Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics #314.
Good morning everyone on this beautiful Saturday! Yes, it is a bit chilly, 16F (-9C), but it looks like we will see the sun today, at least for awhile, so that is always a nice thing. Not much bird activity this morning, but the chickadees are here and one nuthatch. There is 8 blue jays, so they are picking up in numbers. And one each of hairy and downy woodpeckers. I have not seen the grosbeaks or redpolls this morning. That was kind of expected due to the rock doves which are currently sitting in the tree waiting for food. I’m hoping to discourage them now and maybe the other birds will come back. I’m hoping anyway. Though it doesn’t usually work that way. If they find a good food source elsewhere then they won’t come back. But there might be other grosbeaks in the area that are still looking for a good food source for the winter. We’ll see anyway.
It’s fun watching those blue jays come diving in for their peanuts from high in the trees, wings flat against their body until they are about a foot away, then their wings spread open to stop them. They really know how to do it. And I always enjoy watching them. Hmm, they are just sitting in the tree right now, that means they are out of peanuts and it’s time to give them some more anyway. I wonder if Jasper is around yet? I’ll be right back. There, the blue jays are happy once more. Some carry them a long distance. Three of them are sitting on their favorite branches breaking open those shells to get the treasure within. A male hairy woodpecker is after his breakfast again. This is his second trip this morning. Unless there are two of them. Kind of hard to tell unless I see them both at the same time so I know there is 2. Then I would need to find something different in them so I could tell them apart easily. I haven’t seen a female woodpecker yet this season, and that is odd. However, I don’t look out the window all the time so it’s possible for one to be here and I just haven’t seen her yet.
Today I want to share a couple pics of a younger Jasper back in July when he was trying to jump onto the feeder. Poor little guy kept trying and kept falling off and dropping to the ground among the raspberry plants. He finally learned how though. I hope you all have a great Saturday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
20/20 Investigations, Inc. The Curious Letter. Chapter 13.
I had to reach as far as I could, but I got the envelope and slowly pulled it out. As my hand came out there was a huge spider that covered the back of my hand. Is it poisonous? I froze. MEOW!=SPIDER! said both cats at the same time and they jumped up. I’m not sure which one got it, but they shared it anyway. Meow.=Mmmm, good snack. Meow, meow=Yep, nice and yummy. I stared at them. Well, so much for that. Meow, meow.=Don’t worry, it not on chart of poison spiders. Meow.=Yep, we memorize that chart. “Good thinking,” I said to them. After that little distraction I open the envelope which is obviously very old. There is a letter inside.
It says, “You have reached part way in your quest to find my treasure. But there is more to come. Look out the front door. The flying eagle will point the way, follow that direction and go straight down. At the bottom is a door, go inside and turn left. Now look straight up, look out the window and you will see the eagle’s quest. Go there, watch the eagle circle round and round, soon my treasure will be found.” Okay, this doesn’t really make a lot of sense. I show it to the cats. “Read and memorize the letter you two, it’s important,” I whispered to them. After a little while. Meow, meow.=Okay, I done. Meow.=I done too. Meow?=Why you whisper? No one here.
“I don’t trust anyone or anything right now, someone may be watching or listening,” I whispered again. The cats look at each other. Then I lit a match and burned the letter. Both cats ears went straight up. Meow, meow?=If letter important, why you burn? “If the letter falls into the wrong hands, then they won’t need us, so they would kill us,” I whispered. Meow.=Now we understand. Meow, meow?=You not good at memorizing, how you did letter so fast? “That’s why I wanted you 2 to memorize it, in case I forgot something,” I said continuing to whisper. “Now we need to find a way out of here so we can follow those directions. We looked for a couple of hours and found no way out of here.
I was about to put the envelope back in that hole when I noticed there was something else in it. I reached in the envelope…another small piece of paper. All it said was, “Out is in and in is out. It is the only way.” I showed the cats. Meow, meow?=What that mean? “It means the only way out is the way we came in,” I answered, “so there must be a way to unlock that door from this side.” Then I spotted something high on the one wall facing the attic. It was small and round but it was too high. I picked up Muffin and put her up to that spot. It was a small hole and she was able to look right into the attic. Her ears went straight up while looking through the hole.
She wanted to stay watching for a bit but finally came back down. She whispered to me what she saw. Then she told Mr. Cat and his ears went straight up. This is certainly something to think about. Just like this new letter, this one is certainly a curious letter, mainly because it doesn’t make sense. And what Muffin just saw doesn’t make sense either. There is starting to be more questions than answers right now. And more people getting involved in things. But why? What is really going on? Who is on the wrong side and who is on the right side? Is anyone on the right side? Oh well, for now we have to retrace our steps and see if we can find out why she locked us in here. When we get back to the trap door spot I asked the cats to look around more carefully but they found nothing so we kept going back to where we began this little journey. We all looked around but there seemed to be no way to open that door. Now what?
To Be Continued.
Pictures of Mr. Cat are kindly supplied by his human, Nina.
Previous chapters and other stories can be found on my home page under 20/20 Investigations, Inc.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 