Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Coffee At Steve’s Country #11.
Good morning to all of you on this beautiful Monday! The coffee is ready and Muffin is most eagerly waiting for you all! Just help yourself to a cup of delicious, hot coffee or tea and relax with us for a short time. Heavy clouds are making it quite dull out there this morning, looks like it should be a half hour earlier than it is. But the chickadees are certainly busy at the feeders, more than normal this morning. The nuthatches and redpolls have shown up now as well, but no other birds are here yet. And it’s a nice mild morning again with a temp of 23F (-5C).
We had some misty rain as well which has added a thin layer of ice to everything. Fortunately I was expecting that this morning so there were no mishaps when I went to feed the birds. Those nasty raccoons have been back the last few nights so it has been necessary to bring my hanging feeders indoors at night once again. Those raccoons have broken several feeders over the last 3 years that they have been around. They love sunflower seeds, but it seems that all wild critters do love those seeds. Last night they had just shown up I guess, and Junior (a young buck), came along and chased them away. That was nice of him. Except he wants the sunflower seeds too. Oh well.
The blue jays have just arrived I see and they are on their favorite branches breaking open the peanuts to get at their breakfast. They really do have their own favorite branch to sit on when pecking open the peanuts and they always go to that spot. Unless they are planning to hide the leftovers, then they carry them off closer to where they live and hide them. Blue jays have been studied and they were able to find their hidden food more than a year later. Other birds are just as able to find hidden food, such as chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, gray jays, crows and ravens. Plus many others, I was just listing some that are common to our area. For this week I am going to share a bright and beautiful flower pic each day, plus one of our local winter wildlife. Next week I want to try and post some comparison pics, if I can locate enough by then. I really need to sort my pics a bit better so I can find things easier. Well, I hope you all have a marvelous (😸he mean meowvelous!) Monday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve’s Country Cabin Journal #21-02.
Hello everyone and welcome back! Today we continue with our story of me out snowshoeing. As you may recall I was in a ‘not so great’ position down this steep hill in very deep snow. And with my leg wedged between two rocks. This is where we pick up on our story today…
Well, I had to pull myself up so I could take off my other snowshoe and get my leg out from between those rocks. Guess I needed to work on those stomach muscles, pulling myself up just wasn’t working so good. So I used my other snowshoe to clean the snow away from the area around me, right down to the ground. That’s when I noticed the big crack in my snowshoe. Guess it broke when I tumbled down the hill. But it was still holding together so I should be able to use it to get home. I decided to use the snowshoe to help push myself up. That turned out to be not such a great idea. As I pushed there was a loud crack! Hmm, it broke in two. Almost. It was still somewhat holding together but I wasn’t sure if it would be usable or not. Anyway, I’m up and able to reach my other snowshoe and take it off. I put my snowshoes together on the snow beside me and tried to get my leg out from between those rocks.
That’s when I noticed my leg was swollen a bit which is probably why it was so hard to remove it from those rocks. I worked at it for a while, it was rather tiring trying to do this on such a steep slope. But finally my leg was free and I was sitting on the one rock looking around. I was about half way down the hill now, there were a few pine trees scattered about, the sun was shining brilliantly right on me. But it was still cold. Not a day to be just sitting around. Time to put the snowshoes back on and…my snowshoes were gone! I looked, they had slid all the way nearly to the bottom of the hill. Guess I shouldn’t have put them on top of the snow, considering the slope of the hill. Now I will need to walk through that deep snow to the bottom to retrieve my snowshoes. That won’t be easy.
It was still so very silent, just me breathing that bitterly cold air. I hope my leg will hold up walking through that deep snow. I started down. Even though the snow was deep, going down was quite easy. But coming back up might be a problem. Well, once down I knew that going back up would be impossible, so which way to go? Going to my left the hill gets worse so I decide on going to my right. The railway tracks were close by so I went over to them where the walking would be easier. It wasn’t long and I discovered a very easy way up the hill. I put on my snowshoes, hoping the broken one would survive the trek back, and on I went. The climb was really quite easy, first going through a nice area of spruce trees where the snow wasn’t so deep. As I got closer to the top it once again changed to mostly red pine with a few jack pine as well. I stopped and listened.
I heard some birds, chickadees in fact. Plus I could hear a woodpecker somewhere close by so I looked around. Finally I spotted it, a nice northern three-toed woodpecker. That’s the hardest woodpecker to see up around here. They like to stay deep in the forest away from people. He was busy at a pine tree, looked like he had found his lunch. I continued on. My leg was starting to pain a little now so I stopped for a bit sitting on a large rock, after brushing the snow off first. A raven flew overhead following along the railway tracks. I didn’t stop too long and off I went again. Soon I was at my trail and heading down to the lake. Once out on the lake a ways I took the snowshoes off since the snow wasn’t deep. I figured I would make better time without them and it would be easier on my leg. It was late afternoon by the time I got back, but the sun was still shining, though just above the trees. All in all it was a beautiful day, even if I did break my one snowshoe.
Thank you for stopping by to read my little adventure. I used to do a lot of snowshoeing, but most times out were quite normal, nothing like this happened. But now and then, that changed! I hope you have a most wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
Pictures are not from my snowshoeing adventure.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 