Stella Starts A New Week

With the cold temperatures settled in Stella has not officially named it winter yet. There are a few days next week she will be back in temperatures of the high 60's. In either kind of weather she is still the best 'beggar for food' that I have ever seen. She is quiet about it and that look you see in the above photo is her patented "I'd like to have that" look.
My curiosity increased enough today that I did a search on Google for the winter weather predictions here in 'the tropics'. I found sites that cut their detail into my zip code. All I will say is, it was good to see no temperatures in single digits. That is good enough for me.

Stella showed once again this morning that she continues to improve from last spring by running more, acting more like her old self inside and outside. I had planned again to let her do her own thing on this walk this morning and she was more than interested in keeping up with Sadie.

Even though ... Sadie was beginning to wonder if Stella and I were ever going to get started on this walk or not.

Once Stella saw how far Sadie was, who had disappeared around the first turn, she took off running to catch up. With Sadie out of view she obviously had found something very good, something that Stella could not ignore.

By the time I reach that first turn whenever the hounds have disappeared, only one of two things normally happened. They have stopped like they did this morning ... or they are running full speed toward the back of the field tracking a deer scent.

No deer this morning though. They had come and gone hours before we made it outside. I am beginning to wonder if the light ATV traffic has scared most of the deer away? I haven't seen one deer since the ATV traffic increased, although it does not happen every day.

I see where a few of the bloggers I follow are doing their annual migration to warmer temps in the Southwest. Some of them have already arrived. I've talked before that when I made the decision to give Stella a new home that my traveling plans would change drastically with two bloodhounds.

We made that trip to Colorado and Utah for a week in June 2015 but that was with two basset hounds and one bloodhound, Stella had not arrived yet. Big difference. It took some work with only two hands and three hounds but overall it was workable with two smaller basset hounds.

Yet Sadie did what any normal bloodhound would do when she smelled an animal near the tent. She dug so hard at the corner of my tent to get out sometime around 4am to see the antelope, it made a hole in the seem right above the floor.

The reason I know it was antelope that was driving her crazy, I saw more than five of them the next morning waving goodbye to us as we left our campsite. Sadie was loud enough trying to get out of the tent that she woke me up, along with Winston and Heidi.

With two large, strong bloodhounds, then Heidi ... I've always thought this field is the best place for them. I've tried walk Sadie and Stella before with two separate 6' standard leashes like I would have to traveling ... it's not possible once they find a scent that makes them take off running.

Stella is a good FJ rider but once she is outside the FJ in a different place than home (the vet) she gets quite skittish and tries to run away. She literally freaked out the last time I took her with me to buy dog food at T&T Feed & Seed.

Due to staying up late last night watching one of the wildest baseball games of the World Series, I see that my mind is all over the place writing this post. Sorry for all the misdirection but I really have no idea what to write about this morning.

So I think I'll stop babbling and post the photos I have left from this mornings walk.

I think this is about all of the fall colors we will get this year.

Haven't moved from the time I approached them, walked past them and made the final turn home. I had to walk back to tug at Stella's collar to get her to move back to the path with us.

They seemed to think it was another successful walk this morning as they trotted ahead. They prefer the alternate path home we started last month.

Stella was looking serious this morning as she finished her walk.

Sadie needed to check out one more thing before she walked into the yard.

Stella hears the St. Bernard barking at her from across the highway. So far in the 26 months I've had Stella, she has never ran across the highway to check out the huge dog barking at her.

Time to get warm, take a short morning nap and wait for lunch to be served.

The time has been flying with baseball, football and now college basketball being on tv almost every night of the week. I can still get a couple of things checked off of my 'to do' list before bad weather arrives. Otherwise, remaining items will be moved to the 2018 To Do list.

I now hear rain outside here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Photos Of A Highly Active Hounds Walk

I am not sure of the reason but after a normal Saturday of college football on tv way into the early morning hours, the hounds woke up energized ... more than normal. This is the most active I've seen Stella in almost a year and Sadie was sprinting at times. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

It's Seattle weather today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Test Winds From The NW

With yesterday afternoon having light rain off and on, we didn't do much. The hounds slept, I played Mahjong and started a new book. You'd be surprised how much faster a day like that goes compared to the days I worked. The hounds and I were in for a shock this morning and it was coming from the Northwest.

I could see by the way the hounds were sleeping last night, it was getting quite cold outside. How do they know that? Their sleeping positions change from being stretched out in the summer to curled in tight balls during the winter. Heidi is the only one that demands a blanket.

So when we glanced at Intellicast weather radar this morning, I saw that 'light blue' of snow had moved across the northern part of the state 150-200 miles north of us. We dressed accordingly and started our first walk of the day a little past 10am.

For some strange reason it felt warm, no wind as we started. In fact it felt too warm for the light gloves I was wearing. With Sadie taking off on her own and Stella veering off on her own to the left of me ... I continued to walk under skies that looked like snow was on the way. (not in the forecast)

I decided while putting my coat and hiking boots on that Stella would have free reign this morning. She took a path that was totally unexpected ... she followed Sadie and I for most of the time.

I could tell by their nose activity this morning, there was a lot of deer traffic while we slept. Both hounds stopped at numerous places to smell and identify what was in the area.

It was about right here that I felt just how cold it was. Even though the cold freezing winds were coming from the NW or left side of picture ... I had not felt anything until I got to the first turn. Had the neighbor's woods blocked the wind?

The wind a was mid-January freezing type wind. Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago I was making this same walk at the same time of day in cargo shorts and a t-shirt??? How many days until Spring??

Sadie charges past me at a high rate of speed ... she loves this field. I've been letting her out on her own in the afternoons for close to an hour. She can explore and roam as she wishes. I do check on her by looking through my binoculars just to make sure she is within view behind the house and not in the field to the north of our house. (too close to the highway)

She never cares if Stella is with her not ... she will explore the field in detail.

Just as I made the final turn home, I could barely see Stella walking across the field heading north while we were going in a southwest direction. I just assumed I'd find her over by the neighbor's woods and kept walking.

Out of nowhere, Sadie bolted in front of me and started running to the right of me while I was looking for Stella up ahead of me. There were no birds launching from ground level. I didn't see any deer. What made her do that?

It wasn't until my camera lens focused on Sadie that I saw Stella. She was not up ahead of me by the woods but way off to the right side of me past the main "ATV Racetrack" ... I cannot remember a time she had been in that part of the field ... except the deer chase she was on last year.

Of course neither one was going to leave that spot with me just calling their names. I walked all the way over to them and about the time I reached them ... they both headed back toward our path without me saying a word.

We took the normal path home all because Stella had decided that was the way we should go today. She likes to make her own decisions.

I was not quite to the yard when I turned to see where the hounds were, possibly getting a picture of both of them from the front of them instead of the back or side of them.

Here is Sadie rolling in something but was fast enough the camera didn't catch the full roll. She jumped back up and looked at me to see if there was a chance of another roll ... luckily I saw nothing nor smelled anything that she might have rolled in. She ran up to me very proud after her gymnastics exercise and let me know she did not stink nor was there anything to wash off her soft coat.

So another successful Saturday morning walk ... freezing temps ... and a full day of college football along with another World Series game tonight. Luckily a lot of the sports channels will replay some of these games this week so I will not need to tape them while watching another game.

Here is a 'highlight' from this past week. I took this with my iPhone camera and forgot I had the 'live' setting turned on. I don't know if that feature will show up on the blog but from my computer I could not only see a 3-4 seconds of her but HEARD her licking the bottom of the ice cream container.

Sometimes when you can't get to that last drop of ice cream, you just have to dig a little deeper.

I have a cluster of good games on at 3:30pm and maybe a clear schedule for the MLB game at 7:30pm before my late night Pac12 games that start at 10:45pm. It's a typical Saturday for a 'sports addict'.

Firefox took a call third strike for me this morning and has  been put back on the self in my apps folder. Their icon is no longer on my 'dock'. It's a consistent problem I've had with them over the years and one of the reasons I always stop using them.

• Some websites do not have correct format, while those same websites show up correctly in Safari and Google Chrome. 
• Sometimes the sentences on websites run together. 
• Columns were incorrect on the football tv schedule I printed this morning. The website did not have the proper format and single lines were wrapped into three and for lines inside columns.
• This website looked correct on Google Chrome and Safari. 
• The schedule printed perfect from Google Chrome.

So I have made the full circle this morning and have gone back to Google Chrome. 

I have an insurance appraiser coming to my house next week to tell me what it will cost to fix the Z4 grill and shields underneath the car. I have a good body shop a mile away from me, one that I know does good work. Of course the insurance company tells me they recommend body shop that is 30 miles from me which will guarantee their work plus they will pay to tow the car. 

I have priced out what I think needs replaced with BMW OEM parts and the total cost is not quite what my deductible is. One way or another the Z4 will be fixed but I am interested in what cost the appraiser comes up with.

The way TV is viewed in today's world is changing rapidly. I will not list all the companies that you and I know are getting into streaming tv shows. That is all good, except when you live in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana, in a rural area, all of those that offer unlimited data to do this 'streaming' is not available in my area.

I wonder what changes will be made in the next 1-2 years because in the past 3-6 months the number of companies advertising their tv services is increasing rapidly. Like "YouTube TV" ????

That is about all I have for today. I have to wonder if it is just a coincidence that after I posted pictures of my burn pile burning last week, then was reminded about the California Wildfires by someone making a comment on that post ... that my blog traffic dropped around 50% this past week, starting the day after those fire pictures.

Interesting.

Still ... blog traffic does not determine how exciting days are here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.