Busy Beavers

This is along the highway on our drive to work. I would imagine that the people would be a little worried by now by the busy beaver work.
None of the trees have fallen on the house....yet.

Driving home from Salem on Christmas day we got a great view of freezing fog.

Married a month!!

We thought we would take a trip into the big town of Newport to celebrate our one month anniversary, although I would have taken any excuse to go to the beach!! After playing in the back woods for most of the morning and early afternoon, a beach activity sounded nice.
Jered is just off staring at the water when it looks as if that tree is going to fall on him any second.

We got to Otter Rock just in time to watch the pelicans flying around. There were a couple (above) on the point of Devils Punchbowl.

But then a million more (below) at the giant Gull Rock, quite a distance out into the ocean. Oh!! I wish I had a huge zoom on my camera! It was grand to watch them fly around.

The sun was starting to set, so we hurried back into town so we could watch the sunset then eat dinner at the Chowder Bowl. It has been so long since I have taken sunset pictures, I may have gone a little overboard, but I don't really care.

I caught this guy right when he is walking through the sun reflection (and his dog if you look really close)! It turned out great!

Got a "fly by" but no pelicans, just seagulls.

It is great to get back to the beach every now and then.

Open Season

A lot of the gates that are normally closed have opened for hunting season. It left a perfect opportunity for us to explore our bigger backyard. And there sure is a lot to explore...
What a crazy sunny day for late October.

But it was definitely October, since there were mushrooms everywhere! We were driving too fast to capture most fungus, but when we stopped, I looked around for them. Jered looked for deer the whole trip, but we didn't end up seeing any.

Second to last pumpkin harvest

The garden is slowly winding down for the winter. We already had a freeze, most things have turned brown. That is, except for the pumpkins and broccoli!!

We picked the closest one in the above picture, and the three in the lower picture. There are four left to go, and they are quite green still, so it may be another week.

The broccoli is still growing like crazy! I hate to admit, but we have had so much broccoli that we have let a lot go to flower and wasted. So we know not to plant so much next year (I swear, the seed germinating rate was like 100%) and we will save the space for more carrots. The carrots turned out wonderful, and I am sure we could have ate more had we planted more.

Daisy still hates cows, but they still love her.

The cows were in the field right next to the house for the last few days, which in turn made Daisy act really strange while she was outside in her yard.
They seriously won't quit staring at her!! It is the funniest thing I have ever seen!! And Daisy hates them!! She is too scared to bark at them, since they are so close. She is just staring at Jered and I, hoping we will let her run back inside the house any time.

Please!!!!!!

Orange with white spots

There is a very large bloom of Amenita mushrooms right up the hill from my office. They are highly poisonous (a hallucinogenic as well) but one of my favorite mushrooms because they remind me of Alice and Wonderland, caterpillars, and all fun, crazy random stuff. These ones were very orange, but were also very out in the open, so maybe are a little sun bleached.
But because of their awesome orange color, I was quite surprised once I got up so close. Most of the ones I have come across in my mushroom hunting days have been bright to dark red. I am extra excited about these ones since I love orange so much.

I am a little disappointed that so many of the pictures that I took came out blurry. The digital macro on my new camera is very sensitive, and I am not used to it yet. The white spots on the mushroom (the most poisonous spots) were extra so white and plentiful, I attempted to get too close, and paid for it in the end.

Pelicans at the park

The yearly migration of the pelicans has come and almost went. I have failed on capturing them as much as I would have liked, but was pushed into it by JR this very beautiful morning. He called minutes before I sat down at my desk to begin the day of office work, to inform me of this large flock right at the end of Spencer Creek. Patti and I rushed down there, only to startle them as soon as we walked under the bridge (still unsure if it was us that spooked them, but the timing was right).
And off they went, so the pictures are slim, but what do you do?.....still enjoy the moment!!

They have to be the ugliest/cutest birds ever!

Scary!!

By Jered

By me

Boo

New Vase

We got this wonderful vase as a gift this last week. It is such beautiful pottery! Then we found the most festive flowers to go in them! Oh, how I love orange!!!!

Cute little mushroom

We took a very quick walk at Lost Creek State Park this weekend. It wasn't short only because there was sideways rain, but the sand had not yet been pulled out to expose new agates. On the way back to the car, we spotted the cutest little mushroom! Almost as good as an agate!

Good Morning Sunshine Storm!

Eastern Oregon Attempt

I am finally ready to embrace the fact that we didn't make it all the way across Oregon as we had intended. I am also ready to not hate my car for breaking down on us anymore. It really wasn't a bad trip, I just didn't know it at the time.........

This is the last documented picture of Jered and I as dating adults!!!! So "casual and uncommitted" :)

Followed shortly by the first documented picture of us as a married "very committed" couple. YAY, by far the best part of the trip!!

So exciting! And off we went.

We planned on stopping and taking many breaks well before my car started deciding when and where we stopped. This is a beautiful spot somewhere around Green Peter Reservoir.

One of the first places my car decided to break down was while traveling over the pass by Mt. Hoodo. There apparently had been a huge forest fire there some time ago (I could tell I didn't get out much). It was beautiful, in the most erie way.

Then the car broke down again.....:) (really, I am not upset about it anymore :)

The next morning, the car started, and we made it to the painted hills. OMG, they were wonderful!! And we saw antelope, which I had never seen in the wild before.

This is at the John Day Fossil Bed Interpretive Center.

Then the car broke down again!! So vacation got cut WAY short, but I suppose now I have a super cool guy to explore with for the rest of my life!!! So I ended up with what I wanted anyway.