Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Thursday Thoughts With Coffee. #6
Good morning everyone! What a difference one week makes. Last week it was so bitterly cold and this week it feels more like spring. Yesterday was mainly sunny with a high of 39F (4C) and not much wind. The snow melted off my deck nicely. The birds were enjoying themselves, they looked positively skinny since they did not need to bundle up and puff out those feathers.
There were 4 Pine Grosbeaks that showed up twice yesterday and there were 5 out there this morning. But like the Evening Grosbeaks, they did not stay long each time. Very strange. I have never had a year like this since I started feeding birds. It is beautifully sunny today, but there is a strong north wind blowing which is going to put an end, briefly, to our milder weather. The temperature is going to drop throughout the day to 21F (-6C) and down to -4F (-20C) tonight.
This is Squirk, above, my first friendly squirrel where I presently live.
But it warms up to melting temps again by Saturday and continuing into next week. I will not argue with that. Very nice indeed. I have shared a few stories before about my snowshoeing days, something I do not participate in anymore. It was a very enjoyable time, however, a nice quiet and simple way to get out and enjoy the beauties of winter. There I go again, using beauty and winter in the same sentence. That is twice this winter. What a terrible thing.
Back to snowshoeing. I will share one story that I wrote about before, but I have a number of new readers now that have not heard that one and I hope the rest of you will enjoy reading it once more. It was a sunny day, no real wind to worry about. However, I will say this, with most any winter activity, it is best to have someone along, just in case you run into problems. And I usually did. Run into problems. And did not have someone with me.
This is a Raven, about double the size of a crow, and they have shown up at my feeder the odd time.
Nor did I let anyone know where I was going or how long I would be gone. This is something that should always be done, especially when going out alone. Anyway, off I went, by myself, the temp was -15F (-26C), but I was dressed appropriately warm. I was walking through the pines and the sun was shining wondering through those pines, casting long shadows and sparkling off the snow. A little squirrel was sitting at the base of a large pine tree using his sharp teeth to open one of those rock hard pine cones to get at the small seeds inside.
I passed him and came across some chickadees who were digging around behind the bark of the trees looking for any frozen insects they could find. I finally got to the place I wanted to be, along the edge of a small cliff. I actually wanted to go down the cliff to the valley below and then come back up further along to another snowshoe trail I had made a week before.
This is a male Downy Woodpecker, above.
The snow was quite deep and even with snowshoes I was getting rather tired by the time I reached the cliff. Should I stay along the top or go down? There was a nice easy slope going down so I decided that it would be okay. I started off, it was about 30 feet down to a ledge and I had gone about 10 feet down this slope when I started to hear some cracking. I stopped. That was an odd noise to hear. Then suddenly more cracking and WHUMP! I fell the last 20 feet! However, that was not the worst of it…
Hmm, guess I should stop there for now and I will finish this off tomorrow. Otherwise this post will get a bit long. It already is a bit longer than normal. Well, time for some more coffee and some housecleaning. I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2023 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 
Seriously? Now you began to end with mystery on our regular posts too 🤨🧐 😅 Worth waiting, I don’t mind. Hope it wasn’t that bad, I’ll have to wait and see for myself tomorrow. Tomorrow right? 🤔 Don’t say no 😄. We need it tomorrow 😃😉.Have a lovely day Uncle Steve and Muffin 🤗💗
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Yep, it will be finished tomorrow, hopefully, unless something happens and it gets to be too long, but then I will finish it on Saturday.🤔🙄 But part 2 will be tomorrow for sure! Well, it just kind of happened Simon, I wasn’t really planning to make it so long, but there wasn’t any other way!🙄😂😹 So tomorrow it is! It was a nice day, though cooler. But is was nice and sunny! Enjoy your day Simon!😃😻🌞☕☕
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Yes I saw the tomorrow and eagerly waiting for another tomorrow 🙂
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Wait until you get home again before reading! Hope you are having a great time!😊😻
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Alright 👍😊 waiting 😷😅
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Crashing . . . dropping several feet down! Steve, I will eagerly wait to read more. As for me, just keeping my coffee cup filled is enough of an adventure today.
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It was certainly quite a surprise that day! Just was not expecting such a drop! Part 2 will be tomorrow. I don’t want everyone to wait too long. Have a great evening!😃☕☕😺
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That raven’s French cousins enjoy parading up and down my terrace
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They probably smell your delicious cooking!🤔😊😻
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No, they’re after my bedding plants
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Oh no! Ravens are terrible birds, they like to destroy things, sometimes just for fun and they are totally mean to other birds.
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We didn’t have any when we first moved here but they moved in a few years ago. One of them flew off with my bird feeder!
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Oh my, they are some bad ones! And they get very bold too so that they can be impossible to scare away.🤔🙄🙀
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Exactly
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YOU are a CRUEL taskmaster!! 😂 If I wasn’t so hooked on the story, I’d boycott it to show you just how cruel you are. (Just teasin’, of course.😉)
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I do try my best!😃 Just seemed like a good spot to stop before it got too long!🙄 But the next part will be out shortly, or maybe even soon. Hope you enjoy the exciting…😂😹
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I really like your short stories which actually happened to you ! Very entertaining ! 😂😯🙂😻 sleep well tonight…hope your RLS…had mine last night ! 😳😴
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Thank you! They are comical, though at the time some were not, but looking back I can sure laugh at them. My RLS is still bad, all day long, it just doesn’t want to quit, a whole week now. I hope it doesn’t bother you tonight! Sleep well Sis!😊😻☕☕🌛😴😴
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Should have read …hope your RLS is better today !
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I thought so!
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