Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Thursday’s Thoughts #9. It’s Canada Day!
Good morning everyone! It’s a beautiful, sunny morning with a clear blue sky. The wind has changed direction and the smoke has cleared away. Yesterday the smoke was thick and gave a weird glow to everything as the sun tried to shine through. When we did see the sun it was bright red and that red color came shining through the windows and into my living room. There are 43 forest fires burning in our corner of the province right now, the two largest are 16,000 and 28,000 acres in size. Only one fire is close to our town and it just started last evening so is only an acre in size right now, but not under control. It’s about 8 miles east of town.
This whole area of the province has been listed as a restricted fire zone, with travel restrictions in some places as well. But there is some hot weather coming this weekend and no real rain in the forecast for the next week, so things could get worse. But right now it’s a beautiful, peaceful, summer morning. And it’s Canada’s birthday today, 154 years old! A great country in which to live, not counting our long and bitterly cold winters which are no fun at all, but we won’t talk about that part. After all, winter only takes up 6 or 7 months of the year, the rest of the time it’s generally sort of nice. Let’s skip the weather. We do have great scenery though. Especially in this area which is the most beautiful part of Canada. Though I might be a little biased. Oh well.
All was calm out here this morning so I put peanuts out for the chipmunks and they were having fun hauling them away. Then along came the squirrels. What a noisy bunch they were too. Freddie, Jasper, Slim, Chase, then came Jasmine and a few fights and some chases later and we were left with Jasmine, and Jasper. Then it remained quiet at least. Although that didn’t help the chipmunks. Jasmine went after Skamper so fast that she forgot to duck when going into the box and Wham! She hit her head, which stopped her momentarily, but she continued the futile chase as Skamper was long gone.
Meanwhile Coffee came and filled up with peanuts, Choco got one as well, and Pocket almost got 3 but Jasmine came back right then so he left in a hurry with Jasmine right behind him. Pocket made a hard right turn and Jasmine isn’t too good at sudden turns so, smack! Right into the post. Jasper is now at the peanut pile feasting. This caused Jasmine to jump straight up and she took off after Jasper and jumped right on him. But it was a brief scuffle and Jasper ran off, not to be seen again. It’s no wonder Jasmine eats so much, she must burn a lot of calories with all that chasing. Oh well. Happy Canada Day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve And Muffin’s Wildflowers #36.
Hi everyone! Today’s wildflower is the “Bearberry”. This is a widespread native wildflower known by many different names depending on different parts of the country. Some names are Kinnikinnik, barren myrtle, mountain box, and bear’s whortle berry. Even the nice red berries it produces come with different names as well. It is a low woody shrub, only 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20cm) tall, but can spread out to produce a mat of plants 3 feet (90cm) across. It likes sunny to partial shady areas and rocky or sandy soils. Around here it is usually found on the rocky granite hills in areas with pine trees. The flowers are pink to white in color and hang like little bells with the bottom barely open. They produce a nice hard red berry, quite dry. The leaves stay on the plant year round, are a light green in spring, dark green in summer and a burgundy red in fall and winter. They bloom in May and June and are found across Canada and most of the US except from Kansas to Texas and across to the east coast. I hope you all have a great day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
