Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Sunday’s Sunshine #27.
Good morning everyone on this sunny Sunday morning! Looks like it will be a beautiful day with lots of sunshine, though right now it’s a bit chilly. But it will warm up a bit, not like last week, but still very nice for October, warmer than normal for us anyway. Now they are telling us that October is going to be warmer than normal all month, before it was supposed to be cooler than normal and an early winter. I still say it will be an early winter though. I would prefer a late start to winter, but sometimes we need to be realistic. There are getting to be more chickadees all the time, which is nice, they are just such a cute little bird.
The two white-breasted nuthatches are around a lot now too and getting more friendly every day. They’re bigger than the chickadees and I’m hoping to get them to come onto my hand, like the chickadees do, to get seeds. That would be fantastic. I have had lots of the red-breasted nuthatches on my hand over the years, but never a white-breasted nuthatch. Maybe this year it will happen. Ricky was here yesterday for breakfast so I got him something, didn’t have too much for him though.
I haven’t seen him around for a few days so I thought he had left. But it was nice to see him back again. And the hairy woodpecker was back and came down to the step to get a peanut like he did back in the spring. Still seems like such an odd thing to see a woodpecker come down for peanuts like the blue jays. But it’s fun anyway. Hopefully he will keep coming. And there were 8 evening grosbeaks around most of the day feasting away on sunflower seeds. Things are getting set for the winter season ahead.
There was a female purple finch too, that’s actually 2 days in a row for her. There should be a few more birds yet that will be added to our winter group. But for now I will enjoy the autumn group. Juncos have returned from the far north and are coming around looking for seeds. They have competition from the chipmunks this year though. Normally the chipmunks have gone to bed by the time the juncos show up, but the nice weather is keeping them awake longer. Nice weather does that, which is nice. Have a beautiful day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Saturday’s Solitude #23.
Good morning everyone and welcome back to Saturday’s Solitude! Hard to believe that this has been going for 23 weeks already, almost half a year. Solitude can be found no matter where we are, in our own yard, on the deck, walking in the park, sitting beside a river or lake, or being off somewhere alone in the forest. It’s a good idea to have someplace to go and enjoy the natural beauty around us, if we possibly can do it. It doesn’t need to be a place we go every day, but perhaps once a week would be a good idea. It helps to relieve stress, which we all seem to have now and then.
It helps to renew our energy levels too. Just sitting out on the deck with a cup of coffee and watching the birds and chipmunks is great solitude. Of course, it does work better if there are no bears around. Bears tend to add a bit of stress which is opposite to what should be done. One day I was out at our cottage, which was off in the forest with no close neighbors, no phones, just nice and quiet. Perfect place of solitude. Anyway, I was sitting outside enjoying my morning coffee, listening to all the different birds singing. It was a great place for thrushes and I love their songs. They would sing in early morning and late evening until well after dark.
But there were many different warblers too, a pair of phoebes, least flycatcher, flickers, evening grosbeaks, purple finches and so many, many more. It was a real joy to sit there and listen to them. Of course there were squirrels around too, but no chipmunks, which I thought was kind of odd. But I fixed that situation. Although chipmunks live in areas where there is no rocky areas like we have, yet the chipmunks around here love rocks. We had no rocks on the property anywhere. So every trip out there I brought rocks and put them in piles around the property.
The next year there was a couple of chipmunks playing around one of the rock piles. The following year there were quite a few chipmunks and they were using other rock piles. The rocks give them a safe place to hide and a good spot to dig their underground tunnels and homes, the entrance being under this rock pile. That’s all they needed. Obviously there must have been some chipmunks fairly close by to find these rocks so fast, but they were still a help in getting the chipmunks to set up home close by. I found out later I could have gotten a government grant of $1,000 to do this. So I signed up anyway to get it for putting up brush piles around for rabbits.
We didn’t have any rabbits, but I got the money and put brush piles around the property and sure enough rabbits moved in. Then foxes moved in and owls. The wildlife increased quite a bit just with those brush piles. All of this just adds to the solitude of a place, the enjoyment that the wildlife brings to us. It’s a cloudy, cooler morning. Smoke from a forest fire covered our town once again yesterday, that hasn’t been a problem for a long time. Unfortunately it messed up my pictures of our fall colors. I did get some that were okay. Must be time for more coffee, anyone agree? Have a terrific Saturday everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 