It has been a dark and rainy and cold week here in the PNW. We got about 2 inches in 2 days and than some more in the days after.
Following that, we had some very cold nights and foggy and frosty mornings with temperatures in the low thirties!

And if that wasn't enough, of course darkness has descended on us ...

                                                                          

 
Rather spooky, isn't it, that sudden loss of daylight!
Talking about spooky, it was perfect timing this year of course, since the weekend it happened coincided with Halloween!
Willamina, the town we're next to (as in 2 minutes away), organized it's yearly Trunk-or-treat event:

                                    

We'd been wanting to go and have a look-see for the last two years but we chickened out each time because of rain. 
This year the weather cooperated so off we went!



Besides the decorated cars, parked with open trunks towards the center of the parking lot, the local police, fire-station, chamber of commerce and various other local businesses were represented with booths and cars & trucks.
Grand Ronde's Tribal police were appropriately dressed up as superheroes!                      

Like I said, the weather was rather perfect and it got very busy! It was still light when we left but I suppose it got a little spookier in the dark.

We got a kick out of this older gentleman ... definitely young at heart!

Despite the rains I managed to take some nice walks in the cool mornings where I came across some wildlife, like these deer:

     

There's three of them in that picture, the third one all the way to the right, which I think is a buck.
The zoom in my camera does a rather good job ...

                                        

But the biggest surprise encounter this week was this:

After seeing that first Racoon on our road last week, this week it was the turn for a Bobcat!
It was sitting in the meadow quite a ways away and I wasn't sure it wasn't a 'normal' cat but I took a picture nevertheless.
Enlarging it on my computer when I got home it confirmed my suspicion that it was a little bigger kitty after all!

How cool is that?

My weekly walk to the pond granted me another two nice shots of Fall.
A beautiful row of blazing Poplars and this very tiny but bright yellow little mushroom ... it's the small things!

                                                                   

 

And here's for a little miracle ... my little Thanksgiving cactus, which I bought three years ago when it flowered and which hasn't flowered since, is showing some tiny, tiny buds!
It's hard to see in the picture but they're there. So exciting!

Like I said ... it's the small things!

By the way this is the difference between the three different 'holiday'-cacti:

                       

It's all in the spiky- or smooth-ness of the leaf edges!

  

But yeah, darkness, rainy and cold ... time for flannel sheets, which are on the bed as of Tuesday (check!) and hanging the velvet curtain in front of the door to keep the draft out (check!) and of course lots of comfort food (check and check and check and ..!)

Like this 'Boerenkool stampot' (farmers cabbage mash) which I made with our own home-grown kale! So proud of that (again .. the small things).

                                       

And last but not least, the soup-of-the-week .... (un-stuffed) cabbage soup, which was delicious! Another winner, as James said.

                

                      Which was a lovely warm-up meal after our trick-or-treat outing ... !