I can't believe it's the end of October already and Halloween is just around the corner!
So far Fall has been a quite mild affair this year, it's been mostly dry and although temps have cooled down considerably it hasn't been too cold ... yet.
We did have a few 'almost-frosty' mornings last week though and the sunrises were often quite spectacular!

                  

                 

The colors are strong when there's a cold, clear sky but I think they're even better when there are some clouds for some extra 'drama'!

                     

And after the sun has emerged for real, the lingering fog over the meadows sets everything in a beautiful golden and orange glow ..

                     

                     
We sure live in a beautiful spot!

My niece had mentioned on the family-Whatsapp that the 'Oliebollen kraam' had once again arrived in town (which is Den Helder in the Netherlands btw)!
It usually arrives at the end of September and stays in town until Old Year's and I would be one of the first to get some! I love oliebollen!

But of course there's no such thing here in the States, although donuts or funnel cake come close, so what to do?
Yup, you bake them yourselves!

We bake them every year but always on New Year's day only, but this year I just couldn't wait!
At least we halved the batch this time, so we 'only' had 12 of them, but boy-oh-boy were they good!

                                                                 

                                                                                             Yummm!

Of course this doesn't mean that we're skipping them on New Year's.
Ha! No sirree!

Any-who. Since these delicious balls aren't necessarily without about a couple of hundred calories each we needed a good, stiff walk to offset some of the damage.

We decided to go back to the Baskett Slough, the National Wildlife Refuge on the way to Dallas where we stopped earlier this summer at their viewing platform and information kiosk.

This time we actually drove into the refuge until about midway where you can park and take one of the trailheads that take you through several areas of the reserve.

                                               

Since at the moment more and more migrating birds, especially geese, are arriving each day they've closed the trails around the lakes for the season but there are still enough accessible which make for a nice, moderate hike.

From the parking lot we first climbed the small hill, Mt Baldy ..

  

At the top of which (125 m) you find this viewing area ..




Which gives you a nice 350 degree overview of the surrounding area ..

 

You had a peek of the lake in the distance but it was too far to see if there were any geese present and even the zoom on my camera didn't show any.
James thought he heard them but of course me being deaf I didn't hear a thing ..

    

      

We proceeded our way following the trail up and down through a beautiful oak forest and  after a while it looped back to the parking lot.
Although most people that go here rave about all the wildlife they see, we didn't come across any at all.
Of course it was the middle of the afternoon which is usually not the best time but still, it was a little disappointing

And since all that hiking had made us thirsty (nice excuse) we decided to stop  at the Salt Creek Cider House on our way back.

         

     

Again, this was one of those places we'd passed numerous times and always wanted to go but never went .. so far.
I'd read on Facebook that they recently harvested their new crop of apples so it seemed a good time to pay them a visit.

They have a pretty little set-up, with a pond and some ducks and the apple orchard that you can walk through.
Inside you can see the vats of cider merrily fermenting away ..

               

We decided to try a flight of 4 different ciders and since the weather was decent we went outside to sit at one of the picnic benches :

                                   
                                                                         

             

These were 'hard' ciders and I have to say .. I'm not a fan.
I just find them too harsh, too dry and than all those bubbles .. I just end up with a sour stomach.

In comparison we thought these were at least much, much better than when we took my sister and her partner to another cider mill this spring where all four of us thought their cider was really absolutely awful but no .. I guess we just don't like (hard) cider!

OK. Last, but not least:

I did it! I voted! For the first time since I became a citizen!

                 

So whatever happens .. I did my best!
 

Fall is in full swing these days. Quite often the mornings are starting foggy and temperatures during the day are not above the the high sixties. Some of the clearer nights have been dipping into the low 40s!

The fields and forest are all in fall colors and some trees have already lost most of their leaves!

I can't stop taking pictures of our surroundings, it' s so pretty right now, especially when the sun comes out and sets everything aglow:

  

There are a lot of small birds at the feeders at the moment. Fattening up for the winter I presume.
They have to be careful though since they're 'watched like a hawk' (yes, pun intended) by the Kestrels!
 (Which are falcons by the way)

The sun rises later and in a different spot right now and sets my inside fall decorations in a pretty orange light:

                     

But my outside decorations are not faring as well .. they are under attack by the ground squirrels!
Look at my poor straw-man here!

          

Every night they nibbled a little more off his hat, and did away with his left 'hand', until one morning, in broad daylight mind you, they took his pants!
The #$@%^! buggers!

And I don't know why but all of a sudden we are under attack ourselves by lady-bugs!

 

I tried to take a picture of them when they all congregated on our back window in the late afternoon (hence the orange light) but my camera had a hard time choosing between the light, my reflection against the dark window and the bugs ...

                                    

                                       

There are lots of them inside as well. No clue where they're coming from. We have screens on all windows.
At least they're generally thought of as being lucky. I'll take it!
(And I rather have them than spiders!)

A Google search told me this:
Ladybugs must find a warm, comfortable place to hang out during the colder months of the year.  They'll swarm inside during the early Autumn when it's getting cold, but it's still warm enough for them to fly. They're attracted by natural wood and siding and homes with lots of cracks or light colored areas (our RV is white and the back window faces south) on homes that are warmed by the sun.

And look at these beautiful eggs!

                           

As you can see I bought them from 'Dutch Delight', the dutch guy who lives in Willamina (only 3 minutes from us) and who bakes all kinds of dutch delicacies.
I think his prices are too high, and I bake almost everything he sells myself, but his eggs are going for the going rate of fresh eggs around here ($5 a dozen, although I think that's quite high as well!) so I ordered some.
And they're so pretty!

Well, I think that was all for the week. Here's a shot of this month's full moon, the Hunter moon, which coincidentally is another of this year's (four) Super-moons:



The October moon gets it's name from its historic status as a symbol for hunters to begin preparations for winter, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac, which also noted its sometimes referred to as a blood or sanguine moon.

You learn something new every day!
(although I sort of new this but forgot, as I seem to do a lot these days .. sigh ..)

 

It's that time of year when the sunrises become spectacular!
Clear skies made for the coldest morning air that we've had in months, the last few days around 45F.

The golden morning hour after sunrise still lingers when I take my walks around 9 and sets everything in that warm yellow light so characteristic of this season.

These horses in the meadow at the very end of our road where I usually turn around, were basking in the morning sun ..

 

                                   

And the trees at the river are turning more and more into their fall-finest ..

I startled a Wood duck:

 

And a little further a tiny Pied-billed Grebe ..

                                      

In a tree near the saw mill this Cooper (or is it a Sharp-shinned, I can't tell) Hawk kept his sharp eye on me:

           

I still get such a kick out of discovering birds around me.
I wish I could identify them a little easier 'on the go', by using one of those bird-sound identifying apps (like the Merlin-app), but my ancient phone apparently doesn't have enough memory to upload any of them.
James suggested buying a newer model phone but my cheapskate nature has troubles discarding something that isn't broken so ..yeah, I'll think about it ..

                                            

On my weekly run to do groceries I pass Farmer John's and seeing all the pumpkins laid out around the building I stopped to take some pictures.

They have some fun and entertaining slides, games and activities set up for the children and I bet they sell a lot of fall-stuff inside at the moment.

Maybe I'll go inside next time to check it out, although last time I did that I was appalled by the cost of everything!
I know .. buy local and 'green' and all of that but it's usually not in my budget, so sue me for buying at Winco/Walmart  ..

I guess this is a rather short post this week but I can't think of much else to report.
All I have left are some food-pics .. cheap fillers indeed but it takes up a lot of a person's time doesn't it, so why not?

                                     

Like I mentioned last week this is a time when you have hutspot, a typical dutch and very filling winter-dish, on one of the cooler evenings ...

And coffee outside in the sun on a beautiful sunny morning:

Apparently tomorrow we'll have one more day in the 70s but after that they're predicting 8 days of cloudy and rainy days ... bring it on, I say. I'm ready!

 

Two weeks into Fall, which means we've entered October.
The weather is still hanging in there with temps mostly in the mid to high seventies although the nights have been downright nippy with early mornings in the low 40s!

I love these cool morning walks, they definitely have put an extra spring in my step!
It's funny how most people think of winter as a time to hibernate whereas for me it's the summer I try to 'sleep/make it through' and to re-emerge in Fall when I start to breath and live again!

                                        

It only has rained two times in the last 2 weeks during which we had about half an inch of water.
It sure was refreshing though, you could almost hear nature sighing of relief!

             

                                                                                        
                                                  

Although the pond next to us has almost no water in it left it is quite popular lately among waterfowl.
These 3 couples of Mallards are here almost every day for a while and sometimes stay overnight as well.

  

The morning after one of the rains I came across this Newt at the edge of the pond:
                                                                                                           

    

Newts can breath in water as well as on land and especially when it rains they tend to come ashore to hunt for insects not found in water.
We saw loads of them in the Spring but I hadn't seen any lately so I'm glad to see they're still around! Well, at least one ...

The fall-vegetables I tried to re-sow a couple of weeks ago all came up .. and all died after barely a week or so of minimal growth.
After doing absolutely nothing all summer my squash put out some (mostly male)flowers, but also 2 female ones that seem to be growing tiny squashes if you look real close:

It's a miracle! Better late than never I guess .. although I doubt that they will grow into something edible.

The one Clematis I have, which produced a couple of beautiful flowers in June, is giving me two more. In October!

                                            

 
And fortunately the blueberries are adding some (fall) color to the otherwise empty raised beds ..

    


This is a Mountain Ash which lives just behind the red barn:

We're lucky to be able to see it's pretty yellow fall-colors since it's owners, our landlords, actually can't since the barn is in the way.

I was thrilled to see this Kingfisher one morning, sitting on the electric wire alongside our road:

 

He was in company of a Blue Jay and funny enough they appeared to be sort of friendly.
They sat amiably fairly close to each other (without bickering) and when the Kingfisher moved a little further down the wire, his 'friend' followed.                 

So cute!   

 

Nothing much else happened this week that I can think of.
Work has been slow all of September but this Friday James got a big estate appraisal which will be divided in 5 separate ones and later that day he got 4 more!
When it rains it pours .. literary!
(Funny enough, when I checked last years work situation, exactly the same thing happened at the beginning of October!)

I finished my first Fall puzzle:

                   
So much easier than those deer of the previous one!

And when I went grocery shopping this week I couldn't resist getting a few fall-related items:

We already had those Pumpkin Spice Rolls with coffee and they were good, not exceptional, but OK.

                  

   Smothered in pumpkin spice icing. We tried not to think of the calories!