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!