Eugene Park Tour: Black Oak Basin and Bloomberg Park

Yesterday morning I suggested to Dale that we do an early park run for Travel Tuesday.  The temperatures were going to be suffocating in the afternoon, so an early ride was just the ticket. It was a beautiful morning for a top down ride in the convertible. We hadn't visited any of the undeveloped natural areas yet, so I picked one of those, Bloomberg Park. 

All I knew about this park is that it sits on what was once a landfill, and is still the area where the city dumps the Fall leaf collection. It's part of several undeveloped areas that will eventually become part of 300 acres of city parkland along Coryell Ridge, Moon Mountain, Hendricks Park and the Ribbon Trail. This will be a dedicated conservation area not too far from the city center.

When we got to the end of the road, we were met by not one, but two city gates. The first was here at our destination, Bloomberg Park. But turn literally 90 degrees, and there was another city gate and another posted sign for Black Oak Basin, another undeveloped city park. 

Right now it looks like a ski hill / fire break / utility line easement. Eventually this, too, will be a part of the 300 acre conservation area.

When we turned around again, we faced this dense forest

and blackberry brambles for miles.

The berries are coming along nicely. This will be a prime picking area in another week or two.

So how about that? We got an unexpected two-fer for this week's #traveltuesday.

Eugene Park Tour: Wendover Park

As of today, I've completed one of my 2022 goals: I've visited 22 of Eugene's Parks and Natural Areas. Go me!

I'm still processing photos, though, so haven't shared all of the parks that I've seen. They'll show up over the next days and weeks. For today, I've got a few photos from Wendover Park.

Wendover is a park in the making. For now, it's undeveloped land which will become a neighborhood park. It includes a natural area along the East Santa Clara Waterway. For now, this is obviously used as a great place to walk dogs.

Jeanne and I stopped at this spot while on a geocaching outing. We hoped to find the "Wendover Cache." We found the general area, and the marker that was a clue to the cache's location. Unfortunately, we didn't find the cache. The spot was fairly overgrown with summer undergrowth, which around here includes lots of pokey blackberry brambles. I wasn't all that interested in getting scratched up that day, and the temperature was climbing into the mid-90s, so we didn't search for long. The cache owner says it's there, so maybe we'll return.

To find the cache, we followed this shady trail through the woods.

While searching, we kept hearing an interesting honking sound. We walked further down the path and found an opening that looked over the waterway. We spotted some ducks, but not the source of the unusual sound.

It's a nice area. I think I'll return this Fall with Dale. I think he'll enjoy walking in the woods here.

A Mommy-Jodie Day

When our kids were little, I'd try to have some one-on-one time with each of them so we could build unique memories. Today's activities reminded me of those lovely times when I got to spend the majority of the day with this sweet woman.

Jodie and I started the day with a lunch at Off the Waffle. We went to the downtown location. I don't go downtown very often, so this was a treat.

After our meal came the main reason for our get-together. I decided to get my ears pierced. It'd been about 15 years since my last attempt. One ear kept getting infected, so I gave up and let the hole close completely. For our anniversary last year, Dale bought me some gorgeous pearl earrings. I figured it was about time to wear them. 

So Jodie took me to High Priestess, a tattoo/piercing shop to get my ears pierced with a needle. Best decision ever. Kenny and Liam took good care of me. The piercing didn't hurt or sting at all.

I chose these small opal studs

After that excitement, we went to the mall to get manicures. This is about the 5th time in my life I've had this professional indulgence. Jodie had her nails polished in this beautiful pomegranate color for Fall. I decided to keep things simple by having them cleaned and shaped, but no polish. I get my hands into too much dirt and glue to keep nail polish in place.

I can't stop looking at my fingers. They look so good!

Then we decided to walk around the mall. It's the first window shopping I've done since the start of the pandemic. It was fun to be around all the pretty things, but a little strange to be around so many people without masks.

Finally, we stopped by Jamba Juice for a fruit smoothie. Berry for me. Yum!

We had such a nice day together, and both felt better at the end of the day than we did at the start. We may just make this manicure outing a regular activity together.

I crave more unique memories with my three offspring.

The Tiniest Thimble

This. From an old Monopoly game.

My final thimble in this series. I captured this image back in September 2019.

Newfangled Thimbles

Thimble-It  is a "natural-feeling self-adhesive finger pad" that you apply to your fingertip to make sewing, needlework, or quilting easier. I think it's weird that the image on the package has it being used on the index finger. I've never seen anyone stitch that way.

It's basically a silicone oval with a sticky back. It comes in a package of 64 dots.

I like using these, though I do find them a bit large for my fingertip. I cut one in half before I apply it to my finger for a better fit.

Similar to the Thimble-It is this type of thimble called Thimble Pads. These are smaller and much thicker than the previous thimble. I find this size just right. But the pack I bought has only twelve thimbles. They remind me a bit of those pads you put on the bottom of chair legs to keep the wood from scratching your floors.

I haven't used either of these thimbles in a while. I've put them with my next cross-stitch project to give them another try.

Throwback Thursday: Tailor's Thimble

Until yesterday, I didn't know the proper name for this kind of thimble or why it looks this way. I called it a topless thimble. It turns out that the proper name is a Tailor's Thimble.

Though I show it on the thumb in these two photos, that's not how it's worn when being used. Like other thimbles, it's worn on the middle finger of your dominate hand. It's used to help push a needle through fabric without poking a hole in your finger.

I found a page on the James Williams: Historical Tailor website dedicated to this thimble. It states,

Tailor’s thimbles have an open top for two important reasons.

* First, they allow the tailor to sew for long periods of time without condensation forming in the tip of the finger under the thimble.

* Second, and most importantly, the open top gives the dexterity and tactility necessary for a tailor. As one is sewing, the fabric is constantly manipulated with both hands, and having that open top allows you to use the tip of that covered finger to aid in this manipulation.

 

I rarely use this thimble because it's too big for me. It falls off my finger. The website states,

The tip of your finger should extend past the top of the thimble by about 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch, allowing you to get a feel for the fabric as you are sewing. If the thimble is too small, your finger will not protrude enough and you’ll lose that sense of touch in that finger. Too big and the thimble will tend to slide around or even fall off.

I'm not sure how this thimble came into my possession. I've had it for as long as I can remember. I wonder if it belonged to my fraternal grandfather who was a tailor. If not, it's a nice story to carry around in my head -- and to make this post a #throwbackthursday.

The Answer Is

Is this a better clue to yesterday's puzzle?

'Tis a thimble!

I've got quite a number of thimbles in my sewing stash. This may be my oldest. It's surely my goldest.

I'm not quite certain, but I think this particular thimble belonged to my grandmother. Maybe one of my sisters knows definitively.

I'll be sharing several photos of thimbles this week. Some barely look like thimbles.

Protection

but from what?

#underthemicroscope

Pumpkins!

A little over a month ago, Dale and I built a very humble spot to grow some mini pumpkins. It was an extremely late start to grow pumpkins from seed. But what the heck. Why not try.

I've been watering them nearly every day, and the plants are growing nicely. Even if we don't get any pumpkins, we have some pretty green leaves to look at.

But this morning, hiding under a huge leaf, I found a full blooming flower and quite a number of other buds. Perhaps we'll have a nice October surprise after all.

I'm so delighted!

The sunflower seeds I planted indoors have been doing well, too. Every single one of them sprouted. Today I planted them in our back yard. The poor things might not have much of a chance. The ground there is mostly rocks and bark. But I filled the holes with soil and gave them a good shower. Maybe I'll take a photo of all the little stems lined up in a row along the fenceline. 

Now mind you, all over town I'm seeing towering sunflowers peeking over fences. 

The sunflower variety I planted are supposed to get about four feet tall. They're about one foot tall right now. If all we get are stems with leaves, but no flowers, I'm OK with that. It's 100% more than I tried to grow last year. 

I'm used to taking baby steps.

Eugene Park Tour: Petersen Park

Yesterday was International Geocaching Day, so Dale and I headed out to find a cache. One of the closest to home was located on the edge of Petersen Park. So we got a two-fer: a geocache and a visit to a new-to-us park.

This park is big. It has a very nice bark-covered half-mile walking trail. We saw lots of folks out walking their dogs that morning.

Along the trail, the Eugene Public Library has set up a StoryWalk. There are 16 of these stations, each with a part of this picture book. So you can walk the trail with your kids, and read the story along the way. What a wonderful concept!

Most of the park is open space, dedicated to soccer. There are four or five sets of soccer nets around the park.

There's also a baseball diamond, complete with stands and nearby picnic tables for the onlookers.

But this baseball diamond looks like it hasn't had much action for a while. It's quite overgrown, though the crows seem to like it.

Near the entrance to the park you'll find this basketball court.

Toward the center of all those soccer fields is this bright blue play area, complete with climbing structures, a slide, and a swing set.

There's plenty of picnic table seating here, too.

I'll wager a bet that this park sees a lot of action in the Spring during soccer season. Perhaps Dale and I will make a return visit then.

Worth the Wait

Doctors, right? We don't really want to have to go to them. But when we need them, we hope to have one who listens and will work well with us. We want a good connection. Our family had the same doctor for 35 years when we lived in Idaho. We loved him. 

When Dale and I moved to Oregon, it was tricky finding any doctor who was taking new patients. We found one whose office took about a half hour to drive to. She was ... OK. We liked her nurse. But the doctor was stand-off-ish. A little arrogant. A little flippant. Told "jokes" that were not funny. Then Covid happened. She became more stand-off-ish. 

But we needed her. Dale had his stroke and we needed primary care. But ... well ... we wondered if there was a better fit in the area. So we put our name on a waiting list last August for a primary care doc in a different healthcare system. Their specialist teams were great during Dale's stroke recovery, his surgery, his speech therapy, and in helping me with my sleep disorder. 

However, the new patient coordinator for primary care said it was a 6 month waiting list. Well, that was OK with us since we had that other primary care doctor at the time. We'd stay with her, than transfer to our preferred clinic when a spot opened. No problem.

Nope. Problem. The practice where our doctor was went out of business. It was nine months after putting our name on the waiting list with the other outfit but we still hadn't gotten into the new clinic. So we found a third outfit who could take new patients. 

That was a fiasco! Our initial visit was so bad that my bipolar symptoms roared up for a week. I was not going back to that doctor. Luckily, we were able to be transferred to another doc in the same practice, but we had to push our appointment back another month.

Two weeks before the appointment with the new guy, we heard from the outfit we'd been hoping for a year earlier! We had our first appointment at our preferred clinic last week.

Upon arriving, I saw a broken leaf lying on the ground behind our parked car. It was in the shape of a heart. 

"Hey, look, Dale! A good omen!"

The front office folks were friendly and professional. The time in the waiting room was short. Then this. This is the door between the waiting room and the exam rooms.

The nurse doing our intake was wonderful. We have an extremely good impression of our new doctor. She listens. She makes practical suggestions. She's knowledgeable. She's exudes kindness and professionalism. 

I think we've finally found our medical home.

What's that they say about following your heart ...?

Backyard Art

 This is one of the items we inherited from Dale's Mom. Can you guess what it is?

A whirligig!

I've loved these for decades -- especially the cleaver ones that look like aero planes or birds or items made by a mechanical genius. I plan to eventually get several for our yard.

Throwback Thursday: The Bugs

This grasshopper photo showed up on my feed yesterday. It got me to looking back at other bugs I've photographed. Here are a few favorites.

I was with my eldest, Jeanne, when this photo was taken in Post Falls