Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Solitude On My Deck. #6
Good morning to everyone on this beautiful Saturday! Grab a coffee and join me on the deck for a while to enjoy the solitude and quietude of my little space of the outdoors. Some birds are singing this morning, including a robin a couple houses down from my place. Yesterday he was actually singing in a tree right out back here.
I cleaned up the deck so nicely for Canada Day yesterday and now it does not look like I did anything out there. Those little chipmunks, plus the squirrels, grackles and crows scatter those peanut shells all over the entire deck. The squirrels and chipmunks do it when they chase each other all over the deck. Yesterday the chipmunks were busy hauling away peanuts and Jasmine showed up.
She spotted Pocket and immediately chased him around a bit until he jumped off into the raspberry bushes. She followed and came back up scratching. Reminded me of Jasper chasing the chipmunks. She just got back up and spotted Choco getting peanuts and immediately began to chase him. They ran around the deck and then Choco jumped off into the raspberry bushes with Jasmine right behind him.
But she lost him down below in that jungle. Back she came only to find Skitter picking up peanuts. That seemed to really make her upset and she ran after him and he immediately jumped off the deck into a clump of daylilies. Jasmine landed among the raspberries again and could not find Skitter, but she tried looking for him anyway. Meanwhile Coffee came and took his fill of peanuts. Choco also came back and got some more. Finally Jasmine came back, chattering, and found only 4 peanuts left.
She started to eat one and Pocket came back. Did she chatter loudly then! But Pocket went and came up behind her jumping onto the step. Guess Jasmine did not know who it was and she jumped straight up and ran half way down the deck. Pocket is definitely the fastest chipmunk at picking up peanuts and he had the 3 remaining peanuts in his mouth before Jasmine figured out it was only him that jumped up behind her.
She chattered again and chased Pocket off the deck. But he won. After all, he got what he came for. Jasmine sniffed around looking for peanuts and then looked up at me. I told her that is what happens when chasing chipmunks, it is a no win situation. I went in and got more peanuts. She took one and left. Smart squirrel.
Watching this fun is part of solitude on my deck. Well, it seems our beautiful sunny morning has turned into a cloudy, cool morning, no blue sky showing anywhere. So much for todays sunny forecast. Well, thank you for reading today, have a wonderful Saturday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2022 Steve McLeod.
Coffee For Friday. #6 HAPPY CANADA DAY!
Hello everyone and Happy Friday, plus a big Happy Canada Day! Time for another cup of coffee on this beautiful sunny day! It is very windy again though. But it has been a very windy year, right from the beginning. Now, we always seem to have some wind during the day, but this is very windy. Trees swaying kind of wind. That makes it hard for walking to the river.
For one thing it makes it very hard to hear things. And because the undergrowth is so lush this year it is hard to see very far, so when you cannot see then hearing becomes important. Second thing is, if I have to use the bear spray, if it is windy then that makes it more difficult, especially if you have to spray with a cross wind or spray into the wind. Either way it just will not be very helpful. So I would prefer to have as little wind as possible.
Having a strong wind also makes it very difficult to get pictures. Flowers are continually blowing all over the place. Insects tend to hide more, and the ones that do come out when they land then they too are blowing all over the place. That makes it very difficult to focus on the flower or insect in order to get the picture. There were two large bumble bees out this morning, I have been trying to get pictures of them for the last couple of weeks.
But I lost out again this morning as the flowers would not stay still long enough to get a photo of the bees. Perhaps later. Or another day. They are around all summer so that helps. There was a nice bee fly out this morning as well, but again I missed that one. They are flies, not bees, but they kind of act like bees and sort of look like bees, so they are often mistaken for bees.
There is also a blue dragonfly around, but I still have not gotten its picture either. Another good reason for heading off to the river, there are a lot more dragonflies along that path than we ever would get in our yard. Plus damselflies. And it is their season now. Plus there are a lot more butterflies too. And birds. Maybe it will not be so windy tomorrow. I hope. Have a most wonderful Friday everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2022 Steve McLeod.
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