The first hay of the summer is 'in'. The small meadows around the house and RV, not planted with Christmas trees, have been cut, dried and bailed.
The smell and look of the fresh dried grass always feels like summer to me ..

                      

I keep finding new summer flowers on the side of our road. These I think are Clarkias, a variety of evening primroses:



                                               

The pond is a coming and going of Dragonflies hunting after bugs, especially mosquitos:   

            

As I mentioned in the previous post temperatures were predicted to stay high and they reached their highest on Tuesday .... 99F(38C)!!

Thank heavens it cooled down after that and we're now looking pretty 'stable' at around 85F(30C). Still too high for my liking but much better ...
|We decided to find some shade in the forest and found this hike on-line:

                                                      

                                                           

Never knew we had Niagara Falls in Oregon, let alone this close (as in 45 minutes) to us!
Just out of Willamina we drove into the shady and especially cool (56F) Siuslaw National Forests of the coastal Cascades, which was a wonderful relief!
As you can see, about halfway in, the road changed into a dirt(y) one ...

                                                        

Although we managed to get lost for a while, despite following Google Maps, because the road you turn left (at a hiking sign) the last .2 miles isn’t otherwise marked, but we eventually got to the trailhead.
You really feel you're in the middle of nowhere, not a car passed us by the whole way in!

Supposedly it was a 'moderately challenging' 2 mile hike in-an-out and it was, although we think it was at least a mile more than that.
It was a peaceful and secluded hike with fern-and-moss-covered trees, and not a sound or a soul, around us ..

   

We came across several different red berries:

                  

  

                            

James tried that last one, saying it was a wild raspberry. I'm still not so sure yet, but he didn't keel over so at least it wasn't anything too deadly.

After about 25 minutes you see the first of the two waterfalls appear through the trees. People tend to get confused and assume this is Niagara Falls but it's actually Pheasant Creek Falls:

And just around a bend is Niagara Falls:

                                           

We walked to the base of Pheasant Creek Falls where we enjoyed a very peaceful cup of  coffee at the strategically placed and convenient picnic table.

It wasn't until we were almost back at the car that we encountered a whole tribe of people, a big family with lots of kids.
Phew, did we get lucky to have this beautiful place for ourselves for a while!

Back at the ranch, James finally finished the wall in between the shed and the office.
I don't know how many layers of mud and paint are on that thing but it took a while ... yes, he's nothing but a perfectionist ..

      

We're waiting for some cabinets to arrive, which will be placed on the left side there (one hanging, one standing) for all his office 'stuff'.

Almost there!