Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics #270.
Good morning to everyone! It’s a beautiful, sunny and cool morning today. It was yesterday as well, but that changed quickly to cloudy and rainy. But, it’s supposed to stay sunny this time. We had some frost this morning too. My deck was wet looking again so I was very careful to check and make sure it was wet, not icy. Yep, wet it is, so off I went to hang up the bird feeders. Then I hit a patch of ice and slid about 2 feet. Good thing I have 2 feet to slide on. Then I hit one of the boxes out there and tripped. That made me sit down on another box. And drop one of the feeders. Which cracked. And sunflower seeds spilled out onto the deck. That was fun.
Muffin was sitting at the window watching all of this…and laughing. I know she was laughing. She does that. I use some tape to hold the feeder together temporarily until I can buy another one. Sigh. I stand on the box that I landed on previously so that I can stretch far enough to hang the bird feeder due to our town’s bird feeder regulations. The feeder slipped out of my hand. And I almost fell over the railing trying to catch the falling bird feeder. I missed. And the feeder went crashing to the ground in the middle of the raspberry patch. And I hit my head on the post that is meant to hold the hanging bird feeder. That causes me to back up a step, which is not good, I’m standing on a box. Moving back one step puts me on air. Air is not too stable. Nor will it hold me up.
Therefore I fall to the deck, landing on that patch of ice, which causes one foot to go east and one foot to go west. I end up sitting on the deck. That part is wet. So I get wet. Naturally. I can just see Muffin right now. She will likely be on the floor rolling around and laughing. I go down, wading my way through tall, wet grass and prickly raspberry plants to retrieve my bird feeder. What’s left of it anyway. I come back up. Jasper is standing there looking at me. I look at him. We shake paws. I give him a very large peanut. Then I come inside to change. Sigh. It’s a beautiful, sunny morning. The few gold and yellow leaves that are left on the trees are shining brightly in the morning sunshine. The birds are chirping happily. Jasper is eating his peanut. Coffee is filling up with his peanuts. Perfect.
The featured image today is a pic of Baxter, my friendliest blue jay. The pic just above is an adult bald eagle who is sitting in our local cemetery waiting his turn at a deer carcass which is beside the street. The deer had obviously been hit by a car. There was also a young bald eagle impatiently waiting, I will show that one another time. I hope you all have a beautiful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
20/20 Investigations, Inc., Part 2, The Chase! Chapter 12.
Karin asked, “now what?” Meow!=We push motorcycles over hill, watch them bounce and crash! Meow, meow!=Oh, that good idea, have some fun! “I guess we could do that,” I said. Over the edge of the hill they went, bouncing and crashing until they were completely out of sight in the bushes below. “That was fun,” I said. Karin looked at me. Seems like she is still a bit annoyed. “I will ask again,” she said, “now what?!” She is definitely getting a bit anxious, that’s not good, too easy to make mistakes when feeling like that. “Well,” I began, “we certainly didn’t get far enough to help us, they will be catching up to us very soon. And it will still take a few days to get to the next town.” I took out our map and spread it on the ground so we could all look at it.
“That’s a long stretch of lonely road,” said Karin sighing. “Yes, and only people we don’t want to see will be on it too,” I replied. “Plus, they will know approximately how far we managed to travel with those bikes,” I added, “and that part is not good.” “Cutting straight across land would be shorter, but since we don’t know the area that wouldn’t be a good idea, we might meet with some rough terrain and have to turn back,” I continued. “We can’t stay on the road either,” said Karin, “they’ll see us.” “That’s true, I said, “and with all these tight curves in the road we likely wouldn’t hear them until they were right behind us, leaving us no time to hide off in the trees.”
Meanwhile…”They took the bikes just like you said they would Ma,” said Earl. “Of course they would,”, said Ma, “now you’ll be able to find them more easily.” “How did you know they could drive the bikes?,” asked Dave. “K told me,” Ma answered, “and that reminds me, take a boat with you, they will likely go on the river next.” “How can they do that, they don’t have a boat and I doubt they could make a stable raft that quickly,” said Earl. “How can you 3 be so stupid?,” yelled Ma! “Have you never heard of a rubber raft?”, she said, “That PI has one in his backpack!” “I wondered why his backpack was so big and heavy,” said Dave. “You wondered, you wondered, I doubt that brain of yours could wonder about anything!”, hollered Ma, “it’s a good thing K told me about it.”
“And you,” yelled Ma pointing, I want that double crossing K…alive!” “She was going to be my friend, she was going to help me, HA!”, screamed Ma, “then she runs out on me!” “Now she gets the same thing that Harold got, a trip to the bottom of the river. She hates the water just like he did!” “So you make sure to bring her back to me, we need to have some ‘discussions’ before her ‘swimming’ lesson!” And Ma laughed with glee at the thought! “Now you 3 get your men together and get going!”, bellowed Ma, “if they get that raft in the river that current will take them out of our reach in no time.” “And you better bring them back with our merchandise before the trustees and J get here,” screamed Ma! “If we don’t have that merchandise for them, we’re all dead!”, she added.
And off they went in a big hurry. Everyone was scared of Ma for some reason. “I’m surrounded with a bunch of idiots!”, Ma said to herself after they left. But I’ll just let J take care of them, she thought and she laughed boisterously at the thought! Meanwhile…we are still at the side of the road looking at the map. It looked like it would be tough walking through that thick undergrowth to get over to the river, but that might be the only way. I looked around with my binoculars. “Hey, look at that”, I said to Karin and gave her the binoculars. I pointed out the spot I had seen.
“It looks like part of the road”, she said, “how does that help?” “That doesn’t show on our map, so they must have built a new section of the road since this map was made,” I said. “And it goes very close to the river,” I continued, “that means we can go by river which will be much faster and safer.” “Um, I hate to remind you Steve, but we don’t have a boat and I’m not floating down the river on another homemade raft!,” said Karin, crossing that river before was hard enough for me, I can’t swim and I hate water!” “But I have a rubber raft in my backpack, it’s not very big, but it’s big enough for 2 people,” I said, trying to sound encouraging.
To Be Continued.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 