Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Coffee With Steve, Muffin And Friends #2.
Hello everyone and welcome back to another coffee time! Muffin and I talked it over and we decided to add “friends” to our coffee title, and that refers to all of you! After all, this coffee time would be no fun at all if you were not here and we both enjoy having all of you join us each week to sit, enjoy coffee and have a nice visit while enjoying different areas around our town. I didn’t get to the place I wanted us to visit this week, so hopefully I can get pictures ready for next time. So, today we will visit another beautiful spot along the river. I’m quite certain anyway that we didn’t visit this particular location for coffee before, I know we did check out another spot before, but not this one. I hope not anyway.
And surprisingly I found my swinging bench again! Someone just moved it back to it’s original location which is great, I love this spot, though it is a bit difficult to get at. But this is where we are today, however, don’t worry, it isn’t necessary to go down into the place where the bench is located. On both sides of this spot it is nice flat ground, a nice thick mat of pine needles actually where very little grows, so it makes a nice place to sit if you don’t mind sitting on the ground. We did bring blankets to sit on and there is bug spray to use if mosquitoes become a problem. They are bad coming down to the river, but normally once at the river I hardly see a mosquito anywhere.
The view from here is wonderful and the river is quite narrow along this section helping to produce that dangerous current. Even though it can’t be seen right now, that current is still there and still very dangerous. This spot is quite high off the river which gives us a wonderful view of things. Now, getting down to the bench is a bit tricky, the far side you have to sort of climb down, and this side there is an easier way but it is narrow and right at the edge of the rock, so you do need to be careful. It’s about a 25 foot drop so please try not to fall. You won’t land in the river though, but those sharp rocks down there would not be a nice landing. Really, it’s not that bad and I see many of you have found your way down already.
Sharon has brought some blueberry tarts for us today and I made some blueberry cupcakes, each with a strawberry on top. Hi Ananta, and Eshal, nice to see you both today. And Haroon has joined us also, how nice to see you! Hello Ally, you get to leave your winter for a bit and enjoy some of our summer. Hi Manuel, so nice that you could join us today, how are you? This is Canadian Shield country, a land of rocks, lakes and trees. And often behind a rock you will find a duck, or two.
Muffin is meowing, she must have found something exciting. Sure enough, her favorite flower, “pussytoes”, they are soft and have sort of a furry feel to them. Oh, there she’s pointing out something else, a “clintonia”, not blooming yet but it will be in another week or so. Hi Sheree, I wondered why Muffin suddenly ran off, she wanted to say hello to you. Hi Tiffany and Pene, I’m happy that you could be with us today as well. We are having such a good time here so there’s no reason to cut things short, so we’ll just keep on with our coffee time and chats while I close this off for now. Thank you all for coming and joining with us today, I hope you had a wonderful time and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Daily Pics #154.
Good morning everyone! I hope you are having a good day so far. It is a fabulous morning here with the sun shining so brightly, the sky is a brilliant blue, the birds are singing their usual morning songs and it’s just perfect so sitting outside on the deck. The flower petals on the apple tree and the neighbors mock cherry tree are beginning to fall already. They don’t last long. So many of our flowers are like that, especially the flowering shrubs and trees. The lilacs are in full bloom now, my favorite flowering shrub. I just love the scent of lilacs, so beautiful. They also don’t last long. But since they are blooming I knew that the eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly would be here soon, and they are, lots of them.
Trying to get a picture of them however, is next to impossible. They do love lilacs and that is a good place to catch them sitting still. Except there are no lilacs close by, so that presents a problem. There are two other butterflies around now too, all I can say for sure is that they are orange and black. They also don’t like to sit still. The one could be a monarch butterfly or it could be a viceroy butterfly. We have both around here though the monarch doesn’t show up much so it’s likely a viceroy. Either way I would like to get a picture of it. At least these bigger butterflies will sit with their wings spread open, the small ones never seem to do that. Oh well. But these butterflies won’t be around long so I need to get pictures soon.
And now for some more wildflower pics to share with you…
The first wildflower in the pic above is the dainty “starflower”. They are small but abundant flowers this time of year and found normally in a well forested area. They generally seem to prefer shady spots to sunny spots.
And in the above picture we have the “pale corydalis”, a very beautiful and colorful flower. It is about an inch (2.5cm) long and these flowers like to grow on rocky areas where there is very little soil. They thrive, it seems, in a very dry environment, though they will sometimes grow in other places too. The smell of smoke is in the air this morning, forest fire smoke. The color of the sun shows it too. Not likely something close though. I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 