The Hounds Really Enjoy The Cut Field

I have to admit the daily hound walks are much more enjoyable with the field cut. I no longer get wet from my knees to my feet from heavy morning dew. The hounds are easier to keep track of while they have more room to roam and I have not found one tick on me after a walk since the field was cut.

When the field was taller I would find 3-5 ticks on me after each walk. The one dose of NexGard I gave the hounds in April works so well I have not found any ticks, dead or alive, on the hounds.

Stella trotted out with Sadie into the field but it wasn't long before she was at her own pace and on her own schedule. She had the freedom to do whatever she wanted, go where she wanted and supplement her diet with anything she found.

Sadie started tracking scent as soon as she hit the field and ever stopped.

You can see the differences in interest between Stella and Sadie ... I continued to walk along my path at my normal pace.

As Sadie sprinted along the edge of the field, she was headed for the far right corner. Stella was headed back to a couple of spots that were her favorites the past couple of weeks.

No sparrows to chase today but Sadie had strong scents to chase.

Back to the corner to check out the deer scent. I thought she might head into that wooded area but instead she came sprinting to catch up with me on the back edge of the field.

As you can see, Stella never moved.

As I was on my way back home, I deviated my walk to go over and let Stella it was time to head home. She joined up with Sadie and made the slow trek back to the yard.

The weatherman said that hot temps and high humidity were on the way later today. I am not really looking forward to that change and I have become quite spoiled by the 'perfect' weather this past week.

The rain that was in the forecast on Sunday never showed up and keeps moving out a couple of days further into the week.

This is the only flower that I have see that survived the cutting and baling of hay.

Heidi finally made her appearance after her lunch. She found a good spot to relax while Sadie and Stella did a little exploring.

Stella wasn't sure if she was going to join Sadie. She really liked the strong breeze from the SW bring those temperatures closer to 80°. It looks like she is continuing to gain weight.

This pretty close to where Heidi stayed the other day while Sadie, Stella and I went for a walk. She doesn't seem to energetic lately but I let her do whatever she wants. If she wants to come with us, she will.

The thing about the field being cut, some of those stems from the wild bushes are still pretty stiff and they make a great back scratcher. Sadie has one daily every since they cut the field.

What a difference a year makes in Heidi'd weight. I don't think she was this big when I brought her home 6 years ago.

Sadie was ready for a walk but it was too soon after their lunch. I try to wait after every meal before they get any kind of exercise. That is suppose to help in preventing bloat. I've been very fortunate not having my big chested bloodhounds go through that in past years.

By the time I finished cooking I was either going to have a late lunch or an early supper. It wasn't much, just brown rice and steamed broccoli and carrots. I added a splash of Tamari sauce.

Even I felt like getting out of the house some more on such a nice day, so we headed out for a mid-afternoon walk. This way they will stay quiet and sleep while I sit outside and read books.

Stella let me know without saying a word that it was hotter today than it had been all week. We are not close but the temps are headed back to the high 80's by tomorrow. We will still walk but will wait later in the afternoon, early evening for our 2nd or 3rd walk of the day.

Stella was ready to get back inside to sleep ... Sadie had more things to look at but followed both of us into the house.

It will be another night of watching some Reds baseball and a little reading. Nothing exciting going on here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Sadie & Stella Take Off

With weather like this every day it's hard to stay inside. Sadie and Stella felt the same way although for some reason Heidi is back in her mid-winter hibernation mode. High temps in the 70's make it perfect weather.

For our mid-day walk I had barely made it to the yard and saw Sadie and Stella both running toward the back of the field direction in back of the house. I have no idea what they had picked up but their noses were to the ground and they were off at a fast pace.

I continued to follow the path walking the same pace I always do, knowing that both of them would be within view.

I was not even close to the first corner and they were already in the middle of the field. It wasn't until Sadie stopped to look back in my direction that they slowed their pace. I expected them to head over the top of the hill and go toward the woods.

They were not chasing deer nor birds, just jogging further and further away from me. I don't recall this ever happening when they were not involved chasing deer. I guess they really do like the field cut. I still had not made it to the first turn.

By the direction Stella was heading along the back edge of the field I thought she was well on her way into the 'no fly zone' but I wasn't going to start running after her yet. I continued with my slow pace while keeping an eye on them to see what they were going to do.

Even with this much sunshine, it didn't feel hot. It's hard to believe it's almost July and we are having highs in the 70's for weather.

I cannot figure out why they were in such a hurry to get to this area of the field. They sniffed around a lot but didn't look like they had found any 'natural protein' to eat. I wondered how long they would stay out here if I didn't get them walking back to the house with me.

I wanted to take a picture of the tightly rolled hay but Sadie had other ideas. Evidently something she liked was wrapped up inside the roll.

A single feather out in the middle of nowhere.

After checking the mail, grabbing some water to drink, I headed back outside for an afternoon of reading. Sadie was checking to see if another walk was possible. It had been about 30 minutes since we returned from the mid-day walk.

Once she saw I was not going to get out of my chair to go on another walk, she decided to sneak up on me as if I couldn't see her.

Stella got to the point of indecision ... whether to answer my call and head back to the house or turn and make a run for it back out into the far field. After a lot of thinking, she decided it was best to return to the house.

It was another great day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Take A Record Number Of Walks

It was after 5pm before I heard that familiar sound of a tractor right outside my computer room window. They had waited for the daytime sunshine to dry out the hay and flowers that were cut on Saturday, yet rain clouds were overhead and predicted rain was just hours away.

With the day being so nice and it being so much easier to take a hound walk, they took a record number of walks yesterday ... 4 of 'em. I could tell by the amount of hay laying in rows there just wasn't as much as in past years. With all the rain this spring and sunshine that was hard to figure out.

I was standing at the corner of the house taking this zoom'd photo. I didn't see the guys inside the tractor smiling until I downloaded the pictures. Were they joking about something or seeing me with a zoom lens pointed at them? They don't know they are on a blog seen by only a few people but scattered all over the world.

The raker and baler were working pretty well. Intellicast weather radar was showing rain about 50 miles away ... it never showed up nor did it rain after midnight where they said there was a 75% chance of rain. With the warmer than normal winter and the nice weather this spring I find it strange the small amount of hay they were able to bale.

By the time I took my two pictures that I take every day across the highway at the corn field and then from the corner of the house toward the back ... Sadie and Stella were already starting their walk. I decided while putting on my hiking boots that I would let each of them walk on their own ... where ever they wanted to go. With the field cut is is of course so much easier to keep track of them.

It looks so much different when the field is cut and baled. Basically back to being a 'clean' field and less stuff for them to find to eat. Most of their favorites are now inside those rolls of hay.

Back to the 4 walks day ... Sadie likes to walk after their noon lunch for walk #2. I usually wait about an hour after they eat before we do that. Then in late afternoon she and I are ready to take off again after all of them have slept all afternoon. With the weather so nice after 7pm ... that results in a 4th walk.

Of course that gets my number of steps I take per day above the normal range. It equates to almost 4 miles of walking and even at a slow pace my heart rate gets to a level where I get a workout. The days I mow the yard is just an added bonus.

Yet, my 'to-do' list has come to a complete stop. My Apple Reminder app tells me I have 7 of them overdue. All are fairly easy things to do but would be very time consuming. Some of them would take more than 8 labor hours to complete. For some reason, over the years I have been pretty consistent in that I am motivated to do things on that list in early spring and not again until the hottest time of the year ... mid to late August.

With the temps at 50° when we started the walk, it was sweatshirt and shorts weather on this morning walk. It was about at this point in the walk I remember this last winter when it was 9° and a strong cold wind blowing in my face. I prefer this weather to that freezing weather.

With total freedom given to each hound on this walk, they headed in opposite directions. Sadie went to the far right corner of the field and Stella took off toward the middle of the field and possibly to the NW, a direction she had never taken. That is typical for them when I don't 'herd' them during the walk.

Most of the time, even when they bale the field twice in the summer, they normally get 16-18 of these rolls of hay. They normally haul it away after it is rolled but it looks like they will store it here until their next cut in the fall or pull it as they need it next winter.

Once Stella glanced up and saw that Sadie was busy with what she found, she started walking in our direction without me yelling her name. What I missed was her running.

While I was taking a picture of the busted roll of hay, Stella had RAN from the middle of the field to the corner of this hay in the short time I took the picture.

Then it was back to 'noses to the ground' for each of them. I am sure that deer use this path to walk from the gully to the woods on the far north side of the field.

This reminded me of the time times I turn my lawn mower to start a new row and miss part of the taller grass. This is just one of the few spots in 7 acres that he missed with his much larger mower.

Sadie took off almost trotting on a scent she had found. She was not into chasing sparrows today because just outside the left edge of this picture there were 5-10 sparrows on the ground having breakfast. A few days ago Sadie would have sprinted after them but today her interest was somewhere else.

While Sadie and I walked toward the house, Stella was heading for the 'no fly zone'. I was sure she was headed for the woods. If that were to happen I would have had to go get her and lead her back to the house.

Back to my 'to do' list, I never worry about what I get done or don't get done. It will all be completed eventually but only when I feel like doing the type of work I will need to do. I'll have a major rush to get things done before last week of August when a new college football season starts.

It took a while and even longer than I had planned but Sadie and Stella finally made it back to the yard. They spent almost the same amount of time at the end of the walk in the area behind the house as it took for me to complete the walk.

With the fantastic weather we have been having I am back to picking up three different books to read and most of that reading is outside. With the disappearance of gnats, bugs and a few mosquitoes, the hounds have time to roam the field right behind the house and I can keep an eye on them while I read.

I've recently been cutting my time on the computer way below my daily limit of data. That daily limit I set on my spreadsheet stretches that 20Gb of data evenly over the 30-31 day period. Currently I have about 1.2 Gb's in the bank based on my decreased usage.

Besides my normal sports reading, Twitter, Facebook ... I've took a look at houses for sale the other day on Zillow and Realtor sites. There are 4-5 towns out west that have always interested me with 2 of them places I have lived in the past. Nothing excites me too much in the housing market.

Even though I really like my Mini Cooper Countryman I still look at what FJ's are for sale in a radius of 250 miles from home. Many to choose from but very very few have the same options I had with my blue one. I still will not make any trade until I decide when I travel and what I want to use as far as trailers. Nothing has changed my mind about traveling with the hounds.

Traveling with two bassets and one bloodhound wasn't that bad but hard. Two bloodhounds would make that impossible. I knew that and analyzed that before I decided to pick up Stella and bring her home. I could walk Winston and Heidi with a "splitter" and one leash. When I have tried that here with Sadie and Stella ... it didn't work and was a total disaster each time I tried it.

I have a few more weeds to cut along the driveway this afternoon. It is so tempting to buy and spray weed killer and make that all so easy but I don't want any chance of that getting on the paws of the hounds or in the air. So I will continue to cut them as low as possible with my weed eater and let the sun kill them.

Not sure but I might post again tonight after we take some afternoon photos.

I cannot believe how long this fantastic weather has lasted here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.