Last Sunday we went to a Christmas performance in McMinnvilles Gallery Theater. We'd never been there before and were very pleasantly surprised about the whole experience.
It's a quaint small-town theater but the show was very professional, creative, funny and at times very sweet and moving.
Also, due to Covid, only about half of the tickets were available so it was a rather intimate showing.
                                                        

We looked at next year's performances, there will be a different one every 2 months, and for an entrance fee of only $20 pp we will definitely be attending a few.
If this show was anything of a benchmark for what is to come we will be in for a few treats next year!

Back at the ranch we got totally creative ourselves as well! Instead of my traditional baking of gingerbread men around this time, inspired by Hallmark (those sugary movies), I went for a gingerbread house!

Woah! Look at that! Like I'm in '
(To be totally honest I have to disclose that this cute little house not only came as a 'kit' but it was already assembled as well. The only thing left to do was the decorating part ..)

    

Well, let's just say .. the icing started dripping, candies started sagging, the whole place (including ourselves) got sticky and we'll never win a prize in a contest .. but we had fun!

From a distance, in the right spot and under the right light, 

it looks rather perfect for a first try!

OK, what else .. the weather is still pretty lousy, besides a couple of very stormy days it rains every day as well, which caused the orchard around us to get rather soggy at places.
We're very happy we had the foresight to surround the RV with those pallets and the out-door carpet. No mud for us!
The birds are still very happy with the feeders ..

This is a (male) House-finch up above, very pretty in red. His House-'wife' is a dull brown all over ..
And the one below is a Chestnut-backed Chickadee (sorry, not quite sharp):



Our Wednesday night dinner was at Jin's Chinese Restaurant this week.
This restaurant happens to be in Dundee, only a couple minutes down the road from us. We could almost walk there .. if we'd want to .. and if we didn't have to walk on the side of a busy highway ..

   

It's apparently under new ownership and, besides the humongous portions, the food was very good!
Looking back at last week's post, I see that I forgot to mention our venue of that week which was Storrs Smokehouse, so here's a few pics:



It was our second time here and rather than the 'Big Daddy' we had last time, we opted for brisket and ribs this time around, accompanied by a large plate of (very spicy) collards:

James looks like he's not that impressed but the opposite was true .. that brisket was to die for, as well as the collards, and the ribs were not too bad either!
I predict we'll be going back there all the time.

Once again, this post is mainly about food, but topics to wright about are rather slim these days so I milk what I got ..
Like dinner a couple of days ago, after the theater show, when I made cheese fondue!

 

It's been a long time since we had this, which is a shame because it is soooo good!
And fast and easy, as long as you use the handy-dandy, ready-made and store-bought pouch. Some crusty bread, a little brocc, pear (or apple in this case) and even a cut up hot dog.
Like I say, easy peasy, perfect for when you don't feel like cooking .. I like those kind of meals ..

OK. I've run out of pictures so this is it for this time around.  

Only one week 'till Christmas, can you believe it?

            

Oh my goodness, isn't she the cutest? At least, I think it's a she ..
'She''s an Eastern Fox Squirrel and unfortunately, despite being so darn cute, they are a nonnative invasive species (brought over from the east-coast) and rather considered a threat to native squirrel populations.
They aggressively compete with native squirrels for food and nesting habitat, they require far less territory to persist, and they can spread disease to native populations.
Oh well .. I think they're gorgeous (I guess that's not the problem though) and I love to see them.
So, when they showed up this week and started to eye my bird feeders ..

          

I gave them their own ..

      

It took a while, but they finally figured out how to lift the roof to get to the mother-load!

Adorable!

OK, what's next .. oh yeah, 'Sinterklaas-avond' which we celebrated with the usual baking of 'speculaas,', watching some special dutch television episodes of the 'Sinterklaas journaal' and a nice hearty meal of peasoup.

Some traditions will never change ...

And now that feast is officially over, we've completely immersed ourselves in this  "♬ most wonderful time of the year ♫" .. Christmas!
I'd already hung the wreath, lights and garlands and now the tree is also up:

It took some doing since the lights turned out to be kaput and I had to take all 100 of them out. Easier said than done because the cord for each light was wrapped three times around it's branch .. $#@!^&%!
Oh well, it's done, nothing that a nice hot mug of eggnog couldn't fix, and the new (LED this time) lights are pretty as can be ..

Time to write some Christmas cards! I don't send many 'real ones' anymore but still like to do some, and a few need to go 'over-sees' so I better get them on their way early (especially now with all the Covid-delays).

My 'fall' puzzle is done once again ..

And I already made a start with my 'crazy elf puzzle I got from my mom, because I realized I have quite a few winter/Christmas puzzles, which I like to make in 'the right' season7 .. I need more hours in the day!

                        

Remember this little guy? It's the Wooly Bear caterpillar which have a reputation for being able to forecast the coming winter weather. If their rusty band is wide, then it will be a mild winter. The more black there is, the more severe the winter.

I guess this one we saw somewhere in October might just have a smidgen more black than brown .. an in-between-winter?
Apparently due to 'La Nina', a weather pattern we're apparently in right now, the surface of the Pacific ocean is much colder than normal at the moment which could cause a colder and more snowy winter!
Already the snow levels in the mountains are coming down right now, all the passes have snow, Mt Hood got a few feet (!) and our forecast for next week looks like this:

                                               

See those 'snow-showers' for the 15th?! Bring it on! Dare I hope for a white Christmas?

It's rather cold already right now, with temperatures around 38-42F so I've started to make some of our winter-favorites .. 'Boerenkool met worst' (farmers cabbage with smoked sausage) anyone?

Look at that! I've opened my very own 'Wild Bird Saloon' here and to say that its 'wild'ly popular is an understatement!
Those tiny little feather-balls are Bush Tits and they come by once or twice a day with the whole family, sometimes there are as many as 10 of these little guys hanging from that feeder! Which looks something like this (sorry, a little blurry):

 

I have a couple of different feeders out and among those the suet feeder certainly is very popular.
That's a Song Sparrow in the pictures above and the one below is a Downy Woodpecker ..

The most popular feeder though is hands-down the tube feeder, which I filled with black sunflower seeds.
That cute little guy on the left below is a Nuthatch and the one on it's right a Chickadee:

     

Next up .. a Black-eyed Junco ..

He's one of the few that actually also goes for my least popular feeder, the 'hopper', which is filled with a variety of seeds. The Spotted Towhee likes that one too ..

                                                      

The hummingbird feeder got a place on the wire too! I normally have it hanging on the awning on the other side of the RV where we're sitting outside in the summer, but since we're inside right now I couldn't see them anymore. Voila, problem solved!
These Anna Hummingbirds are the only hummers that overwinter here in Oregon and they're so much fun to watch ..

When the sun hits them just right that pinkish spot under his shin will shimmer like a jewel, just like the green on his back .. so beautiful!

    

Of course we do have squirrels in these woods around us, and of course they've already been here to check things out:

                    

So far they have not been able to walk the wire or attempted to jump on the feeders.
They are very agile and resourceful, so it probably is only a matter of time ..

        

I do like to watch them though, and I think I'm going to get them a feeder of themselves to fill with peanuts. These are Fox Squirrels by the way, the largest of the tree squirrels here in Oregon ..

 

Besides all these birds we also have a young Whitetail buck that comes visiting us ever so often lately.
He munches a little on the (still) green grass of the orchard but mainly seems to come around to sharpen his antlers on the willow upshot along the ditch ..

                                                                      

It's hard to take a picture of him doing this but here you can see him rubbing his head against the branches .. he'll be doing that for 10 to 15 minutes!
This buck is a yearling and should be about 1,5 years old right now, but the fact that he only has these little 'spikes' for antlers may suggest that he is only a year or so old.

Spike bucks are typically viewed as genetically inferior, but instead of genetics the reason for them is usually that the deer herd is above carrying capacity and the animals are not getting the proper nutrition, or that he was born late in the season when the food is losing it's quality.
Often these are the ones that are getting culled first to promote better antler development of the herd, but in fact most of them will develop normal antlers eventually when they receive better food.

On another note, look what we got done this Wednesday .. yeah, our boosters went in!

                                       

I was lucky enough to snatch up two early appointments 2 weeks ago, when only out of curiosity I looked on the Internet to see if they were available yet.
It turned out they were literary just approved, and the website only just loaded.
Appointments at the moment aren't available until late January! Like my sister mentioned, sometimes you're just lucky!
(Funny side note, we actually had an appointment for a week earlier but they refused to give them to us since our previous shots were not quite 6 months ago .. we were 2 days early! Ridiculous!)

There's not much else to write about this week other than that we visited the Woodburn Outlet Mall after attending the memorial service for Brenda's mom who had passed away the week before.

I wanted to do some shopping around for various items but I forgot (we'd been their before) that it's a clothing-only kind of mall. On top of that it wasn't even decorated very much whereas I had hoped to see some festive over-the-top Christmas-lights extravaganza.
Oh well ..

About those lights .. yes, 'tis the season!

I've started decorating, always so much fun! So far the outside lights are up, the wreath is hung and inside the garlands are in place.

I've saved the inside tree for this coming weekend.

'Tis the season for some stick-to-your-rib food too of course, so last but not least, I made a wonderful chicken soup and a hearty Brussel-sprout mash with a slice of meatloaf.

Yeah, we Hess's know how to have a good time .. with food!