Good morning and Happy Saturday everyone! It is a beautiful, sunny summer morning. A bit on the cooler side with a temp of 66F (19C) and a light wind. The wind is supposed to be quite strong today however, so that could be bad for forest fires. The rain we have had this week has been helpful to put out many of the smaller fires and help to slow the growth of the other fires. There are 138 fires burning this morning, down from 167 fires earlier in the week, and 103 are not under control, 8 are being held and 27 are under control. The largest fire is now 344,000 acres, the second largest is 300,000 acres. There is still a little smoke in the air, but it’s not that bad, still gives a bit of color to the sunshine though.

Sir Henry, Sir Charles and Ricky have been here for their breakfast. Slim and the chipmunks have been busy too. Slim has been busy chasing the chipmunks again. One chipmunk went into a box with smaller handles, which was fine for him. However, since Slim is bigger he kind of hit hard and had to flatten himself to get through. That gave the chipmunk lots of time to get away. Then Skamper went through another box with Slim right after him, but Slim didn’t calculate his turn too well and he sort of missed the door and bonked his head on the side of the box. I wonder if he will learn? Perhaps with time. I was out sitting among the flowers yesterday trying to get pictures of bees and other insects. It was hot yesterday, so I was sweating a bit. That attracts some bees, like the sweat bee, which is very appropriately named.

Anyway, while I was trying to get a picture of this one bee, I felt something on my arm, which turned out to be another bee crawling around. That’s why I don’t automatically swat at something. But he left before I could get a picture of him. Then I was trying to get a picture of another insect and once more feel something crawling on my arm. I look, there’s one of those insects crawling on me. Amazing really. I will start showing these insects, hopefully soon, but I’m trying to identify them first, a rather difficult task considering how many thousands of species there are in this area. I really haven’t paid much attention to insects over the years, but there are many fascinating insects out there. And some of them can really bite! I haven’t been able to get down to the river all week, hopefully I will do better this coming week. Have a wonderful Saturday everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.