Fall is in the air! 
The nights are definitely on the cool side now, mostly in the 50s and we had a 49 already, and the mornings can be a little foggy and dewy. The sun comes out most afternoons though and I still had to turn on the AC twice this week. But it's sure is changing!

Fall colors are more and more visible, as seen on my morning walks in the neighborhood:

                                    

                                    

I noticed a few more (tiny) 'shrooms and the poison-oak in the oak trees have turned  a beautiful red:

 

      

Still, it has been warm enough to have our morning cup of coffee outside, albeit on the sunny side of the RV now, (the shady pond-side is now too damp and cool in the morning) where it is the perfect temperature under the umbrella. 

            

                                       

That cheeky squirrel I talked about last week, that had taken possession of one of our lawn chairs, now tried to get to the bird-feeders a couple of days ago:

 

              
    
Climbing up wasn't really a problem for him (her?) but from there he couldn't reach the ports in the feeders so he had to take defeat and slowly let himself slide down the pole again ... I wonder what he'll think of next?

                                       

The replacement part for the leaking gas-regulator came in, so James took care of swapping them out: 

 

 

  
With Fall around the corner (as in tomorrow!) it will be good to have that repaired!

                

Yesterdays 'Saturday-soup-of-the-week' was a Corn Chowder. 
I had some corn-on-the-cob in the shed that I forgot about, which was about 10 days old ... not so good straight-of-the-cob anymore but still perfect for soup!

And so it went:

"Und noow, vee makin' ze deeleecioous coorn choowder! Vee take-a ze coorny-coorn und vee tross it in ze pot-a! "Børk! Børk! Børk!" 😁

         

                                                                            

                                         

                                   Together with some corn muffins, it was very good!
                                     Another winner!

                                                

So yes, tomorrow it will be Fall! Yes! Finally! 
(Well, officially it will be the 22nd at 5.05 pm here in the Pacific North-West, but who's counting? Me, me, me!)

That reminds me, I'm off to go and gather all my decorations, and see if I have some apple-cider somewhere. 

Yahoo! Can you tell I'm exited?!

                                                           

 

Only one more week to Fall, yahoo!
Temperatures are going up and down as if not be able to decide what season they're supposed to be in.. We've had a few 85F days followed by some 65s and yes, another day of rain!
This was the look from my desk where the water came poring down the awning ..

                          

Shrubs and trees are showing seeds and berries, like these dry winged pods of the Ash trees (samaras or "ash keys") and the rose-hips of the wild Nootka roses on the right ...  
                                    

       


     
I've been collecting some of the apples and pears that have fallen down the trees here on the property. 

              

The pears are a little bruised and the apples a bit wormy but good enough for smoothies and applesauce.

                                    

   

I got a little better shot of the little fan I saw last week. This time it's mother was there as well but she jumped into the trees before I got get her in the shot. 

I'm very happy to know that she's alive and that this little one is not wandering around all by itself!
There have been a few cougar, bear and bobcat sightings in the forest behind us lately ...

Sitting at my desk I have a view, besides the pond of course, at the little patio at the back of the RV as well. 
I often see the ground squirrels busily squirreling away, looking for seeds and whatnot but when I looked closely I saw this little guy who had climbed up one of the chairs where he enjoyed a great view of his surroundings ...

                                                               

He must have sat there for 5 minutes at least, lording over the rest of them .. or maybe being the look-out .. 

James had some repair-work to do today. The macerator, which chops our solid waste so it can flow through the pipes, had some problems and didn't move anything forward anymore.
Of course this meant that the (grey-water) tanks were overflowing ... which stinks something terrible!

   

Fortunately we always have a back-up one available so after taking the old one of he installed the new one and thank-goodness everything was re-solved in less than an hour.
Great job hon'!

But of course that was not all, these things always happen all at the same time, we'd smelled propane gas outside the RV yesterday, so James had turned it off until he could look at it.

              

It turned out to be the gas regulator which was leaking gas:

                                         

It can not be taken apart so we have to replace the whole thing. Oh well, it 'only' lasted 26 years, so I guess it could be worse.

So, two problems resolved ... time for a nice cup of Joe and some cake!

Just as well that I'd baked Shirley's (James' mum's) Blueberry Buckle yesterday:

This recipe calls for Grisco, which I never use, but I remembered I still had a tub in the pantry so I thought I was good. 
Well, it turned out that it was a tad expired ... how does 8 years sound?
Now, lard has a long life but this was too much even for grease and I had to throw it out. But, by some miracle, I discovered a small bar in the fridge!
Expired as well, but only 2 years and unopened, and after thorough inspection it appeared in perfect shape. Phew, saved!
Second problem, I only had 1 cup of all-purpose flour and needed two so I used 1 cup of bread flour instead. 

This is how a lot of my cooking and baking goes ... but guess what? It came out great. Also as usual!

                                         

Black-capped Chickadee

Since they forecasted rain for a couple of days I made sure to have all my outdoor tasks done and my longer walks in before it arrived on Wednesday.

On my walk into the forest on the logging-road I finally managed to get a shot of the above chickadee! 
They're always around but they're so busy, always in motion which makes it hard to get a decent picture.
And although they're not rare, and I have seen them before, they never show up at my feeder over here so I was tickled pink with this shot. It's the small things ...

And than on Wednesday, right on cue, the rain arrived.
Besides Saturday, when the weather-gods were nice to James and kept it dry so he could golf, it rained every day, and at times pretty heavy!
As of me writing this on Sunday afternoon, we've had almost 3.5 inches!

                                                                                

We still had some drizzle this morning but it has been dry since about noon and I chanced a little walk to get some fresh air.
The slugs and snails were out in force. 
I liked this one with that red stripe on his little house and the slightly reddish color of its body. 
So color-coordinated!

The Queen Ann's lace flowers have all gone to seed now and have turned into a nice rusty fall color:

Some of my vegetables are only now reaching their full height like this huge mass of Basil (on the left) and a wild tomato which I definitely haven't planted there in the tub on the right, but I take it!

             

I hope to make that Basil into some nice pesto!

Next up for the weekly Soup-Saturday routine was a (dried) Black Bean with carrots, onion, garlic, some spices and (plant-based) ground 'beef':

I made it in 30 minutes in the Instant pot and smoothed 2 cups of it with a hand-held blender.  
Served with a little yogurt and avocado, it was delicious!

And here's something exiting: maps, notebook, computer searching ...

Yes, we're planning a little (5 day) get-away at the end of this month!
We're thinking somewhere north, like the Mt Rainier State Park and maybe a little further up to Leavenworth, a little 'Bavarian' town in NW Washington.

It will probably be a little early for Fall colors but hopefully we'll see some. 

I'm looking forward to it, we're due for some R&R!

 

I wanted to get a shot of the beautiful blue sky and the pretty white clouds we have lately but I was a rather early at the pond on Saturday and there was still a lot of haze in the sky and shade on the banks.
It was a beautiful, cool morning though, with not a wisp of wind and only one early fisherman out.

This little bird was tromping through the reeds, on the hunt for bugs and other creepy crawlers:

                                           

At first I thought it was some sort of Rail or small Heron but I think it's actually a juvenile male (or even female) Red-winged Blackbird ... 

It actually almost felt a little like, do I dare to say it .. Fall?!
Many shrubs, like the Hawthorns and the Snow-berries are already loaded with berries and surprise, surprise I found a big cluster of mushrooms on the side of the path ...

                                                          

Closer to home this cute little fawn popped out of the shrubs and stood stock-still there for minutes when he saw me:

It's a fairly young one for this late in the season and I didn't see it's mother anywhere. 
I hope she's still around ..

James came home with these two, given to him by a client who apparently had a large vegetable garden and way too many of them:

                  

He forgot to ask what they were but I know the bottom one is a purple Kohlrabi. 
The other one is either a very large zucchini or some sort of summer Squash. 
Either way I think I'll just cook them up and we'll see how they taste.
They'll probably do well in a stew or soup, which is good news since I've declared the Saturday officially as a soup-day so they'll come in handy!

Lately I've made some new-to-me soups like this Carrot soup (on the left) with white beans and spinach and a Cauliflower soup (on the right) with sausage, sweet potato and Kale:

     
         

They were absolutely delicious and very fast and easy!
I've realized that you can make a soup of almost any 'normal' meal by just adding some broth or cream which makes for an easy and somewhat different meal than the usual way of eating it.

I also finally finished this insanely difficult puzzle by Jan van Haasteren, the dutch comic artist and illustrator, whose work is characterized by its high density of visual jokes and absurdities.

Not much else to talk about this week, just a nice, quiet 'getting-towards-the-end-of-summer kinda week. 
It's almost September, which for me sounds very much like ... FALL!

I know, not yet, but soon, it's coming!

                                

Last Wednesday we celebrated our 26th anniversary! I know, it doesn't seem possible to us either, but there you go ..
It does not have a traditional material theme, but it is officially represented by the modern gift of art, the gemstone jade and green as the symbolic color.

In comparison to last year's 25th extravaganza this year was a lot less exciting but we made a special day of it by going for a little road-trip to the Tillamook forest.

                        

And although there was no jade gift-giving going on, the dense forest definitely made up for it by surrounding us all day with the color green!
We loved driving the winding Wilson River Highway through the forest. Such natural beauty as far as the eye can see.

       

It took us about 1.5 hours to reach the area at the Wilson River where we wanted to take a look at the Bridge Creek Falls.
Unfortunately we were not able to see the falls because when we arrived at the trail leading up to them was blocked off by a rope and a sign saying access was not allowed due to maintenance of the trail by inmates!
Well, sjeez, bummer! Now what?

Not to be discouraged we looked around for maybe something else to see and discovered a parking lot on the other side of the road.
It so happened to be the start of the Footbridge trailhead where an easy, short trail led you down to the river below. 

                                          

There was even a small 'fall', well .. it was more like a rapid.

Moving on, we drove a few miles down the road to get to our coffee destination: Alice's Country House.                                                      

Besides the coffee, their main attraction, at least for us, was the promise of home-made pies and pastries.
And we were not disappointed!

See that little sign on the second tier on the right that says: 'famous Carrot Cake'?

I had a huge slice of it while James went for the Bread-pudding:

                                 
It took us a while but yes, we both ate the whole thing!

Needless to say, we were stuffed! Time to work it off by getting some exercise.
A short, 5 minute drive brought us to the Tillamook Forest Center:

 

The Tillamook Forest Center is the region’s largest forest-based learning center, and outdoor classroom if you will, to learn all about the forest it is in.
Lots of interactive displays (good for kids and adults both) about plants, animals, pioneers, early timbering history, and the big fires that shaped the landscape are all covered in the very modern and set-up building.

                                                 

There's a fire tower to climb, which in the end we didn't do, from which apparently you have a nice view over the top of the surrounding trees .. 
(We were going to but went for a hike first, after which we didn't have the energy left to do so. Yes, we're getting old ...)

A voluntary $5 donation (p/p) gained us two coasters made from branches of Douglas Fir, the dominant species of this forest:

On the hour and half-hour there's a short, very well-done documentary about the big fires (-with smell-O-vision - !) that have gone through this forest.

 

           

                                                   

The Tillamook Burn was a series of four massive, catastrophic wildfires that destroyed roughly 355,000 acres of prime old-growth timber in the Northern Oregon Coast Range between 1933 and 1951, which became known as the 6-year Jinx.
The initial fire started on August 14, 1933, from a logging operation and exploded into a historic firestorm.

It is actually quite surprising how beautiful the forest is only 80 years after the initial devastating burn.

After the film we spend about an hour checking out all the exhibits:

   

           

                                        

Big doors at the back of the building open up to an impressive bridge over the Wilson River, and gives easy access to the river.

You're allowed to swim in it, but the water was too cold for us wimps ...

        

Several short trails go out from here, but we choose to go on a little longer hike (1.7 miles) to the Wilson Falls.
Since we missed the Bridge Creek Falls we thought we might as well go see another one!

            

The trail was fairly easy going, not too many ups and downs, but it seemed a little longer than we had anticipated. 
In fact, we almost walked all the way back to the rapids we'd seen earlier that morning.

                                                                  

When we finally reached the falls we almost missed them, they fell down from high up in the forest and you only saw them when you accidentally looked up.
There wasn't a sign or anything that said these were it, but pictures we saw when we came back at the visitor center confirmed that they were!                 
                          

Like I said, it was a little further than I liked, and it got rather hot in the afternoon, but we were glad for the exercise and the scenery was absolutely beautiful!

         
 

We drove back the same way as we had come, but like I said, it's a beautiful drive and coming from the other side you always see things very differently.

We'd decided not to go for a fancy dinner this year but, of all places, go to IHOP!
We loooove breakfast and we drive by the place often saying that one of these days we should eat there again (last time we did was about 20 years ago!), so finally we did!

 

  

Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes ... world-famous even! You can't beat that!



We split a savoury one and a sweet one for desert:

                           

    

                                                                         

             All in all, we had a great time on our 26th! Let's go for many more!