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!