Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Coffee At Steve’s Country #15.
Good morning and Happy Friday everyone! It’s a mild, cloudy morning, that fresh snow from yesterday is stuck to the branches of the trees due to the freezing rain that came first. Muffin is wild and running around waiting to greet everyone today. The coffee is ready, just help yourself and then relax with us for a few minutes. Our weather is changing a bit now, we’ll be getting into some colder temps for awhile. Not real cold, but colder than what we have been enjoying anyway. Chickadees and redpolls were first here today. While I put food out before it got light, I heard the goldeneye ducks flying down to the river for a day of fishing.
Theodore, my wild turkey friend, was here again this morning. I was beginning to wonder if he was going to come back, it’s been 12 days since his last visit. He ate his fill of sunflower seeds and then left. I think he must be getting fed somewhere else that he likes better. He would probably enjoy a mix of grain. Oh well, it’s nice that he shows up anyway. The evening grosbeaks are here now, and the blue jays. Those grosbeaks are doing a lot of arguing this morning for some reason. And there they go. They flew a long distance that time. There’s nothing around to actually scare them, but that’s the way these birds are, they just suddenly fly. But they’ll be back after a while, they haven’t finished their breakfast yet.
I see it has started to get windy now. I was hoping it would wait until a bit later. It’s a northwest wind which means it will be cold down at the river. Maybe I should try going earlier today. I see the grosbeaks are back again. I didn’t think they would stay away very long. Hmm, there they go again. They are certainly nervous birds. Right now there is only chickadees and blue jays out there. Oh, there’s Jasper, and that ‘other’ squirrel in a brief fight. Now they are sitting on separate branches about 10 feet apart chattering at each other. Now Jasper has decided to come for a peanut while the ‘other’ squirrel is still chattering. Now the ‘other’ squirrel has decided to leave. That was a short confrontation. But Jasper remains the top squirrel anyway. That’s good. Well, I know you’re busy so guess we will stop there for now. I hope you enjoy the pics today, have a wonderful Friday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve’s Journal #21-03. Bears.
Hello to all of you and welcome back to my journal. Looking out my cabin window at the snow covered trees makes me think of warmer days with summer greens and the sun high in the sky shining it’s warmth through the branches of the pine trees. Ahh, so nice, beautiful, peaceful and bears looking in the window. Oops, what was that again? Yes, I have many true stories regarding me and bears, today we will take a look at one of them…
It’s a beautiful summer morning so I decided to head out for a nice early morning drive and stop at one of my favorite little restaurants for breakfast. However, before getting that far there was a small garbage disposal area that sometimes had bears roaming around. I finally had a camera along so thought it might be worth stopping in there for a while and see if I might be able to get some pictures of bears. I had even seen cinnamon bears at this location on previous stops when I didn’t have a camera with me and I really wanted to get a picture of one. There is nothing really special about cinnamon bears, they are just black bears but their fur is brown instead. They are uncommon around here, but are still seen regularly.
I got to the road leading in to the disposal area and drove in slowly. If there was any bears here I didn’t want to scare them away. I got in and parked my car. This looks great, there were 4 bears that morning, 2 typical black bears and 2 cinnamon bears. Both black bears were on the other side of the garbage area so nothing to worry about there. The 2 cinnamon bears were both fairly close. I got out of the car but left the door open in case I needed to get back inside quickly. Bears don’t usually attack people, but, they can and sometimes do, so it’s best to be careful. I was watching the larger of the two cinnamon bears hoping to get a picture of that one. Meanwhile the smaller one ended up on the other side of my car. Hmm, a little too close, but he wandered off into the trees.
I was taking pics of the other one and my car door kept bumping me. I must be on a bit of an upgrade, that door always would close easily then. I kept pushing it back and it would keep bumping against me. It was kind of annoying after a bit. Finally I turned around and there was a big black bear sitting on the other side of my car door and he kept pushing it against me! I am glad he didn’t decide to walk around the door and push me instead. Perhaps he thought it was a fun game we were playing? I guess I should have been paying more attention to the black bears that were further away. This was one of them and the other was now at the front of my car and the cinnamon bear was coming towards me as well.
I decided it might be a good idea to get back inside the car at that point, which I did, as quickly as possible without getting the bears upset. The bear playing with my car door was the largest of the group and once I was safely inside my car, he stood up and leaned on the car and shook it a bit. I honked the horn, but it didn’t bother any of them. Since I only had a small car I figured that bear could probably turn it upside down if he really wanted to do so. I didn’t wait to find out. I started my car and left. I did manage to get a couple decent pics of the cinnamon bear, but because it was an older camera they are not perfect.
This is something that happened several years ago, I’m smarter now, which means I would do it again, but I would watch the other bears more closely. Oh well. I would like to get some good pics of bears, but from a safe distance. Have a wonderful day folks and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 