Meandering on the Way — November 8 to 15, 2025

Saturday, Nov. 8th

Today we went out for a “Woodpecker Walk” organized by the Greenbelt Land Trust at Bald Hill Farm. Many years ago Greenbelt started working to turn a portion of its core property into a flourishing oak savannah, a kind of habitat that supports hundreds of species, both vertebrate and invertebrate. The most visible of these are acorn woodpeckers, which are now plentiful on the Farm. At the start of the walk, we were told that Lewis woodpeckers have also been seen this year. The Lewis variety is less common and in some years none are seen at all. Our guides were hoping that our group would be able to catch sight of both species.

We also saw lots of acorn woodpeckers and learned about their granaries. The birds make their granaries on dead limbs and snags, pecking acorn sized holes in the wood and then pushing a single acorn into each cavity for storage.

Bald Hill Farm is also home to sapsuckers, who are another sort of woodpecker. Here’s an image that shows how generations of sapsuckers have fed from the trunk of this very old pear tree. The dark horizontal lines are actually rows of closely spaced feeding holes.

Tuesday, Nov. 11th

We went over to the coast today and walked through Mike Miller Park just south of Newport. The forecast had called for clouds, but it turned out to be mostly sunny. It’s high season for mushrooms over there, and we met several gatherers, including a jolly elf woman carrying a basket that she had filled with an assortment of both mushrooms and lichens. She was not hunting edibles but instead was collecting for the purpose of making natural dyes. (See, for example, these mushroom dyed yarns from Sweden.)

We were just collecting a few photos.

Later we drove along Nye Beach and stopped to have a look down at the ocean from Davis Park . The wind was brisk from out of the south, as you can see in the clip below.

For dinner we went to Local Ocean. As usual, we had a fine meal. We found, though, that their prices have gone up some. We stayed away from the high end entrees. Instead, E had a $25 dollar salad and M a $25 sandwich, both of which were delicious. We drank beer, which was $7 a glass but also good. The wines on offer were all in the range of $15-21 a glass. With tip added, that’s $18-25, which seems excessive for a glass of wine–even in today’s world.

Wednesday, Nov. 12th

On our way back to Corvallis we stopped at Moonshine Park, a fairly remote Lincoln County park and campground. To get there we drove 8 miles east from Siletz to Logsden, then 5 or 6 miles north from there. The sign that shows the turn-off to the park is easy to spot , which is good because if you just keep going straight, the next civilization you will see will be either Kings Valley or Falls City, and that’s assuming that you ever manage to find your way out of the forest at all. (Ha-ha, just kidding.)

Saturday, Nov. 15th

Rumor has it that E has entered into negotiations to buy a bicycle. Our crack investigative team is even now attempting to get more details. (It might take a while, though, as our team members have slowed down a little over the years.)

We had dinner this evening at Corazon. Sigh. They have lost their charm for us. Our meals were “interesting” which is code for “different but not very good.” Do they have a new chef? But at least we could have some wine. That was very good and they charged us roughly half the price of that other place.