Good morning everyone! Yes, I’m back with my morning post today, I missed yesterday morning. There was one thing after another yesterday morning and by the time I was ready to write my post it was actually time for my mystery series post. So I decided to skip it for this week. It is a beautiful, sunny, summer morning, though very smoky again, not quite as bad as it was earlier this morning however. And it was very cool this morning, with a temp of only 57F (14C), but it has begun to warm up. Our number of forest fires had dropped to 138 on Sunday, but as of this morning there are 166.

The largest is now 386,460 acres in size. There are a lot now in the 50,000 to 150,000 acre size. Most of these fires are not under control, but about 35 are under control now. There are 900 firefighters, 186 pieces of heavy equipment, 26,904 pieces of fire suppression equipment, 13 fire engines, 14 CL415 waterbombers, 3 twin otters, 74 helicopters, and 30 fixed wing air supports that are now fighting these fires. Fighting forest fires is a hard, dangerous, physically and mentally demanding job, these men and women deserve our support.

It’s been an interesting morning here at Steve’s Country. All the gulls were here at the same time for breakfast. I didn’t know that, since I can’t see who is up on my roof. Sir Henry was on the feeder and I knew Sir George was here too. So I put food out. Sir Henry was first down, followed by Sir George and Ricky. There is just not enough room for everyone, especially with Sir George there, he is by far the largest of the group. So Sir Henry got knocked off the bird feeder. Gulls have long narrow wings, and these big herring gulls need time to get airborne because those narrow wings don’t give them good lift on take off. So Sir Henry fell to the ground in the raspberry patch and couldn’t find his way out to the open yard. So I went down to help guide him in the right direction.

I talked nicely to him the whole time to keep him calm and got him walking the right way. It took a bit but he made it to the open yard and after getting his wing feathers settled, off he went. I was a bit concerned he might be scared to come back. But he was back again an hour later looking for his breakfast, just as friendly as ever. So that was nice to see. Guess he realized that I was trying to help him. The house here has been sold, even before it was officially put up for sale. I know the man who bought the place and he said I could stay here. That is a big relief. So I can stay close to nature a little while longer. My gulls and chipmunks will be happy too. Sounds like the chipmunks are looking for more peanuts again, and I’m looking for more coffee. Thanks for stopping by this morning, have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!

Steve and McLeod.

©2021 Steve McLeod.