It looks like we're ever so slowly transitioning into Fall, the fields are all cut and harvested and more and more are getting plowed to prepare for fall and winter crops to be sowed.

Our landlord has cleared the slope in front of their house for another 8000 (!) Christmas trees to be planted in the spring. 

It will be interesting to see how the orchard will take shape and how fast these saplings will grow ..

                          

Temperatures have been OK this week, not overly hot, although we're back into warmer weather these last couple of days.
As I've done since it got warm I still try to get my walks in before 10am, than putz around a little in the yard, watering, pruning and fertilizing the plants that are still hanging in there, after which I retire in the RV when temps are reaching into the 80s again.

I've come across this male Quail a couple of times now.



Usually they travel in flocks but this one looks to be all by himself, which for such a social species is rather odd?
Poor guy, he's probably lonely, he almost seems to seek my attention ...

The obnoxious Blackbirds, who'd raid the bird feeders every day, finally seem to have left us for greener pastures (or maybe they're migrating already?) but now we're being terrorized by a whole colony of young Ground Squirrels.
It's hard to see (how's that for blending in) but there are three of them at the bottom of one of my bird-feeders in this picture:

                                                                                          

They're after the fallen seeds but while scratching and digging they're undermining the poles the feeders hang on!

          

I found one of the poles laying on the ground a while ago, they'd dug a hole right underneath it, causing it to collapse. I was lucky it didn't fall down the slope into the pond below!
We've placed some gravel around the bases but it doesn't seem to deter them too much, I have to restore the mounts every morning! Sigh, always something ..

Here's a collage of the coming Fall ... soon!

James has done some work on the roof of the office again. Somewhat by coincidence he discovered that the black rubber he used gets blazing hot in the full sun!
Not quite what you want to happen when you're trying to keep the building cool ..
(By the way, see my climbing beans there? They're finally taking off!)

                                                                              

After some researching he decided to add another layer on top of the existing one, this one of a slightly different material and, most importantly, white!
First he rolled on a layer of glue:

Followed by the pristine white layer of the new material. Fortunately our landlord hadn't found the time to cut the (black) side-metal and gutter for us so we changed the order into white ones as well.
Like I said, it's always something ..

I finished the puzzle I snatched up at the garage sales a couple of weeks ago for a buck!
The box had been opened but the puzzle-pieces were nicely packed up in a zip-lock bag so I hoped all pieces were there. It's little bit of a hit and miss at these sales, but fortunately all were accounted for!

It was a fairly 'easy' one, although that little birch-tree there at the right of the house had me stumped for a while!
I've already started a new one. This one I borrowed from our land-lady and according to her it's a very challenging one, so we'll see ..

                                                                      

Part of it's difficulty lies in the fact that the pieces are very irregular!

 

The temperatures at the end of the day are starting to drop considerably now the summer is dwindling down, which allows us to have dinner outside much more often than in the previous weeks when it stayed hot for much longer.



These 'Beyond beef sausages' are really good, especially dressed up with a load of onions and bell-peppers of course ..

  

James called me outside last evening to see the peculiar light-beams caused by the setting sun in this picture:                                                      

It looks an awful lot like that of the light in the rising sun I used in the previous post,
doesn't it?

Another blessedly cool week has gone by with temps in the mid 70s!
The different layers of cloud-cover every day caused lower temperatures and occasional cool breezes. Morning sunrises, as you can see, were quite spectacular ..

Monday morning wasn't any different, besides the fact of course that it was the day of our anniversary!
Twenty-four years .. I bet there were people who doubted we would make it this far ..
But here we are, and so we did. Still going strong!
We decided to celebrate by spending a day 'in the country' and explore some villages and roads we'd never been to.

                                    

We set out for Dallas, a town we'd been to before to do some shopping but never properly explored.
On the way south we made a short stop at the viewing platform and information kiosk of the Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge, which we'd also passed many times but never checked out any further.

  

This being a 'wetlands' area, home to several threatened and endangered species, like the Fender's blue butterfly and the Dusky Canada goose which winters here, we were surprised to not see any water at all.

                                                 

Wondering how this area will fill up with water in the short time that is left before they'll arrive, we found out later that apparently there are big active habitat restoration and deferred maintenance projects going on at the refuge for which they drained the canals that they use to flood the fields.
I guess we'll have to check it out again somewhere in the future. I'd love to hike some of the many trails here!

After arriving in Dallas (Oregon not Texas) we first checked out it's City Park.

It's a small park but offers quite a variety of scenery with playgrounds, a creek running through it, a frizz-bee golf course, and a high tension foot bridge:

                                       

                                      

There even was a Japanese Garden, although it was teeny, tiny and unfortunately under construction:

Next to the park is an Arboretum where a few short trails lead you through a pretty little forest, large meadows and alongside the small, scenic creek.

                                                                              

 

          

Back in town we had coffee and pastries at Karma Coffee:

   

After which we drove for a while through the surrounding countryside.
James had an appraisal order for a large property in the area and since he almost never works in this neck of the woods he needed comps.
Combing work with pleasure. Perfect!

                         

                        

We stopped at one of the (many) road-side fruit stands/barns for some fresh eggs and peaches:

  

Nothing better than tree-ripened fruit and eggs from happy chickens!!    

                                               

After about 1.5 hrs we ended op in the little town of Independence. 
Once a center for boat trade on the Willamette River and a booming hops industry in the 1890's to the 1940's, it's a cute town with a lot of pretty, historical houses lined up along main street.

 

Here's a thing .. how do all these towns keep their hanging baskets looking like this?
Mine are just pathetic in comparison .. it bugs the heck out of me!

                                              

Time for lunch! We ended up in 'River', the Gilgamesh Brewing location in this town.
We've discovered a long time ago that breweries usually serve good, simple but very tasty food and their craft beers are always fun to try of course.

 

                                

 

They had a cozy brewery-style in-door space, but we opted for the nice and airy out-door covered space. 
Our waiter took a pic of the happy couple:

Congratulations you two!

As I mentioned, we split a nice large glass of that craft beer ($9 for that glass, crazy!), and an insanely good pulled-pork and bacon Mac&cheese!
(No calories in that one!) 😆

 

OK, on-wards, next up: Salem!                                                 
Or rather, the Salem Center shopping Mall. This was again one of those places we'd driven by but never visited, so, high time to remedy that!

I'm not a shopper by any means but I just wanted to see what shops were there, and sometimes it's just fun to browse a little ..
Which is what we did, and it was OK, and now I know. Been there, done that!

Time for the last item on our 'to see' list. The Salem City Park.
Every time we drive over the bridge over the Willamette River here, my eyes are drawn to the view of the Paddle Wheel boat at the dock in the park down below. 

 

This is a picture of the bridge I stole from the Internet and the boat is somewhere there below, but of course you can not see it in this particular shot ..
After driving down to the park, just minutes from the city-center, we walked up to the docks and look .. there she was:

 

                                      

You can book sightseeing tours, during which they take the boat out for a while, some of which include lunch or dinner depending on the time.

They actually tour the Park's Oxbow Slough, not the river, another wetland/floodplain environment that lots of water fowl and other wild-life are calling home.

Riverfront Park itself is a 23-acre park which offers good views of the Willamette River, nice walks, perfectly manicured grass and vegetation, benches and picnic tables as well as many mature shade trees to sit under, an amphitheater for performances, restroom facilities and even an old-fashioned (but new) carousel.

The wooden carousel is protected from the elements inside this pavilion above:

How I loved these carousels when I was a child, I always wanted to ride the largest horse!
In hind-side I wish I'd gone for a nostalgic ride ($2) .. o well, next time!

(I thought this was an old carousel but apparently it is newly handcrafted, built by volunteers for the Salem community!)

And there you have it. Our 24th anniversary day. Next year our 25th!
Maybe we should throw a party? Nahh .. but maybe we'll do something a little more special than we normally do.

Mmm, let me think ..

 

Oh, I almost forgot. I took some pics of the Super Blue Moon that day:

 

  Look, it's really blue! .......

    Just kiddin', I used my photo software to 'cool' it's color .. it was yellow.