mosaic Monday...picnic

According to Wikipedia, a picnic is defined as a pleasure excursion at which a meal is eaten outdoors, ideally taking place in a beautiful landscape such as a park, beside a lake or with an interesting view. Jeff and I love cycling and love picnics - you very seldom see a photo on this blog of Jeff's bike without our picnic bag strapped to it. It is a cooler with dinnerware that I bought at a garage sale for $5 and we have used (and loved) for years. Here is a photo I've taken of it in the past.

In September, we spent a week cycling the black hills area of SD & Wyoming and enjoyed a picnic every day.

Usually the scenery is the highlight of our picnics but on this trip we were amazed at the bravery of the gray jays in circling and coming in to pick up any dropped food. We do not see these birds in our area of MN so I was especially thrilled that they were not afraid of us and kept landing a foot or two away.

Just as entertaining but not nearly as brave as the gray jays were dozens of chipmunks. We also tried to feed them but a jay would always swoop down and get the food before these little guys had a chance.