This last week we finally got some 'normal' Oregon weather .. cool, overcast, cloudy and even some good rain! Oh well, it had to catch up on us someday ..


But the biggest news for this week has, off course, to be this:

                                                               

Yup! Those are tickets! To Holland! Yahoo!
I'm finally allowed in, but only because I have a dutch passport, and I don't need a 'compelling' reason anymore.
I'm flying with Iceland Air, who has very cheap tickets on certain dates, and I will have a 1,5 hr lay-over in Reykjavík, before landing in Amsterdam after a total flight of 12 hrs. Not bad! And because I booked with the airline itself, I can change my ticket (if something happens) for free! Better safe than sorry these days ...
So, great news off course, and fortunately everybody in Holland seems to be happy that I'm coming so that's always nice too!

I also don't have to go in quarantine anymore when I arrive because I'm no 'fully vaccinated'!

Yes!! We got our second shot of Moderna yesterday:

                      

In two more weeks we will have reached full immunity and we will be invincible! Well .. sort of ..

OK, all other news is just peanuts of course, but I'll still show some stuff from this last week, just because ..
Here are some more pics of what I come across during my daily walks here in the neighborhood:

Lots of pretty 'little' farms and quite some bigger ones .. and I'm getting to know lots of cute and pretty livestock too ..

Quite a few come over to the fence by now to get a scratch behind the ears. Maybe I should  start carrying some treats and I bet I'll be really in demand!
Although, once you start ..

This guy often hangs out at the barn on our property:

Red-breasted Sapsucker

For some reason he likes to hammer not on the wood on the left, but on the metal pipe on the right! It's very loud and I can't help thinking that it should hurt his beak, or at least his head!

Everything seems to flower at the moment, especially the roses and the early clematis:

   

      

And how about these Peonies?

  

Perfection!

Encouraged by my bread-baking succes of late, I baked some more. This is a half wheat/half white 'normal' kneaded sandwich bread and a sort of braided baguette:

Again, they came out pretty good! Just for the smell you will want to bake your own bread ... absolutely heavenly! James couldn't resist (of course) to steal the two end-pieces right away!

He himself made breakfast on Sunday. Now he has such a nice new guy-toy, he's totally getting into this. I'm not complaining!

Pouring eggs for scrambling ..