Early morning visitors!

Much to our surprise this 'band' of brothers(?) passed through our yard while we were having breakfast the other day.
They're all males, forming a typical bachelor group who, outside of the breeding season, when antlers are absent or growing, and when buck testosterone levels are at their annual low point, live together quite peacefully.

They weren't very skittish at all and inspected the vegetable garden, which even they found lacking and of no interest .. such measly pickings!
(A few things are starting to show some growth though like the corn and the tomatoes, some of the beans came up, as well as the arugula and the snow-peas are actually flowering and making some pods! There's hope ...)

Two of the deer checked out my bird feeders and nibbled on some fallen seeds and peanuts ..

                              

Here's a shot of each of them. Judging by their antlers, I think two of them are of the same age and one (in the upper right shot) a year younger ..




After about half an hour they moved on .. single file .. the eldest in front ..

Also, there was this ...

Can you believe it .. least of all him himself of course .. he tested positive again! He's totally fine, besides a little cough every now and than, but apparently still has detectable virus lingering within him.
Equally unbelievable is the fact that I'm still negative! Living in such close quarters and taking no precautions other than 'not getting (too) physical', if you know what I mean ..
Oh well, it is what it is, following CDC guidelines (although vague) he'll isolate for 5 more days. It's 'unlikely' he's still contagious but let's not be a spreader, shall we ..

Coincidentally, our printer went 'kaput' and while that might have nothing to do with Covid, it triggered, in combination with James having some time on his hands, a whole series of events, accumulating in a 'make-over' of our office/computer set-up.

Previously, when we got our new computer-screen, we'd set it up inside one of the cabinets with the computer tucked behind it and the printer moved under the small table in between the chairs.

Everything only just fit and we had to use a footstool to sit in front of it since it was lower than a normal table.
Although workable, it wasn't ideal and now the printer broke down and we decided to buy a larger, more professional one in preparation of the future when James will start working for himself, we had to change the whole set-up.

So, this is what we did. We demolished the cat-scratcher /shelves that we had on the narrow wall next to the fridge. Remember?

                                                     

(I swear, I took pictures of the shelves being ripped of the wall and the restoring and painting afterwards, but somehow those pics have miraculously disappeared from my picture folder .. )

Any-who, now we had room for the printer, which we placed on a hastily bought small table in front of that wall. Like this ..



The new, large computer-screen went in the corner, in front of the window on the right.
It's mounted on a 'swivel-arm', also quickly acquired, and when in use we swivel it around to the other window, where we have a little more leg-room under that narrow desk/table.

Ta da! Our new office! Much better and with a real office chair!

And this one's for my mom .. see, when we swivel the chair, we can still sit at the dining-table to eat. Perfect!

 

All this re-arranging set off a lot more weeding out of clutter and cleaning up of cabinets, and when we were done on the inside James tackled the outside as well!

                    

Somewhere during the wet Oregon winter, we had gotten a little green behind the gills ..

                 

                 

See, that doesn't look like a sick Covid-ridden guy, does he now .. ?

All that hard work makes a man terribly hungry off course, but fortunately I still have several pounds of frozen blue-berries in the fridge, so there were blue-berry muffins to the rescue!



I followed a recipe from the Stay-at-home-chef (look her up on Facebook!) and, like pretty much all her recipes, this one is a winner as well.
They are scrumptious!

OK, on that note, I think I've reached the end of another exciting week of our lives! Let's move on to the next one shall we?

It's super- fly .. or man .. or squirrel in this case!

Well, that didn't last long! The little buggers made short work with our defenses and just jumped a little further and more daringly and were back in no time to the business of emptying the feeders once again! Squirrels 1 - Humans 0.

So .. back to the drawing board we went!
We decide to add another 'disc' in the middle and several more lengths of plumbing pipe in between the feeders.

Now we wait. I can almost feel us being watched ... what will they come up with this time?

In between assisting James I putzed around my vegetable beds for a little, picking out some pesky little slugs and planting some fingerling potatoes in a 'grow-bag':

Grow bags are exactly what they sound like: large, fabric-like bags that can be filled with a growing medium and used to grow plants and vegetables.
They are breathable, so they allow more soil to come in contact with the air than traditional pots, making it easier for your plants to absorb nutrients from soil.

Fun detail: some (like this one, as well as mine) have a 'flap' on one side which comes in handy when you want to check if there are any potatoes growing yet, or if you want to harvest just a couple at a time.

On Sunday we cleaned ourselves up a little and set out for a matinee at the Gallery Theater in McMinnvile:

Where we were attending a performance (the last of 8) of one of those most beloved musicals of al times ... the Sound of Music!

Unfortunately we were not allowed to take any pictures inside the theater but I stole a few of the website :

 

As previously (during their Christmas show), we were blown away by the fabulous show with some really incredible vocal performances!
We had a great time, now only to get rid of some of the songs that are still playing in my head almost a week later!  😁

After the show we went for an early dinner at the fancy Oregon/McMenamins Hotel, just a block away on historical-downtown 2nd street.
The weather was good enough to sit under the awning at the street out front where we enjoyed that favorite pass-time of 'people-watching' for a while:

                             

We were not too happy with the food though (we'd ordered a burger), it took ages to arrive, was served without as much as a leaf of lettuce or a sliver of tomato, only a faint hint of blue-cheese and a handful of luke-warm fries.
To add insult to injury it cost us a whopping $18! Fancy-schmancy I'd say!

Talking about disappointing food, on one of our recent shopping adventures we came across this very popular, new (to us) store: Crumble (Cookies)!

These 'gourmet' frosted cookies are not your run-of-the-mill cookies, they're dough is made in store every day with fresh eggs and real butter, each week the menu rotates to give you 4-5 different specialty flavors and they're always presented in a cute pink box.
They come in 4.5" and 3", although the latter are only available for catering/party purposes and need a minimum order of 50.

                              

We ordered one (of their most popular) chocolate chip cookies and a graham cracker one with honey frosting and 2 cute little bears on top.
Unfortunately, and maybe due to their size, they were both a little under-cooked and doughy.
And I have to say, as much as I love cookies, its size and type means it’s really sweet, and although enjoyable, these cookies are huge!

 

                  

It only takes a bite or two to be filled and yet you've not eaten even half. I don't know, a little bit too much of a good thing I'm afraid ..
Than there's the price ... a whopping $4 per cookie! Whaaaht?!
I might be a frugal dutch-y but that's highway-robbery to me!

On another note .. James didn't feel very well on Wednesday morning, he felt a major headache coming on which only got worse in the afternoon, so he decide to come home and go back to bed.
When he woke up he had a fever and started to cough and the next day he felt like a truck had driven over him .. everything hurt!
Doug wanted to know if he had Covid in case we needed to take more precautions than just wearing a mask, so he did a home-test and there we are .. positive!

                                               

Bummer! And besides the fact that he felt absolutely horrible, we live in very close quarters of course, so it seemed almost inevitable I would come down with it too.
We also had a memorial potluck coming up which we had to cancel .. oh well .. the weather is quite lousy so it might actually rain out anyways ..

Fast forward 2 days .. James is feeling much, much better, his fever and headache lasted maybe 24 hours, and his cough is almost gone. He's still feeling tired and sore and is taking it easy but the worst seems definitely behind him!
More good news .. I am fine, no symptoms at all! How 'bout that?
(Other than the fact that I do have a sore throat for about 2 weeks now .. coincidence?)
We will both test again after 5 days, as recommended, and if we're negative we can both go out again, although masks are advised for another 5 days afterwards.

All in all, sort of an up-and-down week this time, but than there's usual some bad with the good, isn't there ..

Anyways, let's move on, shall we?

The hills of the north Willamette Valley are beautiful in mid-May, when the crimson clover fields bloom scarlet red. Crimson clover is an annual, grown only for the seed here, not for the forage.

Crimson clover flowers open from the bottom of the flower head to the top. Growers hope for cool, cloudy days during the bloom period, so the flowers will open more slowly, giving the bees plenty of time to visit each one.
Well, this year is definitely a winner in the cool and cloudy aspect!

Besides these crimson red fields, blue is another color that's jumps out at you about everywhere at the moment. First there were the Bluebells ....

                                          

Followed by the super-strong smelling lilacs, their sweet, heady scent that is almost cloying  almost a little too much for me ..

                                     

And just this last week the Wisterias are starting to bloom, like this gorgeous one in Doug and Brenda's yard ..

I never realized but they smell really nice as well, almost sort of citrus-y ..  at least, these do, I've heard of some varieties that smell like cat pee!

I even found a little nest with the prettiest little blue eggs .. too bad it had fallen out of a tree and they were all broken ..

                                                                      

In our yard a war has been declared ... it's us versus the squirrels!
A group of about 5 or 6 of them are raiding my bird feeders on a daily base .. and that's after they first clean out their own feeders.
So, the game is on! Here you can see James installing some plastic disks at the ends of the wire that the feeders are hanging on (they're actually plant-pot saucers) :

                         

And in between we strung lengths of PVC pipe .. both are slippery and turn freely on the wire which hopefully will give the squirrels no place to hold on to ..

They've already checked things out, but have not tried to jump .. yet!

If only they weren't so darn cute!

Look at that beautiful bird! Yes, I got him, a genuine Western Tanager!

The orange-lure worked, as he showed up shortly after me hanging a slice between the bird-feeders! Isn't he gorgeous?

Interesting enough he also seems to like the suet, which I didn't think he would, but there you go ..

Western Tanagers, the western counterpart to the Scarlet Tanager, nest in coniferous forests of the north and the high mountains, but during migration they may show up in any habitat, including grassland and desert; the bright males often draw attention by pausing in suburban yards in late spring where they like to snack on nectar, meal worms, raisins, fruit or berries and when it's cold .. suet. 

.. you learn something new every day!

Besides the flashy bright yellow and red he brings to the garden, we're not exactly lacking other colors at the moment.

In Doug's yard this Eastern Redbud is flowering ..

   

But stealing the show at the moment are the azeleas:

I tried to find as many different ones as I could just here in the neighborhood alone:

And although 'just' a simple white, I shouldn't forget to mention the Dogwoods which are pretty much running wild in every yard around here ..

I'm, very carefully, extending my walks a little bit every couple of days or so and, so far so good, my foot is holding up!
I managed to walk all the way down one of my favorite streets and got to see the vineyard at the end of it for the first time in 6 months ..

                      

                           

It doesn't look like much is 'happening' yet from a distance but if you look real close ...         

Yup! Tiny little buds and leafs are starting to appear! And so another wine/vintage-year is starting to develop ...



Of course last Friday was a Friday the 13th, which we survived without any issues ..

... and I wouldn't be me if I wouldn't question how many there are in an average year?
I found this on the world wide web:

- Any calendar year has at least one Friday the 13th and can have as many as three Friday   the 13ths.
- For a month to have a Friday the 13th, the month must begin on a Sunday.
- This year, 2022, we have only one: May 13.
- The fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia. Now say that 10 times really fast!

Fortunately, this Friday the 13th also happened to be National Apple-pie Day (although other sources claim it's March 13?), which probably would make up for a lot of mishaps that could have happened ..
Especially when you actually happen to have some sitting around, since totally coincidentally I made an Apple-Blueberry Cobbler that day!

Perfect for coffee-time .. which was actually our breakfast that day ..
(Hey, apple-pie for breakfast, what's not to like?)

 I think we're good until next week ... maybe ..