Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Coffee For Friday. #3 Bears! And More.
Good morning and Happy Friday to everyone! Time to get a cup of coffee and join Muffin and I on this most beautiful morning. It is very nice out there, the sun is shining beautifully, the sky is a very vivid blue, the birds are singing loud and clear though admittedly there are not very many different species singing. But it still sounds so nice anyway.
A perfect summer morning to sit on the deck with my morning coffee. There are no bad animals in sight (namely bears) so off goes Steve with coffee in hand to sit and enjoy this wonderful morning. Ahh, he sits and gets nicely relaxed. Suddenly there is a loud noise and this big black animal is up the side of the deck and over the railing!
Steve has likewise suddenly disappeared back into the house dropping coffee all over the deck. Door closed and locked, though I am not sure why I lock the door, if the bear wanted to he could very easily push that door open, locked or not. That bear is now standing on the deck railing and checking the bird feeder for food, but he finds nothing since bird feeding has had to end for the summer due to the presence of this bear.
Poor Muffin is so puffed out, it is amazing how big her tail cat get at times. But this time her whole body was like that. She had been watching out the window and did not like what she saw. Steve did not like it very much either. No, Steve did not take pictures. Steve was too busy trying to get his heart rate settled down again. I did not hear that bear at all until he started climbing up onto the deck. Perhaps he was sleeping down there. I have no idea.
But he was not making any noise. Not a nice way to start the day. At least I do not think so anyway. On a nicer note, yesterday my friend and I took a drive out of town for the morning and stopped at a few small lakes along the highway. It was really quite beautiful, and peaceful. Nice not having to worry about bears for a while. And there were a lot of wildflowers, and not so wild flowers, in bloom. I am showing some apple and cherry trees that we found, plus some pincherry bushes as well.
The pincherry is a native shrub, or small tree, that produces nice bright red berries, great for making jelly or syrup. The apple tree was likely the result of someone tossing aside an apple core and the seeds grew. I imagine the same happened for the cherry tree. Both were full of blossoms. So were the pincherry and Saskatoon bushes. In fact, everything was just loaded with flowers this year. I have not seen such thickly blooming blueberries in a long time.
Even the bearberry bushes were loaded with flowers, something I have not ever seen around here. Usually they only have a few flowers. In one area too there were dozens of flower flies, all the same species. But I did see other flower flies too. I was not able to get pics of them all though. That can take a lot of time. But I did get a lot of pictures yesterday which I will be showing little by little. Today some flowering trees. Well, I hope you all have a fabulous Friday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2022 Steve McLeod.
The Investigators, Inc. The Icelandic Mystery. Chapter 4. Trouble.
“Okay Mikkael,” I began, “we need to talk about the targeted death of your son 5 years ago.” “Has that useless thing been talking to you about that now?”, he shouted and he got up to leave, “I will find her!” I grabbed him and pushed him back onto the chair. “I said never refer to Sigurbjorn as a ‘thing’ again around us, and I mean it,” I said firmly to him, “now we need to talk or my team and I will leave you on your own.”
He got up slowly. He was not overly big, but definitely a larger man than I. I stood up as well. He came over to me, stomped on my foot and hit me with a two handed fist knocking me to the floor. “Storm, Jennifer,” was all I had time to say. The cats have the ability now to call individual team members instead of alerting everyone. Jennifer looked at her watch, excused herself and came in quickly.
Her first kick hit his side, then in his stomach, then his chest, and he fell to the floor against the wall. “You okay Steve?,” she asked. “Yeah, I was not expecting that,” I said, “watch him.” “Would you like some more?”, she asked Mikkael. He was holding his chest and said, “you broke some ribs!” “I doubt it,” said Jennifer, “I did not kick you that hard, but be thankful I did not kick your head.” “Now,” I said again, “we are going to talk, what happened 5 years ago, or probably before that, that someone wanted to kill your son?”
“I’m sorry I ever called you,” he said, “but it was the only thing I could do to keep my wife from leaving.” “You do not seem too upset that your son was deliberately killed,” said Jenny. “Shut up!”, he yelled, “I do not talk with useless things like you!” Storm and MC both growled loudly. “Keep those creatures away from me!”, he yelled again, “or I will kill them, I will!” He started getting up then suddenly charged Jenny.
She fell back and flipped him, but he got to his feet again quickly. Jennifer kicked his left knee hard causing him to bend a bit then she kicked him in the head and he was down. At that point I stopped her, though on one hand I really did not want to. He got up slowly and sat down. “You are obviously involved in some gang, likely some large syndicate and you came out here to hide from them,” I began, “but they found you again. Am I right?”
“You are doing the talking,” he said. “Thank you,” I said, “so, you must have done something they did not like or they would not keep after you 5 years later. Maybe you should tell me now, I will find out anyway.” Then came that voice again. “Too late for you to leave PI, you were warned, now trouble begins”. Kat was standing in the kitchen doorway and heard the voice and came over to me.
“Why do you need Jennifer?”, she asked. “Oh, Mikkael was causing a bit of trouble himself,” I said, “but he has settled down now.” Kat looked at him frowning, “don’t ever think you can do anything to my husband.” Then she turned to me and showed me her phone. Jenny then looked at her phone. “That is interesting,” I said, “now we are getting somewhere.”
Meanwhile back home… “Baldwin,” said Annelie, “Steve called a while back looking for information about the Agnarsson’s”. “What is so strange about that?”, he asked. “Well, I tried to call him back but he will not answer,” she continued, “and I cannot get through to anyone, not even the cats.” “What?!”, he exclaimed, “where is Rock and the other girls? Get them in here!” They came running in.
“How are you 3 feeling?”, he asked, “good, get ready to go join the others!” He did not even wait for an answer from them. Rock was actually feeling fine, so was Kristina, but Carine was worse than before. Annelie mentioned that, so Baldwin told her to get back to bed. He got Mriya to go along on this trip instead.
Annelie was still in no position to go and Baldwin wanted her to stay behind. However, he decided to go along on this case too, he has been wanting to join a case for quite some time and get a little excitement. Rock and Annelie tried to convince him to stay but to no avail. Annelie gave them the information she had and off they went. They would be posing as guests for the lodge. But is that a wise thing?
To Be Continued.
©2022 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 