Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics #305.
Good morning! How is everyone doing today? We are back to being white once again, though we only received 1 1/4 inches (about 3cm) of snow overnight. Just enough to make it look more like winter. Oddly there was a couple of juncos out here this morning, I thought they had all gone. The evening grosbeaks are here eating their breakfast and arguing a bit now and then. They seem to enjoy doing that. They look so beautiful with that bright golden yellow against the white background. There isn’t as many now as before, looks like most of the females and young have taken off south. That will happen if it’s going to be a tough winter. Not necessarily cold and lots of snow, but lack of natural food that will send them south. Males and some females will stick around no matter what.
I put out some suet yesterday and it wasn’t long before there was a male hairy woodpecker sitting there helping himself to the treat. About an hour later I was looking out the window and a male downy woodpecker was sitting on the suet enjoying his snack. I put suet out every winter for the birds, it’s a good quick energy food for them in cold weather. Chickadees and nuthatches also enjoy it and it’s a great help to those little birds, especially when that temperature begins to fall into the very cold range. There really isn’t many birds around these days. There should be 2 or 3 dozen chickadees, right now I think there is 8 of them. A dozen evening grosbeaks, a dozen blue jays, 1 nuthatch, 1 each of the woodpeckers. Each year is different though, it’s impossible to tell which birds, or how many, will be around. The pine grosbeaks and redpolls disappeared, and so did Theodore.
Well, I picked out a couple of winter bird pics to share today. The featured image at the top shows two juncos at one of the feeders, I don’t think they’re too happy with the new fallen snow. Then we have a male evening grosbeak getting his beak messed up with eating sunflower seeds. I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
20/20 Investigations, Inc. The curious Letter. Chapter 9.
Poor little guy couldn’t move by the time we got there. Meow, meow.=He tell me he very sick, get worse. He’s been poisoned, I thought to myself. Back we all ran to the house with me carrying Mr. Cat and Lena carrying Muffin. We finally made it! Good thing I packed a good variety of things in my first aid kit and I had something there for poison which I gave to Mr. Cat right away. I just hope I’m on time with this. Lena managed to convince Muffin to eat so she would be strong enough to protect Mr. Cat. We left them securely locked in the bedroom then went back to the kitchen to eat. And talk. Chantelle was having a nap but Charlie was in the kitchen. He looked very worried. Right then Chantelle called for some help, so Lena went to see her.
“You take Lena and go,” Charlie said quietly, “keep her safe, look after her.” “I think it would be good for you to come clean Charlie,” I said, “you’re holding something back, what is it?” He sighed and sat down with me at the table. “Okay,” he began, “I tell you everything. I work for these men…” He stopped momentarily, then looked at me with tears running down his cheeks. “I am ashamed,” he continued, “I work to pay debt or they take Lena. That can’t happen, I know why they want her, she’s very beautiful girl. I know you are a good man, that’s why I want you to take her out of this mess. These men say I work too slow to pay debt so they will take Lena now. But then you come and spoil their plans. They want you to leave, so they tell me…” Charlie puts his head down. “They tell me to give them one of the cats, so I take Mr. Cat, they give him something that make him sleep, they tell me to get rid of him…”
“So you decided to take and toss him down that old well?,” I asked. “Yes, but I could not do it, so I put him down among pine trees and leave,” he said. “Charlie, why didn’t you tell me that?”, I asked, “he could have died out there if we didn’t find him. Even now I don’t know what he will be like when he wakes up.” Charlie was sobbing a lot by this time. Lena comes in and sits beside me, she is crying too. She puts her head on my shoulder and says, “Mr. Cat is awake, I know who did it.” “I do as well,” I told her. “Grandpa…why?”, she asks slowly. Charlie looks at her, he’s really crying hard now, “I just want you away from here, I don’t want those men to get their hands on you and I can’t stop them, I’m too old to stop them.” “If you want me safe,” said Lena, “then trust Steve, don’t hurt him.” We all sat there for a bit, then Lena and I went back to check on Mr. Cat.
“How do you feel now,” I asked him. Meow.=I feel much better, maybe still a little bit weak, but I ready to work again. I set him up with his slingshot and asked him to try it out. Thwack! He hit the target perfectly, good and strong too. Meow.=I know, I break rules and get in trouble. I thought it okay to trust human Charlie, but he bad. “Well,” I said, “more mixed up than bad, he’s working with a gun at his head. And we’re going to put a stop to that real quick.” Meow, meow?=How we stop bad people when we not know where they are? “I know where they are Muffin,” I said, “but we need the police now, unfortunately they are doing something here to block our signals for phones so we can’t phone for help and I’m sure they won’t let us drive out of here.” “But I thought they wanted you to leave, what if you and the cats leave and bring the police back here?,” asked Lena. “I don’t trust them to let us leave, they will know we will call the police,” I said, “Muffin, see if you can call Rossana.” She tried several times, but whatever these guys are using to block us must be strong, so Muffin couldn’t get a signal through. Right now we’re prisoners here on this farm. What can we do?
To Be Continued.
Pictures of Mr. Cat, above, are supplied by his human, Nina.
Previous chapters and stories can be found on my home page under 20/20 Investigations, Inc.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
