Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Saturday Sharing, Being Accident Prone! #25
Good morning to everyone on this fine Saturday! It is mostly cloudy, but the sun keeps shining now and then. However, the smoke from the forest fires is heavy today, a very strong smell hangs in the air and at times it is quite foggy looking, though it is smoke, not fog. It is recommended to wear masks outdoors when the smoke is this bad. That is understandable.
Thanks to all of you for the many birthday wishes for me yesterday. It was a beautiful day and my friend and I went driving east of town along the highway, stopping in at several smaller lakes along the way. I was able to get some nice pics, a few of which I am showing today. There was some beautiful scenery, as usual, all along our journey, these lakes are really quite amazing.
Our main destination was a lake with a beautiful picnic area. There are a lot of tables to use, including some under a roof for times when it might be showers, or just to stay out of the sun. The water of all these lakes is crystal clear. This particular lake has two types of trout, so it is good for fishing, also nice for a canoe and for swimming.
Though like most of these smaller lakes, they usually have rocky shorelines and no sandy beaches. Some do have small beaches however. At the first lake where we stopped there was an abundance of dragonflies and while I was trying to get a picture of one I stepped into a hole between rocks with my left leg and down I went, sitting on the ground.
Oh my, did that hurt. It did slow me down for the rest of our trip, but I kept going. That pain, however, kept getting worse all the time. And naturally I forgot to bring my painkillers with me. Sigh. Another time I was also after a dragonfly, and got some nice pics of that one, but while I was standing there the ground under me felt rather soft.
Really, it felt like an ant hill, but I was right next to the lake and ants do not generally make their homes so close to the water. However, as I was taking pics I suddenly felt the ants and looked down. My feet and legs were crawling with ants! They were not at all happy with me standing on their home. So, I removed myself rather quickly and brushed the ants off. Sigh.
At another spot I was walking down a rather steep slope and began to slide, so I grabbed a bush next to me and…it happened to be a wild rose bush! They are covered with thousands of small thorns and grabbing them with bare hands is definitely not recommended! It kind of “burns” the hands a bit. Sigh.
In another location I was on my hands and knees trying to get close to a damselfly, they are rather small, and it was sitting on a juniper bush. Now, junipers are rather dry, hard and their leaves, which are like needles on a pine tree, are also hard and dry, and they can scratch and poke right through skin, if you happen to fall into one.
I do not recommend falling into one. It can hurt. I was facing down the side of a rock where this juniper was growing and trying to get closer to the damselfly and my hand slid on the lichen covered rock. Down I went, face first, into this juniper. Sigh. Fortunately I did not damage my camera.
I also did not get a pic of that damselfly. But I got another one later. My dad used to be accident prone, as you know, and now I am. Amazing. When I thought about that I began to laugh, loud and long! I hope you all enjoy your Saturday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2023 Steve McLeod.
The Investigators, Inc. The Case of the Widow’s Mansion. Chapter 17. Ghost or Not?
Well, we are all back home now and we brought Tanya back with us so that Li Jing could look after her and take her off those weird drugs she had been given. It will take some time to get her off the drugs since it has to be done slowly so there will be no complications. Li Jing is quite confident that Tanya will be 100% back to normal after this treatment she is giving her.
Saranna is looking after Sky, giving her various treatments to try and find something that will allow her to speak normally again. Whatever Toledo did to her tongue damaged nerves so badly that Saranna is just not sure if she will be able to speak normally again or not. If it does heal, she will likely need to take speech therapy to learn how to speak properly again.
Sky is trying to be brave about it while others are around, but when we are alone she breaks down crying a lot. Galyna is helping her to deal with things, and Kat has been a big help to Sky through all this as well. Yes, Sky wanted Kat to stay with us and be a part of The Investigators once more. I am so glad for that. It will be good for Kat too, I think.
She is getting along well with everyone, like she always did before. I think about half of our team are new to her as well. Is Kat a ghost? I wonder if she will ever tell us? I told her it is not necessary to say anything if she does not want to. Unless she would like to tell me right now. Sigh. If she is not a ghost, then I really would like to know how she made those guns not work as it would be a huge help to us.
She just says it only works for ghosts, then she smiles. Sigh. However, today, after Sky’s checkup, Kat took us aside to let us know a secret. But for now she would like to keep it a secret, perhaps later everyone can be told. Benson and Carine are back at their hotel.
That place is 1,000 years old and really is three parts, though only one part has been fixed up to use as a hotel. The other two parts need a lot of work to modernize them. Since we are going to use their hotel as a recovery center for any of our team who gets injured on a case, I said we would pay for the renovations that need to be done on the other sections.
So work has now begun. We did not lose anyone on this case, quite amazing considering Toledo was working against us again. But several of our team, and 3 of Baldwin Corporation security personnel were injured in various ways.
Sky and her team had been blocked again by Toledo and his men and while they were fighting them on one side, Sky, Cynthia and one member from the security team, took Tanya and carried her across the road and into the trees on the other side away from the fighting, hoping they would be safe. It was dark, so no one would see them.
Except that Toledo and a couple men were waiting for them. Toledo figured they would try something like that. Cynthia and the security team man were shot and left for dead. They took Sky, beat her and Toledo zapped her tongue with some device he had. Once he had Sky and Tanya, the rest of the team surrendered. Baldwin Corporation has a unique machine which we used to quickly recover the gold, or most of it anyway.
Some would have been blasted into dust and the wind likely carried it all over the back yard, which was huge, and even onto neighboring estates. Not really worthwhile to recover that. A lawyer is looking after the estate until Tanya is well enough to make her own decisions. Muffin is recovering at home with Storm and the kittens looking after her completely.
And they are treating her like a queen. I think we have found a man to manage Baldwin Corporation for me. Rock, Aari, John, Frank and myself have met with him twice, and he will be coming here tomorrow and spending two weeks with us so everyone can meet him. We will see after that. His name is Nelson Bancroft and he does have good credentials.
Mandar knows him well also, which does not surprise me. Cynthia, Tiffany and Felina will be leaving us and starting their own PI business, but they will stay with smaller, more simple cases. They will be living and working in Canada. Now for some nice relaxation for a while.
The End. A new case will begin soon, watch for it!
©2023 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 