We keep going places and I don't have my camera. We went to the Farmers Market yesterday and it is such a nice mix of tomatoes and squashes and apples. I bought apples and two chickens, one of which we ate yesterday (and a little more today). The kids had biscuits with huckleberry jam and cupcakes with very sweet frosting and I also bought these amazing dark chocolate covered hazelnuts because it is that time again, the time for hazelnuts.

Before the market, we took two giant bags of miscellaneous plastic and another big bag of plastic bags/plastic film to the plastic roundup. Samuel found a plastic case that he just had to have in the reuse section and now that is also in the garage. I am going to give it a little more time before I move it over into the recycling section {again- but this time for our family}. Our recycling company takes a larger variety of plastics now and I have my plastic roundup recycling down to just the miscellaneous, unlabeled plastics, which is nice and totally doable three or four times a year.

Today we stayed home and now that it is almost time for bed, I am wishing I had made more of an effort to get Eva out to the park or at least a walk because she is currently racing herself across the carpet on her knees alternately with swimming across the kitchen floor. She currently seems to have quite a bit more energy than I do. Hmmm...

Friday we went with a group of other home schoolers to the Columbia Slough classroom and learned about watersheds. Portland is one of two cities in the country that gets its water from a natural watershed source (hoping I got that fact straight). We also took a walk around Whitaker Pond, where the classroom is located, and saw signs of beavers! and frogs! and a whole berry-tree full of cedar waxwings! I am smitten with cedar waxwings after hearing their call for the first time while camping last summer. Lots of Red Alders and Black Cottonwoods.

After that we got Hotlips pizza and spent several hours at the park with our friends Nicole and Esme and Eva and Esme played and played and played. Earlier this week we spent time at another park with our friends Kate and Jack and Samuel and Jack played and played and played. Nice for me because I get to talk and talk and talk. Nice to be outside for a while during these fall days. We actually had hail on Thursday, along with quite a bit of rain. The weather was quite cold for Portland for the next two nights and it nearly froze. Today I found a garden spider inside the house, near the front door, looking for a reprieve from the cold I guess. I can't help but wonder if her luck will be as good in here as outside but I suppose she will go back outside if it isn't.