Autumn Leaves

My friend, Sue, and I try to walk every Friday.  We usually walk a portion of the Fanno Creek Trail, which is beautiful at all times of the year.  Sometimes we walk other places, however.  Here we are walking at the tulip festival last spring.

That's Sue on the left.  She is possibly the best friend I've ever had in my entire life.  Our kids are about the same age.  We are both social workers.  Both our youngest sons attend Oregon Institute of Technology, and both struggled in school growing up because of having, shall we say, unconventional learning styles.  I believe in and support public education; however, it struggles to meet the needs of unconventional students.  In any event, I think our being older in age and having these important things in common have made for a very gratifying friendship for both of us.

This Friday, we walked the Fanno Creek Trail.  In addition to the beautiful flora along the way, we see ducks, Canada geese, nutria, rabbits, neighborhood cats and dogs and wooly caterpillars.  I finally remembered to bring my camera (after around six years of walking here).  The trees are so beautiful right now.

We pass by a beaver dam, but have never seen the beavers that built it.  There is, however, plenty of evidence of beavers in the form of protection for the saplings that are growing along the newly-restored creek bank.  It always reminds me of a time when some new trees were planted at a facility where I worked.  One day we came in to find all of the new trees cut down, and we all decried the indecency of the "vandals" who had done it.  Later, we learned that it had been beavers!

Sunday, Mike and I drove out into the local wine region.  We are members at a couple of wineries in the area, and so occasionally we have to go pick up some wine shipments.  It's always a nice drive through beautiful country, and again, each season seems to bring new beauty.  These are the hills overlooking the Sokol-Blosser Winery in Dundee, Oregon.  You can see that the grapevines are just beginning to change colors.

It's one of our favorite wineries because of the really good and reasonably priced wines they make, but also for their sustainable farming practices. Their family does so much for the community in so many different ways, not the least of which are their fundraising efforts. Last year, they raised money for public schools. The year before they raised money to provide health care to migrant workers and their families. Were it not for the migrant workers, they could not harvest the grapes they use to make our wines.

These pictures were taken at Domaine Serene, which is down the road some from Sokol-Blosser.  They have a beautiful vineyard, and their tasting room makes it feel as if you've just stepped into Italy.

This red has to be my favorite fall color.

So it was a nice weekend from Friday through Sunday.  When I wasn't out admiring the color, I was inside, keeping warm and quilting.  It doesn't get much better than that.
 
I said to Mike yesterday that it's about this time of year that we get a big wind storm that strips the autumn leaves from the trees.  I think today is that day.  I'm glad we got out and enjoyed it while it lasted.