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)