Ten Things of Thankful

Now that the weather is back to normal, I think, I am going to write my Ten Things of Thankful post and link up to the blog hop at Josie's tenthingsofthankful.blogspot.com.  Take a few minutes to check her site to see what other bloggers are sharing this week. 

The coast and the Willamette Valley experienced quite the windstorm yesterday. It was reported that the area where we live had 60 mph winds. Some areas on the coast experienced 90 mph winds. Needless to say there were many trees and branches that fell on houses and on the roads, and lots of people were without power most of the day. We were fortunate not to lose power, although we did have the lights flicker off and on several different times during the day. The storm lasted all day, although there were times when it subsided and the sun came out, but just as quickly returned to high winds, dark clouds and rain. I'm thankful for all those who have spent the day sawing through trees to clear the roads, to remove trees that had destroyed homes and cars, and came to rescue those who were injured. There are many people who are working hard even today to restore power to people who have been without power now for 36 hours. Although we lost a good-sized limb on one of our maples, it just slid down the tree and stayed leaning against the tree instead of falling outward and landing on our vehicles parked nearby. 

Fallen maple tree branch

This is the spot high up where the branch broke off.

One day this week my husband and I went over to Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge. Now that the trails are open again after being closed for the winter, we ventured down toward one of the blinds to see if we could spot some birds on the pond without them seeing us. I felt like I had on sea legs walking on the uneven ground. Next time, I'm going to take a walking stick. I still don't feel very sure of myself walking on anything except level ground, but I was taking it easy and noting things like mushrooms growing in among clumps of grass and an old bird nest in a tree. The nest was now sprouting  grass growing out of it. 

Trail at Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge

Blind at Ankeny NWR

Pussy willow catkins near a pond at Ankeny NWR

Pussy willow catkins beginning to bloom

I am thankful the deer haven't eaten all the English Daisies. The flowers have such beautiful shades of pink.

Oregon's state plant is the Oregon Grape and it is in its golden splendor now. The leaves remind me of holly leaves. It grows wild, but some people use the plants to form a hedge. Some of the Oregon Grape we have on our property are five to six feet tall. The deer do not eat it, probably because the leaves are leathery and prickly.

Oregon Grape in bloom

The flowers in bloom inside my house now are some of my African violets and a Christmas cactus, although my Christmas cactus mostly blooms at Thanksgiving and at Easter.  I get a lot of enjoyment from watching plants grow and bloom. 

African violet

Christmas cactus blossom

One day this week I was able to go with friends up to the temple.  The traffic was exceptionally busy on the freeway and it took us longer than expected to get there, but we enjoyed being there and having lunch together afterwards. There were no traffic delays coming back home and unlike some other days, it was not pouring down rain.

When my friend came to pick me up she saw two wild turkeys in our lane. We had not seen any wild turkeys on our property over the 36 years we have lived here. While I was at the temple, our neighbor called my husband and told him about the wild turkeys, so  hubby was Johnny-on-the-spot with his camera and took a photo of one of them. The tom had ventured off already.

I'm thankful that my sleep clinic follow-up this week showed a good report and that my neuromuscular therapy appointment to help relieve the pain in my shoulder went well. I seem to be making some progress.

My husband accompanied me to Costco today. I normally don't do grocery shopping on Saturday because there are so many shoppers in the store. Yesterday many of the stores were closed due to loss of power from the storm, and it was such a crazy windy day, going shopping was on the bottom of my to-do-list. I appreciate his willingness to help, in spite of the fact there was an OSU baseball game playing that he was watching. He listened to part of the game on the radio as we traveled and then caught the rest of the game when we returned home.

I hope that each of you continue to look for those good things that are happening in the communities around you and are among those who are trying to be good and do good.  One by one and little by little we can make a difference.

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