Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Coffee With Our Friends #10!
Hello everyone and welcome to another coffee post and this one on International Coffee Day! That’s a great day for a coffee time with our friends! We do have lots of coffee, and teas as well, to enjoy today. And it’s so nice to see you all here once again. Today we are on a trip to one of my favorite picnic spots at Dixie Lake. It’s just a small lake east of our town about a half hour drive.
It’s really a beautiful spot and right along the highway so it’s easy getting to this place. It sits in an area where a forest fire burned through back in 1980, everything was black for miles around after that fire, but this spot was protected by water bombers that managed to keep it nice and green through that fire that burned a total of 275,000 acres of prime pine and spruce forest. But this beautiful spot remained nice and green. Apparently there was an experiment back in the 1960’s or 70s, all the fish in the lake were killed off and then it was restocked with rainbow trout. It was very successful and the trout thrived.
Hi Jim, Dusty and Simon, so nice that you could join us today. Hi Ribana, Sheree and Jessica, thanks for coming today. Oh, and here comes Nina and Mr. Cat, that will make Muffin happy, welcome to our coffee time. Hi Correne and Teddy, Eugenia and Callie, Rossana and Mila, so nice to have you all join us again today. Here comes Muffin to say Hi and get all her friends together for treats and games. Hi John, Richard and Buddy, glad you could make it again.
There are lots of picnic tables for us to use, some in the shade, others in the sun, whichever you prefer. On this particular day the temp is 24C, 75F and the sun is shining so nicely. Not much bird activity though as most have already headed south. But it’s so peaceful here with those small waves lapping on the rocky shore. You can hear the wind singing through the pine trees, such a beautiful sound. Ahh, there’s a loon calling a little further down the lake. Most of them have gone now too.
The adult loons will leave in early September, the young will stay for another 2 to 4 weeks longer. I see the cats are having fun running on the rocks and through the trees. It’s all granite rock through this area with very little soil, but lots of moss. In May and June it’s possible to find wild orchids in this picnic area, such as the pink ladyslipper, hooker’s orchis, northern green orchis and green adder’s-mouth. Such odd names to give the wild orchids. The green ones are hard to find usually since they are fairly small and blend in so well with the other vegetation. We’re too late in the season to see any of these unfortunately.
Our coffee times seem to always go by so fast, guess it’s time to get our cats together and head back home. I really hope you enjoyed a little relaxing time today! Muffin and I hope you can join us again, if we can get one more coffee time before winter hits. Have a great day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Daily Pics #263. Yay, It’s Today!
Good morning everyone! It’s here! Happy International Coffee Day!! Muffin and I have begun celebrations already with a rousing game of fuzzball! And of course, COFFEE! Lots of coffee! Until we’re bouncing off the walls, that kind of lots of coffee! Okay, Muffin doesn’t like coffee, but she does like coffee cupcakes, so maybe I will try making those today. Most people around here have never heard of this amazing holiday before. Hard to believe really. Coffee shops around the world celebrate this holiday, except here. Mention it here and they go, “seriously?” Um, yeah, I’m serious. Oh well. So we will have another coffee post today to help celebrate the day. It’s a bit on the chilly side today, but the pictures will be from a warmer day earlier in September.
I went out to feed the birds this morning, and clean up my deck of the big mess, and nearly went flying. It rained overnight, and froze, so the deck was solid ice, though it didn’t look slippery. But it was kind of early and not fully daylight. Almost broke one of my bird feeders. I didn’t. Wish I could say the same for me. As I slid, I also twisted myself which finished my back for the day. As you know, I have serious back problems, so twisting like that, or falling, can have bad consequences for my back. The joys of living in a cold climate. Speaking of the mess on my deck. At 3:10am, Muffin is not the only one that likes to be up early for breakfast, I was awakened by some loud noises on the deck. Must be the raccoons again, I thought. Except Muffin wouldn’t go up to the window. Hmm, not raccoons, Muffin isn’t afraid of raccoons. On goes the light and there it is…a bear!
The nerve of him coming on the deck and making so much noise and waking me up this early! Open door, yell at bear, bear runs away. It was a different bear than the one the other night, not quite as big, maybe 250 to 300 pounds. But what a mess he made out there. Even knocked over my flower pots and dug out the dirt, probably looking for grubs or other insects. It’s a cold morning, but sunny, so it looks beautiful out there. We even had some flurries this morning, real snowflakes, a reminder that winter is not far away. The forecast for October is for milder than normal temps, I hope they are right. There is a second forecast for October, colder than normal temps and an early winter. We’ll see which one is right.
The featured image at the top is more fall color out on our big lake. The pic just above is one of our late summer and fall wildflowers, the arrow-leaved aster. We have a number of different asters around here, they are definitely a nice end of season flower. Happy October everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 