A berry blue day

Yesterday was opening day for picking blueberries at Gibson Farms in Siletz.

It's a jungle of blueberries out there.  Most of the bushes are well over 6 feet high.  But berries grow low on the bushes as well.

A tall picker

A short picker in the background

One strategy for easy picking is to bring someone tall to pick the high berries, and someone short to pick the low berries.  We heard several families explaining to little kids to pick only the dark blue berries, not the green ones.  Lots of family groups that were picking near us consisted of three generations: little kids, their mom, and two or three grandparents.  It was great listening to the kids describe the jackpots of blueberries they had found.

Fourth of July

This year, we were home on the July 4th holiday, which enabled us to observe the La De Da parade in Yachats.  If I had to choose one word to describe the parade it would be non-traditional.  It included two umbrella squads (not that Oregonians often use umbrellas); lots of people dressed up in red, white, and blue, or rainbow colors; candy and dog biscuits being thrown along the parade route, an amazing squad from the local anti-invasive species committee, and a woman riding a cart pulled by a miniature horse, among other things.

Here are a few photos of the parade.

The performing umbrella squad

The jellyfish umbrella squad

Happy Independence Day!

Cabin A

We have just returned from our annual trip into the Cascades, staying in Cabin A.

As you can see, Cabin A is an old log cabin.  It was built for the railroad over 100 years ago.   It now has electricity, indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, and is pretty civilized.  However, this year we felt pretty close to being outside.

This little golden mantle ground squirrel lived under the cabin.

Instead of using a bear box to protect our food, we use a mouse box to keep our dry goods safe from the mice that run through the cabin.

Ice chest, used as a mouse box

I guess "anti-mouse box" would be more accurate

But our newest animal experience in the cabin was a small bat flying just below the peak in the bedroom ceiling. After we located it on the ceiling beam, it moved into a hole at the end of the beam.  We love bats, and appreciate the job that they do controlling insects OUTSIDE, but we didn't really want to share the cabin with the bat.  We plugged up the hole with a piece of newspaper, and hoped that the bat went out the way it appeared to come in.  So that's how we bat-proofed Cabin A.

Bat proofing

And yes we saw lots of mountains, lakes, deer, wildflowers, and a nice selection of birds.

We canoed to within 60 feet of this resting bald eagle