Good morning and Happy Saturday to all of you! It’s a beautiful, sunny, summer morning, warm and calm. It’s going to be a hot day. Smoke is in the air once again. The sun is shining a bright orange, casting that orange/yellow glow onto all around. Sometimes the color is so prominent that it’s eerie looking out there. Even the sky can get that same orange color to it. The other day while walking to the river, the smoke became thicker than it had been and the color changed more.

When that happened it became silent in the forest. The birds who had been singing and chirping suddenly stopped. It was calm. Not any sound out there. That was eerie too. It was like suddenly walking into a totally different world. I didn’t even see any insects flying around. Everything stopped. That was about 1/3 of the way to the river, and it stayed like that until I got to Scramble’s home. Even then, it took a lot of calling to get Scramble’s attention. But he finally came to get his peanuts. It was at that point that the sun broke through a little better and the birds once again began their singing and chirping. I found that to be quite interesting.

The only other times I have experienced something like that was when a bad storm was approaching or when there was a total solar eclipse. It has been fairly quiet on the deck this morning. A beautiful morning to sit out there with my coffee and truly enjoy the wonders of a summer morning. The gulls had come early for their breakfast this morning, except for Sir Henry, I haven’t seen him yet today. The chipmunks have been coming regularly, and it’s like they have the timing down perfectly so they don’t show up at the same time and therefore end up chasing each other. Save the energy for the squirrel. Slim has been coming, but so far he has only chased the chipmunks once, and I was inside at the time.

He almost got started in a chase a couple of times, but I pointed to him and said no, and he stopped. Then he would come slowly over to get his peanut and run away with it. He’s sort of learning, I think. At least when I’m outside anyway. He’s chattering again, but he’s in the neighbor’s lot, the lot with the trees, which is right behind me. Which makes this place so nice. It would be terrible to move away from this place with it’s wilderness setting so close at hand and all the little friends coming around each day. And then live in an apartment building with none of this. But sometimes adjustments need to be made, and I’m sure that one day this will happen. I hope you all have a very wonderful summer weekend and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.