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!