Walks Always Excite Sadie

Just because the bloodhounds and I thought it was a great weather day yesterday, didn't mean that Heidi agreed. Just after lunch she sprinted for the door to go out with all the rest of us. It's the daily routine and I thought it was warm enough that she might spend some time outside.

She made a sudden stop at the edge of the carport, stood and gazed out into the yard, then once she felt that cold air hit her nose, she didn't hesitate to turn completely around running to the door for me to let her back inside. The bathroom run would have to wait until later for her.

While I was talking to Heidi about the advantages of getting off the couch and spending a little walking time outside ... Stella was sure she had found the moles, not realizing it wasn't their time of day to be out tearing up my yard. She walked almost the full length of the yard along the edge where I mow next to the field tracking something.

We had a major highlight yesterday afternoon in 'the tropics'. I was sitting at the kitchen table moving some of my Mahjong games to under 3 minutes completion time. I barely caught a glimpse of a large object backing into the single gravel road that I walk down when I go to the old steel bridge. Obviously this driver needed to turn around as soon as possible and head back to town.

Most would think he might be lost but he is actually wants to approach the parking lot of the Dollar General store from the right lane instead of the left lane. It's a better angle to pull in that 53' trailer, into a very narrow two lane driveway into the parking lot ... hopefully not driving over the concrete culvert as he makes the turn, then having his rear wheels becoming airborne, spinning in midair ... stuck.

Ask me how I know something like that might happen with this same Dollar General truck.

So with my two cups of coffee under my belt, only 56Mb of data used to read some Facebook news, some Twitter updates and a few other sports sites ... all sports news nothing else ... we headed out for our morning walk around 9:30am. The sun was bright, skies were blue under a crisp 34° ... and the ground was frozen like a rock. Heavy frost twinkled under the early morning sunshine.

Same picture of the mole traffic yesterday but today's frozen ground gives it a little more definition so you can see the path easier. I am up for any suggestions from you on how to get rid of these pesky destroyers. I've battled them for 20 years but this past year there seems to be a lot more of them. I know it's almost impossible to get rid of them since I live next to a field but there has to be something to stop them. I've tried every thing over the years.

After I had put on layers of clothes in preparation for cold weather I was more than likely going to let Stella go where she wanted. I didn't expect her to take the lead this morning. She simply trotted away from Sadie and I ... I barely caught her with the 200mm lens. Who knows what she was thinking but she had to get somewhere fast.

A poor visual of the heavy frost.

By the way Sadie charged into the edge of the brush/woods I thought she had seen a rabbit, maybe a stray bird. Whatever it was, it was moving and she was going to get it. Sella??? She was more interested in natural protein.

Their attention span was short and whatever Sadie had found was no longer the focus. They trotted past me and didn't stop. Both of them had places to go. With the field having heavy frost it was easy to see the fresh deer tracks from earlier this morning. At least they were easy for my eyes to see while I walked but the Nikon D3200 didn't catch them.

When the front paws are curled, Stella is going at a faster pace than her normal one, where she drags her feet. It was good to see her get a little exercise this morning although the duration was short.

This is a worn deer path from the field into the wooded gully. In a few months when these bushes fill in, neither hound will be this deep into the woods.

Sadie was on her normal path, stopping in the same spots that she investigates 2-3 times per day. At least I don't have to call her nor put a leash on her. She always catches up to me while following her own walk.

Since the field is not frozen that hard and there isn't mud .. the deer tracks were easier to see. These two were from the same deer ...

It wasn't until I was at the point where Sadie has her nose that I saw what she was smelling. It was a deer hoof print, a fairly new one from earlier today ... she thought she was close to finding them.

Again, while Sadie and I kept walking the normal path, Stella had not moved more than 10' from where I last saw her. The only difference today, she started walking toward us and with us toward home without me saying a word.

All walks in the afternoon, whether it is one or two of them, Stella is on the 25' retractable leash and the camera is left at home. I really need to switch that technique because there is better light in the afternoons and I'd get better photos of the hounds.

It was hard to pick up with the camera but I could see they were following worn paths the deer had made when they move from one side of the field to the other ... or from the woods toward my house. They also like to walk from neighbor's woods to the woods on our right side when we start the walk.

I was almost ready to tug at Stella's collar to get her to move when she looked up and took off trotting to catch Sadie. She is one stubborn hound.

It's not often that both of them will walk on the path, let alone on their own all the way to the yard but they did this morning.

Either the farmer that lives behind me bought a new tractor just like the one that cuts and bales the field ... or the farmer that bales the field is a long way from home. They live about 12 miles north of town and only cut the field as a favor the the owner, which lives a couple of houses down from me.

I shocked myself late yesterday afternoon when I started house cleaning and couldn't stop. I finally forced myself to stop around 7:30pm. I have the last two rooms to clean in detail today. With the weather the way it is I can see us getting in at least one more hound walk today ... maybe two since the days are gradually getting longer.

A bit of moving trivia since it seems the title of the post yesterday was too interesting for many to pass up. My blog traffic doubled in visitors yesterday  ... that website I linked gives my current town a grade of "A" in the crime section ... the town I have seriously thought of moving to was given an "F" in the crime section.

I follow their newspaper on my Facebook news feed and this morning I see a picture of a young Mexican man with a couple of small tattoos on his face. He was arrested for an armed robbery and kidnapping attempt at their Walgreen's Drug Store ... 7 felony counts ... he was caught because the vehicle he tried to steal as the getaway car had a manual transmission, not an automatic. He did not know how to drive a stick shift.

I am still trying to digest that news along with being told I have a 1 in 28 chance of being a crime victim in the town I am investigating. An investigation serious enough that I called a real estate agent last Saturday.

Is that what you call a 'red flag' ???  Feel free to comment.

Otherwise it's a bright sunny day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana and it's not even noon yet.

To Move Or Not To Move

It's hard to describe how nice it feels to step outside for the walk and it doesn't feel like you are getting ready to cross the North Pole. I think the hounds agreed by the way the roamed the field this morning. While putting on my parka I decided that Stella would be on her own today, total freedom with zero verbal herding as I like to call it. She didn't disappoint.  LOL

I mentioned the more than normal yard mole damage this fall and winter. I saw this morning they have not wasted time taking advantage of the warmer weather to start their farming of grub worms. I guess we all have to get our protein some way.

Sadie was already locked in on new scent and was going to be tracking the edges of the half mile walk. She did not care what Stella was doing nor where I was walking ... she was in her own world of exploration.

Stella tried to get my pulse rate to jump suddenly as she took a few steps toward the woods. For some strange reason she decided to turn back to the field and join Sadie and I on our walk ... but only at her pace.

I could already tell that Stella probably wouldn't get much further than the first turn today. By the time she lifted her head to look were we were, Sadie and I were marching to the back of the field. The field was no longer saturated with rain and melting snow, it wasn't frozen and it seemed that those 80° days were only a few days away. I can dream can't I ??

The skies certainly looked like snow or rain was on the way ... but Weather Underground disagreed ... nothing but cloudy today and temps in the low 30's. Hard to believe that the field and all the trees will be green in a few months.

I needed a change the other day so I went back to Google Chrome as my default browser. It has had some surprising results as far as data usage. I'm using a lot less data doing the same type of internet surfing. I wonder if Safari's updates keep adding things running in the background for their automatic ad blocking and private internet use? It also seemed to have slowed down the past few weeks on Apple's Safari.

It felt much warmer but the wind was cold enough that my eyes were tearing up .. only the beep on the camera told me if these photos were in focus or not because I couldn't see that well through the tears while I looked through the view finder.

It was good to see that Stella was still in view as I heading toward the house.

Sadie got in some exercise for the first time in a few days, although I do remember her running through the snow one day chasing birds out of her field.

There is a lot of weight there flopping in the wind as she runs. I feel just how heavy she weighs when she steps on my foot by accident. That usually happens as the three hounds are jostling for position as I am gathering three food bowls to pour kibble into.

Don't be led into "fake news" ... Stella may be looking right at us but that doesn't mean she will start trotting toward us or even walking toward us ... she is just looking to see how much more time she has before I walk over to 'help' her go in our direction.

We stroll slowly back to the house as each hound explores the field inch by inch. They don't stop until they hit the yard and even then they don't stop sniffing around.

You would think that Sadie was sprinting all the way to the house but I'm using 200mm to even get this close to her ... as you will see, she still has scent to check out.

I always wonder how long I will be standing here as the hounds inch their way back to the yard. I know that if I said anything with the word 'eat' in the sentence, they would sprint past me like I wasn't even there and run right to the door.

But after a hard aerobic workout, Stella decides to 'warm down' before she goes back inside. She has only two paces most of the time ... slow and slower.

After a brand new iOS update and multiple updates the past two week with the Garmin Connect app, I still cannot get my Garmin VivoSmart3 paired up with the iPhone 8+. It worked perfect from May - December when I had the iPhone 6s. Yes, I can download the data from the Garmin to my iMac and then synchronize with the iPhone but it was so much nicer just to tap the icon on the phone and see all of the current data.

I mentioned the other day I had been looking around the SW for a possible destination. It's almost like the old days on this blog a few years ago when I was trying to decide whether to sell out and RV or not. I like using this site to give me a little more information besides just looking through real estate that is available.

To check the accuracy I searched my current town and other towns I have lived in. I find the information to be pretty accurate. At least it is fun to play with to see what kind of information comes up. In my case the town I am living in now is rated higher than the town I have a serious urge to move to.

I will not say a lot about my search or the possibility of moving the hounds and myself to somewhere warmer and for other reasons ... but it's 10° warmer on average, less humidity, cheaper utilities, cheaper insurance, reasonable house prices, and 75% less precipitation. I have talked to real estate agents there and here.

I may have grown up and went to college in Indiana but I've lived over 25 years on the west coast. Both places have their pros and cons. Nina over at 'Wheeling It' just posted her thoughts on major moves ... then last night I get an email from a company I follow telling me how to sell a house in the winter .... are they trying to tell me something?  LOL

It will be a fast pace today in 'the tropics' .. some house cleaning, some games of Mahjong, another hound walk in the afternoon and an IU ballgame tonight on tv ... life is good.

The Hounds Are Back To Normal

It didn't take long for things to feel like they were back to normal, me included. Sadie and Stella want to walk all the time. Sadie, Stella and Heidi want to eat all the time. It is still not warm enough for Heidi but I really believe if I were to let the bloodhounds out on their own, they would spend most of the day in the field.

Strong winds for around here were forecast last night and they arrived. Since all of the storm damage with huge trees blown out of the wet ground in June 2008, I am always a little anxious when the winds get around 40mph. I still have huge Sycamore trees due south of the house. The Sycamore tree in June 2008 was just as tall and was pulled out of the ground like a weed, falling through the fence and all the way across the front yard.

Yet, those were straight line winds in 2008 and last night wasn't nearly the same speed. So about all the damage I found in the yard from last night's wind was this small tree limb from the Sycamore tree. If there were any other limbs in the north or front yards, they had been blown out of the yard last night.

Stella wanted to let me know that she was back in control since the frozen tundra was gone. While Sadie headed south, Stella headed north ... that's never a good way to start the daily walk. Until she responded to me yelling her name, it looked like by her pace she was going next door to check out the neighbor's backyard.

Granted, we took the day off yesterday from walking so the field would have more time to change from a muddy field to only a wet field. With almost 2" of rain in addition to 4" - 6" of snow melting I was somewhat surprised there wasn't more water this morning being squeezed from the ground with each of my steps.

I could tell a lot of verbal herding was going to take place today, if both hounds were going to finish the walk.

With the winds howling from the SW around the 20mph mark, I could feel freezing cold air hitting my face although the temps had jumped to the mid 30's. If it were to stay like this the rest of the winter I would take it. The forecast shows it will be 40's and 50's a lot of days in the next 45 days.

I didn't realize it at the time I took the photos but a lot of them today did not have the hounds as the main focus but the surrounding weeds, bushes etc. My camera may have automatically switched from 'single point' to 'all area' focus when I turned it off. It does that sometimes but not all the time.

Sadie was more than happy to be going on walks again. I could not remember today when her obsessions with these walks started because I don't remember her being this demanding for walks when Winston was around. Of course back then, she was not the head of household, Winston ran the show.

This time last year Stella had started losing her weight mysteriously so it's good to see that she has gained all that she lost last year. I have a feeling her previous owner had dog food out at all times for her to eat along with their other dogs, whenever they wanted. She is alert any time there is any kind of food around or is being cooked.

Not to get into politics but I was happy to see the government decided to go back to work. I want my tax refund from my filed taxes they electronically accepted at the IRS on January 19.

It has been a long time since they have trotted over to the 'far right corner' of the field on this walk ... they did not today either ... but they took their time exploring every inch along the back fence line. I was beginning to wonder if were going to make it back home some time today.

As we turned home, about in the middle of the rear field Stella decided she had things to do. She took her slow time, Sadie and I waited ... and waited ... and waited for her to finally catch up. Stella does nothing fast .... nothing.

Without me saying anything, just walking with Sadie ... Stella finally figured out we were going home with or without her. She broke into a trot to catch Sadie as we took the normal path back home. It wasn't cold but the wind was stronger as we walked into it instead of having it at our backs.

I can't wait until the field is nice and green this spring.

This past fall and early winter has been the worst mole damage I have ever seen in my backyard. I need to have someone bring their riding mower and roll the yard for me this spring. It would be a first time I've ever done that. I am debating whether to apply grub worm killer in March to get rid of or lower the number of moles.

Heidi did not hesitate to come running when lunch was called but she came to a sudden stop once she felt the strong cold wind from the SW come out from behind the Z4. She eventually moved out into the yard but didn't stay out any longer than required to relieve herself.

That is one thing about winter ... with all of the tall ragweed and thick brush gone for the winter, it gives Sadie easy access to the woods right behind the burn pile. From the way the dead ragweed has been mashed I think deer pass through there at night. I have caught them in that area sometimes when it's really late.

 I guess both bloodhounds were satisfied with their morning walk. They didn't stay outside after their lunch much longer than Heidi did. Within minutes all three had found their normal afternoon sleep spots and were sound to sleep. Lately Stella has decided to pin my desk chair close to the desk and sleep right behind me. For me to get up and out of the chair I have to wake her up to move.

It's hard to believe that January is a week from being over. Time is flying as usual.

It's a quiet day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.