For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Hi everyone! It is another nice, sunny and hot day here. We don’t normally get weather this hot so early in the season, but we are this year. This has now been several days of this weather with the temperature reaching 90F (32C) during the day but cooling off to between 17 and 19 at night which helps to keep my apartment cooler.
Unfortunately, along with this hot and sunny weather it has been incredibly dry. We did not get much snow this past winter and the ground dried out quickly since we also received only minimal amounts of rain this spring. All of that means forest fires. And we have lots of them already.

The area in these photos has been burned twice in the last 40 years.
Our neighboring province has many serious forest fires, including some large ones close to our border which puts them about 30 miles (about 50km) away from us. But we have fires on our side too. The closest fire is about 17km away, but it’s still small, though also out of control.
One fire started on Monday at 4:30 pm and was about 250 acres (about 100 hectares) in size. It is now less than 2 days later and the fire is now 57,529 acres (23,281 hectares) in size. It’s still a long distance away though at about 25 miles (about 40 km).
It has been windy the last few days which is why the fires are getting big so fast. There is cooler weather coming though which will arrive on Friday and it will bring some showers with it too. That will help slow down the fires but won’t put them out unless we get a lot more rain than what is being forecast. It is a bad, and early, start to our fire season.

However, temperatures will stay more normal for the rest of the month which should help out a lot. Apparently more than 60% of fires this year have been caused by careless people. That always amazes me. Surely people can see that it is dry out in the forest and they should want to be careful. But people will deliberately ignore the fire bans that are in place and they decide to have a bonfire anyway.
Or they want to burn off some dead, dry grass and they pick a nice windy day to do it. It’s just plain crazy. Over the past 2 years all 3 of my siblings have passed away. Then last month a good friend of mine passed away. He was 3 years younger than me. Then last week another good friend of mine passed away.

He was 4 years younger than me. I am going to his funeral this afternoon. There has been a lot of things happen the past two years. Including the stress of moving and looking for a doctor. But change is always present all through life.
With spring comes the beginning of new life once again. It is beautiful out there now. Brilliant green grass and leaves on the trees and flowers beginning to bloom. Spring is such a beautiful time of year! Have a great day everyone!
Steve and Muffin.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
I was in the house having some fun with Helene and Wendel but it wasn’t working out too well. Helene believed that I was a ghost, but not Wendel. He figured I was just using some kind of magicians tricks and just pretending to be a ghost. Even his gun problems didn’t convince him. Nor did the fact that I shot some electricity at one of their men and killed him.
Now Wendel was next to a light switch here in the kitchen where all the fun was happening. I guess he thought it would be possible to expose me by turning on the light. But all I had to do was turn invisible and that little problem would be taken care of. But Sky was ahead of things and when Wendel turned the light switch on, all the lights in the house turned off.
“Now what did you do Wendel?” asked Helene. “How should I know?” he retorted. “Guess the rent money didn’t include electricity,” I said and laughed my spooky laugh. “That did it!” yelled Wendel. “Why does everyone want to yell all the time?” I asked, “I can hear just fine.” Wendel then growled and charged at me but he ran right through me and landed against the cabinets.
“You should inform Wendel that ghosts are not solid,” I told Helene. “Kitty is solid,” she reminded me. “Yes, but it was different with Kitty,” I said, “she had help from that mad scientist, so she has her body still. So she can be solid or not. I’m just a typical ghost and I’m not going to forget what you did to me!” Wendel was back on his feet now.
“You moved!” he yelled. “No, he did not move,” said Helene, “you ran right through him.” “That’s impossible!” he yelled and he came after me again, swinging his fists, but going through me again. I then punched him twice and kicked him in the stomach. It didn’t knock him down though. Must admit, my fighting ability isn’t what it should be, and Wendel is quite a big man.
He is about 6 feet tall and very muscular, so I imagine he is quite strong. Then I heard a familiar voice. “Come on Steve, you can do it!” shouted Misty. She was sitting on the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen. “Give it to him Steve!” she said again, “Watch it, he has a frying pan!” I turned back and Wendel did indeed have a frying pan which he swung at me.
I instinctively ducked and he missed me. “Why did you duck Steve?” asked Sky. She was sitting next to Misty now. I thought Sky was supposed to take Misty back outside again after she watched me walking through the wall. Oh well. Guess I have my own cheerleaders now. Sky was right, I didn’t need to duck.
“Sorry, I’m still a new ghost y’ know,” I said to them. They both giggled. “Here, let me help,” said Misty. She came over just as Wendel was coming after me again. Misty kicked him four times and Wendel fell to the floor, unconscious. I turned around to look at Helene, but the back door was open and she was gone!
I ran out the door just as Courage returned, jumping over the fence. Once at the steps Courage returned to being Angel. “Sorry Steve,” she said, “Helene got away, but I got the make of the car and license number.” She gave this information to Kat and she was quickly chasing after Helene with her Wildcats.
They found the car that was used, but it was abandoned close to a busy street. Obviously they changed vehicles there and now they were long gone. Once again Helene got away from us. We did get Wendel and 15 men they had at the house. Five of those men were killed in fighting, the remaining 10 surrendered.
Plus there was the one I killed. Rossana asked us to give Wendel to the police, there was a warrant for his arrest already concerning the theft of some jewels. Chances are he won’t get much time in jail for that, perhaps none at all. But, we handed him over to the police and the very next day Wendel’s lawyer had him out on bail.
That was okay though, perhaps we can use him to help us find Helene. We will follow him by following his phone, plus keeping track of his spending. However, it’s possible he will stay away from Helene for a while and that would be bad. As long as Helene is free, she will try to get Kitty.
The one good thing, however, is that Kitty is not really in any danger now. Helene can’t exactly force Kitty to do anything now like she could have done while Kitty was still in a weakened state. Now that Kitty is strong, she can resist Helene, just like the rest of us.
Helene is now the weakened one. She has lost most of her men, but she still has access to her money. Well, mostly it’s Wendel’s money I guess. We will still try to find her though and we just might get some help with that from a somewhat unlikely source.
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.