Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Tuesday’s Chatter. #3
Good morning everyone! I missed my morning post yesterday, did you notice? I went shopping early and by the time I got back home the morning was nearly gone and I wanted to walk down to the river yesterday while the path was still open. What that means is, we are getting more snow today which will mean hard walking along that path until either the man with his snowmobile comes along, or enough people walk the path to pack down the snow. Either way it could take a while before I go back to the river.
It started snowing early this morning and there is about 3 inches (7.5cm) of new snow so far. It is supposed to snow all day and perhaps even overnight. It just depends how this storm moves, a bit more to the south, or to the north. The birds are very busy this morning. I am only putting out smaller amounts of seeds at a time today so the birds can eat it all before it gets covered with snow. Something scared the birds a little earlier, probably a shrike, though I could not see anything around. But the grosbeaks all flew away and the smaller birds sat motionless in the trees and bushes.
I sure hope no shrike decides to hang around this year since I do not have all my blue jays here to protect the other birds this winter. The disappearance of my blue jays is something I do not understand. It could be that more people are feeding birds in the area so the blue jays do not have to fly as far to get food. The certainly can get lots of food here. But even my two main blue jays, Baxter and Betty, do not come around much right now. The two Canada jays that were coming before Christmas are also not coming around anymore. Hmm, the grosbeaks are still not back, but the smaller birds are active once more.
My walk to the river yesterday was beautiful, it was mild 14F (-10C), just a light north wind and it was sunny. A beautiful day for a walk. There were more birds around yesterday than my last walk. One thing that surprised me was the abundance of red-breasted nuthatches. Many of those are likely among the ones that come here. There was also black-capped chickadees, pileated woodpecker, another smaller woodpecker which I could not see, actually two of them, possibly hairy woodpeckers, both red and white-winged crossbills, common goldeneye ducks and another larger duck that was too far away to identify, possibly a common merganser, ravens, common redpolls and pine grosbeaks.
I also saw 3 squirrels, one was Scramble, my little friend and he came down quite happily for the peanuts I put out for him. Well, just got back in from cleaning the snow off the feeders again. There is now 4 inches (10cm) of snow and still snowing. I need to go clean off the deck before it gets any deeper. Thank you for reading, have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin. Top featured image at the river.
©2022 Steve McLeod.
The Investigators, Inc. Mystery Of The Beginning. Chapter 10.
“John said he was taking the PI to some weird place, named Krasnoy…something,” said Melanie. “Krasnoyarsk?”, asked Kristina. “Yeah, that’s the name,” said Melanie excited, “but I don’t know where that is, and that’s the truth.” “It is in Russia, along some river, though I cannot remember the name of the river,” said Kristina, “that will be a tough place to get in.” “Yes, it sure will be tough,” said Kat, “unless we can intercept them before they get there. What kind of plane are they using, commercial or private?” “Not commercial, John leased a small jet,” said Melanie, “oh yeah, he said they might go to Poland for a couple of days before going to that other place. But I do not know why.”
“Do you know what town or city they will be at?” asked Kat. “Um, Gdansk. I am not sure if I pronounced that right,” said Melanie. “Yes, that is right,” said Kristina, “that would be a good spot to stop them if possible.” “Yes, it certainly would,” said Kat, “but John has a long head start, I doubt we could do it. It would be better to go ahead to Krasnoyarsk and wait for him there. What do you think Baldwin, can we do it?” “Well, getting in might not be hard,” he answered, “getting out might not be easy. You can fly to Berlin and I will have a different jet waiting for you. I own a company in Moscow and this is one of their jets, it is Russian so it will not be so noticeable. Hopefully there is an airport in that town or very close to it because you will not have transportation, you will have to get that yourself.”
“Okay Kristina, you are coming along on this one,” said Kat, “we need your language skills.” Melanie turns to Jennifer and says, “I’m sorry your husband is in such a mess, if I had known what John was doing I never would have gotten involved with him. But he made so many wonderful promises.” “Actually, he is my husband,” said Kat, “Jennifer and I are twins and sometimes she pretends to be me to protect me from danger and be a bodyguard to Steve.”
“Wow, now that is an amazing sister,” said Melanie, rather shocked. “Yes, she certainly is amazing,” said Kat smiling. “I do not feel amazing right now,” said Jennifer, “and I want to come along.” “Sorry Jenny,” said Kat, “but we need to leave right away, and you need to stay here for a while longer.” “No way!”, said Jennifer, “I got Steve into this mess, I am going to help get him out!”
Meanwhile, flying high in the sky over the ocean… This is not good, I’m thinking to myself. There is just no way they can follow me right now. I have to try something. “Hey John,” I said, “would it be too much to remove these handcuffs? Sitting like this with my back is causing a lot of pain.” John laughed, “take the cuffs off of him.” One of his men did so and that is sure a relief. “Lie down and get some sleep,” said John, “it is a long trip, I don’t want you to be worn out.” “Oh, you want me feeling good before you kill me?”, I asked. John laughed again.
“I don’t plan on killing you Steve,” he said, “I have something better in mind. I plan on letting you go again, but after you have had some treatments in Dr. Brodsky’s clinic.” “Do I get to know what is going to happen, or is that a secret?”, I ask. “Oh, it won’t hurt since you won’t remember anyway,” said John, “actually, you will not remember anything after driving up to that old house. You will receive treatments for a couple of days and you will be released, feeling quite normal. But, after a while things will begin to change and you will become grumpy, angry and even perhaps quite mean, with your team members and even your wife. Then you will begin to slowly go into that “nowhere” state of mind again and you will kill yourself!
The joy of watching all this take place right to the time you commit suicide, and maybe even take Kat with you! This is going to be much more fun than just killing you.” John begins laughing even more, as do his men. All except one which I figure is the doctor, he has not said one word to anyone so far, though all the others have been talking. He just sits there looking at me, probably studying me and how I act and react. “You may just end up watching all of this from inside a prison somewhere,” I say to John. “Not this time PI, not this time,” he said firmly, “this time I have won. It has been a long time coming and I am enjoying every moment!”
To Be Continued.
©2022 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 