Another rainy week has passed. So far October has had almost 8 inches, at least according to the Salem Weather History site.
That's our rain gauge above when it was filled all the way to the tippity-top on Friday.
It's hard to see but it's completely full!



And that was after I'd emptied it last week in between showers when it was up to 5.5 inches and the week before that when it reached 3.5!
So, according to our gauge and my calculations we're up to 17 inches!

I guess we're somewhere in the middle which means a good foot has fallen. The (upper) pond I look at from the RV has risen to it's max and has started to overflow in the one below.
Fortunately we don't have to worry about flooding!

                             

                            

Although it is normal for October to be a rainy month, the excessive rain of the last week was caused by A so-called 'bomb cyclone', which is a rapidly intensifying extra-tropical cyclone, followed by another 'atmospheric river' like we had earlier this year.
Besides a lot of rain we also had high winds, up to 45 miles/hour, which means all trees are now mostly bare:

                             

Attempting to lighten the mood a little I brought some color into the house by bringing home this small Christmas Cacti from the grocery store.

Apparently these 'Christmas' cacti are actually 'Thanksgiving' cacti, and flowering in November. 
There is indeed a true Christmas-cactus but nowadays they’re not popular with greenhouse growers so you'll almost always and up with the Thanksgiving one.
Best way to keep them apart, besides the different blooming time, are the toothed segments of the Thanksgiving versus the smooth ones of the Christmas one.

My little plant is full of buds, I hope they'll all bloom! One has already started, isn't it spectacular?                                    

                                                      

Due to the weather it was another quiet week, mostly spent indoors, doing a lot of puzzling and reading and I also took some time familiarizing myself with my new phone.
I was so happy to finally be able to download a few apps I always wanted but was never able to download since my old phone didn't have enough space .. or something like that (I'm just so not computer-savvy).

I'm talking about the Merlin ID app, the Map-my-walk app and a plant app, they're in the middle row here:

Despite the rain I went for some of my normal, fairly short walks:

          

Map-my-walk shows for instance how far I walked, how long it took me, my steps and calories used and even the elevation gain.
How cool is that?

And this is the Merlin app:

   

 

Despite the rain it identified quite a lot of birds.
I didn't know we had the Golden-crowned Sparrow around but apparently we do, and now I know, I'll be on the look-out for them!

As you can see on the right it also identified Pine Siskins, which was not that difficult since every now and than we're beseeched by a large flock:

These little exceptionally streaky, small-billed finches flock to thistle or nyjer feeders and other small seeds.
They love to cling to the ends of conifer branches, even upside down, to feed at cones and will do the seem at the fine mesh of feeders:



They're feisty little buggers and you often hear their insistent twitters while quarreling over who gets the best spots on the feeders, even before you see them.

     

I love watching them, they're so entertaining!

The river is always a good spot to see birds and although I totally forgot to turn on my 'app' I came across this Heron the other day.
I actually see him almost every time I go down there but he's very shy and will fly away as soon as he sees me (which is way before I notice him).
This time he let me take his picture:
                                                                
                                                                       

The river is much higher at the moment and very fast flowing but I guess he's confident that he's fast enough to catch something:  

Like I said, it's been a quiet week so other than some food-pics I don't think I have much else to show for.
This was a delicious soup, a curry chicken with lentils.
As usual I'm not sure how I made it .. a little bit of this and a little bit of that .. but wow, soooo good!

                                                                                

And James left me a rather funny note the other day when I went for a walk, before he went to the office:

Since he works from home we often have coffee together these days and although we try not to go overboard with sugar and cookies he obviously wanted some that morning!
'Kookja' is his phonetic attempt to write the dutch word 'koekje' which means 'cookie'.
Close, but no cigar .. but I knew what he meant.

That day we had a small 'koekje' but, as usual, I made something bigger for the weekend:

                                                             

I've been binge-watching reruns of  several years of the 'Holiday Baking Championship' and got inspired to bake a (my first) 'roll'.
A pumpkin-roll (with pecans) to be precise and I was quite happy with the result!

            

Only 6 days to Thanksgiving, can you believe it? Next weekend I'll be decorating for Christmas!