30pm the sky got really dark, very windy but I had time to slide the car cover on the Z4, although it needs one more hand wash before the winter.

We are preparing food for the weekend of football and college basketball, so there may be more games than food is available. My vegan diet continues and I continue to feel pretty good.

Will Friday night be 'movie night' tonight or will it be a college football game.

The rains finally came to 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

It Was a Great Afternoon

This is my 2nd post of the day. Basically I had so many pictures by the end of the day that I wanted to post, there were almost too many for just one post ... plus that first post was around mid-day.

It was nice to see the gutters were full of DRY leaves and a dry gutter, so it was pretty easy to clean. I pulled all the leaves out from my ladder, then raking them up and burning them. The front and back of the house had less than a 32 gallon container of leaves. While I was on the roof, both hounds stayed in the field, never ran away.

I also got up on the roof and checked for any damage shingles, plus tightened some screws that hold the gutters to the soffit. It's a great view from the top of the roof.

It wasn't until I downloaded this next picture that I saw Sadie was standing on three legs with her left front paw off the hound. She was not in the middle of walk but standing.

After the leaves from the gutter were burned, I pulled out the leaf blower and blew all the leaves from the top of the driveway to the bottom, along the fence line and let the wind blow them from the bottom of the driveway down the highway. I think we are now set for winter weather.

While the hounds took an early afternoon siesta, I put the top down on the Z4 and headed out through the farm lands, a 42 mile loop. As usual the I6 engine purrr'd like a kitten.

It wasn't long after returning home all of us moved outside. That is, except Heidi. She had gone outside earlier today and had no interest in joining us. As Stella slow sneaked off toward her new favorite area, Sadie gave her the stare down ... I could tell we were most likely taking off for our 3rd walk of the day even though it was only a little bit after 3pm.

The burn pile of tree limbs is gone, completely burned and ready for a new stack that will be built up over the winter as more tree limbs fall during the snow and ice this winter.

That dirt area will be seeded with grass next spring, so finally all of the thick brush, wild bushes etc are completely gone from that area under the trees. Even though I didn't do a professional job, the grass has grown in so well over two years, that section below the trees is the best part of the lawn, front and back.

This is Stella's technique in "slowly" sneaking away. It's interesting that over time she comes up with different routines and different places she likes to go ... then out of nowhere, she will find somewhere else that interests her. Wasn't it just last summer she and Sadie always headed toward the neighbor's house.

I was pretty sure when I took this next picture Stella was about to walk into the wooded area. She did and luckily walked back out to the field.

Sadie was very interested in what Stella was doing. Her curiosity got the best of here and she had to go see what Stella had found.

As I started to walk out with my camera in hand Sadie was pretty sure that meant we would be walking for the 3rd time today ... she just wanted to make sure she was thinking the same thing I was.

If I knew the hounds would never go down into the gully, next door to the neighbors, out into the highway or to the back of the field out of site ... I would let them stay outside as long as they wanted while I went back inside. But, I can't take that chance. It's better to be safe than sorry.

Always something interesting.

Somewhat repetitive but our 3rd walk of the day, same path, same stopping spots ....

No sign of of Stella ... just about half way down or the center of the picture next to the brush line you can barely see her as she steps out.

Just like that she came sprinting around me and headed to join Sadie.

They love this area in the far right corner. As they should, there is a lot of signs of heavy deer traffic in this area. I let them stay as long as they wanted ... they eventually started walking toward me.

Here is a view of the field while I stand in the far right corner.

As we turned to head home, the sunshine was directly in our face and very bright. Too bright to take any pictures. Stella always looks like she is taking her last steps when she finds out she has to go inside.

Going through my list of stuff I wanted to get done before the temps turn cold and its the same stuff I do every fall ... I believe the only thing I have left to do, is wash the outside of the windows. It will be another day in the 70's tomorrow so that sounds like a good window washing day.

I'll probably take advantage of the weather and take the Z4 out again. I have a few other highways to take down through the hills and trees of southern Indiana.

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is a week away and I am sitting here in 71° weather here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.