Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Fantastical Friday! #21
Good morning everyone! So nice to see you all again this morning! I hope you are all well and having a fantastical day! It’s definitely much chillier this morning than the last couple of mornings and it’s going to be chilly all day and tomorrow too. Then we head into a week of amazing, warm weather. At least for this time of year anyway. So it will be a good time to get out and enjoy fall. The colors are starting to get nice, the leaves are falling from the trees, making lawns look picture perfect with scattered leaves all over everything. So beautiful with the yellows and browns of the leaves on the dark green grass.
Jasper is busy collecting walnuts, which on the tree in the front yard are very plentiful again this year. The ground under the tree was literally quite covered with walnuts. But between Jasper and a squirrel from across the street, they have been hauling them away rather quickly. There are a dozen grackles out here again this morning, helping the chipmunks devour the sunflower seeds. There are only 3 chipmunks out here this morning so far, and they spend more time chasing each other, than gathering their food. Oops, I see a 4th one has joined the group.
That one just jumped 3 and a half feet (about 1 meter), from the top of a box and landed right in the middle of the seed pile directly between two other chipmunks who scattered quickly! I call that one Super Chip now. I really didn’t have a name for him anyway, he is one that showed up about half way through summer. My chipmunks never have to worry about running out of food during the winter months, like their forest cousins. Last night there was a barred owl hooting for about an hour. It was so nice to hear, although I always think of an owls hooting as being somewhat of a lonely sound.
There was also a red fox barking for over an hour too, part of that time during the owl hooting. Just some of the sounds of the forest at night. Those night sounds can be so fantastic to enjoy listening to them, like when I was out at my cabin. One night…no, wait, that’s a longer story, better leave that one for another day. The sun is now shining nicely. That tall black ash tree in the neighbors yard is glowing yellow against the blue sky.
My new bird feeder is up, a chickadee was the first bird to land on it yesterday, right while I was putting it up in place. Now, hopefully, I can start to feed the birds again and begin attracting more of them. There was an evening grosbeak here yesterday and she showed up again this morning. Hopefully she will attract some of her friends as well. It has suddenly become very quiet outside. There was a hawk around yesterday, twice actually, so maybe it’s back again. I hope you all have a beautiful Friday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve And Muffin’s Weekly Art In Nature #5.
Hello everyone and Happy Friday to you as well! Now, the art in nature post should have been yesterday, but due to circumstances beyond my control, it didn’t happen. So here we are today instead! And with a few different plants to add to the art designation. Plants of all kinds can make some interesting objects for art, whether photography, drawing or painting.
And it’s really a lot of fun trying to find some new ways to look at familiar objects, like plants. But so many things can fall into this category of art in nature, including flowers, which is an easy one to see, but also flower buds, or seed pods afterwards. Even insects can form some interesting art objects. And some perhaps not so interesting to everyone, but like regular art, not everyone likes the same thing or same type of art.
Twigs, grasses, pine cones, mosses, lichens, leaves and so many other things all have their place for art in nature. And fall brings us a lot of opportunities for new art in nature. Why not take the opportunity this fall to go out and see what you can find? Have a beautiful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 