My Mom was here for a week during my birthday, and I took her through some of our local parks...

Thursday Hendrick's Park

The Rhododendron Garden at Hendrick's Park is a favorite of mine, this time of year! The variety of colours is just amazing.

Hendrick's Park also has a little Native Plant Garden. This is the Oregon Iris. Please note the wildlife in the upper right of the photo. ;) Lady Bug!

We also learned about Sword Fern (the fern that grows here), Candy Flowers (delicate little flowers, everywhere) and MoonStone (pretty purple flowers, nice green leaves... I may need this for my garden!).

And speaking of my garden... We saw a couple Shooting Stars, which is the native I bought for my garden a few weeks ago. And Lupine, another native I brought to my garden through seeds I nabbed from plants near our house... I am glad to find out they are native and not invasive.

Friday Mount Pisgah

We did not go up to the top of the hill, instead walked around the river and wetlands.

The park has this cool "Tree Round" which I foolishly didn't take a picture of, argh: curse me! Well, here's a photo of the Tree Round, at the Mt. Pisgah website (bottom of page). I've forgotten the exact dates... but the tree was born somewhere in the 1400s, I think. And was chopped down by vandals in 1982. how sad. This section of the tree is 7 feet across, and was five feet above the ground when the tree was alive.

Saturday Wetlands and Saturday Market

The West Eugene Wetlands... not very exciting. :) It's a marsh, and it is mostly dried up already (we're over 9 inches behind on rainfall this year). So it mostly just looked like grass. A duck family was floating on the one pool that was left. First baby ducks I've seen this year.

The Saturday Market is much more exciting. Especially when people buy things for me (because my birthday is the next day). I was attracted to these dragons, and my Significant Other found a green one for me. Verdella.

And then my Mom bought me a beautful sweater. She got one for herself as well. Aren't we cute!

Sunday Movie Day

Decided to take it easy on my birthday. We went to the mall to watch Iron Man. We had vegan pizza from the Pizza Research Institute in the evening... unfortunately they messed up the order, made us wait while they remade the pizza, then were belligerent to my Mom when she asked for a few dollars off. So, I guess that's the last pizza we get from there, even tho it's a vegetarian place. damn them.

And we watched my current favorite movie, Serenity. While Mom was here we also went through most of Firefly. Love that 'verse.

Monday Spencer Butte

We went up the steep side of the hill and, yikes! The trail was scary in several spots, and Mom said it's the steepest trail she's ever been on. (And Mom and Dad go hiking in the Rockies all the time, so that's saying something!)

We made it to the top without falling to our deaths, tho. Kind of a hazy day, so the photos looking down at the world are bleh. But one of the locals was happy to pose, in exchange for Clif Bar bits. :)

And the climb down the other side of the hill was much nicer!

Static8 > Journal > Archive > 24 May 2008 Entry