Willamina High School, just behind us

Always in search of new places to walk, I recently took a chance and climbed over the fence at the far end of the property and than the hill behind where I suspected I'd find the grounds of the nearby High School.
And I was right ... !

                                                         

It's very close to us (as the crow flies) and when the weather is nice and we sit outside on Friday evenings, we can hear the sounds of the football game taking place.
A couple of weeks from now, when it will get dark much earlier, we'll also see the huge field lights coming on.
I didn't gain much in the case of more walking trails, but I can make a small loop up and down that hill and back, so I might go there every now and than.                    

The low early-morning light made the grass glow and the spiderwebs glitter!

     

You know what it looks like? Yes! Fall!
It's Fall Y'all, my most favorite time of the year!

I jumped the gun a little and decorated already on Wednesday ... shush, don't tell anybody!

          

My recently acquired little shelf is of course perfectly decoratable .. is that a word?
(not according to spell-check it isn't, but what does it know?)

                                


After a long summer-break the Gallery Theater in McMinnville has started it's Fall/Winter season and we had bought tickets earlier this year for one of the matinee performances of 'Grease'.
(which was a good thing because all shows are booked solid)

 

The first reviews were in and had been overwhelmingly positive so we were looking forward to a fun evening, rolling back the years to the 1950s (although it really is a '70s experience at heart, it coming out in 1978).

                                           
                                                        
As usual, we were not disappointed, it was another great show!
Once again we were blown away by all the talent of the amazing cast and the ingenious decors and spot-on costumes.

Definitely: Grease is the word!
(now only trying to get 'Summer nights' out of my head!)

Since James was all caught up in work we took some time off yesterday to pay a visit to the Brigittine Monastery in Amity.
Coming and going to McMinnville and Newberg we come across the sign for this Monastery every time and keep saying that 'one of these times we should check it out' but so far never did.

Time to remedy that!

The Order of the Most Holy Savior, informally known as the Bri(d)gettine Order, is a monastic religious order in the Augustine tradition of nuns, religious sisters and monks founded by Saint Bridget of Sweden (Brigitta) in 1344 and approved by Pope Urban V in 1370. There are today several different branches of Bridgettines.                                 

Down a short, scenic gravel road in the middle of farmland behind a hazelnut orchard, this is a quiet religious retreat with pretty landscaped grounds.
There's a small chapel which can be viewed from the inside if there is not a current mass.
It's stained glass windows are very pretty.

And since pretty much all monasteries are obligated to be largely economically self-sufficient the monks here make chocolates and fudge to provide for its maintenance.
They hand roll the chocolates and make fudge of a wide variety like lemon, mango, lavender, classic chocolate and, at the moment very popular, pumpkin!

A small gift shop with chocolates, free samples, and a few religious items like books and rosaries is located next to the chapel and of course we had to go inside and do some thorough taste-testing ..

                                    

Unfortunately they're insanely expensive so we only bought two of the smallest baggies of the small chocolates, 3 for $6, instead of the 6 (bigger ones) for $24!
I'm all for supporting your local businesses but jeez, that's ridiculous!

They were good though!
(and gone quickly)

Afterwards we drove to the little town of Amity, checked out main street (2 blocks if at all) and had lunch at 'The Common Cup', which is pretty much the only place in town available to do so ..

Besides really good coffee they 'specialize' in waffles and we tried out their whole wheat with brie, fig compote and hazelnuts which was absolutely delicious!

 

                                                
                                  I agree and I'm pretty sure 'we'll be back'!

On the way home we stopped at the Wallace Farm to (U-) pick some Blueberries:

We pretty much ate all the blueberries we picked and froze when we still lived in Newberg in 2021 and 2022 so we needed to restock to get us through the winter.
We love them with our cereal or in pancakes for breakfast and blueberry cobblers and muffins are just the best!

                                                                     

As you can see we had a little helper. She was so cute!

                       

By the way, we see these machines in the fields around us all the time. They're blueberry-pickers and of course the farms use them to pick the majority of their crops:

                                                           

And that was all for this week I think.
The weather is still on the warm side, they even forecast an 89F for Tuesday, but also a little rain on Wednesday and temps  in the low 70s for the rest of the week.

But yes, it's Fall, at last! Things are looking up! (but that's just me)

Take a look at that sky! It didn't bring us any rain though but earlier this week we finally got some overnight and a little into the following day as well.
It wasn't much, maybe 1/2 an inch or so but hey, at least we had some. It's a start!

Just to have more of an idea of how much we actually get I bought us a new rain gauge. We used to have one but it got very brittle and finally cracked.

                                                  

This one came with a stand which raises it up some so it's very easy to read and the numbers are  huge as well. Even I can read them without my glasses!
So ... let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!

Since I discovered the nice walk alongside the railroad tracks I now go there quite often and this week I found a spot where it's quite easy to zig-zag down the steep bank to the river ..

It's so pretty there!

I was watching a few ducks in the distance, I think this is a female Hooded Merganser:

 

When suddenly something else caught my eye ...

Guess what  .... it was an Otter!
How cool is that! I'd recently heard they were seen in this river and lo an behold, there he was!

                                                      
 
He (or she) was very busy trying to catch some fish, diving, turning and splashing and didn't seem to be aware of me at all.
I happened to be able to hide a little in the high grasses along the shore and didn't move and he swam right by me!
He kept on swimming downriver and eventually disappeared in the reeds.
I tried to secretly make several pictures but none of them came out very well.
Next time I'll be better prepared!

Closer to home .. 'something' has been eating almost all the leaves of my rose and Hollyhock:

%$#^@! I suspect it was a deer, it looks like too much damage to have been done by the ground squirrels to me, although those little buggers have already eaten my new cucumber seedlings that had just come up last week!

Fortunately they left the pansies I bought this week alone, but I'm afraid that will just be a matter of time ..

Whatever it was it wasn't this small raptor, a female Merlin, although she tried to get one of the LBBs (Little Brown Birds) the other day!

                                                     

She's an amazing agile huntress, trying to grab small birds in the air (on the wing) and always causes an enormous panic and raucous amongst the flocks of finches and sparrows that visit my feeders.

Sigh ... nature is definitely not for sissies! Live and let live, I guess ..

My 'human' live is a lot more calm and peaceful in comparison, although I'm still suffering from the aftermath of my encounter with poison oak.
My face has mostly healed but my neck and hands are still very, very itchy at times. I've been told it can take  up to 6 weeks before that will stop ... sjezus!

I'm spending a little more time inside now the weather gets cooler. More time to read!

Oh, I almost forgot .. the debate! I was so nervous, but she absolutely nailed it!

                    

                    That's right! You go girl! Forward! Right into the White House!

  

There were a couple of mornings this last week when everything was covered in dew. Looking towards the hills this band of fog/haze could be seen, probably the cause of all the moisture.
Which is interesting since it hasn't rained since my sister visited us in early June and everything is as dry as can be ..

                                              

                                               

 

Of course I'm already on the lookout for Fall-colors and yes .. here and there the trees are starting to turn, especially at the tops!
This huge Mountain Ash will turn a brilliant yellow in a couple of weeks:

 

              

Along the edge of the treeline in front of us, these pretty orange and red leaves have appeared on some of the bushes that make up the undergrowth ..

                 

Pretty, eh? I thought so too and took some time to pick and choose the prettiest ones to bring inside and put them in a vase.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be Poison Oak (!) and by the time I realized this my hands and face were already covered in patches of red, raised welts.
As most Americans know, under no circumstances you want to touch poison oak since the oil on it's leaves and in the sap, called urushiol, causes an extremely itchy rash!
There's even a classic rhyme saying: "leaves of three, let it be,"

Needles to say I had never encountered the plant, although I had heard about it, and I've been utterly miserable and insanely itchy all week long!
I've been slathering myself religiously with hydrocortisone cream in addition to swallowing anti-histamine and finally, after almost a week of agony, it's slowly getting better ... phew, I won't do that again!

                

I did much better bringing these little beauties into the house! They're from one of the two pear trees we have on the property.
One of the branches had broken off and the pears were starting to go bad so I rescued them and took them home.

Where I made them into some lovely pear-jam:

                                             

And a delicious (french) pear 'Tarte-tatin' (a sort of upside-down cake but with puff pastry):

                 

                                               

Lets see, what else .. our landlord has been 'discing' his front yard/meadow in preparation of the 8000 more (!) Christmas trees he's going to plant next spring:

 

                         
 

I myself sowed again some vegetables for fall ...

 

This is my third try getting some vegetables to grow. So far it has been a big failure this year. (Almost) nothing grew ... sigh ..
Besides it being too cold and too wet for too long this Spring I think I got the wrong soil?

Now it has been warm for so long, the ground is at least warm enough so I have some hope I'll get some Arugola and Lettuce to grow. We'll see ..

                                                                   

Although these pole beans surprised me by all of a sudden taking off!
They're Rattlesnake Beans and so far I got a hand-full of them and there are more to come.
I'm saving them to accompany the meatloaf I'm thinking of making in a couple of days when the weather is supposedly taking a turn and it will get a lot cooler. Maybe even rain!

                

And although it's more of a winter dish, we enjoyed another cheese fondue this week.
I think it works very well in summer as well since there's almost no cooking involved and we're using a lot of different veggies and even fruit (pear) for dipping!

Here's a last picture of another nice sunset this week.
I just like the pattern of the clouds in this one ..