A Walk in the Park: Day Seven

In mid August Dale and I took our Tuesday Travels to another park along the edge of Fern Ridge Reservoir, just west of town. 

Zumwalt Park is maintained by Lane County and the US Army Corp of Engineers. It's quite large. It's a great place for dogs run off leash and play in the water.

We didn't find the closest parking spot, so had our lunch in an older, less-well-maintained part of the park on this crumbling, moss-covered picnic table 

under tall, tall trees. 

We walked down the path to the main part of the park where we saw clusters of picnic tables and barbecue pits under the trees. Great for group gatherings. 

Then we followed our GPS to a geocache that was extremely easy to find and a great cache for kids. I crossed the big open field 

and walked down to the lake's edge. 

What a lovely day! On the way back to the car, we got mountain views 

over fields of wetlands littered with cattails. 

This butterfly followed along.

Bathtime

We had a first today!

I was standing at the kitchen sink this morning and noticed some movement between the window blinds. For the first time, I saw a bird standing on the edge of our birdbath getting a drink of water.

Then it hopped in and took a bath. It was so enjoyable to watch it splashing around the fountain.

I took the pictures with my phone's camera propped between the window blinds, so the photos aren't very clear. But the memory is.

This gave me a much needed smile and lifted my spirits.

International EarthCache Day 2024

This weekend, Dale and I decided to participate in International EarchCache Day. For 20 years, EarthCaches have encouraged geocachers to explore and celebrate the extraordinary geologic features of our planet. EarthCaches do not have physical containers. Instead, they take you to a unique geological feature. To earn this cache, you study your surroundings, then answer the questions listed in the cache description.

We chose a close cache in an area I've been wondering about for a while. There's a rock quarry along the Willamette River just off the "Beltline" highway. I first heard about this area in a rock-painting group because there are river rocks there in many sizes that are smooth, making them excellent for painting. After a couple tries, we found our way to the river. Unfortunately, we weren't in a 4 wheel drive car, so had to get creative about parking. All the other vehicles in the area were SUVs and pick-ups. Our little VW beetle doesn't have the proper clearance to traverse the rocks.

We learned about how the river constantly carries rocks from the local mountains downriver. They get deposited here. The rocks flow when the river runs high; they get deposited as the water recedes. 

Wood snags also get deposited here under the highway.

To earn this cache, we needed to examine the various sizes of rock, gravel, and sand and take some photos. Then we were to estimate the distance from the current shoreline to the concrete freeway support there in the middle of the river. Finally, you let the cache owner how you might use these various sizes of rock around your home.

This isn't an official park in Eugene, but I've often seen folks sunning themselves, dogs splashing in the water, and people fishing.

There were lots of birds flying, singing, and dive-bombing under the bridge and at the water's edge.

An entire chorus!

On the way back to the car, I found

A heart-shaped rock, of course!

A Walk in the Park: Day Six

Mimi (me) and Papa (Dale) had the extreme pleasure of taking care of our local granddaughter for most of the day yesterday. Besides feeding and napping and bathing and playing and more feeding and napping, we got to take her for a walk. We ended up here:

Menlo Park is a small neighborhood park in the Springfield/Willamalane park system. This park is mostly an open field, but has a small playground area and a little sand pit.

Our little girl had her first ride on a slide and a whirligig, with a little help from Mimi. 

The rides actually scared her a little, so we didn't stay long. She did enjoy being outside on a nice autumn day looking all around, listening to the birds ... and trying to keep the sun out of her eyes.

A Walk in the Park: Day Five

Mangan Park is lovely. It sits in a family neighborhood close to our doctor's office. It's a local treasure.

The large play structure has lots of climbing and sliding and twirly and spinning apparatuses. 

The paved perimeter path leads to bouncy and swinging areas for little kids

and jumpy, hoppy courts for bigger kids.

The play area lies at one end of this large open field. There are plenty of picnic tables available, including some with spots for wheelchairs. 

The entire park is beautifully maintained ... except for the horseshoe area

which is in need of sprucing up.

Just Us

I like this photo taken of me and Dale yesterday. Wanted to share.

My very best guy. Love being his life partner and wife.

Autumn Sunset

Last night's sunset was spectacular! The cloudy skies emphasized the entire light spectrum.

Between the houses:

Over the wetlands

Oh, my! I love living in Oregon!

Oh, Say, Can You See?

Lookie what I actually finished! The Flag of Stars design that I started back in June. It takes me a while to figure out the math on the finishing. Numbers are not my strong suit.

As a reminder, this is what the pattern from Bent Creek looks like.

Rather than framing it as shown on the pattern front, I finished it as a 12-inch square pillow cover with a zipped bottom

and some top stitching for definition at the border.

Here's the front with the pillow form inserted. Nice and puffy.

For the back I used the same fabric as the border.

This is how it looks in place on our living room couch.

So, shall I use it for ... Veteran's Day? I slid right past Flag Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day. Good thing all the patriotic holidays return every year.

A Walk in the Park: Day Four

Dale and I grabbed a bagel and scoped out two parks at the end of July. The first was the Cal Young Sports Park. It's a number of developed soccer and sports fields. But the park didn't even have any picnic tables so we moved on.

We headed over to nearby Gilham Park. It's a standard neighborhood park with a small playground and a big open field. I didn't take photos of the playground because a family was busy playing there.  We walked the perimeter path and ate our lunch at a picnic table at the far end of the open field. 

This park is sort of lost in our memory. The Eugene neighborhood parks have a lot in common, so one looks much like another. Gilham needed a bit of upkeep that day. I was impressed with the big tree, though.

That's our red car parked in the distance on the street.

A Walk in the Park: Day Three

Dale and Jodie and I visited these two adjacent parks in Springfield on International Geocaching Day in August. We found the nearby cache then stopped to take a couple pictures.

The most outstanding feature is this statue.

This statue of horse and rider was dedicated to commemorate the centennial (100th birthday) of The State of Oregon in January of 1960. 

Jodie mentioned the blocky design is somewhat controversial. Here's what it looks like from another angle. Neither the horse nor rider has a lot of detail. I appreciate it for its quirkiness.

The first park is the Millrace. The rushing waters on this fork of the Willamette River powered mills and sawmills that established the city's economic base. It's now used for irrigation and industrial use, fire protection, and as a wildlife corridor for great blue heron, deer, bever, river otter, ducks and geese.

The second park is Bill Fitch Park. It incorporates the old train station and is used as a meeting hall. 

I should have taken a photo of the rushing river and of the train station building. That's it in the background. Next time ...

A Walk in the Park: Day Two

On a July morning at Golden Gardens Park

the wind hovered over the ponds

while the shadow mountains loomed in the distance

and I found love growing on a side path.

Flowers for Friday

 I'm still unwell.

Rainy Oregon Fall day ... which I like.

Through the Studio window, I see my morning glories blooming in the backyard. But it's wet and windy so I don't want to go outside and get more chilled.

Looking around inside, these roses caught my eye. I enjoyed stitching them years and years ago.

I stitched a matching pillow 20 years ago. 

But I feel shaky and too lazy to pull the pillow off the shelf for a picture.

Pretty flowers help me to feel better.

Sisters Under the Sun

Sick. Again. So I took a puzzle break. The bright colors of this image by Holly Sierra became a welcome diversion.

I chose a 750 piece puzzle this time. That's unusual for me. This RoseArt puzzle came in a sturdy box and has a half-size poster with the finished design. It was just hard enough to be a challenge without being so difficult that it stopped being fun. I like puzzles that allow me steady progress.

I picked this puzzle up at a thrift store over the summer. When I was boxing it up after finishing it, I saw that it had two thrift store stickers on it already. Looks like I should have bought it in March from the Goodwill store instead of from St. Vinnie's in June!

The puzzle's in pretty good shape, though. Clean. Some of the print was lifting from the cardboard base on a few pieces. I glued them back down. But as with used puzzles, it's not unusual to have missing pieces. This had one.

So I took some corrugated cardboard, sharp scissors and colored pencils and fashioned a replacement piece. 

It more-or-less works. 

When I pass the puzzle on, I'll include a note about the missing piece. I appreciate it when other puzzlers do the same for me.

:: psssst ::

Did you notice the heart between their fingers? It didn't capture my attention until I was working on the hands.