When in Rome ... !

Yes, we went wine-tasting .. again! It wasn't the plan, but it's hard not to stumble across a winery out here and they all try to lure you in sort of .. anyway, it's hard not to give in!
We did work for it somewhat though since we went for a hike, up hill even, so we agreed we deserved it .. yeah, yeah, .. excuses, excuses.

About that hike, we drove over to Harvey Creek in Dundee, which is all but 10 minutes from us.
                        

There's a quiet 1,5 mile loop hike, over the creek and up a fairly steep hill,through a lush forest of ferns, maples, and towering firs ..

There's actually a creek 'running-through-it' ..

And look at the moss on these branches: 

     

Halfway up the hill, you have a view over the hills to the north side:

When you reach the top you walk right onto the Dundee Pioneer Cemetery:

                         

This small cemetery was established in 1855 and the pioneers who are buried here were the first to establish themselves in this area.

There are some beautiful old stones where whole families were buried ..

  

And amongst a few 'unknown', which we've seen before, there were also some marked as 'occupied' .. kind of weird?

On the way back we drove for a while through the back roads of the beautiful Dundee Hills ...

         

You'll pass vineyard after vineyard, with their tidy rows after rows of beautiful grape-vines.
Known as the heart of award-winning Oregon Pinot Noir, the Dundee Hills boast over 100 vineyards and wineries!

So, guess what .. we ended up at another winery for some wine-tasting! Hey, somebody has to do it!
This time we visited the Dundee Library winery.
At first we expected there to be a real library, with books about wines, but it's actually a library with a collection made up of all kind of different and special (bottles of) wine.
Like such:



There's also a B&B on the premises, and the communal sitting room does actually have a book-library, with some of them about wines ..

                                  

          

As you can see they can raise the glass doors at the front of the building, so you can sit inside but have some fresh air, but the weather was absolutely beautiful, so we opted to sit out on the terrace, from where you have a beautiful view over the Dundee hills ..

Our flight of wines consisted of three different Pinot Noirs, with one Chardonnay thrown in for fun ..

          

Here's how it's done by a real expert ..

                                                 

It was a wonderful way to end the day, life is good indeed!
            

More and more trees are turning in our neighborhood. Here's a few in Doug and Brenda's yard ..



... and a few in the neighbor's ..

                          

And some already have fires going!

One more thing that happened this week was that we had to bring Merlin to the vet again. He was still barely eating and getting really weak.
Fortunately they had a cancellation on Tuesday so we could bring him in.
The vet did a thorough examination and studied the lab results again, but really couldn't find much else wrong with him, so she settled on an Irritated Gastrointestinal tract.
She gave him an anti-nausea shot and they tried to give him some SC-fluids, but he was a little too upset by then and didn't want any of it.


So, we went home with antibiotics, probiotics, an appetite stimulant gel and the bag of SC-fluids to try at home when he'd calmed down a bit.
As soon as we came home he wanted to eat (!) and he kept improving steadily during the afternoon! I was able to get 150 ml of fluids in him and 5 gram of the probiotics, of which he's definitely NOT a fan, but such is life ..

                            

We're 3 days further now and he's doing a lot better, thank goodness! We stopped all the meds accept for the antibiotics. His diarrhea has stopped and he's eating like there's not tomorrow!

So, yeah .. still crossing our fingers, but much happier! All of us!