'Cor Blimey Mr M - that's a big'un!

This week has been ALL about fencing, so much so we had to find some other entertainment to be able to fill the blog! and Oh Boy did we find something GOOD to talk about!

But first back to the fencing, poor Mr M, it does look like really hard work, all that digging, and then clearing the run for the fence, but it is really coming along and we are all fenced apart from the 300ft along the roadside!

We are using basic "pasture" fencing, which isn't the prettiest of fencing but will do the job, mostly you can't see it as it is running through the trees! 

So apart from fencing and working we have been getting out and about walking the dogs and this week although we haven't seen any porcupines, we have seen lots of seals!

Found some interesting mushrooms! Mushrooms are all the rage round here, you can attend a class on identification etc. This is the time of year for Fungi Fest!!

 

 

And then the biggest excitement to hit the area for the year, we had a Blue Whale wash up about 20 miles South of us, on the beach near the town of Ophir!  The whale is 78ft long and estimated weight of 100 tonnes, so a real big'un Mr M!

Obviously this has been the talking point amongst everyone.  I think pretty much everyone in the surrounding area has taken the entire family out for a day trip, including Granny!  Not much else to do round these parts in November!

So to make sure we are integrating into the community we stopped by and took a look, by the time we were there they had stripped it down of all the blubber and there were lots of people wandering around with small knives hacking bits off of it, at first I wondered if this was some surreal ritual but then I got home and read up a bit more.  It is the Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute who are stripping it down so they can eventually display the skeleton.  You can read all about it here.. (ironically on a UK news website)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3309128/Rare-100-ton-blue-whale-washes-near-Oregon-s-Gold-Beach-experts-warn-year-s-El-Nino-blame.html

And here is Mr M's contribution to the newsreel!! It was quite spectacular and also VERY smelly, we didn't hang around long, and left the dogs in the car!

Tonight whilst Mr M was out cooking dinner on the BBQ he had an owl watching him, it was also pretty big, not sure what make of owl it is... and it was hard to get a good photo considering how close it was to us!

 

 

This week we found time to go to Brookings to get our OR State drivers licenses, that involved us taking our knowledge (theory) test again, for both cars and motorcycles.. so we spent the night before doing some last minute cramming and reading the Oregon Drivers manual and fortunately both passed both tests so we are now "officially" Oregonians!

 

Finally I will leave you with some pretty pictures!!  Despite having had a lot of rain the sun still shines almost daily!