Coffee For Friday. #14 Nature Fun.

Good morning and Happy Friday everyone! It is a beautiful, sunny morning today. It was cloudy earlier but the clouds moved away allowing the brilliant sunshine to flood our surroundings once more. It is an odd morning though. The last 2 mornings the chipmunks were so busy out here, but this morning only one chipmunk came and he was only here once.

Hard to believe that I could put out food for them and 3 hours later it is still there. I went out with more peanuts and discovered that none were missing yet. Some of the sunflower seeds were missing from one of the piles I put out each morning, but that was all. Baxter was here but he only took one peanut and left again. The chickadees, goldfinches and evening grosbeaks have not been here either.

Mother mallard and her 2 babies.

A very strange morning. I mean, every other morning this week has been busy with birds, chipmunks or both. I have not even seen the hummingbirds this morning. How can everything stay away on the same morning? What has suddenly changed? I have no idea. But it sure is quiet out there. Sir George and Lady Pearl were here for breakfast, they are the only gulls left it seems.

The crows came around too, but I would prefer they did not. They scare the smaller birds away. But that is not the problem for this morning. When I walked to the river last week I met this little family of mallard ducks. I showed them in the “looking at you” post. I am showing them again today. It almost looks like the mother is trying to show off for the camera.

White-throated sparrow chirping at me for being too close to his family.

Then when my friend and I went for our day trip to some small lakes 2 weeks ago, at one lake there was a family of white-throated sparrows. I got a bit too close so the parents were chirping loudly, wanting me to leave. I am showing one parent here today as well. The last picture is a cuckoo wasp. They are generally a metallic green, but can also be blue, this one shows green and blue.

They look similar to a type of bee, often called sweat bees, which can also be metallic green, or blue, or brown. Both the wasps and bees are common around here right now. I have had the sweat bees crawling around on my arm and hand, and even sit right on my camera.

A cuckoo wasp showing its beautiful colors.

The cuckoo wasp has also been on my arm. The are small, about 3/8 inch (9mm) long. But they can sting. I have been stung by the bees anyway. Now I just leave them alone, that way they will not sting me if they are on my arm. I never knew that we have blue bees here, that is quite interesting. Yes, I do have a photo that I will show soon. Well, have a wonderful Friday everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2022 Steve McLeod.

The Investigators, Inc. Mystery of Avina. Chapter 19. Rounding Up.

We started going through the big house rounding up any of Avina’s people that were there. All had still been in bed when the action started but they were also preparing to leave in a hurry with Avina. “Too bad that will not happen,” I said to them. We found the remaining 5 people we had broken out of prison, the other 4 had been killed up in Norway.

I still did not understand why Avina wanted that one young woman until John told me she was Avina’s younger sister. Then I remembered her, she had changed a lot since I last saw her. She looked much older then her age of 23. She kept yelling and screaming at me that she would kill me one day when she gets out of prison. I figured that would be a few years off so I was not going to worry about it now.

How wrong could I be about that? I am sure the various prisons will be happy to get their prisoners back, though 4 of them may not be too happy. John was right about the guards Avina had hired, most of them ran away, two were killed, 4 others were wounded but not seriously. Our team made out well on this raid, no deaths, no wounded.

We took everyone outside and then planted our own fire bombs around the house and with the push of a button they were all detonated and they house was quickly engulfed in flames. There was also a very large explosion from explosives that Avina had stored in the basement. Not a very good place to store things like that anyway. I am surprised she did not think of that. I guess whatever her plans were will now remain a mystery.

No one knew what she wanted the bombs for, just that she wanted them made a certain way which made them more deadly for their size. However, I am sure that Toledo might be able to answer more questions for us, if we can ever find him. Apparently he was off somewhere picking up some “equipment” that was needed. No one knew where he was, or they would not tell us anyway.

I am sure that we will meet Toledo again at some time in the future. But he does not have the brains of Avina. He did the “rough” work. We left the guards behind that we had caught, all chained together, but outside at a safe distance from the house. We then informed the police about them just before we left for home. “You need to come with us John and let our doctors check you out,” I said, “they might be able to help you.”

“I do not take charity Steve,” he said, “you should know that.” “This is not charity,” I said, “this is part payment for your help here, and in case we might need your help in the future I want you healthy.” He laughed. “Okay,” he said, “you win, I will come along. But do not think I am changing sides!” “Okay”, I said, “on to the airport so we can get out of here.”

Soon we were flying back home, Sigurbjorn was giving me a nice massage, I was beginning to relax and, that headache came back, but it was much worse this time. “I have that headache again,” I told Sigurbjorn, “but it is bad this time, real bad.” She called Jenny into the room and told her. Jenny called Chung. While they were talking I started screaming. Everyone on board heard me.

Muffin came up close to me and started purring which seemed to help settle me down a bit and Sigurbjorn kept massaging. I had already had a shot before coming to Argentina, so getting another one now would not be good, too close together. I am not sure what Sigurbjorn did differently but I was soon asleep and woke up in the clinic again.

The original doctor who worked with Chung to make an antidote for this “nowhere” drug was at the clinic too. He told me the original antidote was no longer working, but he had developed another. He has been working on this drug for quite some time now and came up with something better. I hope he is right. And hopefully I will not need to keep taking this new drug the rest of my life, like the first one.

It should work to fix the problem after a while. He just wanted my permission to begin administering it. I called Kat, Baldwin, Jenny, Carine, Sigurbjorn and Muffin together to talk about this. There is always a chance this new drug may not work…

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.