I took these amazing shots of the rising (!) sun when there still was a lot of smoke/smog in the air from the Oregon fires. 

And although those fires are of course devastating, so much nature lost, houses lost, even towns gone, sights like this are pretty awesome nevertheless, I must say!                                                           

 

                                      

Fortunately, since then, we've had some rain and most of the smog has been washed out of the skies. Guess what ... it turns out that he sky is still blue! I was getting worried there for a while ..

 

 

And just in time too, because it's Fall! Yeah! Only the (my) happiest time of the year!

I dug up my decorations from under the bed, bought pumpkins at the fiddle creek store and collected some fall-looking flowers, pine-cones and other dried 'stuff'.

Eh, voila .. Fall in the Hess-mobile!

 

I even picked up my knitting from last winter ... I swear I'm going to finish those socks this year!

 

Today it's another rainy day and cool enough to turn on my little 'wood-stove', so I'm all cozied up in that chair for as long as it will last.

Which will not be long, because I've seen warm weather predicted for the rest of the forecast with temps in the low 80s .. sigh.

 

OK. What else? Not much news I'm afraid. 

The guys are still working hard to get the siding done, before Sam and Ronnie arrive this coming Monday, and James is trying to get some of the cabinets painted.

 

                         

 

I've even been recruited to work on the window and door frames, which will need two layers of clear varnish. Vino is working ahead of me to sand everything, than I come in to varnish, and behind me James (the other James) and Austin will start to lay the floor down.

The fireplace is pretty much done:

                               

Unfortunately one of the cogs in this 'well-oiled machine', caused for a little hick-up these last 2 days.

James came down sick with an upset stomach (he even lost a dinner), a killer headache and an overall aching body. After starting the guys in the mornings he would go back to bed, only to resurface every now and than to check on them.

It looks like he is much better today though, so let's keep our fingers crossed that that's behind him for now.

 

The now clear sky makes for nice walks again, and a couple of days ago I finally found out where the small flock of pigeons live, that I occasionally see flying around the neighborhood.                           

While I was on my river-front hike, the flock just came in over the mountain and circled around for a couple of times, before landing at, what I only now noticed, are small cubby-holes of little caves in the rocks fascia.

It appears they call them home, and of course that's not strange at all since these are Rock Doves or Pigeons! We know them as the typical city-pigeons you'll see in any self-respecting city's squares, but these are their 'wild' cousins that live in the country side.

                                           

 

It looks like they found the perfect spot to set up house here, sheltered from the elements as well as predators!

 

And look who else found a perfect spot as well, for happy hour at least, this last Sunday:

The  temperatures were perfect around 5 pm in the afternoon, and the sun had already set behind the mountains on the other side of the river so we were not in the (still too warm) sun anymore. 

We brought some chairs, wine, beer and munchies to the little rest-area on the river, that sits right in front of the driveway on the other side of the highway.                                      Because the river is so low right now, there's a perfect size 'beach' to sit and enjoy the up close view of the river. A very peaceful end to the day!                                            

And for a peaceful end of the blog, here's a pic of a delicious apple pie I baked with some nice apples from one of the trees along the gulch. Everything is better with apple pie!

So, there it is, once again .. another week of our lives, nothing spectacular, but good 'nough'. I won't get into Covid (numbers rising everywhere during this 2nd wave), and especially not into the elections (less than 6 weeks away!), but I'll just say .. onward and forward!                                                                                                                                      

Keep the faith! Or something like that ..