Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Steve and Muffin’s Wildflowers #35.
Hi everyone! Yes, I’m late with today’s wildflower, that’s what happens when I forget to hit the schedule button. Oh well. Today’s wildflower is the “bush honeysuckle”. Other names for this plant are northern bush honeysuckle or northern honeysuckle. This is not actually a true honeysuckle however as it does not produce berries, only seeds. There are other small differences too. This is a woody, native wildflower that likes shade or partial shady locations and preferring rocky or sandy soils. It blooms on 1 year old branches and the flowers start out yellow and turn orange and red as the flowers age. It blooms from June to July and the plant will grow from 1 to 3 feet (30 to 90cm) tall. It can be found in Canada from SK in the west right to the east coast and in the US from ND to the east coast and as far south as Georgia. Here it is quite common in wooded and rocky areas. Have a great day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Tuesday’s Tails #9.
Good morning on this beautiful summer day! The sun is once again casting it’s golden glow over the landscape, caused by all the smoke hanging in the air still. There are 48 wildfires burning, as of yesterday evening, in the northwest area of our big province. Ten of them are under control, 12 are being held, the remaining fires are not under control and 8 of those are only being observed, which means they are not fighting those fires because they are in inaccessible wilderness locations where there are no people.
Those kinds of fires they let burn until the rain comes and puts them out. The fire hazard for us is high at the moment, which seems like an understatement considering how dry it is this year. Fortunately none of the fires are close to where I live and no communities are being threatened by fires right now, which is good. But these kinds of things can change so fast. Well, Muffin and I had our fun this morning, all the names for the new chipmunk were on pieces of paper, crumpled up into little balls for playing with and sitting in a bowl.
Muffin sat there looking, would she do it today? There she goes, dipping her paw into the bowl. She got one! Now to get it from her and she races across the floor chasing her paper ball and there she goes, a big kick and…it goes under my desk. Hmm. I look. So does Muffin. But she gets in front of me so I can’t see. Sigh. Finally she sits up so I can look. There it is, right at the back by the wall, being trapped and eaten by a dust dinosaur. Most people have dust bunnies. Mine are much too big, so I call them dust dinosaurs.
I lie flat on the floor and reach under…got it! I bring it out, covered in dust. And the name for our new little chipmunk friend is Choco! Thanks so much Rossana! All 7 chipmunks were out here this morning, plus 3 squirrels. And I have a couple pics of Scooter to show today, still haven’t managed to get Choco, but now that he has a name I will try to get a picture so you can see what he looks like. Have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 