A couple of our mornings started real foggy this last week .. compliments of Fall!
I love walking through the mist where all sound is buffered and everything looks rather spooky ..

                                         

There's something oddly comforting about it .. peaceful but mysterious as well.
I love it!

Almost overnight these mushrooms have popped up in our neighbor's old mulch heap:

                      

                                         

                                        Amazing what a little moisture will do!

Which a couple of days later looked like this:

               

Funny!

                   

The apple and pear trees are dropping their fruits and if they're still looking somewhat OK I take them home.
I've dried some of them in my dehydrator again and the pears
especially are really, really nice!

                                                         

If you ask me it's high time to start making some comfort food so I made my first batch of Pea soup.
It was sooooo good! I'm looking forward to many more!

                           

Now the colder weather is approaching James went to get a COVID booster and while he was at it he also opted for a flue shot.
He's also due for a Tetanus booster and the CDC recommends all adults age 65 and older get a pneumococcal vaccination as well so he'll have both of those done next month.
Better be prepared than sorry!
(Of course I'm not 65 yet and uninsured (unlike James who now has Medicare) and the COVID shots are not free anymore but will cost us $200 out-of-pocket (not gonna happen), so I'm doomed .. oh, well, welcome to America!)

Halfway through the week the weather had a change of heart and turned back to almost summery conditions again, although he nights are definitely cooler and the mornings are starting very crispy in the high 40s, low 50s now.
Perfect weather for a nice walk! I googled for short hikes around Sheridan and found one that sounded promising at the end of Gopher Rd, which is just 10 minutes from us.

         

Located in Gopher Valley at the confluence of Cronin Creek and Deer Creek, Deer Creek Prairie Park is a small 29-acre park with lots of picnic areas beneath a grove of 100-year-old Oregon ash.

   

We used one of the benches for a coffee-break and enjoyed the peaceful surroundings and the sound of the small creek at our backs.
We were the only people there, which is not unusual for this rather 'out of the way' little park.

Apparently this park contains the largest wet prairie ecosystem in the lower Willamette Valley and attracts regional attention each spring when both very rare and more common wildflowers burst into bloom.
Of course we got there in the Fall when none of those plants are to be seen but at least we got to enjoy the start of the Fall-colours:

   

One of the more interesting features of the park is a long boardwalk that brings you to a small viewing platform overlooking the marsh and wetlands.

Out in the open grassland a few wild-fowers (Leafy Aster and Nelson's Checker Mallow) were still hanging on to summer with a few late flowers:

  

This little butterfly (a Common Wood-Nymph) was trying to steal some last sun-rays before it's (short) life will come to an end ...

   

After the dry summer we've had there wasn't any water left in the marsh and the Cattails had all dried  up:

 

 

                                                   

I can see that lots of small mammals use this soft fluff for their nests!

Although the park map on site shows a path around the wet (in our case 'dry') prairie .. well, that path doesn't exist.
The boardwalk covers 1/4 of it and after that we had to sort of make our own loop around the grassy area, which fortunately was recently mowed.

Deer Creek contained almost no water either ..

Apparently this park looks very different in the spring when, after recent rains, it is prone to flooding.
We might have to go back!

We didn't see any wildlife in this park but closer to home (at the railroad tracks of all places!) I came across this doe and her three(!) fawns one morning:

They were making their way to the other side of the tracks and weren't too spooked by seeing me there, so I managed to take a few pictures before they quite calmly stepped away into the trees again. So cool!

Which reminds me of this puzzle I finally finished:

This is definitely one of the most difficult puzzles I ever made, it took me all of September (and a lot of sighing, cursing and pulling out of hair) to finish, but I did it!
I don't know if I'll ever try it again though ..

I'll finish with a few pictures that show how the weather can not quite make up her mind what it'll do from one day to the other .. summer, fall .. fall .. summer ..
One day we're having pea-soup, next we're firing up the BBQ again:

Spicy (thin) ribs with fries and a summer salad.
The forecast is still rather 'good' (if you like that kind of weather) so I suspect this will not be the last time we're eating outside yet ..
Summer is still hanging in there!

                                                      

Willamina High School, just behind us

Always in search of new places to walk, I recently took a chance and climbed over the fence at the far end of the property and than the hill behind where I suspected I'd find the grounds of the nearby High School.
And I was right ... !

                                                         

It's very close to us (as the crow flies) and when the weather is nice and we sit outside on Friday evenings, we can hear the sounds of the football game taking place.
A couple of weeks from now, when it will get dark much earlier, we'll also see the huge field lights coming on.
I didn't gain much in the case of more walking trails, but I can make a small loop up and down that hill and back, so I might go there every now and than.                    

The low early-morning light made the grass glow and the spiderwebs glitter!

     

You know what it looks like? Yes! Fall!
It's Fall Y'all, my most favorite time of the year!

I jumped the gun a little and decorated already on Wednesday ... shush, don't tell anybody!

          

My recently acquired little shelf is of course perfectly decoratable .. is that a word?
(not according to spell-check it isn't, but what does it know?)

                                


After a long summer-break the Gallery Theater in McMinnville has started it's Fall/Winter season and we had bought tickets earlier this year for one of the matinee performances of 'Grease'.
(which was a good thing because all shows are booked solid)

 

The first reviews were in and had been overwhelmingly positive so we were looking forward to a fun evening, rolling back the years to the 1950s (although it really is a '70s experience at heart, it coming out in 1978).

                                           
                                                        
As usual, we were not disappointed, it was another great show!
Once again we were blown away by all the talent of the amazing cast and the ingenious decors and spot-on costumes.

Definitely: Grease is the word!
(now only trying to get 'Summer nights' out of my head!)

Since James was all caught up in work we took some time off yesterday to pay a visit to the Brigittine Monastery in Amity.
Coming and going to McMinnville and Newberg we come across the sign for this Monastery every time and keep saying that 'one of these times we should check it out' but so far never did.

Time to remedy that!

The Order of the Most Holy Savior, informally known as the Bri(d)gettine Order, is a monastic religious order in the Augustine tradition of nuns, religious sisters and monks founded by Saint Bridget of Sweden (Brigitta) in 1344 and approved by Pope Urban V in 1370. There are today several different branches of Bridgettines.                                 

Down a short, scenic gravel road in the middle of farmland behind a hazelnut orchard, this is a quiet religious retreat with pretty landscaped grounds.
There's a small chapel which can be viewed from the inside if there is not a current mass.
It's stained glass windows are very pretty.

And since pretty much all monasteries are obligated to be largely economically self-sufficient the monks here make chocolates and fudge to provide for its maintenance.
They hand roll the chocolates and make fudge of a wide variety like lemon, mango, lavender, classic chocolate and, at the moment very popular, pumpkin!

A small gift shop with chocolates, free samples, and a few religious items like books and rosaries is located next to the chapel and of course we had to go inside and do some thorough taste-testing ..

                                    

Unfortunately they're insanely expensive so we only bought two of the smallest baggies of the small chocolates, 3 for $6, instead of the 6 (bigger ones) for $24!
I'm all for supporting your local businesses but jeez, that's ridiculous!

They were good though!
(and gone quickly)

Afterwards we drove to the little town of Amity, checked out main street (2 blocks if at all) and had lunch at 'The Common Cup', which is pretty much the only place in town available to do so ..

Besides really good coffee they 'specialize' in waffles and we tried out their whole wheat with brie, fig compote and hazelnuts which was absolutely delicious!

 

                                                
                                  I agree and I'm pretty sure 'we'll be back'!

On the way home we stopped at the Wallace Farm to (U-) pick some Blueberries:

We pretty much ate all the blueberries we picked and froze when we still lived in Newberg in 2021 and 2022 so we needed to restock to get us through the winter.
We love them with our cereal or in pancakes for breakfast and blueberry cobblers and muffins are just the best!

                                                                     

As you can see we had a little helper. She was so cute!

                       

By the way, we see these machines in the fields around us all the time. They're blueberry-pickers and of course the farms use them to pick the majority of their crops:

                                                           

And that was all for this week I think.
The weather is still on the warm side, they even forecast an 89F for Tuesday, but also a little rain on Wednesday and temps  in the low 70s for the rest of the week.

But yes, it's Fall, at last! Things are looking up! (but that's just me)

Take a look at that sky! It didn't bring us any rain though but earlier this week we finally got some overnight and a little into the following day as well.
It wasn't much, maybe 1/2 an inch or so but hey, at least we had some. It's a start!

Just to have more of an idea of how much we actually get I bought us a new rain gauge. We used to have one but it got very brittle and finally cracked.

                                                  

This one came with a stand which raises it up some so it's very easy to read and the numbers are  huge as well. Even I can read them without my glasses!
So ... let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!

Since I discovered the nice walk alongside the railroad tracks I now go there quite often and this week I found a spot where it's quite easy to zig-zag down the steep bank to the river ..

It's so pretty there!

I was watching a few ducks in the distance, I think this is a female Hooded Merganser:

 

When suddenly something else caught my eye ...

Guess what  .... it was an Otter!
How cool is that! I'd recently heard they were seen in this river and lo an behold, there he was!

                                                      
 
He (or she) was very busy trying to catch some fish, diving, turning and splashing and didn't seem to be aware of me at all.
I happened to be able to hide a little in the high grasses along the shore and didn't move and he swam right by me!
He kept on swimming downriver and eventually disappeared in the reeds.
I tried to secretly make several pictures but none of them came out very well.
Next time I'll be better prepared!

Closer to home .. 'something' has been eating almost all the leaves of my rose and Hollyhock:

%$#^@! I suspect it was a deer, it looks like too much damage to have been done by the ground squirrels to me, although those little buggers have already eaten my new cucumber seedlings that had just come up last week!

Fortunately they left the pansies I bought this week alone, but I'm afraid that will just be a matter of time ..

Whatever it was it wasn't this small raptor, a female Merlin, although she tried to get one of the LBBs (Little Brown Birds) the other day!

                                                     

She's an amazing agile huntress, trying to grab small birds in the air (on the wing) and always causes an enormous panic and raucous amongst the flocks of finches and sparrows that visit my feeders.

Sigh ... nature is definitely not for sissies! Live and let live, I guess ..

My 'human' live is a lot more calm and peaceful in comparison, although I'm still suffering from the aftermath of my encounter with poison oak.
My face has mostly healed but my neck and hands are still very, very itchy at times. I've been told it can take  up to 6 weeks before that will stop ... sjezus!

I'm spending a little more time inside now the weather gets cooler. More time to read!

Oh, I almost forgot .. the debate! I was so nervous, but she absolutely nailed it!

                    

                    That's right! You go girl! Forward! Right into the White House!