This gorgeous Wisteria is draped over a trellis in Doug's yard, right next to the blueberries.
Depending on the variety, Wisteria smell rather delicious (sort of a Freesia smell) or they downright stink, and some might flower a second time, sometimes even a third, further into the season.

Oregon is probably at it's greenest at the moment, all trees and shrubs have leafed out and due to ample rainfall earlier this month the whole state has turned into some sort of jungle!



Due to the wonderful sunny and dry weather we're able to work steadily towards our departure .. only a week from now!
Unfortunately my raised beds will not make the move, the wood of the pallets is just to old and will brake when lifted, so I dismantled them and they were tossed on the burn pile.
I did save the soil (into 23 sand bags) since it's only a year old and should be totally fine for another year or so after a little enrichment ..

The pallets that make up our porch (covered by the mat) are fine and will come with us though.
We revealed an intricate tunnel system underneath. I'm not sure if they're gopher- or chipmunk-made?

In between all that hard work we made sure to get in some R&R.
It's really hot during the day (85-90F) but when it's cooling down a little in the evening it's just perfect for a 9-hole round of golf!



It was my first time back on the course after 1.5 years, if you can believe it!
First I was down for almost a year with Plantair Fascitis in my right foot, when that healed I stubbed my foot and broke a toe in my left and at the moment, despite not having golfed for all that time, I'm actually suffering from a golfer's elbow!
Besides golf, the latter can be caused by any repetitive movement of your arm/elbow/wrist .. but for the life of me I wouldn't know what I did. Blogging?

It was a gorgeous evening and I was very happy to notice that everything went just fine.
My game was as lousy as ever (ha!), but my feet were OK and I was able to use my arm in such a way that I didn't feel my elbow .. go figure.
We did use a cart this time around but next time I'll try to walk, I think I will be just fine!

And that will be all for this week. Due to the heat and the upcoming move we're not that 'out and about' at the moment. At least next week the temps are coming down to more 'normal' for the season, around the mid 70's. I'm not complaining!

Here's a pic of one of last week's sunsets. Not that spectacular but pretty enough!

 

It has been a beautiful week with temperatures in the 70s, just like I like it.
I'm not looking forward to the coming week though for which they forecast temps in the high 80s and even a few low 90s! Yikes!

In our swampy 'back forty' the Trout lilies (aka adder's tongue, white dog's-tooth violet, serpent's tongue, trout lily, deer tongue, and yellow snowdrop) as well as the Trilliums (wakerobin, toadshade, tri flower, birthroot, birthwort, and sometimes "wood lily") have already done most of their flowering:

                                

                                

I had some 'new' visitors to the yard again, this time in the form of a small flock of Quail. (Which is actually called a Covey, whereas a large group, which they form in late summer (sometimes more than 50 birds), is called a Bevey ..)

They don't stand still for a moment so the pictures are a little blurry ..

This buck has been hanging around for a couple of days as well. If you look closely you can see his new antlers coming in ..

He's totally unimpressed with us and is munching his way through the new grass and the young leaves of the blackberries, which apparently are especially tasty?
After a while he will lay down for a couple of hours in the high grass of the orchard to chew his cud and take a little nap. Life is good!

Last Sunday we went to see another matinee show in our beloved little Gallery Theater in McMinnville.
This time for the 1980s musical 9 to 5:

“9 to 5” Of course was the theme song to the 1980 film Nine to Five, a story of gender inequality in the workplace in which three female secretaries decide to get revenge on their tyrannical, sexist boss by abducting him and running the business themselves.
Dolly Parton starred in this film along with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. The theme song not only reached number one on the country charts, but also, in February 1981, reached number one on the pop and the adult-contemporary charts, giving her a triple-number-one hit.

              

The high-energy show was well done and we had a great time cheering on the girls and booing that bastard of a boss!
And although this is a lighthearted comedy we all felt some awkwardness at certain scenes when realizing it still captures what we hate about, and what is still wrong, in the workplace to this day ..

Talking about work, we still had a few things to do around the RV, like cleaning and re-waterproofing the awnings:

We do it every couple of years since the sun beating on the canvas slowly works away at it's protective coating.

James also checked the batteries which started to drain a little too fast over the last year and were probably on their last legs.
Sure enough, he couldn't get the truck started and when trying to re-charge them they wouldn't hold any charge.



So, 'out with the old and in with the new'! It turned out they were 10 years old! Not bad for usually only having a 4 to 5 year life-spam!

At the end of a busy day you can't beat the ease of throwing something on the BBQ.
Which we did.
Those are Teriyaki-marinated flank-steak strips (say that 3 times fast). Add some Sweet potato fries and a fresh salad and you're in business!

Yup! Life is good!

 
The rain did come back, as expected, but fortunately not for that long or that heavy as before and we even had a few dry days in between!
Pretty much all fruit and ornamental trees are flowering and I can't stop taking pictures of them. They're so pretty ..



We had a new (to us) bird at the feeders:

It's an Evening Grosbeak and the big colorful dude in the pictures above is the male, whereas the dull creature below is the female .. now where's the justice in that?
The animal world is really weird that way!

                                            

By the way, Grosbeak” comes from the French Gros for “thick” and Bec for “beak,” and these finches do have very thick beaks .. some might say they're grossly thick!
They're not exactly rare but they have declined in numbers over the last decade or so (loss of habitat) and not so easy to find. So cool that they stopped by!

As I mentioned, we had a couple of decent days, so we decided to tackle the RV for a spring cleaning:

We usually clean the whole shebang each spring and fall but last year the weather turned bad so suddenly and we had a lot going on that we never got to do the fall cleaning.
Which definitely started to show .. we'd gotten a little 'green' around the edges!

                 

Not having cleaned it for a year is only partly to blame though, because going through an Oregon winter with all the rain and the moderate temperatures takes care of most of the rest, as well as being parked under a huge oak tree which really finishes the deal!



James first tackled the roof, there was some nasty black algae growing there and I took on the north-side awning over the slide which was covered in green moss!

It took us a whole day and we were pooped, as well as soar, at the end of it.
We took a day to recuperate (during which we also took care of some exciting business. See below!) and when the next day promised to be sunny we soaped up and scrubbed down all the sides ..



After dinner that evening James treated the roof with a special rubber RV roof product to (somewhat) protect it from the elements and the job was done!
Woohoo!

So, let's talk a minute about that 'exciting business' I mentioned above ..
Well, it so happens that our landlord is going to sell the house, which includes 'our' orchard, and which means we have to move once again!
He's listing it per the 1st of June and wants the place vacant by than, but has kindly offered to park the RV for a while at their new place in Sheridan if we can't find anything else.
I called around a bit for vacancies at the local campgrounds but unfortunately most are full and we're also running into the problem that quite a few are thinking that our 23 year old RV is 'too old' for their parks ..
Than I wondered if an add on Facebook's Marketplace or Nextdoor would help, so I wrote one up and placed it.

Guess what, somebody reacted that same day and we met and talked things over and took a look at the site and  .. voila, this is most likely going to be our new spot!

The RV will be where the picnic table is sitting

It's the site of a previous mobile home that has since been removed but all utilities are still there and there's a cement foundation that we can park on.
The house where the couple who owns the place live is the grey building on the right so we'll be hidden behind the red barn for some privacy for both of us ..

The road we're on is a rural one and seems not too heavily traveled ..

This would be the one side and back yard:

Also, that red barn held an other surprise! The owner has an office in there which is big enough for 2 more people (he used to have some employees) and guess what ... James is welcome to one of the desks!

            

Another huge perk will be that we'll be bartering for our rent by helping this couple with mowing and maintaining the property, their large vegetable garden and greenhouse and occasional projects. How awesome is that?

Needless to say, we're very excited and are starting to clean up and reorganize ourselves a little because this means we're moving in as little as 3 weeks!

New adventures! I love it!

Bluebird

All of a sudden Oregon turned on it's Summer and did so pretty much overnight. We went from 65 to 76 to 85F in the blink of an eye!
Many plants have reacted by pushing their buds up and out and exploding into flowers everywhere you look ...

             

                                                                               

Our Blueberry bushes are covered in flowers, it's going to be a bumper crop this year:

Birds have gone into a frenzy of defending territory, finding mates and building nests.

Point in case, look what happens when you don't use your bicycle for a couple of days:

It's a Robin's nest and although she'll fly up every-time we pass too close, she keeps coming back and seems persistent in wanting to raise a brood in that basket .. oh, well, I guess I won't be using that bike for a while.
(13-17 days until they hatch and 13 days until they fly out)

The male Goldfinches have changed their drab olive plumage into a bright yellow outfit, trying to impress the girls :                                                   

                        

Not much else is happening at the moment other than that halfway the week we celebrated my birthday! Another lap around the sun as they say .. that makes 62 of such laps, gosh .. how's that possible?

My dutch family send me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates!

We went for a nice dinner to a new Indian restaurant we hadn't been yet (forgot to take pictures which is what a 62 year old brain does to you) and enjoyed some coffee on the patio at home afterwards ...  

It's light until after 8pm at the moment with temperatures still in the 70s at that time.
All in all a fitting end to a rather perfect birthday!  

This odd summer weather can not last long of course and will come to an end soon if you believe the forecast for the coming week, but we take what we can get for now.
Just being dry for a couple of days has been such a big improvement!

                       

                    

Well, apparently  La Niña, the cool phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern (yes, I looked that up), has left the building! After a year and half of non-stop La Niña, the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere system has transitioned to neutral.
In other words the seemingly never-ending cold, wet weather should come to a stop and we should finally starting to warm up, and hopefully dry up, as well!

Today was the first real dry day in a week and boy, doesn't everything look so much better with some sunshine!

                                           

Apparently nature is more than 2 weeks late but it's finally starting to get really pretty out there!

Last Saturday the town was having it's yearly Camellia festival. We attended last year but passed on going this time around since it was rainy and cold.
Many of the Camellias in town are in full bloom right now, like this beautiful, huge red one I pass often on one of my walks:

The Big-leaf Maples (left pic) are unfurling their buds and the Horsetails (on the right) are shooting up super-fast!
The latter are extremely fast-growing plants that achieve full height within a matter of weeks.

      

And while exploring our very soggy 'back 40' I came across the first Triliums ...

So pretty!

It's been one of those very quiet weeks in all, nothing much else to write about I'm afraid.
I baked another bread:



It's a half-half white/whole grain, and I think this was one of my best sandwich breads ever.
Now where did I save that recipe?

I'm also making an effort to eat a lot less meat, from everything I read it's just a lot healthier and I'm also getting more and more worried about how animals are treated these days.
I'm googling all sorts of vegetarian recipes and am trying them out when I can.
Some are made with 'fake' meat and a lot are using beans or eggs or fish as substitutes.

Cauliflower is all the hype at the moment of course, with cauliflower pizza dough or cauliflower mash or even cauliflower 'steaks', like these:

Served with a sweat potato mash and a Ceasar salad it was a very tasty, and colorful, meal!

I finished this puzzle yesterday. Little kittens in a shed with packets of seeds and pots with flowers.
Rather Spring-like I'd say ..

And that was all for the week. Let's hope the nice weather they're promising is really happening and Spring will start in earnest soon. Better late than never!