Only Two Hound Walks Today

With my iPhone weather app showing me a temperature of "feels like" 87° early in the afternoon, the hounds and I decided we would come back and try to start our day again at 3:30pm. There was no sense in trying to fight that kind of heat for our mid-day hound walk especially that close to lunch. (bloat in bloodhounds).

Even then when we went outside Sadie was showing me that it was still hot three hours later so we might have to wait a couple of hours for those temps to get a little lower. I knew when she didn't beg for a walk and headed back to the door, that it was our first hot day of the year.

Heidi showed her speed and agility by sprinting from the center of the yard to the driveway and then slowly walk up the drive toward the house. She went inside to continue her sleeping marathon for the rest of the afternoon.

It's very rare to see Stella ever wag her tail on a walk, especially when she is with Sadie and their noses are to the ground. Not sure what it was but both were highly interested and their tail movement told me they were about to lock in on their target. I was pretty sure I could not catch them if they took off following what they had found.

Luckily Sadie decided she didn't think it was that important and peeled off to continue their walk. Stella had other plans though. I am sure she thought if I thought she was tracking that I would leave her alone and then slowly veer in the direction of the neighbor's woods ... a place she has not visited in quite a while due to adult supervision.

With the gnats and mosquitos locking into my sweating wrist and lower arms I was more than happy to increase my past telling the hounds to 'come on, let's go' ... Sadie followed me ... umm Stella is on her own schedule.

As I zoomed my camera lens to see if she was going to come faster or not ... I didn't say a word and just turned around and headed home. Those mosquitos had called out their friends with their silent secret code and I was being eaten alive.

As I sped my walk, I turned to do a final check on Stella to see her trotting faster toward Sadie and I. She must have realized that we were serious about getting back to the house. Sadie had even moved way out in front of me, not because of the mosquitos but because she was too hot.

I could tell when Sadie turned around she was also out of patience waiting for her friend. She checked herself to see if Stella was ever going to catch up with us.

Eventually Stella cruised on into the yard but she was in no hurry while Sadie was standing at the door wanting inside.

Although the sunshine has disappeared Wunderground shows rain in Indianapolis tomorrow down to a 50% chance from the 75+% it was showing yesterday. Since those cars travel 2.5 miles in 40 seconds or a football field within a second, they don't need a lot of time to get the race in tomorrow. I think I see a small window in the graph where they can fit it in between 11am-2pm.

A friend suggested to go wild on my computer and plug my other 27" monitor with the non-retina screen into my new iMac and use that as a 2nd screen. Only out of curiosity, I am going to try that and see how that would look with two monitors again like I had for the last 7 years. It does come in handy at times when working on spreadsheets, plus the Activity Monitor is always in view.

Gretchen - 1975

After returning to college after my 2 year enlistment in the Marines, I heard about a 'dog rescue' in town and thought I'd check it out. As I walked into the old house, that was clean and organized all the different dogs were blocked off from the living room where my interview took place with the man that ran it. YOU did not chose your dog, THEY decided what dog was perfect for you after hearing about where you lived, what your daily schedule was and how many hours you would be with your dog.

She was a cross between a basset hound and german shepherd - believe it or not one of the local frat houses had the male version of the same cross breed.

If the hounds are not walking today ... they are sleeping. The hot muggy weather arrived today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Heidi Increased 'Her' Threshold To 75°

I realized one day last week as I carried Heidi outside forcing her to get some sunshine and off the couch, that when her paws touched the ground and she sprinted back to the door that she had changed her rules for 2017. Normally anything above 70° had her outside enjoying the day but not until it was 77° did she jump off the couch on her own and sprint for outside when I asked if she wanted to go. I am assuming 75° is the threshold she will go by now.

I had just mowed the yard and was planning on trimming the Yews in front of the house so what perfect time than having the hounds enjoying a sunny Friday afternoon. Of course Sadie was not going to lay down nor stay around. If I cannot walk her she will take her own and spent the time I trimmed the Yews out exploring the field.

Stella was in no mood to walk anywhere nor supervise my trimming job. She took about 10 steps into the backyard and literally flopped into her sleeping position where did not move the time I was out in front of the house.

By the time I finished trimming and put all the tools away, raked the cut limbs and disposed of them on the burn pile for next fall, Heidi was letting me know she needed her ears cleaned. That sounded like a good 'operation' to do for all the hounds on Saturday. When retired you have to pace yourself by not doing all of your fun activities on one day.

As I headed out to the field to hopefully find Sadie within viewing distance, Heidi decided she needed a nap and Stella was in the dream state. Later on I had to raise my voice volume calling for her to wake up and come inside. Why wake her up???

Past experience has shown me that she may be in a deep sleep but at the same she might be 'acting' she is in a deep sleep. Then when I leave her outside to finish her nap under the sun, I would glance out the window and see her walking into the field for a solo expedition. Her days of roaming free without adult supervision are over for reasons I will not go into.

With the holiday weekend in full swing, she sat and thought this morning of her big plans for the next three days. She is a thinker and takes her time before making any kind of drastic decisions that involve any kind of physical activity.

Whereas Sadie never spends time contemplating life and is only interested in two things ... taking walks and eating food.

As I tried to catch up with the hounds who had moved way out in front of me, I was happy to see that higher morning temperature had kept the field only a little wet instead of really wet, like it was this past week when mornings started in the high 50's. I had to yell 'no' to keep them going further into the woods.

Even after moving away from the woods, Stella and Sadie found enough scent to keep them very interested.

Sadie moves thought this field exploring every inch of her walk and never takes a day off unless it's raining. It certainly seems as she has gotten older she is almost demanding me to take these walks. She does that by sitting in the doorway of the computer room and staring at me until I move. The number of walks already taken does not matter to her.

I cannot find that Stella is in any pain. The vet poked and probed her a few weeks ago, checked her hips, her neck and glanced into her mouth and did not find her to be in any kind of pain ... but she sure does walk like she is. No limping just very very slow at times.

She did keep up with Sadie this morning. She does that on most morning walks but on the mid-day and late afternoon walks she will not attempt to. She will walk slowly behind me. I am not sure by the 3rd walk of the day if she is even that interested in taking one. Sadie is a different story though.

Can anyone name that large leaf plant? It is taking over certain parts of the field. It surely can't be a good mix for the hay they will bale in June.

Stella tried to sneak off on the way back. She was a 200mm zoom lens behind me, but came back to the path with the verbal command "over here". That did not mean she would catch up to us, in fact she slowed her walking pace down just to show me who is in charge of this walk.

I need to take her back to the vet this week and weigh her. It has been a few weeks, maybe a month. I think she has gained some weight and will be anxious to see if and how much.

Since it was about ten degrees warmer this morning, both hounds did not hesitate to get back inside the house where it's cooler and they could sleep. Not much planned today but hound ear cleaning, some cooking and a possible siesta.

The field is starting to come into bloom although the flowers are extremely small at this point in time.

A couple of posts ago I decided as a change to the blog I would post one picture from the past and write a short description. Today is a picture of my first rescue from GABR, linked up in the left sidebar. It was around 1998 that I made the 4 hour drive to pick up Max. I did NOT know just how big he really was and took my Miata two seat sports car. That was almost a huge mistake because I had never seen a basset hound this large.

He took the passenger seat and laid the other half of his body across my 5-speed stick shift and slept most of the way. The previous owner told me he would only eat kibble if he had cottage cheese on it. I guess that is why he weighed in the next morning at the vet's office ... 83 pounds. With better kibble and no cottage cheese then including him on our daily walk (only 1 per day Sadie was not here yet), he eventually reduced his weight to 61 pounds. Instead of sitting down every few feet on the walk he could actually run part of it.

A few years later he became totally blind but that never kept him from his normal routine. The picture above he is blind and running in the field on our walk. I had the same 25' retractable leash I use on Stella at times, that would keep Max in our general direction without him getting lost. He lived to the age of 12 and was one big lazy lovable basset hound.

The dark overcast is slowly being overtaken by sunshine this morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Sadie Looks For The New Black Cat

Sadie was on the prowl a little bit earlier than normal this morning because I was up and making coffee in the middle of the night. A few weeks ago while the bloodhounds and I were outside right before sundown, I saw a black cat walk across the corner of the north property line back into the field. Sadie has no doubts that same cat pays us a visit during night time hours.

I remember many years ago when I would hear my grandmother telling us she would be up wide awake at 3am most of the time. I found that hard to understand as a child or even older. Why would anyone want to get up that early??? 50 some years later I am finding my answer.

When you are a night person but go to bed at 10:30pm, you can expect an early wake up call ... but 4:30am was a little ridiculous this morning. Yet I was wide awake and making my two cups of coffee and telling the hounds "go back to sleep", which they did ... I didn't.

So right off the bat our morning routine had changed a little bit. I was able to slide my data usage over into that 2am-8am time slot where I have an extra 50Gb of data allowed for the month (billing period) and the hounds were able to sleep until their normal wake up time.

Since I house trained Sadie as a 12 week old pup to go out after her meals, she has followed that training every time she eats for the past 9 years as of this June. Today was no different but that is not the same for Stella and Heidi. They go back to sleep after their breakfast, Heidi on the bed and Stella behind my desk chair.

Sadie will always take off out into the field but never past that first corner of the woods and rarely, if ever toward the neighbors house. The good thing is, unlike Stella, she will come running whenever I call her. I let her out on her own this morning but could see from the window she was no where in view inside that tall grass.

As I called, I barely saw the tip of her tail moving through the field coming from the middle of the field out toward the corner. If it was going to be like her recent routine she would come running through the wet hay/weeds at the north corner pole of the property line. She did ... but a strong scent stopped her in her tracks.

The black cat ???

She went in circles, zig zagged, then back along the edge of the mowed lawn tracking that cat scent and finally headed my direction when I said "come on".

Sorry about the darkness of all the photos but they were taken before 7am and even with a light adjustment, they did not look better with more light.

I swear the field and my yard are growing by the hour. I just mowed the yard a few days ago and it looks like I will be mowing it again today, no later than tomorrow. I am a huge Indy500 race fan but it looks like a lot of sitting time on Sunday with 75% change of thunderstorms. Another reason to get the yard mowed before Sunday.

I am betting the race will be postponed and will be ran under the sunny skies on Monday. It will not matter to me since I'll be sitting on my couch instead of at the race. I've spent more than enough time at that track during practice, time trials and one race where it rained and you waited hours for the track to dry.

Speaking of lawns, Jon Katz over at his blog Bedlam Farm is trying something with his lawn that I have thought about in the past but never had the guts to try. As tall as the hay gets near my yard in back I am not sure it's the right thing for me to do. Let me know what you think of his idea to mow around the edges a few laps but let the yard grow into a field.

I am loving this new computer with the Fusion drive. As the new computer is used, it will index itself and becomes even faster and will not reach it's optimum speed/performance until a few weeks from now. All my photos download from the camera to the computer instantly, while uploading to the blogs much faster than the normal time.

Who knows, the Retina display may add a few good years to my eyes based on the amount of time I spend on a computer reading or working on Excel spreadsheets. No matter why it's a huge improvement over a very good picture I had from the LED monitor.

I am settled again with no computer crisis. I have plans to sell the older stuff and all of my Apple 'toys' are synchronizing information as designed.

I am going to try to get Heidi out for a photo shoot later today for the blog. I might have to carry her outside since she has been pretty lazy while waiting for those hot summer temps in the high 70's, just not near 70. I'll probably post again later today even if she has other plans.

My photo from the past is May 2004. I met up with a new friend near the Arkansas Recreation area in southern Colorado to do a couple of days of camping. I was driving the tan Panel Van (just purchased) from Salt Lake City, UT to here in 'the tropics'. Dave had bought the green bus from me and converted it to a camper.

We did not know each other until the purchase, site unseen. It was sitting in a junk yard in Truth or Consequences, NM after I blew the engine a few miles north on I-25. It was my very first VW Bus purchase, off eBay in Tucson. He picked it up and towed it back over the mountains to his home, where he rebuilt the engine and told me what happened.

The weather continues to be beautiful here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.