This gloomy picture about sums up how we felt on Wednesday morning ..
Yes, this happened ... we lost .. unbelievable!!!

                                            

                                            America, what have you done?

Common believe is that failure to address the pressing economic concerns and the deepening divide in America helped pave the way for Trump's second term.

Even if this were true, it beats me how anybody thinks Donald trump can, and more importantly will, do any better.
Personally I don't believe a single thing that comes out of his mouth but hey .. apparently more than half of America does, so lets see what that will look like for them ..

Actually I'm with Heather Richardson Cox who says in her blog of November 6, the day after the election: 
"But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now".
I think she nailed it on the head! Disinformation. What, or who, to believe and to trust?

Thank heavens he 'only' has 4 (more) years! In the meantime:

Fight! Resist!

We had plans to go out for coffee that morning, hopefully 'to celebrate', and decided to go anyways ... 'to drown or sorrow' ..
Nothing like a good cup of coffee and a huge slice of pie to soften the blow:

                                                        

We had to go to Dallas to get some, about a 20 minute drive, but at least it was good!
It's very hard to find a decent, cozy coffee-shop that serves cakes or different pastries other than the usual boring donuts, cupcakes, cinnamon rolls and scones in America.
It's one thing I really miss about Europe .. all those wonderful bakeries .. and pastries.

After all that drama I tried to spend much of the rest of the week out in nature, taking long walks, which usually restores my balance and makes sense of things again, but I have to say it was a hard sell this time ..

Not that mother nature didn't try her best, of course she was beautiful as ever!

 


Really pulling out all the stops by showing me this peaceful, sleepy, calming herd of Elk at the lower slopes of the hills towards Sheridan:

 

 

It's always such a thrill to see them!

I still discover new mushrooms almost every day.
This tree was covered with these pretty dainty ones on their tall stems. I don't know what they are but I hope they're beneficial and don't harm the tree.

  

     

And this bulky one I found in the meadow which I think is a Bolete: 

                        

It can be identified thanks to a unique cap. On the underside of the cap there is usually a spongy surface with pores, instead of the gills typical of mushrooms.

 

Some are edible, but most are not very good. I'll pass ..

I also find lots and lots of these Oak galls which are abnormal plant growths found on foliage and twigs that are produced by small oak gall wasps.
Inside the galls are the eggs and larvae of the insects, which by the way are not harmful to humans.
Some of them are really pretty.

                                         

 
When I was not outside I binge-watched the Holiday Baking Championships (reruns for years past) or one of the sugar-sweet Hallmark-movies on the 'telly'.
And I finished this Halloween puzzle. A 'tricky' one!

I baked some dutch cookies called speculaasjes. I didn't have a mold but they taste the same. Which is .. delicious!
I always bring back the special 'speculaas' spices you need for these from when I visit Holland. The ones I brought last time were from a different brand and OMG they're soooo good! Much better than my old ones.

I cooked some 'comfort' food for dinner as well, another dutch dish called 'boerenkool met worst' with a 'kuiltje jus' (little gravy pit? Haha!).
Mm-Mm-good!

So, nature, some sappy TV, puzzles and food ... anything to take my mind of what happened and which one of the bloggers I follow (Ellen) described as:
'"A new dark age is about to befall this country. The people have voted for a repressive, racist, misogynistic regime that is all about vengeance and absolute power.

Well, America, you got what you wished for, either through action or inaction. You have brought on yourself a world of hurt. You will receive your just desserts and I hope you choke on it."

Let's end with a peaceful scene out of my window in the late afternoon:

The little oak-grove next to us in the morning fog ..

I know, enough already with those fall pictures, but I can't help myself, it's so beautiful out there!
The soft light and those old, gnarly trees .. picture perfect ..

                        

We had a lot of rain this last week. I didn't empty the rain gauge for 10 days or so so it looks a bit overly dramatic but yes, we had a good amount lately ..

                                                         

I had to plan my walks carefully if I didn't want to get soaked, although not forgetting to bring an umbrella always helps of course, but I managed to go out every day.
How I love the smell of the damp soil and wet leaves, the gloomy, cloudy skies and the fresh cool air!

                                                

While out on one such mornings I came across what I thought was just the one deer, but it turned out to be a little family of three, and although I stood in the middle of the path only a few hundred yards away they didn't notice me ... 

While I was standing stock-still taking pictures this little Squirrel showed up. He definitely saw me and thought I was very interesting.
As soon as I swung the camera in his direction he skedaddled though ... oh well, what's another blurry picture:

                                    

And how about all these mushrooms popping up everywhere all of a sudden?
Amazing what a little rain will do!

                                                        

 

As usual time is slipping through my fingers and Halloween has already been and gone!

The town of Willamina organized a Trunk-or-treat:

                                                        

And despite the at times really pouring rain, a lot of children showed up.
There's not much that could happen for a kid to give up free candy I guess!

We debated to go out and snap some pictures but we chickened out and stayed warm and dry in our cozy home.

All these pics I stole from the Willamina city Facebook-site.
Some people go all out these days in decorating their houses, almost like they do at Christmas, complete with light and sound shows!

 

I guess that was about it for this week. Tonight we get an extra hour sleep which is always a bit of an adjustment.
As I mentioned before, I'm not a fan of daylight-savings-time.
Being an early riser I love the extra light in the morning, and liking the grey days I love the early darkness in the evenings.
I hope every year they'll leave it at 'wintertime', they do talk about it almost every year, but it never seems to gather enough steam to actually go through ...

I agree .. and leave it at 'normal time' please, thank you very much!

I can't believe it's the end of October already and Halloween is just around the corner!
So far Fall has been a quite mild affair this year, it's been mostly dry and although temps have cooled down considerably it hasn't been too cold ... yet.
We did have a few 'almost-frosty' mornings last week though and the sunrises were often quite spectacular!

                  

                 

The colors are strong when there's a cold, clear sky but I think they're even better when there are some clouds for some extra 'drama'!

                     

And after the sun has emerged for real, the lingering fog over the meadows sets everything in a beautiful golden and orange glow ..

                     

                     
We sure live in a beautiful spot!

My niece had mentioned on the family-Whatsapp that the 'Oliebollen kraam' had once again arrived in town (which is Den Helder in the Netherlands btw)!
It usually arrives at the end of September and stays in town until Old Year's and I would be one of the first to get some! I love oliebollen!

But of course there's no such thing here in the States, although donuts or funnel cake come close, so what to do?
Yup, you bake them yourselves!

We bake them every year but always on New Year's day only, but this year I just couldn't wait!
At least we halved the batch this time, so we 'only' had 12 of them, but boy-oh-boy were they good!

                                                                 

                                                                                             Yummm!

Of course this doesn't mean that we're skipping them on New Year's.
Ha! No sirree!

Any-who. Since these delicious balls aren't necessarily without about a couple of hundred calories each we needed a good, stiff walk to offset some of the damage.

We decided to go back to the Baskett Slough, the National Wildlife Refuge on the way to Dallas where we stopped earlier this summer at their viewing platform and information kiosk.

This time we actually drove into the refuge until about midway where you can park and take one of the trailheads that take you through several areas of the reserve.

                                               

Since at the moment more and more migrating birds, especially geese, are arriving each day they've closed the trails around the lakes for the season but there are still enough accessible which make for a nice, moderate hike.

From the parking lot we first climbed the small hill, Mt Baldy ..

  

At the top of which (125 m) you find this viewing area ..




Which gives you a nice 350 degree overview of the surrounding area ..

 

You had a peek of the lake in the distance but it was too far to see if there were any geese present and even the zoom on my camera didn't show any.
James thought he heard them but of course me being deaf I didn't hear a thing ..

    

      

We proceeded our way following the trail up and down through a beautiful oak forest and  after a while it looped back to the parking lot.
Although most people that go here rave about all the wildlife they see, we didn't come across any at all.
Of course it was the middle of the afternoon which is usually not the best time but still, it was a little disappointing

And since all that hiking had made us thirsty (nice excuse) we decided to stop  at the Salt Creek Cider House on our way back.

         

     

Again, this was one of those places we'd passed numerous times and always wanted to go but never went .. so far.
I'd read on Facebook that they recently harvested their new crop of apples so it seemed a good time to pay them a visit.

They have a pretty little set-up, with a pond and some ducks and the apple orchard that you can walk through.
Inside you can see the vats of cider merrily fermenting away ..

               

We decided to try a flight of 4 different ciders and since the weather was decent we went outside to sit at one of the picnic benches :

                                   
                                                                         

             

These were 'hard' ciders and I have to say .. I'm not a fan.
I just find them too harsh, too dry and than all those bubbles .. I just end up with a sour stomach.

In comparison we thought these were at least much, much better than when we took my sister and her partner to another cider mill this spring where all four of us thought their cider was really absolutely awful but no .. I guess we just don't like (hard) cider!

OK. Last, but not least:

I did it! I voted! For the first time since I became a citizen!

                 

So whatever happens .. I did my best!