For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Hello everyone and Happy Sunday! It is a cloudy and much cooler day here and the forecast for the next 2 weeks is more of the same. Meaning that the heat of summer is past for another year.
Birds are flocking together, there was a large flock of grackles out behind our building the other day, just a reminder that summer is gone and fall is almost here.

Narrow-Leaved Hawksbeard.
And I’m not talking about the calendar seasons which are highly inaccurate this far north. And areas north of us the summer is even shorter.

Orange Hawkweed.
But, on a nice cloudy and cool day like today, we have some more nice bright and sunny wildflowers to enjoy. These are more from our last highway trip.

Common Bladderwort.
I hope we can get out again this week to try and get some more insect and flower photos before we get right into fall and miss everything. Trying to get things lined up though, isn’t always easy. Oh well.

Alsike Clover.
I hope you enjoy these wildflowers I have for you today. Have a great Sunday everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
Kat and her Wildcats finally got their turn to visit Jacques and start putting some pressure on him. Nothing like a bit of pressure from a rival gang to make him a little nervous. Although I don’t expect he will show the fact that he is nervous. Not yet anyway. But he will soon, I’m sure of it. So, we found out where Jacques has his business office, in a building with other respectable businesses.
It helps to make his business look respectable too, though it is far from it. After his meeting with Kat he told one of his men, Dorian, to try and find out some information about those Wildcats. “You know Jacques,” said Louis, “I was watching that gal when she threw the knife at Blaise, and I couldn’t see her move.” “Yeah, and the way she caught that knife,” said Raphael, “with 2 fingers, and she wasn’t even looking!”
“Okay, I will admit she’s good,” said Jacques, “that’s why we need to kill her quickly. Without her those Wildcats will be kittens.” “Don’t bet on it Jacques,” said Dorian, “those Wildcats are a wild bunch of women. According to the cops they have an estimated 100 or more members. A woman named Kat is the leader of the gang. She’s tough and never backs down for anyone, and apparently she hates men.”
“Interesting,” said Jacques, “which just means we need to get rid of her in a hurry, before she gets in our way. And we definitely don’t want her messing up our big moment.” Later that day Jacques and 6 of his men were driving to his favorite restaurant to meet an important person, however, something was about to make him a bit late for his meeting.
“There’s some motorcycles following us,” said Louis. “Look like men,” said Dorian, “so it’s not those Wildcats.” Louis then sped up a bit, then slowed down. “They’re keeping pace with us,” said Louis, “do you think it’s some of Geffrey’s men?” “No, they don’t use motorcycles,” said Jacques, “I don’t like this. Turn right at the next street.” Just before turning down that street, two black vans pulled up in the lane beside them.
Jacques’ car turned and so did the vans and motorcycles. And just up ahead was another black van, but it was parked which forced Jacques’ car to stop behind it and the motorcycles behind them, plus one van stopped beside them, the other van pulled ahead of the parked van. Rock walked up to the car on the passenger side and told the man to roll down his window. Jacques told him to do it, so he did.
“Our boss would like to talk with your boss,” said Rock, “so tell him to step out of the car.” “There’s something wrong with your head mister,” said Fontaine, “now, get out of our way and we’ll forget the whole thing.” Rock laughed good and loud. “If your boss wants to keep his appointment with Geffrey,” said Rock, “then he better do what he’s told. My boss doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Now Fontaine laughed, so Rock ripped the car door off and tossed it aside. Then John was standing there with a shotgun and told the men in the front to get out, or die. So they got out of the car. Jacques and the others remained in the back seat feeling quite safe surrounded by bullet proof glass. And, Jacques had already called for more of his men to come and help. That was something that Aari knew about already since Carine was able to listen in to his phone conversation and relayed the message to him.
So, the Black Wolves were ready, waiting for help to arrive. They didn’t have long to wait either. One car came driving past the van blocking Jacques car and tossed two grenades under it which exploded but did no damage to the van, other then rock it slightly. But before they had their windows rolled up again, Bomber tossed one of Catalina’s surprise packages into the car which exploded, destroying the car and killing the occupants.
A second car came along behind that one which stopped behind the motorcycles and the men jumped out with guns ready. But, the men on the motorcycles were ready for them and pulled out their automatic weapons and there was a short gun battle. All of Jacques men were killed in that fight also. Then Rock kicked the back door of Jacques’ car, pushing it partly inward.
That gave him something to hold onto and he quickly pulled that door off the car too and tossed it aside. There were two shotguns pointed at Jacques and his men, so Jacques told his men not to do anything. All of them were told to get out and John took Jacques to the lead van where Aari was waiting for him. John searched Jacques, then told him to get in the van.
John got in too and sat next to Jacques, then the van drove away. After putting the remaining men to “sleep”, the Black Wolves quickly dispersed in different directions and the police showed up shortly after. Aari only spoke in French to Jacques, deliberately to throw him off. “You are an incredibly stupid man Jacques,” said Aari, “it would have been so much easier to just agree with talking from the start and saved the loss of so many men.
Now, the first thing I want to tell you is this, stay away from Kat and her Wildcats. Kat is my younger sister, you hurt her in any way and you are a dead man. I mean that. I can crush you and your whole organization very easily. What you saw today was just a small example of what I can do. Now, you killed a couple friends of Kat’s, Clarisse and her boyfriend Marcel, plus Clarisse’s mother, who happens to be your mother too.
And now, it would seem, you also killed your brother Thomas. You must really hate your family, or is it because you now will inherit the family fortune? Money can do strange things to people, that’s for sure.” “You certainly know a lot about me and my family,” said Jacques, “so, now where does that leave us?”
“I have enough information to prove you murdered, or were behind the murders, of these people mentioned,” said Aari, “plus the murder of a certain government official, which you did personally. However, you are now a wealthy man Jacques, sharing some of that wealth will keep you out of prison, or worse, death. I will drop you off at your office and tomorrow morning, by 11am at the latest, you will deposit this amount in this account.”
Aari gave him a piece of paper with the information on it. “That’s a lot of money,” said Jacques gruffly. “Much better than life in prison Jacques,” said Aari, “or being put underground.” They were soon at Jacques’ office and he got out of the van, which then drove off.
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.