Spanish broom is blooming everywhere

It's the end of April and tomorrow I'm leaving for Holland for a 2.5 week visit to my dutch family.
But first things first .. it's my birthday today (my 64th but who's counting? Not me)!

I didn't bake (gasp!) but opted for a delicious store-bought slice of key-lime pie for coffee. Hey, it's my birthday, I'm taking a day off!

Since tomorrow is going to be a very busy and long day we took it easy today and went for a leisurely walk at Blackwell Park, a county park we hadn't been to yet although it's only a couple a miles from us.

    

It's a very pretty and green little, only six-acre, park where Willamina Creek bends around a shady grove of Oregon white oak before flowing down over sculpted bedrock formations.
The creek has formed small and shallow pools next to a river rock beach and shady picnic sites are abundant.
I can see that this is a popular place for families with small children to cool of in the summer:

                            

                           

We hiked a little along the creek and climbed up a hill for a bit to have a view over the surrounding forest.
Wildflowers were blooming everywhere ..

Driving back towards Willamina we passed the entrance to the grounds of the reservation of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and since we drive by here fairly often but never visit we decided to check it out this time around.

Unfortunately  the museum and the community building on the grounds turned out to be still closed for the season but a little further down the road we discovered a small State Park that we could visit instead, the Fort Yamhill State Heritage:

                                                      

Fort Yamhill was not part of the Indian reservation but was an American military fortification that was used to provide a presence next to the Grand Ronde Agency Coastal Reservation.
Built in 1856 in the Oregon Territory, it remained an active post until 1866.

An interpretive trail leads around this state heritage area and details the history of this outpost established in 1856 during the Rogue River War. It's good for a nice walk which gives you nice views over the distant mountains.

There are only a few buildings left here, but taking the trail while reading several interpretative signs shows you where many of the other building sites used to be.

      

                                       

                                    .

It made for another short but pleasant little walk and it was interesting to learn a little more about the origin of this area we now call home (at least for a while ..)

Since we'd worked up an appetite by now we stopped at the newly re-opened Bonanza restaurant and bar, just outside Grand Ronde:

We usually split something for lunch but decided to call this my 'Birthday dinner', since it was already 2pm by than, and went for a Bonanza burger as well as a Philly-cheese steak sandwich! Both were excellent!

I spend the rest of the afternoon packing my suitcase. Despite some present for my mom and sister I stayed well under the 50lbs allotted for a checked bag.
I double checked all tickets (train and plain) and IDs (dutch and American passports) about 20 times ... the travel heebie-jeebies starting to play up!

Last week saw an influx of little finches and sparrows returning from their winter grounds to my feeders.

       

The (male) Goldfinches are showing off their bright yellow spring-colors.
'Dressed to impress' they are for sure!

And the Tree Swallows are zooming by following their fast and erratic flight patterns ...
busy, busy, busy, building nests and (presumably) laying eggs!

I caught this one peeping out of one of the nest boxes at the Yamhill Stage Area:

And so this last week before my trip to to Holland has flown by and all of a sudden I'm leaving tomorrow!

So far it looks like it's going to be a nice and calm day to fly on this end, as well as arriving in Holland a day later (!).

I'll probably won't be blogging until I'm back, so see you in 3 weeks or so.
I'll be baaaaack!

 

Although I usually am totally on top of decorating for any season or holiday, I somehow completely spaced this year about Easter and it wasn't until I started to prep some food yesterday for today I realized I hadn't put a single flower, ribbon or Easter-egg out!

And although this was quickly remedied by diving under the bed, grabbing the bag marked 'Easter' and hanging some odds and ends from the slides and in the boughs I picked from some flowering shrubs (Amelanchier/Service berry) that are growing outside the RV, it was still kind weird not having them up already for a week or so ..



I stole some branches of the pretty Japanese ornamental Cherry tree that's growing behind the barn as well.
I always think flowers are a big part of this (for me at least) pagan holiday, heralding spring and symbolizing rebirth and new beginnings!

                                          

Of course there were eggs for breakfast (if only I could get those soft-boiled eggs down though! Why is it so hard to get them right?) accompanied by fresh croissants, ambrosia and Martinelli's:

We'd planned to go for a walk to the Basket Slough if the weather cooperated and it did so after breakfast we packed some coffee and pastries and of we went.

It was actually a perfect day, not too hot, not too cold, dry and mostly sunny!
We'd been to the Slough before but this time we were interested in hiking the area that was previously closed (to protect wintering wildlife).

This trail loops you around two lakes and marshy areas:

Halfway the loop it skirts the forestry area of the southern trail for a while:

Throughout the park you'll find some crude benches, perfect for a cup of coffee to enjoy the peace and quiet of this beautiful reserve.

Spring definitely seems late this year, even here there weren't too many flowers around but we found a few Oregon Irises, western Buttercups and a few others I couldn't identify.
(I should have brought my phone on which I installed a handy-dandy 'plant-finder' but of course I didn't ..)

Besides lots of Coots, Grebes and some Mallards we didn't encounter any wildlife other than this Woolly Bear caterpillar, who interestingly enough had a lot of grey hairs growing in the black, something I had not seen before:

But all through the walk we (well, James, I should say since this was beyond what my deaf ears could register) could hear the honking of geese but it wasn't until we were on the last part of the hike that we came across the source of all the ruckus ... Canadian geese .. lots of them!

And in case you wouldn't see them, these are the footprints they leave behind in the muddy fields:

Back home we made short work of a platter with deviled eggs, cheese and crackers and some nuts and fruit. Hiking makes hungry you know .. 

                                                             

And after a relaxing afternoon of R&R and some putzing around the RV this was followed by ham and an overnight salad and another piece of lemon meringue.
Holidays are as much about food as about flowers!

         

I didn't bake this myself, I'm not so good with meringues and such and Marie (Callender) is just very hard to beat!

All in all, a pretty traditional and nice and relaxed Easter as usual.
In my home country of Holland there will be a second Easter-day tomorrow (yeah, I don't know who came up with that one) but no such thing on this side of the pond so we'll be back to business as usual I guess.

Here's a few pictures of the Hummingbird, who decided to come back after disappearing for a year!
Or maybe it's a different one of course ..

                                                            

It looks like these are either two different varieties or maybe a male and female of the same but I haven't quite figured out what breed they are.
The one on the bottom left might be a Black-chinned and the one on the top right a female Anna's but I'm not sure.

I'll keep my eye on them this coming week to see if I can get a better idea of what's what.

 Last but not least, I finished that insanely difficult cat&book lovers puzzle!
Took me 7 weeks,  I kid-ye-not!

Yes, I did it! Yahoo!

Now that the fruit trees are starting to flower, like this pear at the edge of the oak forest, and temperatures are consistently above 55F, it was time to bring out the bee cocoons that had been overwintering in the fridge.
I've re-hung the nifty little bee-house I bought last year and placed the cocoons in that upper (triangular shaped) little area (leaf-cutters on the left, masons on the right):

    

To protect them from predators, direct sunlight and bad weather I hung some shade cloth and placed a wire basket (always thrifty, re-purpose!) upside down over the whole house.
It can take anywhere from a couple of days to up to 2 or 3 weeks for the baby-bees to emerge. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Since I had to get a copy of my Naturalization Certificate certified at USCIS in Portland (to apply for a new Dutch passport) we decided to squeeze in some sight seeing as well.

Well, of course, the copy-appointment turned out to be a bust, apparently they don't certify copies anymore, 'thank-you-very-much for the misinformation on the website and the 2 hour drive!'
To say I was mad is an understatement ... #$@!%^!

 

Thank Gawd for some coffee .. and pastries of course! 

  

And so, in a much improved state of mind, we started with the sightseeing part of our day and drove to Washington Park for a visit to the World Forestry Center and it's Discovery Center.
It had been on my list for a while and this was a perfect opportunity.

The museum is one of three programs operated by the World Forestry Center.
This nonprofit organization’s mission is to connect people to the importance of forests and sustainable forestry.
Founded in 1966, the World Forestry Center was created to replace the Forestry Building, a majestic log structure built for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition.

                                       

After the original building was destroyed in a fire in 1964, its new facility was rebuilt and

on June 30, 2005, after a $10.5 million, 6-month renovation, the 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m²) museum reopened with new interactive exhibits about the sustainability of forests and trees of the Pacific Northwest and the world.

The first floor features Pacific Northwest informational combined with hands-on activities as well as information about animals living in it's forests and waters.
Second-floor exhibits explore forests around the world through fun simulated rides on the Trans-Siberian railway to see a Russian boreal forest, boarding a Chinese boat to learn about temperate forests, traveling by jeep through a sub-tropical forest in South Africa andvisiting Brazil’s Amazon tropical forest on a treetop crane.

The center is smaller than I thought and caters a little too much to children for my liking but we had fun and learned a lot!

Of course all this learning makes your 'little grey cells' go very hungry so on our way back home we stopped at our favorite Indian restaurant 'Sultan The Flaming Tandoor' in Sherwood where we had some nice spinach-naan and a delicious lamb curry:  

             

('Sultan' btw means 'king' and a 'tandoor' is the clay oven that bakes Indian-Pakistani favorites, such as naan and kebabs). 

Back home the meadows are starting to look more and more 'summery' with lots of daisies, dandelions and deadnettle ..

      

 

Almost all calves are 'on the ground' by now but I was shocked to hear that 6 of them died due to pneumonia, which apparently is a 'thing' this early in the spring when temperatures (especially at night) can still swing wildly ..   

 

This little bugger is fully awake now and looks for seeds around the bird-feeders every day but I haven't seen any of the rest of his large (as we know) family yet.
Presumably still in hibernation?

 

I was exited to see a bald eagle flying over the other day, the first one I've noticed over here!
It took me a little to get him in my camera-viewer (sunny and bright-blue sky in my eyes) but I finally got somewhat of a decent shot!

 

The rest of the week was business as usual, with a little baking  ... both the 'boule' and the sandwich bread came out perfect!

                   

               

And a little gardening:

The mesclun-mix (leaf lettuce) is coming up, as well as the broccoli, compliments of the abundant sunshine and higher temps of this week!