Down Country Paths. #1

Good morning everyone and Happy Saturday! Plus a big Happy Canada Day! Yep, today is Canada’s Birthday, a time to celebrate this huge and beautiful country that we have. It seems there are always people around who want to fight and divide our country when instead we should be working together to continually build our country into something even better that it is today.

Today also begins the second half of the year and with it will come some changes to Steve’s Country, a little at a time, through the month of July. I thank each one of you, some of you have been with me since near the beginning of my blogging back in 2018, and some of you are very new to my blog. THANK YOU each one for being here!!

On Saturday we will have Down Country Paths, which will be stories from my past like I have been doing, but also about antiques and other country pleasures and treasures. This time it was a beautiful and sunny July day and I decided to go on an early morning walk. I was up early and out walking by 6am. I had been down this path several times already, but always in the afternoon and I wanted to see if there might be more wildlife to see early in the morning.

I was definitely not disappointed. There was a small gravel road to begin my walk, but it turned into just a simple walking path after a short distance. Along the road was a nice snowshoe hare, dressed in its summer brown coat. In winter they are white and they blend in with their snowy background amazingly well. It hopped off the road and into the long grass when it spotted me coming along, but I did get a picture of it.

A beautiful Snowshoe Hare in July.

That was back when we still used film cameras, terrible things that they were. But they worked. It was just very slow and you had no chance for another picture if that one did not turn out. Oh well. As I continued on a couple of white-tailed deer jumped off into the trees, but one buck stayed behind for a few minutes watching me. He was just in the process of growing new antlers.

A White-tailed Deer growing its antlers. Only the males, bucks, have antlers.

Finally just as I got to the footpath section, there was a puddle on the road and some wet mud. There were also some very fresh, and large, bear tracks. He must be a big one, I thought to myself. That would make a wonderful picture. I continued on down the footpath and got to an open, rocky area. Walking along I spotted something move and stopped to look closer. It was a beautiful Eastern Gartersnake. He stopped long enough for me to get a pic of him, and he even looked right at me which was kind of nice.

It was about that time I heard a noise in the trees not far from where I was standing. I looked over and spotted that bear walking along. My heart started racing a bit as I could see it was a large bear and I was now about 4 km (2.5 miles) away from anything. But I was hoping to get a picture. I went and hid behind some rocks, hoping it might come out in the open.

I also saw butterflies, like this Mourning Cloak.

But, it wandered further off into the forest and I never saw it again. On one hand I was thankful it was gone, but I did lose out on a photo. Oh well. Back then bears would run from people in that area, but here it is different. Bears are so used to being around people now that they are no longer scared, and that can make them unpredictable and dangerous.

An Eastern Gartersnake was sunning itself on the rocks. It is looking right at me.

Which is why I have not been walking to the river lately, but I might change that soon and start going again. Anyway, I walked a bit further but did not see anymore wildlife, but there were a lot of birds singing that morning as well, including one of my favorites, the hermit thrush. I love their song. Any of our thrushes are beautiful singers really.

I stopped at a high spot and sat for a while. I could see for many miles (kilometers) from that hill. For some reason I never took a picture of that scenic view, not sure why. I then turned back, it was a most enjoyable morning. I hope you enjoyed walking with me, from years ago. This one got a bit long, others will be shorter. Have a fabulous weekend everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.