Stella's Out Of Bounds

As we stepped outside in freezing air this morning it was nice to remember this would be the last day of cold weather for a few weeks if not longer.

We took the morning walk between my two cups of coffee. I had all of my internet reading done faster than normal, staying away from any news websites. Of course after Sadie and Stella came back inside from the trip they make after they eat breakfast ... Sadie sat in the doorway giving me the stare that she wanted the walk right then. I had to have at least one cup of coffee before we could do that.

The grass was frozen and I could hear the crunching sound as I walked into the backyard. Slight winds out of the north which is opposite than the normal air flow. That didn't bother either hound this morning. Although I didn't sense the intense focus like they have had these past few days.

I had decided while putting my down parka on that I would let them have total freedom on the walk this morning. I was going to walk my pace, take some pictures and hopefully both of them would be close to me as I returned homed.

I could tell soon after starting the walk that this would be a morning where Stella was in her own little world. Nothing needed to be said because any words from me would be ignored. I kept walking ... it was colder than I had planned for. The coat and gloves were great but the jeans were not keeping the cold air out too well.

As I was about the make the first turn of the walk Stella confirmed she wasn't interested in walking today. It was going to be a morning of protein supplement in the natural way. I didn't want to think about it. Besides, the air from the north was freezing ... wasn't it just a week or so ago I was out in cargo shorts and a t-shirt?

After downloading the pictures from the camera this morning into my Apple Photo program on my iMac ... I wasn't really happy with any of them. Even after editing a little, the colors were pale, nothing stood out from the hounds being active ... all of them seemed dull to me.

Yet, the sky was blue, sunshine and a slight breeze ... it's a nice day without the pictures.

Sadie decided it would be a good time to get some running in. I wasn't to the back of the field yet but close. She sprinted all the way to me, hitting me in the knee with her nose ... letting me know she was there. That is good exercise for her.

There was no sign of Stella anywhere. My eyes scanned the field toward the wooded area behind the neighbors house and she wasn't seen. Although it might look like the field is flat, there is some slight inclines. This morning I found out just how steep some of those inclines are.

I asked Sadie "where's Stella?" ... little did I know at the time she was looking in the right direction but in an area that is way out of bounds for all the hounds.

Finally 'out of the ground' pops Stella. She had walked much farther past the wooded area and was in an area that is definitely out of bounds. The only time she had been this far north was chasing deer and chasing the surprised dog that was walking with my neighbors in the wooded area behind my house last Christmas.

I had no doubt she was scarfing down something as fast as she could before I could get to her. She didn't move and was eating as fast as possible. The closer I got to her, the more leash I was pulling out of my pocket.

It looks like she has a mouthful of something.

She wanted to show you she could still scratch with a leash on.

After walking a few feet, I took the leash off of her and let her slowly walk back to the house. Sadie couldn't figure out what the problem was, but there was still something interesting in the other direction.

I'm not sure what's up for today. I have nothing to do outside but have the urge to go somewhere. At the same time I am not sure I want to fight the traffic. Friday traffic always seems to be a little worse that during the week.

The Mini Countryman is still working out well and I am pleased with the change in vehicles. It is still running at 31mpg for all types of driving. There are times I do wish I still had the Toyota FJ but when you drive as few miles as I do in a year's time, it really doesn't matter what vehicle I have.

I am happy to be back blogging on Wordpress. I found out what may be the problem with my blog traffic although it is a new blog and it takes a few weeks for the search engines to index it. The keyword of 'bloodhound' in the search on Wordpress lists all kinds of blogs for everything that had the word 'bloodhound' in it ... but none of them are about dogs.

Basset Hound blogs seemed to be more popular but a lot of them started and then stopped blogging. From all the 'pros and cons' I read about yesterday, comparing which platform to use ... Blogger or Wordpress ... for what I am doing on this blog I can just stay here.

It was fun playing around yesterday looking at different templates. They call them 'themes' on Wordpress, and so many more to chose from.

After being up for 2-1/2 hours, Sadie has decided this is the day she is going to bug me, bother me, beg for stuff ... she seems restless this morning ... I don't ever remember basset hounds being as driven for attention as bloodhounds are, but that might be because I have two bloodhounds.

I might blog later but right now things are pretty quiet here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

The Hounds Love The Interent

What do I mean the hounds love the internet??? Not really ... the hounds have no idea about the internet nor do they realize just how popular they are online and Facebook. All they care about is food and scents to track.

Their owner?  That's a different story. He doesn't love the internet but he is addicted to it. This morning proved my point once again.

There will be times when the weather is warmer and I have things to do outside where very little time will be spent in front of the computer screen. I have had days in the past where only 200Mb of data have been used in a 24 hour period. So maybe it's not really an addiction but more of a routine.

The hounds didn't mind what I was doing this morning while sitting in front of the computer monitor. Once we head outside they are always ready for another walk. Actually their excitement starts when they see me putting on my coat. Today the down parka was needed. I can't wait to get back to a t-shirt and cargo shorts.

Stella had to stop for a scratching session. This is happening too much lately and I wish I could find out the cause. No fleas or skin irritations have been found.

Once she stopped she was right up there with Sadie. They were really active in their walk this morning and stayed out ahead of me for most of the walk. A couple of times I wondered if they were going to take off on me.

Sadie was sure she had deer scent but her nose couldn't pick up deer near us. I wonder what she heard during the time she stood and stared motionless.

Stella was her happy-go-lucky self this morning. Nothing bothers her. I started to say that nothing excites her but then I remember the times she has chased deer baying all the way and the daily howls when breakfast / lunch are served.

Sadie locked into something strong and was moving so fast in all different directions I was barely able to catch her on camera. She was doing multiple figure eights.

Stella had other ideas, on her own path. I hope to see her ribs disappear in the coming weeks with the recent change in food and increased quantities.

At this point I was almost positive both hounds were going to take off on me. Sadie stopped for a short glance back at me and then took off again.

I yelled pretty loud to get them to stop. Once again they looked in the direction they wanted to go and then back at me. Both of them decided to meet me at the final turn toward home.

Sadie still had the whole field to work as we walked home. She was moving nonstop so the scents must have been strong this morning. The weather was crisp this morning. Although the sun was bright, you could not feel any warmth from it.

When Stella is looking this way, it's not so much what she sees but what she smells and hears.

She finally decided it was time to go home disappointed and there would be no deer chasing today, at least not this morning.

Sadie on the other hand was going to track stuff all the way to the house. Neither one stopped to eat anything again this morning. That is a nice change to the daily walks.

It's cold today, mid 30's but as you see it's beautiful again here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Back to my internet discussion ... my plan today was to spend all day away from any electronics. No computer, no iphone, and no tv.

After the first 15 minutes or while making my morning coffee I thought to myself ... why?? What's the point?

The fact is I will do other things on the computer today while NOT connected to the internet. At the same time I have some questions today that I know a quick search on the internet will give me not only answers but a long list of sites where I can read more information.

The thought of 'taking the day off' from the internet might be from the book I am currently reading called The End of Absence by Michael Harris. I have not read that far into the book but it discusses the changing world of being constantly connected online and how to reclaim what we are losing or have lost.

I had another idea this morning of moving my blog to Wordpress. That did not work out well the last time I tried to move 6 years of posts. They have a different platform than Blogger, different coding. It is almost impossible to move to their .com site yet if I were to buy a domain and use their .org side of the house it's pretty easy to move everything. Yet it does work if you transfer a Wordpress blog to Blogger.

Just like everything else, I like parts of each blogging service and I dislike certain parts of each blogging service. So unless I get really bored today and decide not to read books I might give it another try and see what happens.

The hounds hope to get a 2nd walk in today. We only did one yesterday but with the sunshine out and the ground a little more solid instead of muddy ... chances are good for another walk later this afternoon. The late afternoon will bring warmer temps.

The sun is bright right now in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

No Problems With Last Night's Storms

The storms did not arrive until late last night, almost 11pm. I pulled up the Intellicast radar site so I could see what was headed our way, if anything.

I also follow U.S. Tornadoes on Facebook and they have updated radar from the National Weather Service. When they used the term "devastating velocity" and the radar shows the tornado rotations were 70 miles away heading our direction, it's not good.

I will say we were lucky and missed everything. There were a long string of storms and at one time they said that over 20 tornadoes had been moving together over 155 miles through 3 states. Various times it looked like those cells of intense rotation were headed our direction when they were 70-90 miles away.

Yet, every time they got within our range of 20 miles, they would blow by the north or south of us. Finally past midnight I decided I was going to call it a day and decided if something bad was about to happen, Stella was sure to let me know. I slept and never heard anything the rest of the night, although we did wake up to a thunder and lightning storm really early this morning.

I was almost sure the field was going to be too wet to make any hound walks today. The picture above is right on the path just starting our walk. Usually if it is wet 'down here' it is even wetter and muddier at the back of the field even with slightly higher elevation.

Sadie and Stella decide we needed to find out for sure and before I could say no, they both were long gone heading along the edge of the woods. I could tell their noses were extra sensitive today and they were picking up a lot of activity.

Even Stella was out in front with her nose to the ground. All through the walk this morning neither hound stopped to eat anything ... they were seriously interested in tracking scents and it was obvious there was a lot of them to identify.

It was strange not to have to say "come on Stella" during this morning's walk. She kept up with Sadie most of the time and a lot of the time they were side by side with their noses to the ground.

I had to walk just a few inches off our worn path. If there wasn't standing water, the ground was saturated enough that water was coming up over the soles of my hiking boots. Each time the hounds trotted, there were water trails coming off the back of their paws.

I had not walked to far past the first turn when Stella and Sadie took off sprinting to the far right corner. They ran non-stop along the back edge of that corner, never checking out the deer area to the right that usually holds their interest.

Sadie was moving faster than my film speed but with her feet in the air and her ears flopping you can tell just how fast she was going. The scents must have been strong this morning.

This is just past that corner that goes to the far right part of the field. It's pretty rare that you see standing water in this area. I can only assume it rained through most of the night.

Sadie was serious today ... no time to play around, too much stuff to investigate. As usual she was a very happy bloodhound.

It's warm today and windy but nothing like yesterday. By looking at the sky you can see the clouds are moving at a very fast speed, all from the SW.

I was beginning to wonder if the hounds were going to stop and make the final turn home. Stella thought about heading into the 'no fly zone' but she stopped and looked in that direction, then at me, then back in the direction she would like to go.

She finally decided on her own to head home with me and Sadie.

These are the skies looking southwest. We don't have any bad weather in today's forecast, just a lot of wind. With the sunshine breaking through the clouds at times it shouldn't take long for the field to dry out.

Yesterday I decided to make a new blog on Wordpress. I found the same free template I had used before and it didn't take too long to upload some pictures and write a few sentences. The link is on the left sidebar of this blog under the blogs I follow.

About every year before my Exede internet service and Directv service renews, I call around to different companies to see if they now have service in my area. With all of these good deals you hear about with unlimited data or prices locked in for two years without an increase, you have to see if there is something better.

Talking with Exede yesterday I found out they are just like Directv ... you have to threaten to leave and move to a different provider when they tell you there is not any discounts available for long term customers that pay on time. This is after they have been giving you a discount for the past 12 months.

It is amazing how fast they give you that $10 - $15 off per month for the next 12-24 months when you mention to them you are going to look around at other companies and will even pay the fee for breaking a contract early. They call that "a retention discount".

Still, I did find out that Frontier Internet does have service in my small town. They can't verify online in their program if I can have that service here at the house. When she said she could give me 45Gb of data a month for $60 including $9.99 per month for the modem I told her I'd accept her offer to have a technician come out to my house to check to make sure if I could get their service.

I now pay Exede Satellite Internet $80 per month for 15Gb of data. That 45Gb sounds better than 15Gb as well as $60 compared to $80. Here is the difference ... Frontier says they can give me download speed "close to 6Mbps" while Exede tells me their download speed is 15Mbps. I do a speed test at SpeedTest.net and it is always around 10-12Mbps or twice as fast as Frontier's top speed.

Is the extra speed worth it?

I almost forgot to write about Stella. She did not even react in any way when the winds picked up last night nor the lightning and thunder that woke us up this morning. She slept through everything so evidently the fear she had of storms when I got her in August 2015 is gone. Storms have never bothered Heidi or Sadie. She has also continued her streak of no damages when I am gone, today was grocery shopping day and nothing was damaged when I returned home.

I don't have any random thoughts today so I guess that idea of ending my posts every day with a bazaar thought may not work.

The windows are open today in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.