Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics #291.
Good morning on this very frosty Thursday! Oh my, that was our coldest night yet this winter. The temp dropped to 11F (-12C) which covered everything with a layer of frost. Which is slippery. Like ice. No, I didn’t slip. Not really anyway. However, the plastic box I stand on to put food on the bird feeder, well, when I stood on that…it went sliding…and I went flying (insert scream at this point😁). So now I’m a bit sore once again. The joys of winter. Now I have noticed that my main bird feeder is breaking so I have to fix it very soon, before it breaks completely. We are supposed to get some warmer weather next week, so hopefully it will stay together until then. I’m going to make some changes at the same time so things will be easier and hopefully I won’t fall off the deck. I really don’t want to do that. I think that might hurt a little too much. Wouldn’t be healthy anyway.
Cold as it is this morning there is not much bird activity. Very little in fact. Usually there would be little birds crawling around everywhere, but this morning there’s maybe a dozen juncos, didn’t see any sparrows. But perhaps they were sleeping late because it was cold. Blue jays are here, and chickadees. My lone white-breasted nuthatch is no longer around. Jasper was having fun this morning running around in the trees. He would run all the way to the top, then stretch, and down he came so fast! Then back up another tree, stretch, and down again. Three times in a row he did that, then he just took off running fast through the trees, just having some fun, and finally coming over to get a peanut for his breakfast. So far he seems to be enjoying winter. I imagine he will have lots of fun once we get more snow on the ground and he can start digging tunnels! As long as he doesn’t ask me to come out and join him. I’ll sit out there and talk with him, but no digging tunnels for me. Still not much action out there, very odd. Yesterday some redpolls showed up at the feeder. I hope that means they will stay all winter. There was only 4 of them, but that’s a start. They are small birds, like the chickadees, with a spot of red on their head.
Today’s pics are of Jasper. I asked him to give me a nice smile, so he gave me a nice profile shot and then one just looking straight at me with a big smile. Hope you like them. Muffin and 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 3.
The cats had alerted me to the fact someone was at the door, so I got up quietly and started for the door. Muffin came running over. Meow, meow.=Human person gone now. I ran to the door and opened it quickly, the hall was empty and the elevator was on the main floor. We’re on the 3rd floor so he obviously didn’t take the elevator down, so he must have taken the stairs. Or he has a room on this floor too. That wouldn’t be a good thing. I went to the window. Sure enough, the same man I saw watching us as we left the airport was standing across the street right under the street light, looking up at my window. He wants me to know I’m being watched. But why? Hoping to scare me off perhaps? I asked Lena to come over to the window. “Have you ever seen that guy before?,” I asked her. “No, I haven’t,” she said nervously. “That’s the same man I saw watching us at the airport,” I told her, “he wants us to know we’re being watched.” “But why would he want you to know that?,” she asked, quite surprised that I would say that. “I think it’s likely to scare us off the case,” I said.
Meow, meow?!=Someone try to scare us away? NO, we not scared by anyone! We stay on case no matter who try to scare us! Meow!=Yes, I agree with Muffin, no one going to scare us! “Glad to hear that, you two adorable cats,” said Lena. Then she stopped from saying anymore and sat down on the chair staring. I closed the drapes. “What’s wrong Lena?,” I asked her quietly, “you look a little shook up.” Meow, meow?=We say something wrong? Lena looked at Muffin, then turned to me. “I must be more stressed out about this whole thing than I thought,” she answered. “Why do you say that?,” I asked her. I actually thought I could understand what the cats were saying,” she began to explain, “I know that’s impossible, but it seemed so clear.” Both cats giggled. “Did they just giggle?”, she asked me. “Yep, they sure did, they do that quite a bit actually and they sigh a lot as well,” I said to her, “and, yes, you did understand them, so don’t think you’re going crazy.
It happens only with certain people, generally it’s people the cats can trust,” I said. Lena just stared at me. “You’re not putting me on, are you?”, asked Lena. “No, I’m not,” I said with a smile. And they can understand anyone, Muffin and Mr. Cat can speak in English and French, Muffin speaks Italian and Mr. Cat is trying to learn. Muffin can also speak some German and Swiss, and she wants to learn Spanish too, though we have never been to a Spanish speaking country yet.” Lena shook her head. “I think it might take me awhile to get used to this,” she laughed.
“Now, back to serious business,” I reminded her. “Right,” she said, that letter seems to have some kind of code written into it, I’m sure of that, and we will have to figure out what that code is if we want to find the treasure.” “Hmm, I hope you have that letter in a safe place,” I said. “Actually I brought it with me, I thought that would be better since there are odd things happening back at the farm,” she said, “I figured someone else must be after this letter, though I have no idea who that might be, we only found the letter a month ago and right away things started to happen.” She pulled out the letter from her bag and gave it to me. “I really think it would be safer if I hang onto the letter from now on,” I said. “That’s fine with me,” said Lena, “especially now with all these people watching us. I’m rather nervous right now.” I looked over at Muffin…
To Be Continued.
All previous chapters and stories in this series can be found on my home page under 20/20 Investigations, Inc.
All pictures of Mr. Cat are generously supplied by his human, Nina.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
