Ft. Rock

We have hit the end of January already.

So far . . . another atmospheric river moved through the Pacific Northwest. Any snow we got last week is now mostly gone.

We had a surprise visitor this week.

Frequently we see deer, birds, chipmunks and cats moving through our outdoor spaces. To our amazement we saw a fox scoping things out, then scampering away. So cool.

With inclement weather the majority of our time this week was spent on kitchen projects.

We’ve been perfecting our pizza dough and sauce and we’re finally getting around to processing all those pounds of fruit and berries we froze last summer.

We usually put off canning during the heat of summer and schedule most projects during the colder months.

This has become a standard winter activity, especially when the weather isn’t conducive to excursions.

Added to this year’s preserving, we are trying small batches of fruit juice and syrups. These are delicious poured over a scoop of yogurt or ice cream. They are also great for refreshing spritzer drinks and used to sweeten sauces.

Ft Rock … an amazing geological structure

We did manage an afternoon jaunt to Fort Rock , , , mostly just to get out of the house. We had a great walk and managed to view some soaring hawks. It was so quiet and we had the road to ourselves. Heaven!

Spent a couple of days trying to recover drone footage that mysteriously disappeared from the camera card.

Gave up . . . so you get JQ’s fun stroll footage. The cloud cover offered excellent backgrounds.

In all it was a great day jammed into the middle of a good week.

So, now we have to wait and see what the weather brings next week. At this point it seems the outlook could be anything.

Endless days of ‘unhealthy’ and ‘very unhealthy’ air pushed us to a point where we drove into the belly of the beast, Summer Lake. It’s a few miles north of what was at one point this summer, the nation’s largest wildfire.

Air quality doesn’t seem to matter to the snow geese, sand pipers, American avocet, and stilts who feed across the shallows.

California fires are the major contributor to the choking particulate count but Oregon has added to the plume. Which at last view stretches from left coast across the nation. In all it’s been a bad summer for outside activities.

The one thing poor air quality offers is unique sunrises. So the first stop was Fort Rock to catch the orange globe.