The squirrels are very busy at the moment, gathering nuts, acorns and seeds for their winter-stashes, I presume.
Funny enough I've seen them burying their acorns only to have a chipmunk dig it up right behind them, stuff it in his cheeks and take it off to it's own den.

Apparently having a well-stocked supply of buried acorns in winter is essential for the next generation of squirrels, since most breed in late winter (and late summer) and their ability to conceive and raise young is dependent on food resources.

The warm fall light of late is especially pretty during the early morning hours (and those 'golden' evening hours of course) and my morning hikes are wonderfully crisp and full of color ..

 

Just look at this golden, little Maple! So gorgeous!

Most of 'our' little Blueberry patch is still green but for this one bush that has almost completely turned. No clue as for why only that one?
The maples in Doug's yard are already letting some leaves fall .. the continuing drought has probably something to do with it as well ..

Even the weeds in the orchard are looking pretty while glistening in the morning sun ..

Most flowers are spent but for some sunflowers and these colorful zinnias ..

                                                

And of course the roses .. many of them will flower all the way into winter!

                  

There's lots of activity in the orchards around town because the harvest of the first grapes has started.

                                                                                            

I'm still 'harvesting' loads of raspberries. I pick a container full every other day or so and it looks like there's still many more to come!



A lot will depend on the weather of course, but besides the cool mornings and evenings the days are still very warm.
Portland broke records on both Saturday (85F) as well as Sunday (87F)!



I was happy to be out of the sun on Saturday since I went shopping in the Pacific Northwest’s premier shopping center, or so they say, 'Washington Square shopping Mall' in Tigard.
James was doing some golf-related stuff nearby (a free swing-analysis) and had dropped me off for a couple of hours of browsing the stores.

Now I'm totally not a 'shopper' and a Saturday certainly wouldn't be a day I would have chosen if I had the chance, but there you go .. I gave it the 'E' for effort.
As I suspected none of the stores really thrilled me, my 'style' being rather eclectic/bohemian, nothing too fancy or trendy or 'in vogue' and being very picky on top of that, but it was fun seeing something different than our limited small-town stores around Newberg.

Two of the many food establishments were interesting, both had long lines in front to get in but I had never heard of them, not that that counts for anything of course ..
One of them was a restaurant called Din Tai Fung:

It specializes in authentic but affordable Taiwanese food, most notably their signature Xiaolongbao (traditional steamed pork dumplings), and their Hong Kong branch even has a Michelin star!
Their menu is mostly pork-, rice-, and noodle-based, with dozens of soups, noodles, rice dishes, traditional desserts, and almost twenty varieties of dumplings.

While waiting in line you can watch them make their dumplings through a window into the 'open' kitchen:

To finish up your meal, the chocolate mochi xiaolongbao is a very unusul treat.
The mochi dumplings, as the name suggests, are filled with a rich mixture of cocoa and rice mochi! We might have to go back one time to check it out!

The other food-related store that caught my attention was the 85°C Bakery Cafe:

This is definitely not an ordinary cafe. Each cup of coffee is individually brewed with Guatemalan coffee beans and each store features an in-shop bakery with over 50 varieties of pastries baked fresh hourly! And all that for a reasonable price, something that has been the main goal of creating the store .. affordable, nice bread for everybody.

The (also) Taiwan-bred chain, which has 1,000-plus locations worldwide, including four in San Diego, sells scores of baked goods and beverages that most Americans have never heard of before.
Among the Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino and European-style treats are a red bean-black sesame bread, espresso buns, marble taro loaves, pork sung buns, coconut snow cubes, Hokkaido cheese tarts, yudane chocolate cream cheese rolls and sea salt coffee.

It's been called “the Starbucks of China” for its ubiquity and uniformity.
Upon entering the store, you grab a tray, a tong and make your way along the display of breads.
Many of their buns are individually wrapped and they all look fantastic:

Can you believe that I didn't buy any of them? Thinking that I had to schlepp them around for a while wasn't such a good plan but sjeez .. I could have bought a few?

I did buy something in one of my favorite stores 'World Market', since it was the last store I was going in to:

I love Cost Plus. Unique, fun, and affordable imported items from EVERYWHERE! I spend way too much time in the food aisles inspecting unusual or new-to-me edibles, and especially any Dutch or German foods!

So, after a half a day of shopping, this was my loot:

I know, that looks rather disappointing, but believe me, for me .. it's a lot!
Funny thing .. those T-shirts I found outside the mall, at Old Navy, which is more my-kind-of-store ..

We're having some nice, foggy, overcast mornings at the moment, just the way I like it.
Finally my walks are cool and invigorating once again, it definitely brings back that spring in my step!

Coming back home in the toasty RV I bask for a little in that blissful, deserving moment of a nice hot cup of coffee on a cool day, my little electric 'fireplace' glowing cozily.
But, all thinks come to an end, and around noon the sun will break through and the temp rises to a &^%$#! 81F (25C) again!
I read somewhere that it's that 'I-wish-I-didn't-put-on-that-sweater-this-morning' kind of weather. So true.

Oh well, I can't will it forward I guess, so I'll brave my way through these teasing days and make the best of it.
Nature cheers me up as usual, by putting out some pretty colors.
These trees at the neighbors are fall flowering, on the left a Crape Myrtle and on the right a Clerodendrum:

               

The blossoms of the latter smell something wonderful, a bit like jasmine, and when you rub the leaves between your fingers, the leaf and your fingers smell distinctly like peanut butter hence it's nickname of peanut-butter or skippy-tree!

I've re-sewn some Arugola, mixed Leaf-lettuce, Spinache and Broccoli and 'whaddayaknow' .. they're all coming up!

         

                                                                     

I so hope they'll make it to maturity, it would be so nice to have a little more success growing something, after that dud of a summer crop ...

We went to yet another festival last Sunday, there sure are a lot of them around here all year long, this one took place in McMinnville, the 'Scottish Festival'.              

We were going to check it out 'just for something to do', I mean, a Scottish festival in a small town in the middle of Oregon ... how much can it be?
But wow, were we mistaken, this is a big-time event!

Every year some 25 clans and a whole bunch of vendors set up shop at the local fairgrounds for a weekend of Scottish culture and celebration.
There are games and dance competitions, pipe bands and other genuine Scottish music and of course lots of food and drinks!



Upon entering the grounds (we both got in on senior-tickets this time, 55+) we passed the Scots Honor Guard and followed the path that led us by the booths of all the different clans.

Scotland has approximately 500 clans with members from across the world and many clans still hold gatherings and social events to continue their traditions.
There were about 25 attending this one.

Here's a few:      

On the hour one of 4 different pipe bands, either the Fort Vancouver, Clan MacLeay, Eugene Highlanders & Willamette Valley band, marched over the grounds. 
They sure made your ears ring!

                    

How about this cutie?

At noon, all the clans gathered for a parade to show of their 'colors' ..

                    ... and even their dog's colors

That's a Dandie Dinmont Terrier, the only breed to have its own tartan! 
There was a booth dedicated to this adorable Scottish breed:

                             

Leading the parade was the Scottish Court:

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, Ireland, and France!

She had her own quarters on the grounds:

James went for a little chat but she was 'putting on her face' so was not to be disturbed ..

A little later, when the court was 'in session', she knighted several people in a special ceremony and even Mcminnville's most famous Llama Caesar, aka "Caesar the No Drama Llama", had such honor bestowed on him!



'Caesar the No Drama Llama' is Oregon’s celebrity camelid, he's raised by Larry McCool, who is of Scottish descent himself, and who brings him into schools, nursing homes and community events.
Caesar's earned his moniker by being absolutely stoic, he's just bulletproof, he can handle anything. Nothing gets under his fluff!

(He's apparently also a self-identified Democrat and frequently turns up for candidates and progressive causes. He’s attended two women’s marches, Red for Ed rallies, Planned Parenthood events, and has been seen snuggling up to Gov. Kate Brown.
His social media page refers to this as “llama activism)

We walked around the booths for a while, had some coffee with shortbread and bought some Shepard pie for lunch:



As I mentioned and as you can imagine there's no Scottish fest without drinks:

      

Mead!

And we listened for a while to the 'Wicked Tinkers', an amazing Tribal Celtic band that, besides the bagpipe, uses a whole gamut of other Celtic instruments like big drums, rhythm poles, a ukulele and a great snare drum, a djembe, bronze age Irish horn, bodhran and even a didgeridoo.

We also watched a little bit of the Highland Dancer Competition, where 45 dancers from all over the Northwest and Canada competed in Premier and Pre-Premier Highland dances, the Sailor’s Hornpipe Challenge, Premier and Pre-Premier National dances and Choreography, both solo and duos!

Not the best picture, but how about these cuties competing in the dances for beginners ..

Last but not least we moved on to the 'big guns', where brawny men, and even some 'lasses', competed in games like caber-tossing, hefting a length of lumber up and away, the sheaf toss, the stone put (throwing of a big stone), the weight throw, and the Scottish hammer throw.

Lots of grunting, shouting and testosterone flying!

  

Needless to say, we had a great time! We'd never seen any of this in person and it was quite the experience!
And as far as the question 'what's under those kilts' goes, I'm pretty sure, and we saw quite some flying up during all that tossing and throwing, that most contenders wore some form of underwear!
(Apparently a survey revealed that 55% of kilt-wearing men say they wear dark underwear, and 38% go commando. 7% wear shorts or tights)

We ended the day at a birthday dinner for Nick, Doug's oldest son, conveniently held at Doug's house, which of course is right next door from us:

As usual, we forgot to take a picture of the 'spread' (succulent prime rib!), but I managed to get one of us all munching on dessert, a delicious Marionberry pie!