Hello everyone on this beautiful morning!  No matter where you live or what the weather is like, come and join me for a little stroll down to a nice small park that is close to where I live.  This park is located right on the shore of the lake which gives us a nice view and a chance to see some different birds that don’t come around my deck.  No guarantee however.  We will have to take our coffee with us today, and of course there is tea and hot chocolate if you prefer.

Well, here we are at our destination, in the parking lot.  Then we just follow the path down to some tables where we can sit and enjoy our coffee looking out over the lake. The sun is shining so nice and warm.  There is not much wind today which makes it even nicer.  There is a small beach just over there, but the water is still much too cold for swimming.  It isn’t bad right by the shore, just to get your feet wet, but the temperature changes rapidly as you start getting out a little deeper.

This is actually a very nice park, the mornings are quiet, usually not many people show up here until the afternoon.  So this is just perfect.  There are many red pines here, they are a beautiful big tree.  If you have never heard the sound of wind through the pines, then you have missed a real treat.  It is a beautiful soft melody, unlike other trees.  Some geese are flying overhead, they are coming down and landing just beyond that little point of land over there.  Perhaps they will swim around to the beach for us to get a better look.

Over there under the trees is a nice group of wild orchids, the pink ladyslipper, also sometimes called a moccasin flower.  They are beautiful flowers, unfortunately people like to pick them and when that happens they will never bloom again.  We have two other ladyslippers here as well, but both are getting very hard to find now.  They are actually protected flowers.

And over there in that patch of long grass, can you see it?  That’s a snipe, an interesting bird with a long beak.  I used to see a lot of those birds around at one time, not so much anymore.  But it’s always enjoyable to see one of them and to get a picture, even though this pic isn’t the best, but it’s the only one I have at the moment.

Not much boat traffic out there yet, but that will soon change and there will be boats going in every direction all day long.  As we look across the lake all we see are islands, not the distant shore.  This is a large lake and has over 14,000 islands and is definitely one of the most beautiful lakes in all of Canada.  Part of this lake is also in the state of Minnesota and partly in our neighboring province of Manitoba.  But most of it by far is right here in Ontario.

Hmm, not too much bird activity today.  There is a song sparrow singing by the water’s edge.  And, a squirrel coming around looking for food.  Good thing I brought some peanuts for him.  There is a robin singing from that birch tree over there.  And there are several warblers in the pines.  They are small and so many varieties of them, too far away to get a picture.  I can see Mourning and Pine warblers.  It is just such a beautiful morning, who wants to leave?

However, time keeps moving so I guess we should wrap up this coffee time for today.  I hope you have all enjoyed being here for coffee this morning.  Have a great day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

© 2019 Steve McLeod.