A little hard to see maybe, but this week the deer, that visited us almost every evening last year when my sister was here, came back!
At least one of them is a male:

I hope we'll see more of them in the coming weeks!

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately, the bullfrogs have emerged from their winter-hibernation (presumably deep in the mud of the pond) as well .. something we're definitely NOT as happy about!
Their croaking, especially at night, is loud enough for both of us (despite my deafness) to bring out the earplugs ..

                                                

                                                

That second picture shows how they look like when they blow up their cheeks and croak!

The blackbirds are still raiding my feeders, although I am limiting what I put out to just the cheap mixed-seeds for the summer. 
They don't mind and apparently eat anything, but besides some doves and jays I don't see many other birds anymore. 
The smaller birds certainly do prefer the sunflower seeds, but those are twice the price and I think that they really don't need them in the summer .. I do miss them though.

                                

The first grass has been mowed and already bailed as well, in the meadow of the neighbors:

And the blackberry bushes are flowering profusely .. it looks like were going to have another monster-crop this year.
Which is good, because I'm down to 'only' two one-gallon bags in the freezer!

The apple trees are looking promising as well:

                      

And, like every week, more flowers, flowers, flowers everywhere ...



Than for something totally different ... walking down the path towards the RV the other day, my (old) shoe rolled over a large piece of gravel and before I knew it I was down ... which resulted in skinned knees and hands and a sprained ankle!

    

(These pictures look weird because I took them with my reader and than had the biggest problems moving them to my computer. I ended up having to use my phone to take a picture from my reader)

Wonderful $%#@!&^%! I've applied ice-packs and kept my ankle elevated and the worst (egg-like) swelling has sort of melted down into a larger area of my foot ..

Not much of discoloration yet but I suspect that will happen soon ..

James doesn't want me to walk on it at all and I guess that will probably be the best but it's not easy when you're as independent and stubborn as me and of course there are certain things you do have to do yourselves of course .. (bathroom?)
But I'm trying to let myself be taken care of (and getting waited on hand and foot) without ordering him around too much ..
Poor guy, first I'm gone for 3 weeks, than I come back with the flu and now this ..

This all happened yesterday and we had plans to do the yearly garden-tour in Mcminnville today ... guess what .. that didn't happen of course.
Bummer!

Oh, well next year .. and James, always positive of course, had to point out that today was actually an extremely warm day, so it might have been not as much fun as it could have been to begin with.
He might have a point there because at 4pm today the thermometer showed this (that's Fahrenheit to the left and Celsius to the right) :

   

Holy smokes! It's only the 8th of June! 
I hope this says nothing about the coming summer ... I might go in (reverse) hibernation!

Something good about that (that's me being optimistic) .. dinner consisted of leftovers and could be eaten outside:

Samson has figured out we're often outside and around, more so than his owners, and he hangs out here often .. especially when there's food  

.. hope springs eternal!

 

No, we didn't all of a sudden adopted two giant dogs but we're dog-sitting our landlord's for a couple of days! 
With us living on the property we are the ideal sitters of course and we're more than happy to take care of these two. 
They're sweet and easy-going and since they're running free they really don't need much more than a little walk around the property in the morning and evening, just for fun, and of course their chow ... a lot of that, yes please!

Still more and more flowers are popping up. These wild, white roses are growing in the ditch along our road and are flowering profusely:

My own 'garden', which basically consist of a whole bunch of pots in all shapes and sizes, is doing really well this year (so far).
That French lavender is very happy, as well as the red rose and, in contrast to last year when they didn't have any flowers, the lupine and hollyhock are starting to flower as well.

 

 

All the day-lilies I dug up from all around the property are each sending out several flower-stalks! 
They're 'just' the common, orange ones but I like them nevertheless!

I'd kept my eye on the hanging baskets being offered in town but they all wanted more for them than I was willing to pay (I know, I'm cheap, but seriously .. $29?).
So I decided to make my own. I had kept several of the 'baskets' from last year and filled them with pink Surfinias, white Verbenas and a few blue Lobelias. 

 

Very pretty, if I say so myself, and only $30 for both!

My vegetables are still barely hanging in there, not growing much, I'm trying to stay positive that they might take off when it gets warmer ..
The strawberries in one of my baskets surprised me though by not only making it through the winter, but actually starting to bear fruit! Yeah!

                                                          

Here's something funny .. last year we had swallows nesting in the owl-boxes that are hanging on both sides of the grey barn next to us, which was interesting enough ..

   

And this year we have a couple of starlings that took over this prime piece of real-estate!
I'm trying to catch them flying in, or out, but so far I only have this one shot of one peeking out, before taking flight.

                                               

My camera has a hard time focusing at the moment, James has promised to look at it for me but he's very busy with appraisals at the moment .. which is good of course, but bad for my picture quality .. oh, well, patience dear Watson.

He did work on the car though, I guess that takes precedence as well ..
The roof-rack was starting to rust and leave brown stains on the car so he'd taken it off, sanded and repainted it, and it was ready to be put back on:

                            

The BBQ is starting to get more use now we're warming up for the season and this memorial weekend we made a grand slam for brunch ..

We're trying out some different plant-based sausages and meats at the moment and these breakfast-sausages are not bad at all!

                               

         

In the evening we had Prime-rib steaks for dinner .. you just can't beat 'real' steaks .. 
But we eat them sparingly!

I baked another sourdough bread .. once again following a different recipe than the previous ones. I'm still trying to find the easiest and best one and this one was near perfect .. I even got the coveted 'ear'!
(A "sourdough ear" is a flap of crust that forms on the top of a sourdough loaf while baking, often where it was scored. It's a visual indicator of a well-proved dough and proper oven spring, and it can be a sign of good baking techniques.)  

   

Other than that the week was rather uneventful.
I'm feeling much better, most flue/cold symptoms have gone although I still have a persistent little cough that probably will take some time to disappear and my stomach still cannot hold much before I'm full, bloated and sometimes vaguely nauseated.
(I'm starting to wonder if it is a side-effect from the St. Johns wort that I've started to take for my hot flashes (which were just not stopping, despite being far past menopause!
A common side-effect is nausea and upset stomach .. which would suck because it seems to work for the hot flashes!)

This is the start of my latest puzzle:

It is a birthday present from my mom, a crazy, comic one by Jan van Haasteren, a dutch cartoonist.
This one is called 'Not so wellness' and shows a whole bunch of (nearly) naked people in a wellness center/sauna!

Fun!

My first week back was spend mostly on the couch, coughing and snottering and feeling pretty lousy ..
Not that I had anything to do or be, so I made my way through several e-books and took it easy.

Since they'd had quite some rain but mild temperatures over here while I was gone, the grasses and trees have exploded in their greenery and the small field at the entrance is covered in crimson clover and yellow buttercups ..

                                 

And although it's not quite summer yet and the wind especially can still be rather on the cool side, temperatures are comfortable enough to have the occasional coffee or happy hour outside ...

The (cold weather) veggies I sowed and which had sprouted before I left, did not grown much in the time I was away ... either it was still too cold or this will be a repeat of last year and nothing will ever grow much at all .. again .. sigh.

The blueberry bushes are still alive but only one has (the beginning of) berries.
They're only in their second year so they might not be mature enough to produce much this year.
I added a few more handfuls of the lime-product I bought last year to raise the PH of the soil, which is still too low for what it needs to be.

       

I also bought a few starters at our local plant-guy; a few tomatoes, basil, cucumber and zucchini.
It should be warm enough by now for these warmer-weather vegetables. ..

The blackberries on the property have grown at least half a meter in my absence (!) and still seem to grow a couple of inches every night, and the wild plums alongside our road are starting to look good as well!

After a day of resting on the couch, I felt just good enough on Sunday to make it to the theater for the matinee performance of Willy Wonka, which we'd already bought tickets for a while ago.
After all the only thing I had to do was get in and out of the car and sit for a couple of hours in the theater ..

It was a fun show, although a little more suited for the children in the audience (which I suspect were mostly family and friends of all the young actors that made up most of this particular cast) than for us adults.

I made it through the show alright but was grateful that this one was a little shorter than most.
My energy level was zapped very fast by just doing absolutely nothing and I was very happy to get home and be able to stretch out on the couch for a little nap ..

Fortunately I've gotten quite a bit better during these last couple of days and yesterday we decided to drive to the Grange Hall in Buell for their 'start-of-the-season' Sunday markets (although on a Saturday this one time):

We talked about going a couple of times last year but we never made it, mostly because James has gotten into the routine of golfing on Sundays.
I doubt we'll be able to go there more often this year but at least we now know how it looks like ..

Being the first one of the season it was still a little early for any vegetables and flowers to be had, which I'd actually had hoped to pick up, but we came away with 2 dozens of eggs, some tropical/jalapeno preserves and, of all things, 2 cans of pepper-spray!

We've talked about maybe getting some spray for me since I often walk by myself in remote areas, and for James as well, since he sometimes has appraisals on farms or land with big, angry looking watch-dogs.
It was an odd place to come across them but hey, there they were, priced half off, so we snatched them up!

Also in my absence they started to dismantle the red barn on the property.
It was in a bad shape, especially the concrete floor, but the metal siding and roof as well, so they decided to take everything down.

James had promised to help removing, temporary rerouting and re-installing the electric, so he spend an afternoon making a start:

   

As I said, I wasn't good for much this week, I felt too out of sorts and too tired to do anything, but I did manage to make some sourdough sandwich bread.
As usual, it didn't come out at all like previous ones, but it actually is a very tasty one ..

 

This weird, but handy dandy, horizontal knife needs some getting used-to but works like a charm!

                                         

And I managed to finish this beautiful jig-saw puzzle. Only 500 pieces, how difficult could it be?

Pffft, famous last words of course ... definitely not an easy one!

 

Unlike previous flights to Europe I'd opted for a window-seat this time around, mainly because it looked like the middle seat of this row of three seats would stay empty, which turned out to be the case indeed. It was nice to have a little 'elbow' room!

Also nice was the view of mountains and occasional some lakes and even some peaks of the ocean every now and than ..

                          

                                Mt. Hood

The flight was a little over 9 hours and it was fairly smooth 'sailing' all the way.

We arrived in Amsterdam at 7.15 am and although there was still some morning fog rising from the fields it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day ..
I somehow went through customs and immigration in record time and before I knew it I sat in the train to Den Helder!

Although many tulip and daffodil fields were already cut and cleared at this time, there were some left to enjoy as the train tracks cut straight through them in many places when you travel north.

My mom was there to welcome me and later that day several others of my family dropped by to say hello .. the first of many get-togethers, coffees and dinners to come during the 2.5 weeks I was there.
It was so good to see everybody in 'real life' again, instead of in pictures on Whatsapp! 

               

My mom's 3d floor apartment looks out over a large part of the city, and since the weather staid dry and sunny during pretty much the whole time I was there, we often sat at the balcony enjoying the view.
(this is an old picture from one of my previous visits since I totally forgot to take much of anything this time around).

One of those mornings we saw this crane placing a large wooden construction on top of a building ..

                          

It turned out to be the 'body' of a genuine, new to be build windmill!
Apparently there used to be a mill in that same spot a long time ago and plans to re-build it have been a long-time dream of the local mill-society ...

I guess the money has been raised, and the city is on board, so the building has started.
Although the original mill was a saw-mill, the new one is going to be a grain-mill since the noise of a saw-mill in this modern-day neighborhood would not be appreciated.
Other than that it's going to be an exact replica. How cool is that?

As usual, we made a few visits to the dike at the little town of Huisduinen (where James and I got married).

                

There are two small cafe/restaurants where you have a great view of the North-sea.
It's the best place to have coffee and they both have great pastries!

                        

We also visited my niece who lives here but again ... didn't take any pictures! She has a beautiful house and gorgeous garden

My sister and her partner took my mom and I for an outing to Edam, one of the oldest towns at the Ijsselmeer,  ... yes, where the famous cheese is from!

It dates back to the 12th century and over the centuries, it grew into a major trading town during the Dutch Golden Age, particularly in shipbuilding, timber, and cheese production.

It's a beautiful small town with picturesque canals, a hand operated drawbridge ..

... and lots of beautifully restored and maintained 17th century architecture with step-gabled rooftops.

We drove into town to visit the beautiful St Nicolas Church.
This Gothic church, the oldest monument in Edam, stands on a slight rise to the north of the town.
The huge church is the size of an ocean liner long and five aisles wide—large enough to hold the entire town, and their animals, too, in case of rising waters. Something that happened a lot in the old days!

It has 23 beautiful stained glass windows and an enormous organ ..

And these are those famous Edam cheeses, semi-hard cheeses with a mild, salty and nutty flavor that becomes sharper with age. 
It's known for its pale yellow interior and often iconic red paraffin wax coating which kept them from spoiling on the long sea-travels of the dutch trading ships in the 18th century:

We had lunch at a great restaurant at the harbor from where you have a nice view of the Ijsselmeer:

I went for a dutch classic, 'broodje kroket' (a deep-fried ragu tube (croquette), soft white roll and some fierce mustard):

Later that week my mom and I went shopping in Schagen, another cute village which is  only 20 minutes away from us.
Despite it being close, she hadn't been there for years, and for me it was even longer ago of course ..

The old, covered shopping center has been renovated and since it was a cloudy day with even a few smatterings of rain, it was a nice place to check out some of the stores and have some coffee in one of the newly renovated coffee-shops.

The outside terraces at the square in front of the church didn't have many visitors on this grey day ..

                            

                               

On mother's day we decided to get the whole family together to not only celebrate mother's day, for my mom and my sister obviously, but the birthdays of my nieces Anouk and Babet (both in May) and myself (4/26) as well!
By some sort of miracle everybody could make it and it was quite the party!

As usual there was no lack of food:

Anouk made this picture of me with my mom and sister:

Of course we got together for several more dinners, like this delicious meal at a local Chinese restaurant:



And at my sister's , who'd made us some excellent Enchiladas!

                             

Unfortunately after a few of such 'close encounters' with my brother in law I picked up a virus that had plagued my sister already for 3 weeks before giving it to him and he, still pretty ill, now passed that baton to me!
It took a couple of days before I got sick as well, fortunately towards the end of my stay, but I still wasn't feeling too well when I left.

My sister, by the way, lives temporarily in a different rental than she did before, since she is waiting for her old neighborhood to be reconstructed after they tore down all the historical houses of the whole street (they were from 1919 and really not up to today's standards anymore)!

The new houses are build in the same style as the old ones but with all the comfort and energy-saving standards of today.
It's taking a long time, almost two years, and she really doesn't like the rental she's in now, but I think the end-result will be worth it:

This is how it's going to look like. So cute!

In between all the coffee and dinner get-togethers with the family, I'd saved a slot to visit my best friend in the north-east of the country, about a 2 hour drive from Den Helder.

The weather was beautiful and we were able to spend the day outside in her beautiful garden, where we had a great time catching up on everything that had happened over the last 2 years (!) that we hadn't seen each other.

I can't believe neither of us took a single picture that day so here's one from a couple of years ago. Things have changed a little since than, they build a garage and breezeway onto the house, but the garden is just as beautiful and even more mature now.

They have several squirrels visiting this feeder on a daily base .. the European Red ones are so cute with those plumes on their ears!

           

But ... all things have to come to an end, and before I knew it I was on my way back to the airport where I had one last cup of dutch coffee before boarding my flight to Portland.

                             

Usually I take the train back from Den Helder to Amsterdam and travel by myself, but I was very happy that this time my sister accompanied me since she took care of schlepping my suitcase through the airport.
I still felt very weak and wobbly that morning .. that virus really was a doozy!

After an uneventful flight we landed safely at Portland, although I arrived completely deaf since during the landing my eardrums in both ears got blocked.
I basically had to sign-language my way through customs but fortunately I had a very nice and understanding immigration officer ..
It took a full day for them to pop (my ears, not the officer)!

      

This by the way, is the newly opened and totally renovated main terminal of the international area of PDX (the Portland airport) 

The massive glulam-wooden roof especially is a work of art, it's gorgeous, together with a forest-like atmosphere with over 5,000 trees and plants!
There's still another area being worked on which includes new exit lanes, meet-and-greet areas, and more local shops and restaurants.

Fortunately James was there to collect me, although he managed to show up way too early by misreading the arrival time .. oh well, better than being too late!
After such smooth travels something had to go wrong of course, so I delivered by loosing my phone in the restrooms ... I never heard it falling out of my pocket due to my plugged ears.
An hour of stressful searching and waiting and being send through the whole airport later, it turned out it was found (by a janitor) before being returned to me.
Phew! Not what you want to happen when you've been traveling for 12 hours and feeling still rather sick on top of that!

I managed to stay up until 9pm that evening, wanting to go back to 'normal' as soon as possible, and it was sheer heaven to finally collapse in my very own bed.

It's true .. there's no place like home!