Juvenile Green Heron

It's been a while that I made it to the pond in Willamina and, as usual, it didn't disappoint!
This time I met this cute Green Heron, a youngster, as is visible by the fluffy down feathers it's still sporting on top of it's head.

Green Herons usually stand motionless at the water's edge as they hunt for fish and amphibians. They typically stand on vegetation or tree branches that overhang the water,like this one does, and they don't wade as often as larger herons.                                                            

                      

He didn't mind me much and proceeded fluffing those feathers like I wasn't just standing a couple of feet away!
Like one of the locals assured me one time 'Huddleston Pond always surprises'! 

Closer to home, as in at the end of the driveway, the telephone wires were 'buzzing'. 
Not so much with phone calls but with long rows of little Swallows:

I think these are tree swallows although they could be Violet-greens but it was hard to determine their color in the bright morning light ..

                                                                                                                                   

I seldom have the opportunity to photograph them at all since they're almost always flying, they eat 'on the wing' and I've heard they even take (very short) naps while flying?!
(Apparently they can sleep while flying by utilizing unihemispheric sleep or by entering brief periods of REM sleep. Some theories suggest they may also descend slowly in circles while sleeping, regaining altitude when they wake up.)

  

 

I've found another area to go for a walk! To the left of that fence up above is some room to move around it and according to the neighbor that lives next to this property it's totally OK to do so, despite the 'no trespassing' sign.
Apparently locals/neighbors are exempt .. great!
 

It's an old logging-road and is in a very good state. No weeds or mud or overgrown vegetation, just a very easy (flat!) dirt-road.
According to the guy I talked to it goes in for about 3 miles and meanders through a mixed forest. 
Wildlife sightings are plentiful and are usual of the 'benign' sort although cougars and bears have also been seen on occasion (mostly at night on the trail-cams), so he advised carrying a phone, a big stick and some bear-spray .. oooo-kayyy! 
I'll keep my head on a swivel!

The apple and pear trees are looking better and better:

 

   

 

Also, my Morning Glory is finally starting to flower! 

 

 

And I got a, not that good, of a shot of a California Sister, a butterfly common in California but also seen in Oregon:

 

 

                         

 

 

OK, this is a little bit of a hastily written post because I'm busy packing a suitcase for our clothes and several totes with kitchen stuff and food ... yes, we're going on a little vacation! 
Next week Tuesday the 19th of August happens to be our 25th Anniversary if you can believe it (we can't!). 
Since we're not people for a party, and neither of us has family or friends close by, we've decided to celebrate this huge and utterly unbelievable fact with a little outing to the coast.

Tomorrow we'll set sail, or in our case start driving the car, to Ocean Shores in Washington state, about 4.5 hrs from us.
I've booked 6 nights in a cute (looking) little motel which sits about a block from the ocean. Sounds great!
We'll probably drive up to the Olympic State Park for some hiking and will visit some of the little coastal towns along the way.

A quarter-century of love and commitment ... we're sort of in awe of ourselves. 
We're (still) together and we're for sure going to celebrate!

Nothing more summer-y than hay-bales in a meadow

Summer is in full force by now, we're already in August, and fortunately so far it has been a fairly 'mild' one temperature wise.
Last year, as well as the one before that, Oregon suffered through a long and very hot summer, which was so unlike the Oregon as it used to be.
James is a native Oregonian and he cannot remember it was so hot, and for so long, when he was young.
But this year has been much more like it used to be and of course I'm not complaining!

The forecast is showing some hot days coming soon though, so we won't completely escape all of the heat, but only for a few days after which it will get cooler again.

                               

The Queen Ann's Lace in the fields around us are slowly setting seed and turning brown.
For some reason I see quite a lot of bunnies at the moment ..?
Most of them are of a pretty cinnamon color:

           

Our landlord is slowly making progress on the new barn. Materials have been arriving:

                                                                

And the first 18 poles for the main body of the building are in:

For only two people (husband and wife) working on this I think they're making amazing progress so far!

Here's something I build myself ... a bird-bath/drinking dish. 
I'd been looking to buy some but the better ones are quite pricey, so I googled around for a bit and came up with this much cheaper alternative:

A tomato cage and a plant dish!

So far it isn't used too much yet. I wondered if the see-through dish is scaring them, by seeing no bottom, so I added some gravel. Let's see if it helps ..

Since I moved my Morning Glory to the front porch, where I thought it will be happier with the morning sun, it started to grow like crazy!
After rapidly climbing to the end of the bamboo stakes it reached over to the poles of the awning and is now winding itself around and up towards the awning!

         

I'm finally harvesting some tomatoes in addition to that first big bell-pepper I showed in the previous post.
Guess what .. there are 6 more coming! Wow, six, yahoo!

                              

    

And look at this, that's a cucumber! Yes!
(I know, but it's the small victories in life isn't it?)

When James doesn't have to go out for an appraisal we're having coffee in the morning on the back porch.
It's a wonderful shady spot to sit and talk and read, it's my favorite time of the day!

Especially when there's pie. (Cream)cheese mousse-pie with our hand-picked raspberries.
Life just doesn't get any better than this!

                                             

I'm mostly fascinated by nature in all it's aspects but of course it can be both beautiful and brutal.
It was mesmerizing to watch this beautiful Blue Heron eat this poor frog.
It took forever and he even had to chase it again after he'd dropped it while readjusting his grip (I did root for the poor thing) but eventually he swallowed it whole, barely dead I would say ...

                                                        

While I was impressed with its tenacity to get the poor frog down, it just broke my heart that it took sooo long!! I wished I had a way to put the poor frog out of its misery!
But in the end the bird had a meal .. and we have one of those loud bull-frogs less .. such is life.

OK, let's move on to something a little more fun shall we?
We went to see another play at our favorite theater (well, it's our only one, so yeah ..). 

It's good that I write these things down on my calendar btw (and yes, I still have a genuine paper one!) or I would have totally forgotten about it .. again. 

This entertaining (1950s) comedy, “The Curious Savage,” written by John Patrick, is the story of an elderly widow, Mrs. Savage, whose husband left her $10 million dollars. She intends to give the entire fortune away to people who wish to pursue their dreams, but her stepchildren strongly object. To stop this, they commit her to a sanatorium where the gentle residents become her “new family.” 

                            

                            

I know I write this every time but once again it was a great performance. 
Every single performer was outstanding in their role but our favorite was 'Fairy', a cheerful and imaginative character, often lost in her own world of hilarious stories and fantasies.
All in all another winner! 

I really can't come up with much else to write about for this week.
We fed our landlord's dogs and watered their garden while they were away for a couple of days but otherwise it was a very quiet week with pretty much nothing happening ...

I came across the West Valley Fiber Enthusiasts on Facebook which reminded me that I actually came across them at the Willamina Library when we checked it out after we'd just moved here.
They happened to be there for a couple of hours to show the public what they're about and I remember watching a lady demonstrate a drum-carder and I was sure James made some pictures.
Which I found:

They come together monthly at the library on the 4th Saturday, from 12-3 p.m. 
I'm not much of a 'club' person, or very social to begin with, but I might actually just go once to see if there are any people I like .. you never know.

Getting my vegetables to thrive is still an ongoing battle but I managed to grow at least this one huge bell-pepper!

                                 

I also have some cherry tomatoes coloring and the start of two (yes, wow, two!) larger ones, the cucumber is showing one whole, but itsy-bitsy, cucumber, and one of my pole beans has several (gasp) flowers!



Well, that's about all I could scrape together for this week.
Weather-wise we're still doing great, moderate temps in the 70s with a couple warmer ones in the 80s thrown in for good measure but so far nothing crazy yet.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for August which is usually the hottest month over here.
Let's hope this year is an exception!

Most afternoons it warms up enough that I move inside in the coolness of the AC (although there are days that just opening the windows for a cross-breeze suffices) where I always have a puzzle 'going'.
 I just finished this one, it's a Spring garden so it was about time I got it finished! 

Sitting at the breakfast table and looking out the window towards the pond I got a nice surprise this week ... looking back at me with it's huge yellow eyes was this fledgling/juvenile Great Horned Owl!

            

You seldom see an owl during the daylight hours but this was a joung'un, probably still 'in training' and not yet knowing when to call it a day/night?
He was hopping around a little in the reeds around the pond, flapping his wings and returning to that tree-stomp a couple of times to preen his feathers.

                                    

I love his downy head! Looking quite impressive with that beak and those talons but still sporting a lot of fluffy baby-down!
Just when I started to worry that he might have problems flying or worse, being hurt somewhere, he lifted from his perch and flew smoothly into a big tree at the edge of the forest.
What a thrilling encounter!

That same morning, at the river, the Osprey were flying around the nest :

  

 

 

I wrote in a previous post that I was almost sure that these were the parents and that the chicks seemed to have left the nest, but in hindsight I think these actually are the chicks!

                                                       

 

I did some research online and found that chicks begin to practice flying and hunting skills around two months of age and while they learn to fish for themselves, they still rely on their parents for a period after fledging. 
They may continue to roost at the nest site and beg for food from their parents.

We still have very pleasant summer weather here in the PNW. There are the occasional hot days but on average we're very comfortable with temps around the 76-80F.
Apparently we're the lucky ones according to this map:

 

Thank goodness for living where we live! 

Although it's not easy to keep any plants and flowers going over here .. think two huge dogs, a whole colony of hungry ground-squirrels, chipmunks, birds and night-marauding deer .. I do have some that are doing very well.
I especially like the Zinnias: 

                               

Look at those vibrant colors and interesting stamen!

      

I picked up a priced down Cosmos at Walmart ($2 instead of $6.95), cut out some of the spent flowers and voila ... 

                                         

The Day-lilies are still going strong and the African daisies keep producing flowers like there is no tomorrow!
      

Our landlord has started to build the new barn .. part of the concrete floor is salvaged and cleaned up and the first poles are going in/up.:

 

 

Six poles are in, only 28 more to go! It's going to be a big barn!

We went to another garage sale yesterday, another 'yearly city-wide' one, this one in Sheridan, the little town to the other side of us.

                                               

                                                             

We weren't as successful as last week, there weren't that many 'good' ones, but James found a few small tools so it wasn't a total bust., but we probably won't 'do' this one again next year. Willamina's is much better!

 

Afterwards we decide to go to the Wallace farm, just outside of town, near Amity, to see if we could pick some blueberries.

                          

We went there last year, but much later in the season when the berries that were left were a lot smaller and picked for 2 hours to fill a 2 gallon bucket.

 

This time around it was the start of the season and the berries were big and plentiful so it took us only one hour and fifteen minutes to fill a bucket!



                                                                         

After washing , drying and bagging them at home we ended up with about 12 pounds (48 cups) of beautiful berries. 
Not quite enough to get us through the winter now we've started to have smoothies for breakfast but it will last us for a while.

My latest (white sourdough) bread was a beaut:

                 

And the peach freezer jam I made from the fresh peaches we picked 2 weeks ago turned out very yummy as well ...

 
                                                                                         

 

Which brings me to the end of another post.
This afternoon we'll go and seen another play in McMinnville's Gallery Theater which, if I don't forget, will review next week.