These are the hills behind us, looking out of our back window.
As you can see, it snowed!

We had several hours of snow flurries during the day today and almost all day yesterday:

Unfortunately the temp just hovered around freezing, the ground wasn't frozen and we also had some rain so it didn't last very long ..

 

Spring is on it's way though, according to the Almanac:
"Winter may end in a snowy blast in many regions, but hold on to your hats! The updated 2024 Spring Weather Forecast favors an early spring and warmer than normal temperatures across much of the U.S with a few exceptions".

The couple of sunny days we had last week coaxed some of our apple trees into opening their pink blossoms:

                         

And at the edge of the meadows, protected by shrubs and the big oak trees of the adjacent little forest, I discovered the Osoberries (Indian plums), usually the first of the native shrubs to bloom, are flowering as well!

                       

    

After navigating the soggy meadows and muddy trails I'd noticed lately that my left sock started to feel damp and when I stepped in a large puddle a couple of days ago the freezing cold water suddenly seeped in!

 

 

It actually ripped even more the next day and several other spots are looking 'suspicious' so it was time to retire them.
I actually bought these in 2002 in Tillamook, only 45 minutes from here, when we visited the Northwest in a small camper.
They served me well for 22 years!

So, out with the old, in with the new:

                                       

Aren't they the cutest? Even when raining cats and dogs these surely will put a spring in my step! (and only $24.98 at Walmart).

While all that weather is doing it's thing outside I'm keeping myself busy with the usual: a little blogging, knitting, researching what to plant in my raised beds this Spring, puzzling .. like this one I just finished:

It's one from a box full with puzzles of different sizes I borrowed from our landlord:

I don't like this painter, Thomas Kinkade, at all, with his overly romanticized and sugarcoated reality but hey, they will probably get me through this stretch of winter weather, and than some!

I've also been trying to get a handle on how to make sourdough bread but so far I created a 'hockey-puck' ..

 

... a, slightly better, 'canon-ball' ..

                           
                   And  .. 'the brick':
                                                                                

All were edible, especially when toasted and as croutons or breadcrumbs, but today I surprised myself and produced this fairly decent, albeit way too pale, sandwich bread:

I guess there's hope!

I found a guy, Ben, on YouTube who threw the whole tedious business of careful preparation, kneading, rising, proofing, etc, etc out of the window and came up with the - '10 Minute SIMPLER Sourdough (For Lazy People)'- method.
From making a starter to baking a bread he simplified the whole process so even a cave(wo)man .. or me .. can do it.
So my plan is to make a new starter, following his method, and start from scratch. You can't blame me for trying!

That's it for this week. It's still snowing when I write this on Saturday afternoon, but I've seen rain as well .. which is probably a good thing since we'd have a couple feet of snow by now!

Looking back to the RV from the other side of the pond on my walk the other day I was struck once again by how green everything's looking ..like it's not winter at all.
I guess that's Oregon for you .. no snow or ice, but weeks, heck months, of rain and moderate temperatures. Hence the grass stays green ..

Due to the same moderate weather Wood Ducks live year-round along most of the Pacific Coast but I'd never seen one .. yet .. but look who showed up the other day?



Mr and Mrs Wood Duck! Aren't they gorgeous?
It’s hard to mistake these beautiful ducks in the wild. From the male’s iridescent green crest and intricate markings to the female’s distinctive white eye patch, I think these birds are some of our most beautiful waterfowl.
In fact, their scientific name, Aix sponsa, loosely translates to “bridal duck,” as the species—the male, particularly—is so well appointed that it appears dressed for a wedding.

                                      

Wood Ducks owe their common name to the fact that they are one of the few waterfowl species that perch and nest in trees. Sharp nails on their webbed feet allow them to balance on branches and maneuver into tree cavities that they use for nesting.
Which made me wonder about the chicks, how do they come down?
Well, apparently:
Responding to calls from the mother duck, the chicks leap from nests as high as 50 feet above the ground or water. How do they survive? Downy feathers, pliable bones, and leaf litter provide the necessary cushion when not landing in water!
                                   Nature never ceases to amaze me!

Last Sunday, after a 3 month hiatus, we finally got to see another play in McMinnville's Gallery Theater again. 'See How They Run', an English comedy in three acts by Philip King.

Its title is a line from the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice". It is considered a farce for its tense comic situations and headlong humor, heavily playing on mistaken identity, doors, and vicars.

Set in the background of World War II, things go awry when a pompous church matron comes calling unannounced and a male friend from the vicar's wife's past comes to visit, the bishop (the wife's uncle) shows up early, and an escaped Russian convict hides in the house.

    

Galloping in and out of the doors of an English vicarage are an American actor and actress, a cockney maid who has seen too many American movies, an old maid who "touches alcohol for the first time in her life," four men in clergyman suits presenting the problem of which is which (for disguised as one is the escaped prisoner), and a sedate Bishop aghast at all these goings-on and the trumped up stories they tell him.

                                                    

Despite it being a classic, old fashioned, rather cheesy, slapstick-kind of play the fast pace, excellent acting and smart humor made for many laugh-out-loud moments.
We enjoyed it more than we thought we would!

This also happened this week :

James went to town and came back with a truck full of building materials!
Why ???
Well, after long deliberation, we've decided to build him a little office.
Although we've made it work so far, the RV is just a tad too tight to house a separate chair, desk, computer, (large) printer, shredder, file cabinet etc,etc and still have enough room to live more or less 'comfortable'.
We've thought about buying a garden shed or an office-pod but, besides being rather expensive, most aren't insulated or have electric and the sizes and floor plans just don't fit his needs.

So, since he is quite the handy guy, we've decided he's going to build one his-self!
We found a lumber-liquidating store not too far from us which sells all kinds of heavily discounted building materials and after drawing up a plan and creating a list, James brought a first load home.

He quickly created a little lean-to:

 
After which we spend 1 1/2 hrs to unload everything from the truck:

                                                     

                                                    

This should basically be enough to get the floor, walls and roof build and get us 'water-tight'.
We were promised a 3 day sunny 'window' in the weather to get the materials and hopefully build the floor before we were supposedly in for another 8 days of rain so we immediately got to work.

After a coffee-break ..

 
At the end of the second day we had a floor!

             

       
The next day James prepared 2 C-shaped steel tubes to attach to the bottom of the floor. This allows for the forks of a forklift to slide into so we can lift the hole shebang, without damaging the wooden floor, on a trailer when we want (or have) to move.
Pretty ingenious!

                                                                  

We also proceeded to paint the bottom-side of the floor with an oil-based protective paint to stop moisture from seeping up and rotting it out (remember .. Oregon .. rain!).
I forgot to take a picture before we had to cover everything up when the first raindrops started to fall around 12pm ..

And that finished day 3 of  'the office project'.
As I said, it's going to rain for at least a week (2 inches on Wednesday!) so we're done for a while, besides, after working hard for the last 2 days our muscles are rather sore .. we could do with a little rest!

Work is still slow, we've got one appraisal on the books for Tuesday, but that's all.
Fortunately James still has items on the honey-do list and I am working on my raised-bed and other garden related plans for the summer so we won't sit idle .. as if we'd ever!

Look at that, there's some buds with tiny leaves on several of the shrubs around the property!
I'm not quite sure what they are but they look pretty whatever they are!

It's still quite rainy, off and on, and the grounds are saturated and muddy most of the time.
Apparently we have overnight visitors ..



Those are raccoon prints of course. One of these days I'm going to set up a little trail-cam to see what else comes by in the night.
I really don't see anything during the day other than birds, compliments of a certain dog .. she chases everything away .. sigh.

                                                              

Due to the mild winter there's enough food to be found, these Scrub Jays are happy about the many acorns that are laying around ..

Amidst all the grey and wet there was a sparkle of brightness and color in the form of Mardi Gras aka Fat or Shrove Tuesday!
Having spend two winters in Louisiana, we've gotten in the habit of celebrating this wildly festive day, which marks the final day of 'Ordinary Time' before the solemn season of Lent commences on Ash Wednesday.
Mainly because of the food and the parades of course since we're not religious at all.

Portland has it's own Krewe (a club or organization that exists to celebrate Carnival), the Mysti Krewe of Nimbus.
If you know Oregon it's probably not surprising to hear they usually have their parades in the rain:

They don't have any less fun though! We (again) didn't go this year .. maybe next time.

I did bake a King Cake though:

                                          

                                                                                                                              

I use a different recipe every year, but this time I repeated last year's since we agreed it was pretty much the best one ever.
The only thing I changed was to cut the ingredients in half, which gave us a smaller cake that's still more than enough for 2 people.
Even now I froze half of it!

I also baked another loaf of bread:

This time I used my new sourdough starter. It was rising consistently and looked bubbly enough but it's still quite 'young' so I added a little yeast to give it some extra lift.



I also used the bread-machine from start to finish which gives it a lot less time to rise and proof than without but it came out looking really good.
Not very 'sour' yet, but good enough for a first bake!


And if that wasn't fun and healthy enough I also started to grow my own 'sprouts'!

               

I buy them regularly in the stores but I always balk at the high prices.
I mean, come on, $4 for some sprouted seeds .. really!?
It's very easy to do. Just spread some seeds on a paper towel, spray them with water and keep them in the dark for a couple of days.

These still have to grow taller and green up ..

                                 

After the little leaves appear you place them in the light and wait until they have grown to a decent height after you can start harvesting.
They're really good, and healthy, on sandwiches and in salads.
How cool is that?!

We don't have any appraisals at the moment so James is still working on his to-do list.
Here he's modifying the little table that sits between our chairs. Our new chairs are a little bigger than the previous ones so the table had to shrink some ..

                                                                                 
After which it had to be repainted.

The master at work!

Well, that was about it for this week.

I can't believe we're already halfway February ..

Here's a last food-picture of the soup we had on Mardi Gras which of course had to be Gumbo, only our most favorite soup ever!