Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Thursday’s Thoughts #21.
Good morning to everyone on this beautiful, sunny Thursday! Our temps kind of go up and down a lot in the fall, and sometimes they just fall until the next season arrives. But yesterday was 68F (20C), which is a great temperature for fall, and today it should be 72F (22C), then it suddenly cools off tomorrow with a strong north wind coming in overnight. But that’s fall. Speaking of falling, I’m a bit embarrassed. I’m always talking about my chipmunks and how all of them are males and, well, they are not all males. I have been watching one for a while since I never could really confirm if that one was male of female, but, she is a female! Yay!!
It’s Choco, one of the new ones that showed up as a baby this summer. I saw Choco going into one of those plastic boxes I have, and Coffee followed in a bit later. I was expecting a fight, but instead they came to each other and touched noses. Then they just kind of played around, and touched noses again, three times. Then the playing got a bit more serious. So Choco is going to be a mother! And Coffee is the father! Not that Coffee will get a chance to see that however. Chipmunks and squirrels often mate in the fall, though actual fertilization doesn’t occur until spring, and gestation is 3 to 4 weeks for our chipmunks.
Many members of the large rodent family do this. One possible reason is that mortality is high for the chipmunks in winter, so it may be hard for a female to find a mate in the spring. A lot of first year chipmunks and squirrels die over winter due to lack of food being stockpiled for the long winter months. Generally chipmunks, if they make it past the first year, will live 3 to 4 years, but can live as long as 9 years. They are remarkable little animals. Because Coffee and Choco stayed inside the box to remain hidden from view, I was unable to get any pictures.
This is actually the first time I have seen chipmunks mating. Afterwards they came over to me to get a peanut. Now that fall is about half done, perhaps even more than half, birds are starting to come around more regularly looking for food to establish their winter feeding areas. So I need to start feeding soon. The evening grosbeaks are around looking each day, plus the 2 species of nuthatches, woodpeckers, and yesterday there was a flock of around 20 pine siskins. Plus the chickadees and blue jays that are already here every day.
So I have a new feeder ready to go up, and today comes the hard part, putting up the new pole arm to hold the feeder. Hopefully without dropping it in the process. That’s easy to do. That’s also not a good idea. I see a female evening grosbeak is sitting on my old feeder looking for food. Guess I better get the new feeder up quickly. Time for another cup of coffee and maybe sit with the chipmunks for a while, they won’t be here much longer. Have a great day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
The Investigators, Inc. The Painting. Chapter 4.
We sat down in the living room together after Jessica’s uncle and cousin had awakened from their “nap”. Before we start talking I put on my scrambler. “What is that for?”, asked Jessica. “It stops anyone from listening to our conversation, just in case the room has a listening device hidden somewhere,” I explained, “now we can safely talk.” “That’s a good little gadget,” said Jessica’s uncle, “oh, and by the way, my name’s Benjamin Carberry, and that’s my son Benjamin, but we always call him Ben so there’s no confusion when we’re together.”
“Do you know the name of the man that was using you?”, I ask Jessica. “Yes, his name is Gregory Hackett,” she answered, “he’s very tall and slim, and an amazing fighter of martial arts.” “A good thing to know if we meet him, and we shall,” I said confidently, “the only way to be free of someone like that is to eliminate him, one way or another.” “That’s very true,” Kat added, “those kind of people need to be stopped, and we’re definitely going to help you with this.” Kat is catching on, that’s good. “Is this place the safest or is the castle better?”, I ask Benjamin.
“The castle is the best place, there are so many hidden tunnels and passages, hidden rooms that no one knows about,” he said. “Uncle Benjamin is right,” said Jessica, “he knows his way around there perfectly. He has been going through all those hidden tunnels since he was a kid.” “That’s good,” I said, “it gives you a good advantage.” “I like to take Jessica to the castle when new people show up at the Inn, you know, curious types,” he explained, “like the 2 young men that are staying there right now. I don’t trust them at all.” “Neither do we,” I said, “they have been watching us too, so I plan to check them out a bit.”
“How can you do that Steve?”, asked Jessica. “That’s a PI’s secret,” I said. Jessica laughed, so did uncle Benjamin. Ben didn’t and hasn’t been talking at all, perhaps his pride was hurt more than he was. Then I said to the cats, “go over closer to Jessica and sniff her so you can see that she’s real, and not a ghost.” So they did and Jessica picked them up and gave them each a hug. “You see Muffin and M.C.?,” said Jessica, “I’m not a ghost, I’m real!” Meow,meow=Yep, she not ghost, she smell like human, ghost not have smell. Meow.=Yep, that true, she real for sure, feel better now.
“I’m glad we have that settled now,” I said, “but how do you know that ghosts have no smell? Wait, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” “I want to know,” said Kat, “so you can tell me.” Meow,meow=We see it on “mewtube”, it all for cats and what we need to know, that where I learn languages. Then Muffin smiles. “When did she learn to smile?”, asked Jessica. “I’m not quite sure, but they can both smile, and giggle, and numerous other things,” I said, “now we need to be getting back to the Inn. Is there another road to the castle?” “Yes,” said uncle Benjamin, “just stay on the main road and it’s the second road past this one.”
“Good,” I said, “better to not use the same road all the time.” I sent the cats out to sniff the car before we left, just in case someone had left us a “present” that we didn’t want. Soon we were heading back to the Inn while Kat was busy taking pictures. We needed to show we were just tourists. Jessica had said the lady at the Inn was helping her too so she was someone we could trust. We just went straight to our room and after setting up the scrambler I called Baldwin. He was busy so I talked with Calanthe and asked her to check on Gregory Hackett and Benjamin Carberry and his son Ben, plus Brent Carson and Patrick Marlin, the 2 men from the Inn.
Then I asked her to check on Jessica Collins and her twin sister Candy. “Um, isn’t Jessica an old girlfriend?,” asked Calanthe, “you said she was dead.” “That’s right, she died about 18 months ago,” I said, “but now she has turned up, alive. So she claims, but it could be Candy instead. They were identical twins, no way to tell them apart by looking at them.” “Okay, I’ll try to get this info to you quickly,” she said. Meow.=Human Jessica call me M.C., but she only know my name as Mr. Cat. M.C. new name, Kat start that. “Very good M.C.,” said Kat, “none of us used his name, so how did she know?” “The same way she knew about that big blank wall,” I said, “she has been doing some checking around too.”
To Be Continued.
Previous chapters of this story, and more stories, can be found on my home page under “The Investigators, Inc.” Stories from last year can be found under “20/20 Investigations, Inc.”
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 