Reflections on Fernhill Wetlands

June 15, 2013

Back on President's weekend Carla and I headed out to Fernhill Wetlands in Forest Grove. We had great light and dramatic clouds; my posting of that day, which includes a couple of pictures of eagles, can be found here. The wetlands is about 30-45 minutes west of Beaverton

Now that spring has sprung we wanted to go take another look. In the morning, Herb and I explored some garden railroads; later in the afternoon we got together for an outing with Herb and Dianne. As soon as we pulled in, we saw a Great Blue Heron nearby.

Great Blue Heron

 He (she?) put up with our paparazzi routine for a while but tired of it after a bit and flew off.

Great Blue Heron looking for some peace and quiet.

 We also saw a big white heron (?) but didn't get close enough for a picture.

With hardly any wind, the water was very calm, allowing me to get some reflections which is something I've been working on these past few months. These are the trees that housed the nesting eagles in February. Compare this view with that in the dead of winter. Nothing rivals the Willamette Valley in summer.

View across the wetlands

 My bird identification skills are definitely rudimentary. I can traverse down the taxonomy from Animal --> Bird. When Herb identified this as a Red-winged Blackbird I thought it certainly describes it well. Hmmm, maybe bird identification isn't as hard as I've imagined. Naturally I forgot the name in the intervening week and needed a remedial class from my pal Jay who is a bird expert.

Red-winged Blackbird

 
We also saw this pair of Cedar Waxwings. The name is somewhat descriptive, but not as much so as the blackbird. Jay identified this for me this morning.

Cedar Waxwings

With some birds I can go down a bit farther on the taxonomy; I successfully identified this as a "duck". However, I haven't seen ducks this dark colored before. I've asked Jay for help in further classifying it; I'l update the post when I hear back. It was right in our path and couldn't be bothered to moved out of the way as we approached, allowing a nice close shot. 

Duck.

I guess I'll need to put forth more effort in this bird identification, or make sure Herb or Jay are always around. Jay takes part in the annual Christmas bird count. He and MaryAnn recently returned from a trip to Europe where they visited Amsterdam, Normandy, and Scotland. Jay got a couple of lifetime "gets" in his on-going birding.  

My son, Jeff, is an environmental attorney and noted the "Wetlands Mitigation Site" sign below. This means the site was developed as a wetlands to compensate for some other nearby wetlands that was filled in for development.

Wetlands mitigation site. 

 After getting back to the car we headed south to McMinnville for a stroll down Main Street and dinner at Nick's Italian Café. McMinnville has upped its game when it comes to dining; Nick's is an especially nice place. Eleven years ago the four of us started our "Four For Breakfast" escapade with a trip to Wildwood Cafe here in McMinnville. It is a great little breakfast place where they coat the French Toast in corn flakes. I love French Toast and these guys do it as good or better than others I've tried over the years.

A great day with our great friends.

Garden Railroads

Apparently there is a thriving garden railroad hobby in the Portland area. The garden railroad is modelled in "G Gauge" which is larger than the old Lionel O gauge. Standard HO gauge is half the size of O which is how HO got its name.

The local hobbyists get their garden railroads spruced up for public display a couple of weekends in June. Herb's Rotary friend Hal Beighley has a nice set up and Herb was headed out to take pictures for a slideshow and invited me to tag along. I grabbed my camera and headed out with him.

Hal's layout is in the side strip between his house and his neighbor's. He had to scramble Saturday morning because his neighbor's roof gutters were blocked and lots of water dumped on his layout. But you couldn't tell he had any problems when we got there around 10:30 in the morning.

I hear that train a comin'; headed 'round the bend.

A couple hanging out on the porch watching trains go by.

Hal is plugged into what's going on in this hobby and directed us to another layout about 5 minutes away from his house. So we headed over there. This layout is much bigger with a large classification yard and track that runs all around the back fence. The owner, Bill Neville, has worked on his layout for years. He was part of a family business, Portland General Tool & Supply which was sold a year or so ago. He stayed around long enough to make sure the new folks would be successful and then gave his notice; he will retire at the end of the summer and devote even more time to his layout. 

In the fall and winter Bill works on structures in his workshop then gets his layout in shape for spring and summer. He is building a 7 bay roundhouse. He told me each window in the building has 37 individual pieces. That is dedicated. Too bad it wasn't ready for display yet.

The classification yard; the foundation for the  roundhouse in the back right has 800 pounds of concrete

Pennsylvania RR heading through a mountain pass.

Bill Neville, the owner of the layout.

Mama Leone's Chicken Soup

One of my workmates has been raving about the chicken soup at Café Yumm!. I usually go for a standard Yum Bowl (which Carla and I like so much we make at home every couple of weeks) but when the soup was available on the menu, I ordered a small bowl. It was Yummy for sure and I set out trying to find the recipe. A search for Mama Leone's Chicken Soup revealed a very similar soup on food.com from Elephant Deli. I think both companies are local and I thought maybe they shared, so I tried.

Here is my recipe with notes. I substituted chicken thighs for breasts.

It has a pretty basic set of ingredients.

Most of the line up. The butter was shy and stayed in the fridge.

Ready for the pan.

After sautéing the onions and celery in a combination of butter and cooking olive oil (not EVO) I added the aromatics and garlic. This recipe calls for 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of flour at that point. I thought that was a a lot and worried how I'd toast the flour enough without burning it 

Flour toasting with the onion, celery, and spices.

As it simmered, a skin formed on top like a pudding in the refrigerator. I had to continually skim that off. I think it was because of the high amount of flour. It tasted pretty good but you could definitely taste that flour.

Dinner is served

It's definitely very similar to the Café Yum recipe.

When I spooned some out of the container for lunch today, it again had the consistency of pudding. But it thinned out during warming. I think next time I'll cut the flour down to 1/4 cup. I may even try making the base like I do for Gumbo where I cook the roux in the oven and then add the onion, celery, and what-not. I think I'll also add an additional chicken thigh.

I used the remainder of my home made chicken stock so decided to make another batch at the same time as I cooked the soup. I highly recommend you use home made chicken stock for this, or any recipe that calls for chicken stock. It's ridiculously easy to make and there is a world of difference compared to even the best canned chicken broth. Looking back I see I have a posting on the Cook's Illustrated stock which is more involved than it needs to be. I'll blog on my new way of making chicken stock soon. In the meantime, check in with Dad Cooks Dinner.

The kitchen ended up an unholy mess. Carla was out hiking with a friend so I had to do the dishes.

Remains of the day.

June 8, 9 2013 Sunriver and Sisters

Back in February around my birthday Carla and I attended a fundraiser for Ride Connection, an organization that provides transportation for those in need. Our good friend Elaine Wells is the executive director there. Ride Connection is a fantastic organization and it's very moving to hear people tell their stories of how Ride Connection helped them. This year a legally blind woman told how Ride Connection worked with her  to coordinate her commute from Salem to Portland for her job.

There is a large silent auction before dinner and our friends John and Karen Lee bid on tickets to the Sisters Rodeo and the Pendleton Roundup. The Lee's won four tickets and asked if we'd like to join them. It's been years since we've been to a rodeo, so of course we said yes.

Sisters and Sunriver are out in the high desert of central Oregon. It's about a 4 hour drive from Portland. When we went on our road trip this past March we encountered packed snow on the summit of Santiam Pass. This time of year it is usually clear of snow.

Sisters and Sunriver are out in central Oregon; about a 3 or 4 drive over the Cascades from Portland

A satellite view of the map shown above. The white spots south of Sisters are the 3 Sisters mountains 

We had planned on staying in a hotel but Karen's sister recently purchased a house in Sunriver which is about 45 minutes southeast of Sisters.  Now we have only briefly met Karen's sister and brother-in-law so we were going to be staying at a stranger's house. To make a good impression I offered to buy and grill some steaks on Saturday night. I went to the store and bought 4 beautiful Rib Eyes and all the fixins.  As I packed Friday afternoon I made sure I had everything in the cooler. Well almost everything; when Carla and I stopped at a rest stop up in the Cascades, I suddenly remembered I left the steaks in the refrigerator at home. So, we bought some more steaks in Sunriver.

The rodeo goes all weekend but our tickets were for the Sunday finalé; that left us Saturday for lounging around Sunriver and going for a walk. Sunriver is a resort town with wonderful walking paths. We love going there and taking in the scenery. Sunriver is bordered on the west by the Deschutes River. The large Central Oregon town of Bend is named for a bend in the Deschutes.

A pond in Sunriver

A bridge over the Deschutes leading to an off road bike path

A look north from the bridge

Sunriver is a summer and winter playground. They groom paths for cross country skiing and there is a large ski resort on Mount Bachelor a little out of town.  Sisters is named for the Three Sisters mountains which are the 3rd, 4th, and 5th highest mountain ranges in Oregon. Mount Bachelor gets its name for being a solitary peak fairly near the sisters.

Mt Bachelor peaking over the ridge.

On the way back to the house we got a quick peek at some of the multitudinous deer that graze in the area.

Some deer enjoying a shady lunch.

It was a hot day, around 85 degrees. We enjoyed a nice dinner  and conversation on the back deck of our hosts.

Sunday morning we had breakfast and headed out to the rodeo. We packed up for the ride home since Sisters is about 45 minutes closer to home than Sunriver. I forgot how fun a rodeo is and how dangerous. First up the rodeo queens come rocketing out and scream around the ring and line up in the middle, then scream out again. I thought the queens were for show but they worked as well. On the calf roping events, the cowboy jumps off his horse to wrestle the calf to the ground and tie 3 of its legs. The rodeo queens shepherd the calf and the cowboyless horse.

Another picture after many of the rodeo queens have entered. The one riding in was my favorite; she really worked hard bringing the horses back to the corral after a rider was unhorsed.

Another queen speeding around the rink before joining her sisters.

One of the signature events of the rodeo is the bareback riding. The cowboys take a hard ride being tossed back and forth; it's a young man's game.

Bareback bronc riding

 A non-competitive event was a man riding 6 huge horses while standing on the back of the two rear horses.

Riding 6 horses at once while one of the Sisters mountains rises in the background

A close up of the cowboy.

Unfortunately I missed the team roping event when I went out for some water and a hotdog. I thought there was an intermission. I'm bummed I missed that because my sister Diana is an accomplished team roper.

One of the final events is the wild bull riding; why anyone would want to do that I don't know; but then again, I'm not a young cowboy. Here is the best picture I got, showing a cowpoke just as he was thrown over the bull's head; notice the rodeo clowns rush in to distract the bull to get the cowboy out of danger.

Cowboy goes head over heals and the rodeo clowns rush in to protect him. At least he's wearing a helmet.
(Click on the photo for better viewing)

I need to get some Wrangler jeans, boots and a cowboy hat for next year's visit.

Then it was time to head home. Normally I'm crabby getting back from central Oregon late Sunday night because I have to get up for work on Monday. But no more; a perk of my semi-retirement means I had all day Monday to unpack, shop for the week and generally relax.

Trains at Ridgefield

This is one of the days I've imagined when I retired. I had coffee and breakfast with Carla then as she headed to work I drove about an hour north of Portland to the Ridgefield Bird Sanctuary 14 miles north of the Columbia River. Only I wasn't looking for birds today, I was looking for trains.

I went to this location to take some train pictures in the fall just as the leaves started to turn. (you can see the pictures here) . I thought it would be nice to compare the lights and foliage today.

There wasn't a lot of activity today so I parked and read my book The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western  Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson. Occasionally, I'd look down the line to see if the catenary lights indicated any traffic coming my way. After a bit a green light came on indicating something was coming from behind me.

Lights indicating something coming from behind me on the right-hand track.

BNSF southbound

Another version of the BNSF southbound

Union Pacific with track rights on the BNSF

I used the LightTrac on my iPad to identify the best time for taking pictures. It shows the sun angle at your selected location so you can avoid unsightly shadows. The app showed me my best light would be on trains rolling south. Luckily for me, the 4 trains I saw today were all heading south.