A Full-time Life

Category: Exploring Oregon

Canby Dahlia Festival

We’ve been back home in Oregon since the first of July. In real life we had an active summer — here in Blogland there’s a lot of missing time between the last full-time-life post and this one. Only partly because I almost lost my whole blog (side-bar). We didn’t learn about the shutdown until August, so the long absence is mostly because I took a digital detox break on purpose when we first got home and it dragged on a little longer than I’d planned. It’s good to be back — in Blogland as well as in real-life Oregon.

I’ m still learning about WordPress, but one way to do that is to just dive in. I couldn’t stop taking pictures on this September outing, so the Dahlia Farm is it’s a good place to start.

Canby is a small town less than two hours north of us, between here and Portland but (blessedly) off the freeway. Though not too far away for a day trip, this beautiful agricultural area is in a part of our home state where we haven’t spent much time. Last month we drove there to visit the family-owned Swan Island Dahlia Farm. It’s open to the public during the flower’s season and it was at its peak of perfection when we visited.

Summer always goes so fast. We spent good, if bittersweet, hours seeing family, many of those at a different farm much closer to where we live. I have blogged often about that acreage just five miles from where we live. Although a huge part of our heart is missing whether we visit or not, our son-in-law continues to make us feel welcome. Of course, it is always a delight to see our Oregon son and daughter-in-law and our great-grandchildren (and their parents!) whether at their Granddad’s farm or at our house or at theirs. I’m never particularly good at taking people pictures which means there are always a lot of blank happy spaces in my blog. It was a good summer.

Our son-in-law (whom I decided needed a break whether he knew it or not) went with us to Canby and I hope he enjoyed our company as much as we did his.

Autumn is a beautiful season in the Willamette Valley and we’re glad to be at home for it as our full-time life continues.

3 comments on Canby Dahlia Festival

October 7, 2025
October’s End

Happy Halloween

And Happy November

These are the kind of October decorations I like… not a fan of the scary graveyard stuff at all. Easy to guess the age-range where I fall.

This is the Farmers Market just outside the small town of Peoria (the Oregon one). It's one of the best Farm Markets we've ever seen — but sadly at about 50 miles from home, just a little too far for weekly shopping.

But what a great stop as long as we were in the neighborhood anyway.

Here's some of the bounty after we unloaded it at home.

Last week we made stuffed green peppers, roasted broccoli, and eggplant pasta sauce. But first, the day we got home from the "harvest" we dined on the last of the year corn-on-the-cob. A joy of the season! We still had enough ears of corn (not shown) for an old favorite — Summer Vegetable Chowder. In this home, that recipe becomes Autumn Chowder because it takes until then for us to want to put fresh corn and tomatoes in the soup pot instead of starring as themselves on our dinner table. The chowder recipe we use every Fall is from "Household Searchlight," a good old depression-era cookbook. Interestingly, we (informally) inherited copies of this cookbook from both my mother and Bill's grandmother. (But my mom had given me this recipe in person many years before that time.) Good fresh food and sweet memories — what could be a better combination..

Almost every October day this year has been beautiful. I'm sure we need rain, but it has been lovely to feel the Autumn sunshine.

Shades of orange and amber aren't the only colors associated with Autumn here in Eugene. On nice days, everything seems to be a perfect combination of blue and gold. Those days make me happy! And grateful.

We've been very busy doing non-photo-bloggable stuff lately, so most of the photos above are from the week before. The pictures in the mosaic below are from even earlier than that. I'm including it because I love looking at birds and I think these are photos I didn't use earlier.

But I'm also including it because I'm using a fairly new app for my photo editing and I'm afraid if I don't include a mosaic every week I'll forget what I've learned so far. Honestly, I am grateful (usually) that I can still learn new things.

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you to the hosts. MOSAIC MONDAY;

NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY; THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; WILD BIRD Wednesday; SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY and SATURDAY CRITTERS

October 28, 2024
October color and a visit to Mary’s Peak

Mary's Peak in Benton County is the highest peak in the Oregon Coast Range. It's about 70 miles from home — well within our range for an occasional day-trip. But somehow over all the years we've lived in the Eugene/Springfield area we'd never visited. We needed to remedy that, so the travel planner made it our destination last week.

It was a beautiful day for an October drive. We passed what seemed like an ocean of pumpkins almost as soon as we got out into the country. No question about what time of year it is!

Muted Autumn color and some very interesting skies as we headed west.

We found a waterfall! In fact, there were several lovely tiny falls just after we turned off the highway onto the road to the Peak.

And then there was this just before the top of the road. "Layered" hills are my favorite kinds of mountain views. ("Layered" is my own totally unscientific term for this effect.)

We were lucky in our timing, because the skies clouded over rather suddenly while we were still admiring this view. We jumped back into the car but by the time we reached the end of the road, it was raining and growing gray (and cold). At 4,100 feet, Mary's Peak certainly isn't the highest mountain we've ever visited, but it is high enough to make a difference in temperature from the valley floor that we're used to.

Views from then on to the top were somewhat limited, so the Peak itself was a bit of an anti-climax.  This is a view of the Valley from the viewpoint at the top of the road. (This photo is color-enhanced because otherwise it was just uniformly gray beyond the evergreen trees.)

It was a good day for a drive because of the lovely views and Autumn color. And Bill got his mountain-driving fix while we saw hardly any other cars at all. But it would be good to come back during the busier summer, just for a better view from the top and a more comfortable walking temperature,

Here is some more October color from the week:

Pictures 1, 3, and 7 are from our daughter and son-in-laws' garden taken earlier last week. Pictures in the center row are from our day-trip, and the bins of pumpkins and gourds are from a stop at the Peoria (Oregon) Farmers Market, on our way home.

October is such a great month here in western Oregon. We are grateful to have the time to enjoy it.

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you to the hosts.

MOSAIC MONDAY; THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD;   THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY

October 20, 2024
Ponds of a different color

In past years, I've posted a few pictures taken on walks around Delta Ponds. We are so fortunate to have this lovely natural area within the city limits of Eugene. The Ponds are pretty close to where we live here and we pass at least one of them every time we go anywhere at all. Last month we were surprised — and a little worried — to notice something different about the water.

A few days after we first noticed the red color we were pleased to read an article in our local daily paper explaining the change. It said people have called the City Parks Department asking if it was due to autumn leaves or paint or dye. We didn't think it was any of those, but I had wondered if it was an unhealthy algae growth. It was great to learn that this red growth, called Azolla Fern, is actually beneficial to the Ponds and our local ecosystem.

The plant goes dormant in Winter and needs many sunny days before it blooms again, making it an occasional seasonal bloom here in Eugene.

Lauri Holts, the City employee responsible for the Ponds, said that Azolla actually helps to combat climate change by processing carbon dioxide and providing oxygen and shade for the aquatic life that lives below it. As Eugene's Ecologist (and who knew our City even had such a thing) Ms. Holts is in charge of ensuring that Delta Pond's plants and wildlife thrive along with human use.

Azolla is also known as 'Duck fern' or 'mosquito fern' and is a genus of plants that can be found worldwide. Ducks and geese eat it, so that nickname is obvious. It has potential to reduce mosquito populations, but only if it covers more than 70 percent of the water, reducing the surface area in which mosquitos can lay their eggs. (We didn't measure the percentages, but can only hope.)

Delta ponds is a 150-acre waterway that began as a part of the Willamette River and remained so until the late 1800s. Human use and urbanization changed the area and today's ponds and islands were formed by gravel mining for highway construction that took place in the 1950s and 1960s. The City of Eugene bought the Ponds in the 1970s and has constructed pedestrian trails around the ponds. A new loop trail funded by a city bond is nearly complete.

It's good to live in a City where nature is valued. We are grateful.

On my nature walk last week, I was so busy concentrating on the red water in the ponds that I forgot to look up, so here are some blue skies and fluffy clouds left-over from our summer:

Skies and boats — a few more of my favorite things. These pictures are from the working harbor at Coos Bay.

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you to the hosts:

NATURE NOTES; MOSAIC MONDAY; THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; WILD BIRD Wednesday; THANKFUL THURSDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY and SATURDAY CRITTERS

October 13, 2024
The Oregon Summer that was (part one) — Ashland

It feels good to be blogging again. My "digital detox" during July was planned but I really had meant to start again last month. However, when I was ready, my old PC was not. It is so sad when the motherboard dies (and to find out what it costs to repair). So I'm working with a new computer which is lovely, but the program I used to edit my photos (Picassa) is out-dated and unsupported and would not transfer. It feels like I'm starting over, as if I were photo-blogging for the first time, as I really did about 18 years ago. I've been experimenting with editing programs to substitute. None so far are anywhere near as user friendly. Well.., it is said that learning new tricks is good for aging brains. We shall see.

As planned, we arrived at our Oregon home early in July, after mostly uneventful flights (if I remember correctly back that far). And as if Florida wasn't hot enough for us, we made a planned stopover in Arizona on our way home.

Arizona

This stop was to visit Bill's sister who for several years has lived in the Phoenix area near her children and grandchildren. We hadn't seen Marilyn for a long time and it was good to get together again. It really was extremely hot when we were there and we are all getting older so we spent most of our time visiting in their comfortable family home. I never remember to take pictures of the people we love unless we are all visiting some scenic attraction, so sadly the only photo remembrances of our time in Arizona are a few road-shots as we drove our rental car between our hotel, their home and the airport.

Phoenix AZ

From Phoenix we flew to Eugene where we spent the rest of July catching up with most of the three generations of our family who live here. (Now that we're home, it's four generations when we all get together!). We got our Oregon apartment reorganized, pantry and frig restocked and so forth. That's much easier done here in Oregon than at the Florida Canal Cottage.

In early August we took an in-state trip to celebrate both of our birthdays. I'd planned to get back into the blogging routine when we returned from that trip. Better late than never, so here's the start of that trip.

Our first stop was Ashland, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Ashland Oregon

One night we saw Macbeth in the indoor theater and on another, a dramatic performance of Jane Eyre in the outdoor theater (below). We enjoyed both. It was still quite hot here in Southern Oregon and there was some smoke in the air from one of the many forest fires around the state. The morning of the day we had tickets for Jane Eyre we got a text notification that the outdoor play would be cancelled if the smoke didn't lift. Fortunately, it did and the evening was actually very pleasant.

Outdoor stage, Ashland

The white on top of this picture of the stage set is the night sky believe it or not! Even in the outdoor theater we were of course asked not to take pictures, so this was taken before the cast of Jane Eyre hit the stage. It was a suitably Gothic setting for this play.

Downtown Ashland

Ashland is quite a charming mountain town, with many of the shops and restaurants taking advantage of the famous drama festival in their themes and names – I took this picture from the Festival Square while we were listening to an outdoor concert before the play began. There are live, free music performances there early on every theater evening. It appeared that many local residents also took advantage of the free concerts.

We enjoyed some exploration during the two full days we spent in Ashland and of course we ate! The pictures in the collage above are from the Winery where we had dinner one night — beautiful place, delicious mostly locally sourced food and good wine.

When we left Ashland, we took the Redwood Highway into Northern California. It's a beautiful drive.

The magnificent and huge trees are hard to photograph though. Its difficult to get the full effect.

It was dusty on a scenic loop off the highway — we think part of that was probably from the smoke. Fortunately, this area itself was not affected by the summer fires.

Trip to be continued. It's good to be back home in real life and in blogland. We are grateful.

Thank you for visiting and thank you to the hosts of the following sharing opportunities.

MOSAIC MONDAY; THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY ; MOSAIC MONDAY

September 15, 2024
Mountain Drive

In the backyard now there are more leaves on the ground than in the trees. They make a pretty carpet. Nowadays we aren't responsible for lawn care and in addition we've had mostly dry Fall weather. Those two things make it easy for us to admire the beauty without worrying about what needs to be done before the fallen leaves get wet and sloppy.

I've read that it's better for the environment and the birds to leave the leaves alone or to mulch them in place. We didn't know about that back in our former life when we had a yard and gardens. Unfortunately, if this year is like past Autumns since we've lived in this apartment complex, the lawn maintenance crew here doesn't know it yet. And worse they will use noisy leaf-blowers. At least, the City of Eugene will pick up the bagged leaves and make them into mulch available to the gardening public. So there's that good thing.

Last week we took a mountain drive up the Old McKenzie Pass. It's a good day-trip this time of year for the Autumn color and because Winter snow will close it.

Bill loves driving curvy mountain roads. I like riding along. This is a good paved highway, but there are sharp curves and I wouldn't want to pull our trailer on it. Years ago, when driving this road, we were stuck a traffic jam because a truck driver had jackknifed his long flatbed tractor/trailer rig on a curve. We were coming down the hill, and had a few cars behind us. We decided not to try backing up the hill to find a place to turn around, and instead to wait for the totally blocked road to be cleared. It took quite a while, involving large recovery trucks being summoned from towns both above and below the accident. I think a tree or two had to be removed before the problem was solved. The truck driver had passed flashing lights and signs warning that his 50 foot plus length was not allowed!

Whether you love navigating curves or not, there are beautiful mountain views as payback for the effort:

Three Sisters Mountain

Besides mountain viewing and leaf-peeping, we wanted to see how much damage there was in these hills from the summer wildfires. It wasn't quite as bad a fire season this past summer, but still thousands of acres of forest land were burned and there were some evacuations in mountain communities and campgrounds. Annual wildfires are a frightening fact of life now.

Some ghost forests (dry burned trees) and blackened trunks along the McKenzie Pass.

Back at home this past week, we've had some rain but interspersed with beautiful blue sky days that make it easier to appreciate the rainy ones. Later in the season, when it starts to rain and drizzle day after day and the sky stays gray, that's when I have to remind myself often that we need the rain.

Grateful for beautiful blue sky October days, but still hopeful for a good rainy season here because that means needed snow in the mountains east of us.

Linking to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you to the hosts.

MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES; SIGNS SIGNS; THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY;

October 22, 2023
Ankeny Wildlife Refuge

We have been under a smoke advisory here in our part of the Valley and by Friday I had reached the point where I just needed to get outside. The smoky conditions here are because of the Cedar Creek wildfire which is burning east of us. Oakridge, a town in our county about 45 miles away has been evacuated and the highway to it is closed.

Hoping to get out from under the smoke, we headed to the Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge around 55 miles North of us.

We are not in danger here in Eugene and staying indoors because of the smoke drift is a small sacrifice, but it did really feel good to see some blue sky.

Pintail Marsh

And seeing wildlife is always a bonus. We stopped to walk around at the Pintail Marsh Trail and overlook.

There were lots of birds, but they were pretty far away from shore. It was also hot and quite windy. It's not good to even think about wind during fire season.

In fact, there were windy conditions here at home also and the day after our drive, utility companies in our county shut down power in rural areas as a safety precaution.

When we left the wildlife refuge, we drove to the village of Buena Vista where we took this small ferry a distance of 720 feet across the Willamette River. Ferry service has existed here since 1852. Back then this connection provided settlers a much easier way to cross the river. Nowadays, there are other ways to get from Marion to Polk County, with not too much more effort. But for the $3.00 crossing fee, this electrically-operated modern version was much more fun than driving.

We watched this Osprey nest while we waited for the ferry to cross back to where we were the first (and only) car in line to board. Actually, I barely had time to get out of the car and snap a couple of pictures.

LINKING this week to the following, with thanks to the hosts:

THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; FRIDAY BLISS; and SATURDAY CRITTERS

September 11, 2022
September Days

Country Road – Benton County Oregon

We took a backroad drive one day last week with no particular destination. We're still having hot summer days and walks have been limited so it was good to get outside. There's some smoke in our valley from fires in the hills up the Willamette River (not dangerously close to us). Summer means fire season here in the west — more than ever nowadays.

Pied-Billed Grebe

Like magic, our unplanned destination turned out to be the Finley Wildlife Refuge. (But really because the person driving the car knew where he was going all along.) We arrived in early afternoon, not the optimal time for birding, but we saw a few in the Marsh.

Great Egret

That's a fish at the Egret's feet. He must have already eaten his fill.

It's good to see green especially at the end of a summer that's been hot and dry in most of our area.

September is my month to feel nostalgic. Probably because our life revolved around the school year for so long, it really seems more like a New Year to me this month than does January. So with nostalgia in mind, this week's collage is a look-back at early September days from a few past years:

The top two photos are from roadtrips in 2019 — Fall color in Portland Oregon and the hawk at Arcata Marsh California. 2021 and 22 were the Covid years — we did some self-isolated camping during that time, but we were home in Oregon in September of both years. I photographed the bushtits in our daughter's yard in 2020; it was a new bird for me (I had ID help from wonderful bloggers when I first posted about them). The other two photos in the bottom row are from our grandson's backyard at a family gathering last year. The center photo is California Redwoods in the mist — another road trip to the state south of us in September 2018.

And back to the present (well, last week anyway):

Just a beautiful blue sky with a few fluffy clouds for interest — on the way home from our weekday drive last week. September really does start a new year for our older great-grands and their parents (several of the grandchildren teach as well as parenting) and for our daughter and son-in-law who are helping out with their not-old-enough-for-school grandbabies. For us, there's really no regular schedule to keep, but it still feels like new.

September mornings still can make me feel this way!

Links this week with thanks:

MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES; TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS; THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; FRIDAY BLISS; SATURDAY CRITTERS and RATHER B' BIRDING

September 4, 2022
ROSES, 2022

We should have visited the Owen Rose Garden last month because June is the height of the season for these beautiful flowers. But even in mid-July and with all the hot days we've had, there were still some perfect blossoms on view last week.

The gardens are well cared for and beautifully designed — a peaceful place. It's not far from where we live here in Eugene. Just a tiny bit out of hot-day walking range to get there.

So I drove a couple of miles to park at Valley River Center, our area's primary shopping mall. From there it's a short walk across a pedestrian bridge to the South Bank Trail (on the Willamette River).

Then the walk to the Gardens is less than a mile along the trail. The pictures in the collage above were taken from the bridge.

Eugene has a great trail system. Most of my walks along the river are from our house — no driving. I love being able to "go outside to play" with no driving (or very little) even though we live in a metropolitan area.

The Cherry Tree in the mosaic below has been growing in this spot from the mid-1800s. It's on the edge of the rose gardens. Because it lies within the original land claim of Eugene Skinner, the founder of our fair city, it is believed that it was planted by Skinner himself.

Whoever dug the hole, the tree is beautiful and I'm thankful for the arborists and volunteers who work hard to keep this living bit of history in prime condition.

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities: Thanks to the hosts.

MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS; TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS; TUESDAY TREASURES;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; FRIDAY BLISS; and SATURDAY CRITTERS

July 24, 2022
Delta Ponds, Goodpasture

The (best) walk of the week started at the Goodpasture Island Road entrance to Eugene's Delta Ponds. Great walk for photos, not for exercise — I stop a lot!

Great Blue Heron

That's OK though because I'd rather take pictures. It was cooler than it has been since we got home and slightly overcast. I haven't yet been able to motivate myself to walk early in the morning. On hotter days, by the time I get out there the birds are wisely hiding out.

Pied Billed Grebe

So this day was pretty much perfect because the birds were happy with the cooler weather too.

Green Heron

Guessing on the photo above, but I think it's a green heron. Too far away for a better ID (highly cropped obviously).

Scrub Jay

The 2022 World Track Championships are currently taking place here in Eugene. an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 visitors are here watching these world-class athletes — and spending time and money. It's a big deal for our small city! No coverage on this blog because we aren't really track fans and we are still trying to stay away from crowds. But it's impossible not to be interested and we are following coverage on-line and in our local newspaper (which is also on-line these days of course.)

Real Oregon Ducks

We are on the other side of town from the University and Stadium area so haven't noticed much increase in traffic. The area's largest shopping mall is within walking distance and it is being used as a park and ride shuttle for ticket holders. Like most malls these days though there's tons of extra parking, so I don't think even shoppers will be inconvenienced.

They're everywhere! Canada Geese.

All said and done, I'd much rather watch birds than sit in a crowded arena watching people, no matter how talented they are. But there is something for everyone here in Eugene this week — and that's a good thing!

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you to the hosts:

NATURE NOTES; TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS; THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; WILD BIRD Wednesday;   SKYWATCH FRIDAY; FRIDAY BLISS; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B' BIRDING

July 17, 2022