Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Wednesday Words. #6 Winter Color.
Good morning to all of you! What a beautiful morning it is too! The temp is 23F (-5C) and it is cloudy. Yesterday the high was the same temp it is now and today it is supposed to reach 34F (1C), like it did on Monday. Might be a nice day for a walk, hopefully a bit longer than what I have been doing lately. Perhaps all the way to the river again. It was a bit slippery yesterday, so I kept my walk short.
This is certainly an odd winter all around. Not much walking due to the snow and other weather conditions. And not many birds. That continues for yesterday and today. It was daylight for an hour before the first chickadees showed up. One flock of chickadees went right past my place and continued up the hill. So, someone else is feeding birds close by. Though it is odd that birds would pass by a closer feeder to go to one farther away.
Winter color, in birds at the feeders, like these male Evening Grosbeaks.
That is opposite to what they would normally do. But maybe that shrike had something to do with it. The birds probably did not feel safe here anymore, so they went elsewhere. It is a thought anyway. There were 2 pine grosbeaks here this morning, both females, but they were only here less than 10 minutes, then they flew off somewhere else. Pine grosbeaks will be heading back north soon. Last year they were gone by the end of February, but some years they will stay until mid March.
And this male Pine Grosbeak, with a couple of Common Redpolls in the foreground.
They breed much further north, close to where trees end and tundra begins. Do any of you have RLS? I do, and it has been terrible lately. All day and all night. It will keep me awake until after midnight when it finally settles down enough that I can fall asleep. But then it will wake me up and hour later worse than ever. I do have medication that helps with it or I would not be sleeping at all lately. Still, I am not getting much sleep. It is bothering me a lot right now, which is making it hard to sit and do this post.
That is what made me think of asking. Oh well, I am not complaining, just wondering if anyone else has it. My tube bird feeders are at it again, just like every winter. It will be hanging perfectly still, like the others, but then it begins to swing, just a little, until it is finally swinging quite wildly. Then it slows down and stops. Then in a couple minutes it begins to swing again, then stops.
And, of course, our Blue Jays, like Baxter above.
The other hanging feeders do not move at all. There is no wind, nothing at all that would cause those tube feeders to move like that. But it happens. Very unusual really. There must be a reason, but I cannot figure it out. Oh well, one of those mysteries that take place. I hope you have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2023 Steve McLeod.
The Investigators, Inc. The Secret Estate Case. Chapter 1. Where?
Well, we are all getting nicely rested, although Crystal has a ways to go, she had some serious injuries and is now so very sad that she will not be able to have children. So now we have 4 of our girls in the same position, Crystal, Annelie, Angel and Sky. Crystal is taking it especially hard though. Rock and Annelie had been planning to leave us and go back to Australia to live, they both enjoyed their short time there before. However, it seems it was more Rock that had this idea, not Annelie.
Rock came to me one evening and said they would like to stay on with us. I was very happy to hear that. I noticed that Rock had a very red cheek too. “What happened to your cheek?” I asked. “Um, well, uh, Annelie slaps real hard,” he said rather sheepishly. I laughed. “So does Sky,” I admitted. Then Rock laughed too. “What are you two laughing about?” asked Sky as she came into the library. “Well, I gotta go,” said Rock.
“Oh no you do not!” said Sky firmly, “now I know that it must be about me. Maybe I should call Annelie to join us.” “No, no, that is not necessary,” said Rock, “we were just, um, well, Steve was just about to tell you.” “Thanks Rock,” I said, “I was beginning to enjoy this.” “Well?” asked Sky. “We were just, um, kind of comparing how you and Annelie can slap rather hard,” I said, somewhat quietly. “Oh, then we do need Annelie,” said Sky, “so we can compare properly.” Sigh.
No way to get out of this one. Rock and I ended up with matching red cheeks. With Annelie and Sky laughing, and the cats giggling. Right then Crystal came walking into the library too. “Hey, you are supposed to be in bed right now,” I told her. “I cannot stay in bed all the time,” she answered, “I am feeling fine.” “You will stay in bed if I send you back to the hospital,” I said, trying to sound firm. “That would not be nice,” she said, “it is lonely staying in bed.”
“Well Steve,” said Sky, “put her back to bed, you are the leader.” Sigh. Off I went with Crystal and made sure she was back in bed. I also brought Muffin to stay with her for the night. “I have some important information too,” said Crystal, “I remembered what Marven had said.” “Hey, you are withholding info,” I said, “out with it.” “He mentioned that M had a secret estate,” she said, “and that is likely where M hid his other jewels.
But only M knew where that estate was located, not even Marven knew that. So this will not really help us much.” “Yes, I remember that now,” I said, “but M must have some information about the location of that estate, ownership papers of some kind, something to prove he owned the place. But where would he keep that information?” “Most likely where he kept us,” said Crystal, “Marven said that was his main estate.”
I was soon on the phone with Mandar telling him this information. He said that someone had broken into that estate and his men tried to catch him, but he got away. He had opened a safe in the house, but had done nothing else. That was likely Marven I told him. He then hired us to try and find this secret estate, so our first stop will be that main estate we had been held at. I took Rock, Sky, Angel, Tracy, Astrid and Kristina, plus the 3 cats.
It was not far and we were soon in the place looking for whatever we could find that would lead us to that secret estate. The cats were busy sniffing around each room, looking for any hidden passageways, or just a hiding spot where M might keep important papers or jewels. Our first day turned up nothing, except a safe we did not know about, but it was empty. I hope Marven did not have time to clean it out.
It was kind of odd to be completely empty, especially since it was a fairly large safe. We spent the night at a hotel and were back again right after breakfast. Wherever these papers are, it would have to be easy to get at since M was too big to be crawling around and reaching under things. While Sky and the cats were checking out a bedroom, she looked in the large mirror on the wall.
“I have seen mirrors like this before,” she said. Then the did some measuring and discovered that between the two bedrooms was a space of about 6 feet. There was bold swirling patterns on the walls of the hallway, but she spotted the outline of a door. Now, how to open it…
To Be Continued.
©2023 Steve McLeod.
