Somewhere during this last week the skies cleared, temperatures rose above freezing, even at night, and all the snow quickly disappeared.
Everywhere but at the higher elevations of the Pacific Coast Range, which you can see there in the distant view, which still has a little bit left!

I've noticed lately that there seems to be some activity amongst the geese around here, their honking and characteristic V-shaped flying formations always a dead give-away.
Could it be they're already getting ready to move back north to their to their breeding grounds in Canada, Alaska, and the Arctic?

                       

I know geese are sensitive to changes in temperature and daylight hours, changes that trigger their migration instinct, but this seems very early.
The large groups at the big pond in town were gone, there's only this small group left.
Oh well, I guess they know what they're doing ..

Besides Buffelheads and Cormorants I noticed a few very pretty 'new-to-me' ducks, Common Mergansers, aka Sawbills:

Just for comparison, pretty much the same day a couple of Hooded Mergansers landed in 'our' pond, next to the RV!
This male didn't have his hood up when I finally was able to take the picture, he kept hiding behind the blackberry bushes, but it's a pretty bird regardless.
You can just see his very wide tail-feathers behind him, resting on/in the water and which he uses for great maneuverability when he dives .. or fights!

Sunday afternoon we once again went to Mcminnville's Gallery theater. We had tickets for the (almost sold out) matinee performance of Fiddler on the roof that day.

I'd only ever seen this wonderful musical once before on TV starring Lex Goudsmit, a dutch/belgian actor, who became quite famous in 1966 for playing Tevye, which role he performed some 1100 times in the Netherlands and in London.n.

Set in the little village of Anatevka, the story centers on Tevye, a poor milkman, and his five daughters. It explains the customs of the Jews in Russia in 1905, where their lives are as precarious 'as the perch of a fiddler on a roof'. .
With the help of a colorful and tight-knit Jewish community, Tevye tries to protect his daughters and instill them with traditional values in the face of changing social morales and the growing anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia.

The play was 3 hours long, including intermission, a little longer than usual but as usual it was sooooo good!!
The cast was excellent and the set, costumes and acting/singing were all amazing!
Everyone was giving it their all and especially the voices of the ensemble blended beautifully together. 

What a treat! As usual!

At home, the new puppy is starting to find his place in his new pack.
He knows who we are by now and frequently comes by either with one of his owners or accompanied by his dutiful 'babysitter', aka Coco, who patiently endures (mostly) his tireless playfulness::

                                                  

This is what he's here for though: keeping a watchful eye on what's going on!

Just in case someone dares to set foot on the property!
Like this large herd (also called 'gang') of Elk that showed up at the meadow next-door one evening:

I

 

The light was getting low but I could make out several males and I think this was their leader:

                                                            


I'm still trying to find my way in baking a decent, and consistent, sourdough bread and I finally might have found a winning recipe (so far).
It's by Gemma Stafford, an Irish Chef at 'https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/sourdough-bread-for-beginners/'.
Besides what seems to be the perfect recipe (at least for me), she gives you a clear and easy to follow schedule to follow, something that I found lacking, or being overly complicated, in all others.
Just look at this sandwich-bread I baked:

It tastes as good as it looks!

Finally, I think my Amaryllis bulb, which I bought in December, is finally opening up:

                                             

I'd almost given up hope but 3 days ago the buds cracked open and I see a little more emerging every day.

It's nothing but a (belated Christmas) miracle!

Much of last week looked exactly like the one before that .. grey and even more snow!
After a day or 2 of reprieve, during which the snow had all melted away and we actually saw some sun, it started coming down again early on Thursday morning and although the flakes weren't very big, there sure were a lot of them!

                                

It took only a couple of hours until everything was neatly covered up again and by coffee-time we were once again looking out onto a beautiful white world:

I went for a nice walk up the road. It's a lot harder to walk in the snow especially with my snow-boots so I have not gone for my usual longer ones this week, but it was still so pretty and felt so good to be out in the cold, fresh air!

 

                                                     

As you can see, the road dips up and down the shallow hills and the property we're on is similar 'hilly'.
Just perfect for .... sledding!

Serena (our landlord) has several sleds and invited me over for some back-to-your-childhood, good old fashioned fun!
(At least, it was for her, my childhood was of course spend in Holland, which is as flat as a pancake, so I had never done this before ..)

                                                                        

And fun it was! I had a ball! That little slope there turned out to be rather steep and we gathered some unexpected great speeds.
I'm afraid I might have screamed like a girl going down!

Here's a few of the prints I found around the RV.
Snow is a great give-away of who's coming by in the night like raccoons, coyotes, rabbits, mice, dogs, lots of birds and of course .. me:

To brighten up the dark days I brought home some daffodils from when I went grocery shopping on Wednesday, the one dry day of the week ...

            

Most of the days I spend inside though, nice and warm and cozy, working on several of my (way too) many hobbies, like my newest one .. embroidery.
Of the four I bought this one, of a snowy little town, is very appropriate at the moment of course but at the speed I'm going it probably won't be done before next winter!

   

I enjoy it very much though. Like most of the things I do it's the working on it that I like the most, not the end-product.
I doubt I'm going to display this anywhere when it's ever done, besides .. I don't have room!

I finished my latest puzzle, which I think might be my favorite of all:

It's not an easy one but not too crazy either and I love the image.
Again, very appropriated with all the snow!            

And that's all for this week. Tomorrow we're going to see another play in the theater in McMinnville ... 'Fiddler on the roof'.
                                We're really looking forward to that one!

That's us there in the middle and the 'big house' above us

Finally there it was! Snow!

The first day we didn't have a lot and it melted away quickly once the temperature climbed above freezing during the day ...

 

                                      

But the next morning, after a night of 27F (-3C) we woke up to a decent layer .. 'decent' meaning that at least it covered everything in a thin layer:

                        

                                             

It all looks so pretty doesn't it, such a difference with the dreary, dark and muddy colors of most days of winter.

The little oak grove, always a favorite of mine to photograph, looked especially pretty all covered up:

 

I hope the rows of newly planted fir-trees, barely visible in the fields up above, will have no problems with the cold.
The snow will most likely only be beneficial, adding more water when it melts, but the frosty nights might be more of a shock to their young roots.
I guess they'll be OK though since all this will only last a short time, if we may believe the weather-forecast ..

I was surprised to see a new sign already up at out landlord's driveway, replacing the old one of their roofing business:

                                                           
 
My understanding was that those trees have about 5-7 year to go before they can be harvested but I guess it's never too early to get the word out?

On most mornings this week the puddles on my walks were frozen over, I liked how the forces of nature had turned them in a sort of abstract art:

And despite all the cold weather and being covered in snow a couple of times these daffodils are still happily growing ..

Many bulbs will actually not do well without a sufficient cold period so this is just what the doctor ordered.
The snow cover acts as a protective blanket, shielding the emerging foliage from extreme temperature fluctuations and allowing them to continue growing underneath.
Nature .. never seizes to amaze!

Of course 'my' birds are a hungry lot these days.
I hung some suet and placed a small patio table in between the feeders to make it easier for more birds to get their share. Especially the little finches who always get bullied by the blackbirds ..

Good idea, but of course the blackbirds don't stick to the feeders .. sigh!

They are all being watched though! Every now and than I see a fast flash coming down from the trees surrounding the pond and everybody scatters ..
The pic is a little fuzzy (taken through my dirty windows) but I think this is a Red Shouldered Hawk:

                                        

Last but not least, I did some more baking in my new microwave/oven.
The temp still doesn't want to go much past 420F or so, and pre-heating takes quite a while, but for most things that is quite enough and these little cherry hand-pies came out perfectly fine:

          

                                        

Next up: Oat-bread and chocolate chip cookies. 'Should be easy' .. she said. Ha ha!

On one of my beautiful cold, crispy morning walks this week I discovered I could actually walk up to the trail in Sheridan's Hampton Park that goes around the (Vern Huddleston Memorial) pond.

We visited this old plywood logging pond (now restored and home to a variety of fish and wildlife) last year, coming in at it's (open) main entrance but on my regular walks these days, following the river and the train tracks, I end up at the locked back-gate and have to turn around.

This morning I decided to follow the train tracks a little further down to where I discovered that there was no fence at all along the tracks. I could step right onto the trail!
If a follow the whole trail around the pond I'll add another 0.6 miles to my walk, which is a perfect little addition!




I was thrilled to discover a whole bunch of birds in the pond!
Besides a gaggle (official word for a group of geese on the ground or in the water) of Canadian Geese there was a large flock of Wigeons (top left and right in collage below) and several pairs of Buffleheads (bottom right):                    

That bird on the bottom left (above) is a Common Cormorant, of which there were a whole bunch more resting and drying on a small dock/platform in the middle of the pond:

                 

In the meantime, in Punxsutawney (PA), groundhog Phil predicted six more weeks of winter after seeing his shadow at Gobbler's Knob this morning:

                                                                      

And, as they do every year, thousands of people had gathered to see him do it!

                                   

It looks like he might be onto something since this is what our weather forecast looks like:

                                

Night temps in the (albeit high) 20s and snow!
It didn't freeze last night but we already had a little bit of wet snow coming down this morning:

           

Since the ground wasn't cold enough nothing 'stuck' but it was fun while it lasted!

Besides working on a few items of the 'to-do' list James installed our new Microwave/Convection oven combination.

I forgot to mention last week that the oven of our old one, which had gotten very unreliable in wanting to warm up, had by than completely given up the ghost, so we had to order a new one.

Fortunately all dimensions were the same and we could even use the old hardware to hang it on the wall, so it was a fairly easy job.
This unit does not only microwave and bake, and a combination of the two, but also sensor-cooks and has an air-fryer, melting, steaming, proofing, dehydrating and simmer function!

I got to try it out right away since we were low on (sourdough) bread and I wanted to bake some cornbread-muffins to serve with my bean soup.

They baked beautifully, although I have to say that the preheat takes more time to come up to the correct temperature than the oven thinks and even than doesn't quite reach the correct temp ... I've read enough reviews of these combi-ovens to know that this is a common complaint about all but the most expensive, professional units.
This one is regarded as one of the better ones so I guess I just have to make my piece with it .. at least it's better than the old one!

As I mentioned: 15 bean soup ... just the ticket for the upcoming cold weather!